The Huo Ya pecked at the golden long sword, and the golden light of the sword dimmed slightly, emitting a "humming" sound. The trajectory of its flight was also disrupted by this blow, deviating by several feet, and failed to threaten Li Qing.

  Li Qing secretly felt complacent. This Fire Crow Cauldron was an imitation of a famous ancient artifact, its power surpassing that of ordinary high-grade artifacts by a notch. Moreover, the opponent's long sword was clearly a gold-attribute artifact, and under the five elements' restraint, the gold sword's might would be discounted by 30% in front of the Fire Crow. This way, Li Qing felt he already had the upper hand in this seemingly evenly matched trial.

  As expected, Li Qing manipulated the Huo Ya and the Golden Long Sword to gain a clear advantage in several clashes. However, the Golden Long Sword kept dodging and changing direction, flying around randomly. The Huo Ya was unable to swallow it directly for the time being. But when Li Qing ordered the Huo Ya to attack Zhao Di himself, the golden sword would quickly stab towards him, forcing him to recall the Huo Ya once again to defend against the Golden Sword.

  In this way, the two sides' weapons became entangled. However, in most cases, the golden long sword was fleeing, with the fire crow chasing after it. If the pursuit succeeded, the golden sword would emit a low hum of "buzzing", and the golden light emitted by the sword body would also weaken slightly.

  In this way, the golden long sword will eventually be exhausted by the fire crow and destroyed. However, looking at Zhao Di, there was no sign of tension or worry on his face.

  Li Qing was getting a bit impatient, the power of this Flame Crow Pot was indeed strong, but the consumption of spiritual energy was not trivial either. If he continued to consume it for such a long time, his spiritual energy would become somewhat insufficient.

  He steeled himself and made a luxurious decision. He took out a bright red mid-grade Fire Spirit Stone, grasped it in his hand, and rapidly absorbed the fire spirit energy within. At the same time, he poured more spiritual energy into the small jug.

  "Ya ya!" The magpie cried out in a cheerful and shrill voice, its feathers becoming even more distinct.

  The speed of the fire crow suddenly increased a lot, and after a sudden burst, it bit the golden long sword in its mouth. The golden long sword continuously emitted a mournful cry, and the scattered golden light also slowly faded and darkened at a visible speed to the naked eye.

  At this time, Zhao Di also held a pale yellow middle-grade Golden Spirit Stone in his hand. Seeing the golden sword being swallowed by the opponent's Fire Crow, he hastily urged a burst of spiritual power into the golden sword. Under the flash of golden light, it finally managed to break free from the Fire Crow's control and flew back into Zhao Di's hand. Without even looking at it, Zhao Di put it away in his storage bag and simultaneously took out a round shield that shone with a similar golden light.

  The shield emitted a golden light and formed a protective aura around Zhao Di.

  Li Qing sneered. The Fire Crow flew towards the golden round shield under his command. The golden shield did not dodge or evade, and was locked in a stalemate with the Fire Crow for a moment.

  Although the Golden Sword and Golden Shield are both high-quality golden artifacts, the Golden Shield is a specialized defensive artifact with several special defensive spells engraved on it. Similarly, under the attack of Huo Ya, this golden round shield did not show signs of weakness from the start, but the dazzling light mask was also slowly weakening.

  Thus, both sides fell into a stalemate of competing spiritual powers. If Li Qing's spiritual power was stronger, he could once again ignite the protective light shield released by this small shield and win the trial.

  On the contrary, if he exhausts his spiritual power and still cannot break through the opponent's defense, then there is only surrender and defeat.

  However, generally speaking, the attacking side has a greater chance of winning in such situations.

  After all, defensive magic protects most of the body, while attacking magic only attacks a point, so it's natural that defensive magic consumes more spiritual power.

  Zhao Di, however, had an expression of complete calmness, clearly unwilling to sit and wait for death.

  He lightly wiped his left hand on his waist and three "Fire Snake Talismans" appeared in his hand. Then he didn't hesitate to cast out the Fire Snake Talismans.

  Three talismans in the air turned into three three-foot-long fire snakes, crawling towards Li Qing from different angles.

  His face suddenly turned pale, becoming a true Li Qing. At this moment, he was in a dilemma, the opponent had a high-quality artifact like Xiao Dun, and to win the trial, he must break through Xiao Dun's defensive shield. However, the talisman that the opponent launched was not something that his Golden Vajra symbol on his body could defend against.

