Don't Cause Trouble Chapter 120: Learning Talisman Array

After stepping down from the stage, Ye Su walked toward You Fushi. Her gaze fell on the Chongming Sword in his hand, this was the first time she had ever seen it not being dragged along the ground.

"You two finished your match?" Ye Su turned to glance at their platform, only to see Yi Xuan undergoing a lightning tribulation. She was a little surprised, but not shocked.

As the half-demon second male lead, Yi Xuan’s parents’ cultivation levels far surpassed others; naturally, he wouldn’t be weak.

"I won," You Fushi said. Seeing that Ye Su kept staring at Yi Xuan, he tugged at her sleeve.

Ye Su turned her head back and asked with a smile, "You used your sword?"

Judging from the state of that platform at the end, their fight was clearly anything but gentle.

"I did." You Fushi lifted his chin slightly, though his face showed pride, he was actually watching Ye Su’s expression from the corner of his eye.

"That’s a pity," Ye Su said. "I still haven’t seen it."

You Fushi hesitated for a moment. "…I can practice with my sword for you sometime."

After speaking, he added a condition: "Once."

"Alright, I’ll remember that." Ye Su took his hand and led him toward the waiting area.

The next match could only be drawn once the first eight rounds were finished.

The latter eight competitors actually finished first. Yan Hao and Ning Qianyao’s opponents weren’t particularly strong. Only Lu Jiu and Hong Yongye faced each other, and their battle lasted much longer.

Hong Yongye was from Kunlun; his swordsmanship was formidable. But Lu Jiu’s danger sense was ingrained to the bone, and recently she had also been guided by Xin Shenzi.

A madman and a little madwoman—together, the results were obvious.

In short, Lu Jiu’s sword style was sheer madness: wounding the enemy a thousand, injuring herself eight hundred.

Hong Yongye had never seen such a reckless fighting style before. His sword rhythm was disrupted, but he quickly adapted and could still block Lu Jiu’s strikes.

The problem was, both were now bleeding from the exchange. He was uncomfortable with this, but Lu Jiu only grew more excited.

"Lunatic," Hong Yongye muttered, deciding to change tactics, using his sword as support and magic artifacts as his main offense, hurling all kinds of artifacts at her.

If Xin the madman had a swordsman’s obsession with using only the sword, Lu Jiu had no such scruples. She used a sword simply because it was the easiest to learn.

Just last night, Ye Su hadn’t slept at all, drawing her a pile of talismans. And that morning, Ming Liusha had given her several magic artifacts.

When Hong Yongye used magic artifacts, Lu Jiu used them too, switching even faster than he did, without the slightest hesitation.

To decide the ninth and tenth places, they would need to conserve strength and avoid excessive injury. But Lu Jiu was too reckless, forcing Hong Yongye to fight at full strength. Worst case, he’d just take pills to recover later.

What Hong Yongye didn’t expect was that when he swung his sword toward her arm, she didn’t dodge at all, she came straight at him.

The sensation of the blade biting into flesh traveled through the sword’s body, into the hilt, and finally into Hong Yongye’s hand.

This feeling was not unfamiliar to him, on the contrary, he knew it well.

But Lu Jiu hadn’t dodged as he’d expected; her eyes even carried a glint of excitement. It startled him for a moment, making him wonder if she had some hidden counter.

She didn’t. She had simply abandoned her arm, using the moment to strike back with a lethal sword intent that landed solidly on Hong Yongye’s waist and legs, making him stumble.

Now!

Lu Jiu seemed completely unaware of the pain or even the fact that her arm had been severed and lay on the stage.

She kicked at Hong Yongye’s knee, then leapt up and slammed her foot into his chin, sending him flying.

Hong Yongye instinctively tried to brace himself with his sword, but Lu Jiu’s next slash came down immediately.

His grip faltered, and he fell off the stage.

Even worse, as a swordsman, he had actually let his sword slip from his hand.

The surrounding spectators let out a chorus of sighs, especially the sword cultivators.

For a sword cultivator, the greatest taboo was a broken sword; the second was letting the sword leave one’s hand.

Either could become an obstacle nearly impossible to overcome in one’s cultivation path.

Yan Hao had originally wanted to find You Fushi to praise his performance earlier, but after seeing Lu Jiu’s ferocity, she was so shocked she could barely speak. "The Qianji Sect people… are terrifying."

At that moment, Lu Jiu seemed to remember that her arm was gone. She walked back and picked it up from the ground.

"Don’t dawdle." Xin Shenzi pulled a healer over and told Lu Jiu, "Come down and get your arm sewn back on."

A man known across the cultivation world as Xin the Madman had now been reduced to the personal medic for a few disciples.

The healer beside him shook his head. "Each generation is crazier than the last."

Lu Jiu was losing blood rapidly, relying entirely on spiritual energy to keep herself going.

When this round ended, the latter eight had only four people left to compete: Yan Hao, Ning Qianyao, Lu Jiu, and Li Si.

When Yan Hao drew lots, she kept muttering, "Not Lu Jiu! Not Lu Jiu!"

Opening it carefully, she saw Ning Qianyao’s name and actually breathed a sigh of relief even though, at the moment, Ning Qianyao seemed the most unpredictable opponent.

Lu Jiu, meanwhile, was matched against Li Si. Once those two matches ended, the winners would fight again to determine ninth and tenth place.

As for the first eight, Mei Chouren lost to Gu Liangtian and would now compete with Lian Lian, Zhou Yun, and the advancing Yi Xuan for the fifth through eighth places.

Right now, the most important thing was to decide the top three. These three didn’t just differ in ranking, they also got different amounts of time to stay in the Rotating Tower.

"Senior brother, they’re about to draw lots." Ma Congqiu gripped Xu Chengyu’s hand tightly, nervous. "I really hope Ye Su and You Fushi don’t draw each other."

