"Dragon King, we have already learned the weather control technique, please allow us to display our clumsiness."
As Young Master Chun's voice fell, his eyes were fixed on the sea, and he maintained a confident posture, barely managing to hide his arrogance and blatant haughtiness.
Behind them, the Dragon Peak disciples had the same expression, only slightly restrained because they knew they were addressing the dragon hidden in the waters, something they absolutely could not offend.
But when their gazes went toward Aotian and the others from the Infinite Dao Sect, there was no longer any need to restrain themselves, and blatant contempt was exposed in their eyes.
Aotian's mouth twisted at that, and he looked back at them with disdain, internally speechless.
'Didn't these guys see how easily my companions and I killed the beasts in the first round of the test? Even if they aren't afraid of us, because of their higher realms and confidence in their backing, the Dragon Peak, they should at least be a little wary of us, right?'
He had a strong urge to massage his temples, seeing those arrogant guys acting like proud peacocks, parading in front of him.
Rolling his eyes, he then prepared to do everything a good xianxia protagonist does.
'Time to slap some faces. Should I open a diary to write this down too? It's like collecting stamps or cards,' he pondered for a moment, with a small smile forming on his mouth.
His focus shifted to his team at his side, who seemed to equally despise those people, ignoring them and focusing all their attention on the stone with the Taboo-Tier technique.
Scratching his chin, after casting a simple glance at the stone and engraving every line in his mind, he immediately ignored it and walked directly toward the Dragon Peak disciples' side with extreme naturalness.
That group, at the moment, wasn't paying much attention to him, more focused on looking at the sea, and because of that, when they noticed, Aotian was already in the middle of them, directly beside Young Master Chun.
"What are you looking at?" he asked curiously, in a playful tone.
The Dragon Peak disciples stared at him without reaction, and then snapped back to their senses, their faces turning red with anger.
"You bastard, what are you doing here?!"
"Little worm, who allowed you to get close to us?!"
"Get out of here, you're not worthy of breathing the same air as us!"
"You must be tired of living!"
Heated bursts of insults, with spit flying, suddenly came from all directions, but Aotian only yawned, without a trace of concern.
"If you're dissatisfied with my presence, why don't you try to remove me? If you can't, then leave — and take your incompetence with you. You're nothing but barking dogs that never bite."
With blatant disdain in his gaze, he mocked them openly, then turned toward the sea and ignored them.
His calm words, despite not overlapping those of the others who were shouting, could be easily heard by the cultivators there, who immediately fell silent, their faces turning red with rage, and their fists clenched with bulging veins.
Young Master Chun, who was directly beside him, looked at him with an extremely dark expression.
No matter how angry they were, they couldn't do anything. And if they kept mocking him without being able to act, wouldn't it be the same as affirming they were like the dog he mentioned?
But not all of them realized this, so Young Master Chun immediately acted the moment he saw one of them open his mouth to speak.
["Shut your mouths for me!"]
A loud shout filled with extreme anger echoed in the minds of all those disciples.
Young Master Chun stared specifically at that foolish cultivator—the one who was about to speak—with bloodshot eyes, which made the man immediately freeze with his mouth still open, in shock, not knowing why he was reprimanded.
["Do not respond to him, you fools, it's useless. Just ignore him. When we leave this place, if he is still alive, we will make him regret every word he spoke."]
A cruel and cold order was issued by Young Master Chun, who turned his face back to the sea, completely ignoring Aotian, who raised an eyebrow upon seeing them simply fall silent after such a simple exchange.
Seeing that they really wouldn't give him any more attention, Aotian pursed his lips in disdain and didn't continue provoking them, bored.
'Hmph! These guys are very weak in verbal conflict. It's a pity they didn't even talk back, admitting defeat before even giving me time to bring their mother into the debate…'
'It's really regrettable. If they had continued, would I have managed to complete one of my goals of making people spit blood en masse?'
Aotian sighed bitterly and looked up with loneliness for his enemies being so weak, feeling for the first time how lonely it is at the top.
The Dragon Peak disciples, seeing the expression he was making, began trembling with barely restrained rage, feeling that this guy was seriously looking down on them.
Aotian suddenly heard a friction sound at his side, but when he looked there in confusion, he only saw the back of Young Master Chun's head.
Scratching his head, confused, he soon ignored it, not knowing that what he heard were that guy's teeth almost breaking from being clenched so hard in anger.
Panting in hatred for a few seconds, the young master finally calmed down a little. Regaining his composure, he clasped his fists and bowed toward the sea, his voice hoarse from the remnants of rage that had just passed.
"Dragon King, I will display my proficiency with the Weather Control technique. Although this technique adapted for us humans does not even come close to the true legacy inherited by the noble dragon bloodline, I believe I have brought this art to an achievement very close to the real thing."
Young Master Chun finally managed to smile as he declared this.
"I am the most talented person of Dragon Peak since its creation, and I believe you will not be disappointed with my ability."
The more he declared, the more his nose couldn't help but tilt upward.
Even the sideways glance he cast at Aotian was filled with arrogance, as if he were watching a poor little ant about to see something that would change his perception forever.
Meanwhile, the poor little ant in his mind looked at him completely unimpressed by his speech, and didn't have high expectations for what he would display next.
At the bottom of the sea, the flood dragon also despised that person who did not know the world.
