Chapter 083
Chapter 83: Unmoved as Stone
“What’s happening here?”
At that very moment, Li Yuan Ling stared at the candle flame before her, turning her gaze left and right, bewilderment painted clearly across her face.
[Why did the candle flame, clearly about to extinguish, suddenly flare back to life?]
But before she could ponder further, another fierce palm wind was already rushing toward her.
Li Yuan Ling hastily circulated her Qi, quickly shielding the candle flame again.
However, this time, the elder’s palm wind was distinctly stronger than before, effortlessly shattering the Qi she had just summoned.
Seeing the fierce palm wind speeding toward the candle flame, Li Yuan Ling simply dropped her hands, choosing to give up altogether.
To her, surviving twenty-five breaths had been lucky enough. It wasn’t unexpected for her not to make it through this attack.
Yet, in the very next instant, her eyes widened sharply, her body frozen in surprise.
Her gaze fixed on the candle flame, and astonishment filled her expression.
“This… this…”
Li Yuan Ling pointed at the candle flame, hardly believing what she’d just witnessed.
She had assumed the powerful palm wind would surely extinguish the flame. But to her shock, the palm wind simply swept past the flame, leaving it utterly unchanged.
The flame upon the table continued burning quietly, its glow unwavering, not even the slightest flicker disturbed.
Li Yuan Ling quickly leaned closer, carefully observing the candle flame again. Her suspicion deepened.
She even opened her small mouth to gently blow at the flame, only to find it suddenly swaying intensely, nearly extinguishing from her own gentle breath.
Alarmed, she swiftly summoned her Qi again to stabilize the flame.
Seeing this, Li Mu Sheng, seated across from her, teased with a playful tone, “Sworn younger sister, if you don’t want the candle lit, you could’ve said so sooner.”
Hearing this, Li Yuan Ling glanced up at him and instinctively replied, “Who said I didn’t want it—”
She abruptly paused, eyes widening again as realization dawned. She stared at Li Mu Sheng suspiciously, “Was it you who did this earlier?”
Right then, another gust of palm wind arrived leisurely. Without surprise, it easily scattered the Qi Li Yuan Ling had summoned and blew past the candle flame.
Yet again, the result remained the same as before—the candle flame was untouched, continuing to burn brightly.
Seeing this unfold, even Li Yuan Ling, slow to understand as she was, could now guess Li Mu Sheng had done something tricky.
Her eyes filled with curiosity and astonishment as she stared at Li Mu Sheng. “How did you manage this?”
Li Mu Sheng shrugged lightly, eyebrows lifting, “Manage what exactly? Isn’t this something anyone with hands can do?”
He then glanced playfully at Li Yuan Ling, chuckling, “My dear sworn younger sister, if you’re weak, just practice more!”
Li Yuan Ling: …
Meanwhile, the black-robed elder seated upon the rotating wheel also noticed the oddity occurring on Li Mu Sheng’s wooden boat, causing his brows to knit tightly.
[Why is it that the stronger my palm winds become, the less impact they have on their candle flame?]
He clearly remembered almost extinguishing their candle flame previously, yet now even stronger attacks had failed to affect it at all.
“Three palms left—I refuse to believe you can endure these!”
The elder narrowed his eyes sharply. Qi surged around him as he raised his palm, unleashing another fierce wind toward the wooden boats.
Yet the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth palm winds yielded the same result.
The gusts swept past Li Mu Sheng’s candle flame as if passing through air. The flame burned quietly, completely unaffected.
Li Mu Sheng and Li Yuan Ling, seated comfortably across from each other, simply stared back and forth. Li Yuan Ling, who had previously guarded the candle carefully, was now sitting relaxed, hands on her hips, choosing to do nothing.
Seeing this, the elder’s eyes flashed sharply, his competitive spirit ignited.
Normally, he gradually increased the power of each palm wind to keep things balanced. But this time, he secretly decided to intensify the thirtieth palm strike.
He had overseen many tests at Floating Boat City, but such a peculiar scene was truly unprecedented. Moreover, that flame on their wooden boat gave him a strange sense of helplessness, something he had never experienced before.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Rapidly, the elder struck the air three times in succession. Three fierce gusts of wind tore through space, slicing sharply toward the remaining three wooden boats.
“What’s this? Why is this final palm strike so powerful?”
The Martial World warrior cried out in alarm, quickly signaling the middle-aged swordsman for help.
The swordsman’s expression grew dark, hesitantly assisting while keeping an eye on Li Mu Sheng’s boat.
He had initially expected their flame to fail at the next palm wind. Instead, he was stunned to see it easily withstand four palm strikes as if completely unaffected.
Poof!
Of the remaining three boats, one candle flame went out under the elder’s final powerful palm wind.
The Martial World warrior’s boat barely endured, the swordsman’s timely intervention stabilizing the violently swaying flame at the last moment.
But Li Mu Sheng’s wooden boat remained entirely unmoved. The powerful palm wind roared past their candle, leaving it quietly burning, perfectly still, as though nothing had happened.
“You had such a remarkable skill, why didn’t you say something sooner?”
Li Yuan Ling’s dark eyes stared intently at Li Mu Sheng.
However, before he could respond, her eyes curved into crescents, her smile bright and lively. She cheered, “If this trick keeps working, we might even break Floating Boat City’s record!”
In her excitement, she completely forgot Li Mu Sheng’s earlier teasing.
Li Mu Sheng merely cast her a glance, choosing to say nothing.
At that moment, the iron-framed wheel abruptly stopped.
Mechanisms clicked open, chains sprang from their grooves, and the wooden boats slowly began descending again into the depths of the cliff.
The elder rose from his seat upon the wheel, his face dark as he stared at Li Mu Sheng’s boat.
“It appears that a master has come to Floating Boat City today. This must be reported.”
With that, he swiftly vanished from sight.
Meanwhile, among the descending boats, the swordsman repeatedly glanced sideways at Li Mu Sheng’s boat, his eyes filled with astonishment and unease.
It was clear—they would be rivals in the upcoming second trial.