Xu Chengyu was just as anxious for them, so he didn’t complain about Ma Congqiu holding onto him. "Young Master You’s luck shouldn’t be too bad."

Ye Su and You Fushi each went up to draw lots, and the hearts of the Sword Sect disciples watching were pounding so hard they almost jumped.

As soon as You Fushi finished drawing, he flipped his lot open. Staring at the name written there, he read it aloud to Ye Su: "Lu Chenhan. I’ll be fighting him."

"Perfect." Ye Su turned her lot over. "Gu Liangtian."

Once the four names for the matchups were revealed, the spectators had mixed reactions. Some disappointed, some excited.

"Ah, I wanted to see the Buddha disciple of the Wanfo Sect against Lu Chenhan of Kunlun."

"I think if they both win this round, they’ll meet in the next one."

"This year, the Qianji Sect really made it through. Even if both lose, one of them can still take third place."

"Not necessarily. Those two from the Qianji Sect do look impressive, though."

"Impressive or not, Lu Chenhan is at the Soul Transformation stage, and Gu Liangtian, even though he failed his advancement, is definitely stronger than an ordinary late Nascent Soul cultivator."

"It’s a pity Upper Qiue Sect got wiped out this time, nothing to show for it. At least the Sword Sect has one in the top ten, plus an allied sect disciple still in."

"Well, their senior disciple was just unlucky, first match, and he had to face Kunlun’s Lu Chenhan."

The crowd buzzed with discussion as Ye Su and You Fushi each stepped onto their own arena platform.

"This year’s tournament is quite interesting." Gu Liangtian walked up one deliberate step at a time, stopping in front of Ye Su. His face wore its usual air of pity-for-the-world. "The ones who’ve made it to the finals are almost all people I wanted to fight."

Ye Su lifted her gaze to him and said something completely unrelated: "I thought the Wanfo Sect’s mission was to guide others to enlightenment."

Gu Liangtian turned his prayer beads and gave a thin smile. "The world is hard to save. Wanfo Sect has always sought to save ourselves before others."

"Is that so?" Ye Su said quietly. "But some people insist on saving others."

Gu Liangtian heard her, but didn’t understand what she meant. He asked, "Shall we fight?"

Ye Su didn’t answer right away. Instead, she pulled a book on spell arrays from her qiankun bag and said, "I don’t know much about arrays, only learned two or three. This one from Senior Tushi is meant for array cultivators with a foundation."

Gu Liangtian’s fingers paused. The name Tushi sounded familiar. A moment later, an old record flashed through his mind.

Tushi, the Buddha disciple from two generations ago, with the shortest tenure.

Up on the high platform, Wu Yue, the sect master of the Hehuan Sect, turned to the Wanfo Sect’s master, Le Ji. "Didn’t Tushi’s life lamp go out? How is there another array manual? So before he died, he even left an array booklet in a secret realm?"

Le Ji wasn’t interested in Tushi. He said coolly, "I heard he didn’t die, cultivated to the Integration stage in the secret realm but then ran into disciples from the Sword Sect and Qianji Sect, and died anyway."

Wu Yue sighed. "…To reach the Integration stage inside the Wasteland City is real talent. What a pity."

Still, it was no surprise Le Ji looked so indifferent. The last divine maiden had been raised by him personally, and when news came of her death, he had been just as cold.

"You plan to use an array against me?" For the first time, Gu Liangtian’s expression changed a little. Looking at the booklet in Ye Su’s hand, he said, "Tushi was the least talented Buddha disciple in our history, especially in arrays. His gift in that field was pitifully small."

"If you use his arrays, you have no chance of winning." He paused, then added, "Of course, the same goes for talisman-arrays."

"Let’s try." Ye Su flipped through the booklet, committing all its contents to memory before putting it away.

Gu Liangtian gripped his staff and slammed it into the floor. The lotus pedestal staff stood planted on the arena. He released it, wrapped his prayer beads around his wrist, and looked at Ye Su with that same familiar, world-weary pity. "I try to save the world, but the world will not listen."

"That’s your way of saving?" Ye Su almost laughed in anger. "Maybe I can try saving you instead."

Gu Liangtian formed a hand seal, his movements carrying the calm dignity of Zen, enough to stir the heart.

Ye Su began imitating his hand seals.

Between the two, it was obvious Gu Liangtian was faster. A round array took shape in midair; with a light push, he sent it toward Ye Su.

She dodged, hands still moving, and in the last instant completed an array and pushed it forward. But she hadn’t expected Gu Liangtian, standing at a distance, to simply raise his hand and press forward, her array was forced back toward her.

The first clash ended with the arrays colliding head-on; hers shattered, and she was injured.

Ye Su turned her head, spat blood onto the ground, and braced herself with one hand, looking up at him as he once again created several arrays to attack her.

Her attention wasn’t on the arrays, she was studying Gu Liangtian himself.

Real combat was the best way to learn, especially since she was unfamiliar with arrays.

Again and again, Gu Liangtian pressed the attack. Just when Ye Su was battered and bruised, and Gu Liangtian began forming a killing array, he suddenly noticed that the Ye Su sitting slumped on the ground was starting to make the same hand signs as him.

He could feel the flow of spiritual energy in the air, identical to his own!

She learned this from Tushi’s notes?

Gu Liangtian spread his stance and sped up his seals again. He would show Ye Su what a true Buddha disciple was.

But unexpectedly, Ye Su’s speed was only slightly behind his. Almost right after his array took shape, hers appeared as well.

The two arrays collided in midair and actually canceled each other out.

Ye Su staggered to her feet. "I can’t do much else but I can learn."

From then on, whatever array Gu Liangtian formed, Ye Su mirrored it. No matter how complex, she could keep up——