No hope for eternal life

Afterwards, the county lieutenant announced the list of the next round of contestants: "Ring No. 1: Mu Xun vs. Qi Linhai, Ring No. 2: Song Zhi vs. Mu Changsheng..."

"Come on." "Come on." Mu Changsheng and Mu Xun bumped fists to encourage each other, and then went on stage respectively.

On the stage, Mu Changsheng watched Song Zhi slowly step onto the stage, feeling somewhat helpless: "I didn't expect to run into her in the first match."

However, Mu Changsheng was more concerned about his talismans, as they were all spirit stones.

As usual, the referee checked Mu Changsheng's talismans again, and after confirming that they were all made by Mu Changsheng himself, he officially announced: "The competition begins."

As soon as the referee finished speaking, Song Zhi spoke up. She said in a clear voice: "I admit defeat."

"Huh?" Song Zhi's action confused everyone present, including Mu Changsheng and the referee on the stage.

"What's going on?" Mu Changsheng's head was full of question marks. With this kind of point-based competition rules, there was no point in hiding any cards.

Seeing that everyone was puzzled, Song Zhi calmly explained to the referee: "I am a pure magic cultivator, and I am naturally restrained by the talisman master. There is no point in fighting and losing. The result will be the same."

The referee was undecided for a moment, and turned to look at the county lord Gao Xuan on the high platform. After seeing Gao Xuan nod slightly, he knew what to do and immediately announced: "Mu Changsheng wins."

"Thank you, Miss Song." Mu Changsheng clasped his fists and thanked Song Zhi. Although Song Zhi had her own reasons, the other party's surrender saved him a lot of talismans, so how could he not thank her.

"It's just a small matter." Song Zhi smiled and nodded slightly to Mu Changsheng, then walked off the stage.

Below the stage, the monk Guan, who had always been close to Song Zhi, frowned slightly, wondering if Song Zhi had developed a crush on Mu Changsheng. He immediately became jealous and said, "Hmph, when we get to the stage, I'll definitely teach Mu Changsheng a lesson."

On the other side, Mu Changsheng didn't know that he had become the object of envy. He was still paying attention to the competition on another arena.

Last time, there were competitions in five arenas at the same time, and Mu Xun's competition ended the fastest, resulting in Mu Changsheng not having enough time to watch. But this time is different.

At this time, on the No. 1 ring, Mu Xun and Qi Linhai were fighting fiercely.

Qi Linhai was also a sword cultivator, and he knew clearly that he could not compare to Mu Xun in terms of secret arts, so he played to his strengths and avoided his weaknesses. He did not compete with Mu Xun in secret arts, but instead used sword in close combat, comparing sword moves and sword techniques.

Qi Linhai was at the peak of the foundation building stage. He originally wanted to rely on his realm advantage to overwhelm Mu Xun in close combat. However, he discovered that Mu Xun was at the late stage of the foundation building stage, and his performance in cultivation and strength was not inferior to his own at all, and was even better.

"Zheng!" The two swords collided again, and each used the force to retreat.

After Qi Linhai stood still, his hand holding the sword trembled a little, and he cursed in his heart: "Damn it, I can't win with my secret skills, and I didn't expect that I can't win in close combat either."

On the other side, Mu Xun retreated and stood still, then he immediately attacked Qi Linhai again with his sword, thinking to himself: "Since you want to fight in close combat, I will fight you in close combat to the end."

As soon as the competition started, Mu Xun noticed Qi Linhai's intention to get close to him. He had no intention of refusing and immediately used the secret technique of "Return to the Earth" to absorb the power of the earth beneath his feet, temporarily improving his cultivation level, thus narrowing or even surpassing the cultivation gap between the two.

Mu Xun was also looking to take this opportunity to hone his swordsmanship. After all, swordsmanship was his main job, and using magic to repel the enemy made him feel a little uncomfortable.

When Qi Linhai saw Mu Xun attacking again, he secretly groaned in his heart, but he had to meet him.

"Zheng! Zheng! Zheng..." Amidst the numerous sword shadows, the two of them exchanged dozens of sword moves.

In the end, Qi Linhai ran out of strength and accidentally revealed a flaw, leaving his front door wide open. Mu Xun stabbed him in the left chest with a sword and he was seriously injured. He had to admit defeat and hurried off the stage to heal his wounds.

"Mu Xun wins." Referee No. 1 announced immediately.

