When the challenger saw Xiao Ming jump out, he recognized her right away.
He was surprised that they would actually call her out like this, but he was excited since that meant that it was going according to his plan.
Now all that was left was to…
The challenger suddenly cupped his hands and said, “Yong Tian of the Eternal Sect challenges miss Xiao Ming to a spar. If you would give me your guidance.”
This challenger made the first move so that they wouldn’t be able to back down now that Xiao Ming was here.
He would make sure that even if Xiao Ming wanted to settle this peacefully, she wouldn’t have a chance to do so.
That was because he needed to fight her to achieve his goal.
But Xiao Ming had no such intentions in the first place.
When she saw him cupping his hands to ask her for a spar, she just said with a happy smile, “Let’s do this then.”
The challenger couldn’t help being taken aback by how easily she had agreed to this.
There was a bad premonition that filled him over how easily everything went, but he also couldn’t back down now.
So he pulled out a sword and said, “Then miss Xiao Ming, please don’t take offense.”
The young man instantly disappeared before several figures of him appeared around Xiao Ming.
But when one looked closely, they could see that this was nothing more than fog.
This challenger had the ability to cast illusions with fog, which was what these several clones of him that had appeared were. These were illusions that had been created when he formed fog with his spiritual energy.
For Xiao Ming who was in the center of it, she wouldn’t be able to tell which one of these illusions would be the real one.
One might think that she was in a bad position and be worried about her, but none of the elders revealed a worried look.
In fact, they all had smiles on their faces.
It almost seemed like they were feeling sorry for that young man who challenged her.
It was almost as if…they could already see how he would be defeated.
Xiao Ming also stood there with a calm look on her face, as if she had already seen through this illusion.
Instead of pulling out a weapon, she just raised her hand and gathered some spiritual energy around it. Then she stood there in place, almost as if she was waiting for something.
The challenger who had been waiting in the fog had wanted to see if Xiao Ming would make a move.
He knew that it would be best to sneak up on her while she tried to find him, but she didn’t move at all.
So in the end, it was his patience that ran out first and he snuck up behind her.
Seeing that she didn’t move, seeing that she didn’t seem to see anything strange, the challenger raised his sword and stabbed downwards at Xiao Ming’s head.
It was at that moment that Xiao Ming suddenly acted.
She punched upwards at the challenger that was stabbing his sword down at her, skillfully avoiding the falling sword while landing a fist in the challenger’s stomach.
This was a fist that was coated in spiritual energy, so it was much stronger than a normal punch.
The challenger immediately keeled over and then fell back, landing a few meters away from Xiao Ming. As he laid there on the ground holding his stomach, his face twisted in pain and it looked like he would throw up at any moment.
It seemed that this punch really was effective.
But that was expected since she had hit him without him putting up any guard.
Still, Xiao Ming held back a bit since she didn’t want it to end that quickly.
She waited for the challenger to recover from that punch to the stomach before waiting for him to come again. As she stood there, she even raised a hand and waved it at the challenger, as if challenging him to come at her.
However, he didn’t take the bait.
He didn’t even know how she had seen through his illusion, so he wouldn’t do anything rash before that.
He narrowed his eyes to look at Xiao Ming and asked, “How did you find me?”
Xiao Ming revealed a smile and said, “The wind. You can hide everything else with your illusions, but you can’t hide the wind you create when you move.”
The challenger’s chin dropped when he heard this.
This was true, it was a flaw that everyone that used illusions had since it was impossible for their illusions to cover up everything. That was until they became strong enough that they could create illusions that could even fool the mind.
But before that…they would have certain things that would give them away.
The challenger gritted his teeth after that as he never thought that Xiao Ming would even be able to figure this out.
Still, since he knew how she had done it…it would be easy for him to come up with a countermeasure.
And this time, he wouldn’t only show this much power.
After gritting his teeth for a bit, the challenger suddenly gave a roar and his aura grew stronger.
It kept growing stronger and stronger until he broke through.
He went from the Mid Foundation Realm to the High Foundation Realm.
It seemed that he had been suppressing his cultivation the whole time.
But now he wasn’t holding back anymore.
Everyone that was watching couldn’t help looking at Xiao Ming with worried looks, but of course that was only the people not from the Love Sect.
The ones from the Love Sect just shook their heads when they saw this.
If this was the only trump card that he had, then it really was too disappointing.
After all, Xiao Ming also had a trump card up her sleeve.
Xiao Ming looked at the challenger and asked, “Is that really it?”
When he heard this, his face couldn’t help twisting.
It had to be known that the aura that Xiao Ming gave off was only in the Peak Qi Gathering Realm.
To begin with, it was a Mid Foundation Realm Cultivator against a Peak Qi Gathering Realm Cultivator.
This should have easily been a one sided fight…
But Xiao Ming had figured out the trick to his technique and had been able to strike a powerful blow to him, which was why she had beaten him back.
But now that he was aware of the trick she used, it wasn’t as if it would work a second time.
Plus, with his increased cultivation level, his illusions would only be stronger.
So after taking a deep breath, the challenger said, “Act tough while you still can then.”
Then as if he faded away into thin air, he disappeared from everyone’s sight.
This time, there were no clones that appeared around Xiao Ming, there was just a layer of fog that appeared around her that blocked her from everyone’s sight.
There didn’t seem to be anything that happened from the perspective of the spectators, but inside of the fog…there was plenty happening.
The voice of the challenger came from all around Xiao Ming, almost as if it was taunting her.
But Xiao Ming just calmly stood there without panicking even though she was surrounded by this fog.
It was almost as if she could already see through this fog.
The challenger who was hiding in the fog couldn’t help being caught off guard when seeing this, but he didn’t believe that Xiao Ming could really see through his fog like this.
So the challenger didn’t give up and circled around Xiao Ming again to attack her.
When he was just within a few feet of Xiao Ming, Xiao Ming suddenly turned to look at him.
Then with a deep breath, she suddenly released her spiritual energy.
When she released it, the challenger couldn’t help being taken aback.
That was because the spiritual energy that she released…was actually purer and thicker than his spiritual energy. Even though he was in a higher realm than her, his spiritual energy actually seemed weaker.
But it wasn’t just this that caught the challenger off guard.
Her aura also started to change.
It became larger and larger until…it reached the Foundation Realm.
The challenger was shocked when he felt this and looked at Xiao Ming in shock.
He was trying to figure out if he had made a mistake, but there was no mistake to make here.
This was without a doubt the aura of a Foundation Realm Cultivator.
Xiao Ming had been hiding her true cultivation just like him.
But after biting his lip for a bit, the challenger still decided to go all out.
He didn’t believe someone in the Low Foundation Realm would be able to fight him who was in the High Foundation Realm.
As he tried to approach Xiao Ming again, there was a burst of spiritual energy that suddenly came from Xiao Ming.
When that burst of spiritual energy came out, all of the fog around her was blown away and the challenger was revealed.
He had a look of shock on his face when this happened as he had no idea how she had done it.
But he didn’t have time to think about this.
It was just too bad that he reacted too late that by the time that he reacted, Xiao Ming was already in front of him with a fist raised.