Master took me to a large field near the back of the sect, where the tournament would be held. I saw thousands of disciples streaming towards the field, alongside elders and even outsiders, if their robes were an indication of their affiliation. Most people made a path for the Elders and Master, and we arrived at the stands without any issues. The arena was gigantic with 32 rings set up around the field. Each ring looked to be around twenty meters in diameter, and each one had a referee waiting. The stands were built around the arena, like the seats of a colosseum, with the Elders and sect master taking up the seats higher up.
I was surprised when Master separated from the other Elders and went to a seat near the middle of the ranks. She motioned me to sit down, and quietly explained, “You wouldn’t be able to see every battle if you were too high up.” I accepted the explanation, even if it still felt like there was more to it.
After waiting for thirty minutes did the fighters arrive. There were 64 outer disciples who would have a chance at getting accepted today. The sect Master made a quick speech, before explaining the rules. The top eight contestants would decide their rankings with a round robin based tournament. The whole tournament would last three days.
After explaining the rules, he turned to Master and said, “As you already noticed, this year eight disciples will have a chance to be promoted to become inner disciples. The reason for this is a small change in rules. After the rankings of the eight best have been decided, they will each fight against Miranda, Elder Garlou’s direct disciple. If they win against her, they will become inner disciples under Elder Garlou. The best can like always still choose under which Elder they wish to become an inner disciple. If any Elder wishes to take one of you in, I am sure that Elder Garlou would be willing to allow it.” A small glance at Masters unmoving face, made me forget trying to get any information out of her.
The sect Master then performed a wave with his arms, and which seemed to signal the start of the tournament, as the outer disciples began to form pair next to each of the rings. The fights began and I tried to watch as many people as possible, to find the best ones. Master tapped me on the knee, pointed to a ring and whispered, “Just focus on one pair.” I did as Master had told me and watched the two women in the ring fight. One used lighting and a spear and was constantly trying to find or create openings in the defence of the other woman, who used a shield and water at times to attack.
I quickly understood, why Master had wanted me to only focus on one pair. They were all way better than me in terms of actual combat skills. They were practiced and had drilled themselves the techniques into their body. It was like watching professional fighters spar. I tried my best to pay attention to when they pushed their offensive or backed down from an attack. I also saw feints being thrown from time to time. While the concept wasn’t new to me, I had never seen a feint in real life.
The fight ended in favour of the woman with the shield, and I turned my attention to another fight that was still ongoing. The fight was almost over, when I started paying attention, and I only managed to catch the ending of the fight. But it was still valuable information, as I began to learn on how to close a fight and when to strike. The first round of the tournament ended after only ten minutes, with most of the fights being only a few seconds long. They clearly hadn’t created these matches based on the strength of each disciple.
The disciples then got an hour to recover their Qi and stamina. During the break did some of the elders who were placed lower in the stands begin talking to each other. I noticed that I had never seen them before. I began creating a small copy of the head of the person who had sat in front of me. I made sure to not see the process with my eyes, to get a better feel of how to sense things with my Qi. And since I had to wait with Master anyways, I decided to satisfy my curiosity and wrote down, “How come, that I have not seen any of these Elders before? And where are the outer disciples housed?”
Master answered, “These Elders are the ones who look over the outer disciples. They tend to be the weaker or less influential ones. Your status is pretty much on par with theirs, simply by being my direct student.” She glanced at the Elders who were still talking amongst each other, even though I was sure that at least some must have heard Master. After all, they were all cultivators. Master then continued, “The outer disciples and Elders are all on the other side of the sect. They are the edge of the city on our side and are responsible for the security as well.” She motioned in the general direction that went away from the city and the parts of the sect I had been in.
For the rest of the wait, did I ask Master to explain the power dynamics of the sect a bit more to me, since I wanted to be a bit distracted while sculpting. Inner disciples were simply students who would receive some guidance from their respective master, while direct disciples like myself were supposed to carry the legacy of their Master. It was the difference between a student teacher relationship and the one between a child and their parent.