"Awesome." Mu Changsheng in the audience sighed secretly. Mu Xun's swordsmanship is now sharper than when the two of them competed before, but this also makes him look forward to the competition between the two of them even more.

After Mu Xun's competition ended, this round of competition soon ended as well. The county lieutenant immediately announced the list of the next round of competitions: "Ring No. 1: Mu Changsheng vs. Xu Yourong, Ring No. 2: Song Zhi vs. Hai Changfeng..."

"It's okay to fight earlier. After all, there are twenty-four matches to be held." Mu Changsheng thought to himself. He went on stage as soon as possible. He and Song Zhi didn't fight in the previous match, so there would be no problem in competing on stage again. The person who arranged the competition list must have taken this into consideration.

On the ring, Mu Changsheng's opponent was a beautiful female cultivator in red clothes, holding a bow and arrow and carrying a quiver. From her attire, one could tell that she was an archer, and Mu Changsheng's previous experience of watching this woman fight also proved this.

"The competition begins." The referee officially announced.

Without any nonsense, the red-clothed archer Xu Yourong immediately started drawing his bow and shooting arrows.

"Swish, swish, swish!" Three arrows shot towards Mu Changsheng at the same time.

"Go." Mu Changsheng pinched three golden arrow talismans in his hand and activated them instantly. Three golden arrows were shot out, and they collided head-on with the three attacking arrows in mid-air.

Xu Yourong has reached the peak of the foundation building stage, and she was able to rank among the top 25, so her cultivation base was not weak. Therefore, the power of her three arrows was even greater than that of the golden arrow talisman, and completely negated the three golden arrow talismans sent out by Mu Changsheng.

Mu Changsheng didn't care about it at all. His three golden arrow talismans were meant to weaken the power of the arrows, and the remaining power posed no threat to him at all.

What Mu Changsheng had to do was to get close to Xu Yourong. Once he got close, Xu Yourong's bow and arrow could not be equipped with a bayonet and would pose no threat to him.

Therefore, while Mu Changsheng was activating the three golden arrow talismans, he had already started rushing straight towards Xu Yourong. When he encountered three arrows that could defeat the golden arrow talismans on the way, he did not dodge at all and let them pierce him.

The result was just as Mu Changsheng had expected. The power of the three arrows had been greatly reduced after being weakened by the golden arrow talisman. They did not even pierce his skin and were easily chopped off by Mu Changsheng with his hand knife.

On the other side, Xu Yourong had a calm expression. Seeing Mu Changsheng rushing towards her, she first shot three arrows, then immediately moved her body, and continued to shoot arrows while moving.

Mu Changsheng still used the old method to deal with this, using the Golden Arrow Talisman, and interspersed with some Mountain-Breaking Talismans. However, the ability of the Mountain-Breaking Talisman to weaken arrows was much lower than that of the Golden Arrow Talisman, causing some arrows to retain considerable power and be able to pierce his skin. Fortunately, they were only minor skin injuries and did not have much impact on Mu Changsheng.

In this way, Mu Changsheng and Xu Yourong were chasing each other on the ring, but due to the limited range of the ring, Xu Yourong was gradually approached by Mu Changsheng. Just when Mu Changsheng was about to touch Xu Yourong's bow body, Xu Yourong suddenly took a step back, jumped off the ring, and chose to admit defeat.

Xu Yourong should have planned this a long time ago. The previous entanglement was just to consume Mu Changsheng's talismans. He didn't want Mu Changsheng to win too easily.

"Mu Changsheng wins." The referee announced.

Mu Changsheng rubbed the arrow wound on the back of his hand without saying anything. Although Xu Yourong had consumed a lot of his golden arrow talismans and mountain-breaking talismans, he could not expect every opponent to be as tactful as Song Zhi and surrender without taking any action.

Afterwards, Mu Changsheng stepped down and received treatment from the pharmacist.

After a Jindan-level pharmacist used his spiritual sense to check the wounds on Mu Changsheng's body, he said to a cultivator beside him: "It's a minor injury. Just apply some ointment and rest for an hour and it will heal."

Upon hearing this, the monk immediately wrote down the pharmacist's words. He did this in order to arrange the order of the competition more reasonably.

After applying the ointment on Mu Changsheng, the pharmacist took Mu Changsheng to a resting place in a corner of the martial arts arena and said, "I will come to check whether your injury has healed in an hour. Only after it is confirmed that you have healed can you leave here and participate in the competition again."

"I understand." Mu Changsheng said with understanding.