  Although several thoughts flashed through his mind, Li Qing quickly made a defensive move. He took out a small, fire-red square shield and held it in front of him, pouring the remaining spiritual energy into the shield.

  "Boom, boom, boom!" Three loud explosions shook the air as three fire snakes slammed into the small red shields that had been activated by the four-way shield, causing them to burst open. The red shields were blown to smithereens, barely holding together.

  It was originally just a medium-grade magic shield, and because the spiritual power infused in it was really limited, it almost directly lost to the attack of the three fire snakes.

  But what happened next made Li Qing's face even more unsightly.

  Because he saw that Zhao Di had taken out three more talismans that were exactly the same, and they transformed into three fire snakes that pounced on him.

  Man cannot rival heaven, he did not expect the other party to have a top-grade defensive artifact, nor did he think that the other party's attack talisman would be so generous, smashing over three by three. Now, he can only make a last-ditch effort.

  He stuck the only two golden badges he had left on himself, and also sent all his remaining full-body spiritual power into the Huo Ya Hu vessel.

  Zhao Di's magic at this time was also running out, but he understood that the opponent would have to divide his attention to deal with the Fire Snake Talisman, and the situation would only be worse than his own.

  After a few loud explosions, the red light shield and several layers of golden light shields on Li Qing's body were all gone. Li Qing was unscathed despite the perilous situation.

  And the fire crow that he desperately urged on finally consumed the golden light shield of the Golden Shield, but immediately afterwards, the fire crow that lost its spiritual power supply also turned into a few red lights and disappeared in the air.

  As both sides' spiritual power was almost exhausted, a seemingly evenly matched contest had formed.

  Li Qing also secretly breathed a sigh of relief, earlier if he had made a slight mistake in his calculations, his shield would not have been able to withstand the attack of the three fire snake talismans, and he would have inevitably suffered serious injuries this time.

  But Zhao Di's next move made all of this seem completely unnecessary.

  Zhao Di suddenly slapped another golden talisman on himself, then flipped his left hand over, and to his surprise, it was another "Fire Snake Talisman"!

  Looking at the fire snake spitting out several inches of flame letters flying towards him, Li Qing, who had no choice but to admit defeat with a sense of unwillingness and complete inability to fight back.

  Zhao Di finally won the long and exhausting tug-of-war, advancing to the third round. At this time, Jian Xiang'er, who was watching the match from below and secretly sweating for Zhao Di, also let out a sigh of relief and revealed a radiant smile with a spring breeze on her face.

  Zhao Di's spiritual energy was almost depleted, and he couldn't even use the Flying Feather artifact to return to the Refining Room. He could only find a secluded corner with no one around, hold a mid-grade Water Spirit Stone, and meditate to recover some of his spiritual energy first. Jian Xiner's test was still early, so she silently stood by and protected Zhao Di instead.

  Zhao Di, who was used to using high-grade spirit stones, felt that recovering his spiritual power at this rate was too slow. He only meditated for half an hour and recovered less than 20% of his spiritual power before bidding farewell to Jian Huan'er and going to the artifact refinement room to meditate and rest with a high-grade spirit stone. As a result, he didn't have time to watch Jian Huan'er's second round of trials.

  On the second day, Zhao Di, who had fully recovered his spiritual power, hurriedly found Jian Xiner and asked her about the situation of the second round.

  As a result, to his relief, Jian Xiner's second-round opponent was an eleventh-level cultivator with only a medium-grade artifact. Whether it was spiritual cultivation or artifact quality, Jian Xiner, who was clearly superior in both aspects, easily won the trial and advanced to the third round.

  Jian Xin'er also told Zhao Di that a pair of cultivators in the 13th layer of Qi Refining actually had bad luck and drew the same group in the second round, and both of them were carrying several high-quality artifacts. The battle was so intense that it could only be described as tragic. In the end, one of the slightly shorter cultivators suddenly exerted his strength, cutting off his opponent's legs at the knees, causing him to pass out from pain. He won the trial in the end, but he also had his left arm cut off by his opponent's desperate counterattack before he was injured. It can be said that both sides suffered heavy losses. Although a Jiedan period master soon intervened and reattached the severed limbs of the two, their strength would inevitably drop significantly.

  For cultivators, reconnecting their limbs isn't a difficult task, but to fully recover, it still takes some time. That short cultivator may have won the trial, but in the third round, he will inevitably struggle due to his decreased strength.

  (Second update today, four updates! Please collect this book and vote for recommendation! If you think the book is good, feel free to recommend it to other readers, thank you all for your support!)