47 Chapter 47 – Top Ten Disciples

After the end of the fight, he went back to his courtyard to rest but the rest of the clan was in turmoil because of him.

In the clan's central palace main hall, Zhu Donglai was sitting in the main seat and all the elders are sitting in two rows on left and right side of the hall. One of the elders spoke "What should we do clan leader? I'm not sure if the clan will face problem because of him suddenly gaining power."

Another elder also said "I thought we can just make him live a normal life and keep them from noticing him, but the way he is acting he will be noticed by them sooner or later, and it will bring us a calamity."

Zhu Donglai has been observing everyone and found Zhu Jia Li is acting calm. He asked with a stern voice "Jia Li, did you know about his cultivation level before and how strong he is?"

Everyone turned towards her and she replied calmly "Yes, I knew. Though I don't know how he activated his elemental roots, I knew his strength before today."

Zhu Donglai snorted in anger and said "You should have mentioned it to us. If we had known, we would have stopped him from doing anything reckless like this and put him under house arrest."

Zhu Jia Li retorted in anger "I knew you all would do something to him and that's why I didn't mention it to you or anyone else. He suffered from his birth and you still want to control him. Now that he already appeared in the selections he has to continue and you can't control him. He will leave to Lei Shu academy immediately after the selections, so why are you worried about our clan. Let him live his life."

Zhu Donglai's voice thundered in the hall with anger "Do you really think they will let us go just because he is not here? You are naive if you think they would let us off. I have met them once and I know how they act. They are cruel and merciless."

Even though Zhu Jia Li was worried for her clan for Zhu Xuan, she didn't show it outside. She believed nothing will happen to them.

Looking at Zhu Jia Li's calm attitude, he let out a sigh and continued "Anyway, how did this kid even activate his elemental roots and get strong this fast?"

Zhu Jia Li said "I don't know how he activated his elemental roots, but is it really a surprise he gets strong this faster?"

Zhu Donglai sighed again and said "I suppose not, considering who he is. Let's end this meeting; I need to think about our situation further."

Everyone dispersed silently and Zhu Jia Li looked back at deeply thinking Zhu Donglai with a worry filled face.

At the same time in another hall, Zhu Lang, Zhu Li and his lackeys were sitting around and talking about Zhu Xuan. Everyone was suggesting different course of action to get to Zhu Xuan, but finally Zhu Lang said "He is improving faster and if he give him some time I'm afraid he might ever surpass me. If I'm not wrong, he must have come across some ruins of a very powerful cultivator and gained a lot of resources fro that place."

Zhu Li also agreed "Yes, what you said makes sense second brother. How about we arrest him using law enforcement hall and pressure him using elders to hand him over the information about the ruins and his resources?"

Zhu Lang replied "That won't work Sixth brother. Even though he didn't have any support from most of the clan, he has support from our Aunt and she has a very huge influence within the clan because of her alchemy knowledge. So we can't force him to hand over the information, and I'm sure he would have told aunt about the ruins too since she is the only one who was close to him since the beginning, and the only one he considers as family."

He paused and continued "Moreover, we are not even sure whether what we speculated is what really happened. He already knows I sent him to die in Snowcape Demon Mountain and also he killed the scout and retaliated against us in every turn. I'm also sure Zhu Ting and others from law enforcement hall were all killed by him or someone protecting him from the dark. He is getting too mysterious and hard to read."

Zhu Li also realized the situation "Then how about we capture him or kill him after we reach Lei Shu Academy? With your status it won't be an issue once we all reach the academy. Aunt Jia Li won't be able to interfere either."

Zhu Lang shook his head and said "I just got my new status; if anything happens and they trace it back to me or even doubt me, my status will be ruined. Moreover, what if he passed every resource he found in the ruins to Aunt Jia Li to safeguard it or to tenth sister? We can;t do anything to them as long as he is alive. We have to kill him and sooner the better. We can't kill him on our way to the academy either. Elder He Shan will help me if I ask him, but we have to silence everyone else travelling with us for the information to not spread, which will also cause a problem with other clans in the city."

He started thinking for a while and then wrote a letter then handed it to one of his lackeys and said "You go find Fang Liang and pass this letter to him. The only way is to kill him in the selections. Then we can force our Aunt to reveal everything after his death, by pressuring aunt saying it's for the welfare of the clan. Then she can't deny it saying it was found by Zhu Xuan."

Zhu Lang and Zhu Li looked at each other and laughed at their ingenious plan.

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Next day, the arena battle continued. Zhu Xuan easily won the third round and if he wins one more round he will be able to enter the top ten disciples. His final opponent was Lan Yue Xin who was at the eleventh level of body purification stage from Lan clan.

Lan Yue Xin activated her wind elemental roots and she is a sword cultivator. Her movements were too fast and attacks were swift. Zhu Xuan has a hard time battling with her because he didn't want to reveal any of his other elements roots other than his fire elemental root before he entered the top ten disciples. He thought if he should use the same method he used against Bai Shuo outside the restaurant when he met Bai Ling, but there are powerful cultivators at peak level of Qi gathering stage here and they might figure it out, so he didn't dare use it.

He thought "Thankfully I opened my meridians in my legs when I entered tenth level and barely able to hold on to her speed because of that. I have to quickly think of something to change the situation."

He observed Lan Yue Xin's action while defending and finally found a flaw. She attack and retreats with quick movements, but while retreating she leaves an opening. Moreover, her sword style is an offensive technique and there are no defensive moves.

After realizing it, he waited until she attacked and when she was retreating, he suddenly threw his sword towards her retreating figure.

Lan Yue Xin got flustered from the unexpected attack and sidestepped using her movement technique while trying to defend herself. His sword was blocked by her sword but she lost her balance. Zhu Xuan used that moment to close in on her and hit her with his blazing flame fist, but she steadied herself in a moment.

When he got close and was about to hit her, she used her movement technique to distance herself from him. But Zhu Xuan anticipated her move and as soon as she activated her move, he also changed his flame and the flame around his fist suddenly spread out fast and surrounded her like a net before she could even gain enough distance from him. She immediately stopped her movements before getting burned by the fire and was about to attack the net with her sword to break out.

At that moment, a fire sword formed by his other hand closed in on her neck; she tried to defend it, but the sword was too fast and already reached her neck. She didn't dare to make any move and looked at Zhu Xuan, who calmly said "You lost."

Lan Yue Xin never came across such a fighting style. She sighed and said "You have lots of fighting experience. I admit defeat"

Zhu Xuan retracted his fire Qi, turned around and walked away.

In the distance, Bai Ling observing the fight wondered "Why Do I find this fighting style very similar to Brother Shen?"

Zhu Xuan finally got into the top ten disciples. The fights continued and finally after half a day, the top ten from each arena was selected. There were four disciples from Zhu clan, three disciples from Lan clan, six disciples from Juan clan, four disciples from Fang clan and three disciples from Bai clan in the final twenty disciples.

Zhu Xuan, Zhu Meiying, Zhu Yun Qing, son of the second elder and his twelfth sister Zhu Xiao were from the Zhu clan among the top ten disciples from each arena.