The little dragon girl beside him, on the other hand, seemed very irritated.
"Hmph! That idiot actually dares to underestimate the weather control technique that the sovereign created during his epiphany! If he can't even understand how extraordinary this technique is, he will never be able to display its full power," she snorted irritably, looking at Young Master Chun with narrowed eyes.
The dragon simply shook his head, helpless, but still paid attention to the boy. After all, he claimed to be the most talented, something his companions apparently agreed with, and that indeed sparked his curiosity.
Back on the surface, seeing the sea remain calm, the young master, still without receiving a response, decided not to delay any longer.
He didn't need a response, he just needed to show off.
Making his decision, energy patterns began to fill his spiritual roots and, in response to them, the weather began to change, with a strong gale emerging.
The sky, previously clear, at some point began to rebel, until it was quickly filled with imposing cumulonimbus clouds.
Thunder roared across the dark clouds as heavy rain began to fall. Hailstones the size of human heads followed, tearing through the air like bullets.
BOOOM!
A lightning bolt split the curtain of rain, striking the distant sea and violently churning the waters, part of it hissing into vapor from the intense heat. Combined with the crashing hailstones that raised towering waves upon impact, it revealed the sheer power of the storm.
It seemed as if the end of the world had reached that part of the sea and, guided by the energy of a Soul Formation cultivator, that storm which would kill mortals could also kill cultivators.
Even the Dragon Peak disciples were impressed and admiring the power of their senior brother's spell.
This technique was extremely difficult to master. Having long been recorded in their sect, it had been practiced for many years, yet most cultivators could barely create a storm powerful enough to kill those from lower realms — far from injuring someone of the same level.
The only advantage of this technique was that, incredibly, it harnessed celestial phenomena and the spiritual energy of the air itself to feed it, which made its range and damage extremely wide, without spending as much of the user's own spiritual energy as such a technique would normally require.
But their senior brother, with his high mastery, seemed to have greatly mitigated the problem of lack of power, which made this technique extremely powerful, currently able to injure even cultivators at the early stage of Soul Formation.
Although it was still worse than one of his normal attacks at the perfection of this realm, it was worth it due to the area of effect being extremely large, and the energy spent not being that high.
Young Master Chun couldn't help but let a satisfied smile curl the corner of his lips upward, especially when he heard the murmurs of admiration from his fellow disciples.
This time, even the dragon and the little girl at the bottom of the sea looked in surprise at the power the young man managed to extract from the technique.
"This… is truly impressive. This boy's talent really seems to be strong."
The dragon, curious, discreetly sent his energy to study the situation on the other side, and what he saw made his eyes blink in surprise, before nodding as if he had discovered something.
"Ah, that makes sense," he murmured, before looking at the little girl, who, despite seeming somewhat impressed, didn't seem very satisfied. "Big sister, you already knew, right?" the giant beast asked, to which she calmly nodded.
"Well, he has a sacred physique, which in this entire world only loses to a divine physique, and the first to appear in our mansion in millions of years since the sovereign's fall. But that guy's personality… I hate it, it's worthless. The sovereign would never accept such a person as an heir."
The little girl snorted, but there was a trace of pity in her gaze. She also unconsciously looked at Rihai, who was looking helplessly at her husband, when she spoke of divine physique, and the dragon noticed this, becoming thoughtful.
Back on the surface, Aotian scratched his chin while observing the storm outside with a trace of surprise.
"Not bad…"
He nodded, making the people beside him who heard him stop, staring at him in surprise, since they didn't expect the enemy to still have the courage to praise them.
Unfortunately, Aotian had not finished speaking.
"But it's still very bad."
He suddenly shook his head, making his opponents turn gloomy, but without caring, he then looked at Young Master Chun with disdain.
"You barely extracted any power from this technique. Unfortunately, your mother shouldn't have slept with different men every day while you were in her womb, which must have messed up your developing brain for you to be this stupid."
He lamented out loud, with a sad and regretful face, and, to top it off, he finished:
"Good thing I didn't touch your mother back then, otherwise I would've had to join the dispute among the 70 cultivators to find out who your father was."
Aotian finished with a cheerful tone, finally satisfied for having managed to insert the opponent's mother into the debate.
As soon as he finished, even the sea seemed to suddenly fall silent.
Absolutely everyone was shocked by Aotian's sudden verbal offensive.
Young Master Chun, who was smiling, turned pale. The spell he was controlling broke as he lost control, with the sky clearing, and the blood then rushed completely to his head.
He slowly turned toward Aotian, now looking at him completely like a crazed beast.
Blood dripped from his mouth as his internal energy ran rampant, damaging him from the inside. His ears rang, his vision tunneled, and his mind was consumed by pure hatred and humiliation.
In the end, the rage was so great that his eyes darkened… and he fell forward, fainting.
"S-S-Senior Brother Chun!!!"
Frenzied screams of shock came from the Dragon Peak disciples, as they ran to poor Young Master Chun, who now had his face completely buried in the sand and his body unmoving.
Aotian looked genuinely surprised this time, not expecting such an intense reaction — he had only meant to irritate the guy who had tried to drive him away for no reason.
But then, with a sudden spark of inspiration, his eyes lit up, and he quickly pulled a small notebook and quill from his storage ring, scribbling down eagerly:
[1 - Make a young master faint from rage✔️]