I wondered why she would go so far for me. While I was her direct disciple, it seemed like a lot of effort for her to take in inner disciples, though maybe she had a plan. I finished my sculpture around ten minutes before the fights resumed. It had turned out rather well, which was a pleasant surprise.
When the next fights started, did I decide to watch the fight of the woman with the shield again. This time she was matched up against a young man with a sword. The sword looked old, compared to all the swords the other contestants used. As soon as the fight started, did the man lunge forward and tried to slip his sword past her shield. She managed to block the strike but was still pushed back a few meters. He followed her closely, with his body almost pressed against the shield and ripped it to the side with his free hand.
The woman managed to block the stab of his sword that followed with her water, but the following explosion forced the referee to pull her out of the arena. It took me a moment to realize that the young man had somehow created the explosion. I was still not used to the magic of this world as it seemed. Since the fight had been rather short, I switched my attention to another fight. The fight there was still going on and looked far from ending.
The fights took another half an hour to finish after this, and the final eight were determined. They took another break for an hour before the fights resumed. The first round was not really interesting to watch since there always was a giant difference in skill between the fighters. I still tried to figure out as much as possible from them, as I would need to fight against all of them.
The next few fights took longer, and the fights could be considered fair. Although, it was easy to see that the young man, who had won against the woman with the shield earlier, was by far the strongest one here. I was curious how someone this strong didn’t make it as an inner or direct disciple. The runner up for second place was a sickly looking girl who had defeated her opponents with ice. She relied on overwhelming her opponents with precision. The other fighters were all good but didn’t stand out.
The fights dragged on, because of the breaks between each set of fights and after four fights, did they end for the day. The next day did the last four fights between the outer disciples conclude. The young man won all of his fights and thus easily secured himself the top spot, while the girl with ice placed second, only losing to him. I had thought about which order I wanted to fight them in. I had the information advantage after all, so the easiest choice would be to start with the second place and then work my way down to the weakest. I already knew that I would lose against the winner, since there was too much of a difference between us.
The sect Master then called out my name, and I made my way into the arena. He then asked with a smile on his face, “Which one would you like to face first?” I pointed at a girl who could be no more than sixteen. The weakest one. After all, what would be the point of fighting, if not to make it as hard as possible for yourself?
She followed me into one of the rings and lowered her body slightly, with her daggers drawn. She was a body cultivator like me, though she was more focused on being flexible and redirecting the enemy. I also got into a battle stance, by covering my arms in a thin layer of stones. I had begun to never take the stones around my torso off, so that part of the armour was already there.
I didn’t let my guard down, even though I had probably seen most of her tricks already. She might surprise me after all. I felt the earth under me and waited for the starting signal. I felt my adrenaline pumping as I waited for the signal.
Then the signal came, and I exploded the ground under me, shooting forward. I saw the surprise in her face, but she quickly gathered herself. I used the momentum of my start and delivered a straight punch. I saw her begin to twist out of the way, like I had expected and let a blade grow out of the side of my rock covered arm. The blade made a massive gnash across her chest, though she avoided the worst, by letting herself fall farther back.
She tried to continue her motion into something like a roll backwards, but I was to close and managed to place one of my legs in the path of her roll. She fell flat on her back and I followed her down, trying to get a clean punch on her face. She rolled to the side avoiding my attack, while at the same time cutting at my face with her dagger. I didn’t manage to avoid the attack in time and received a deep cut on my cheek.
I didn’t let this distract me, as I made a simple spike on the spot where she would roll into. Her left shoulder got penetrated and she let out a scream in pain. I used the brief moment of her pain and closed the distance.
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My fist was stopped right before her face by the hand of the referee. I realized that this would have probably killed her, if I had managed to connect the punch. I removed the spike from her and the armour on my arms. I wiped the blood from my face and offered the girl a hand, which she took after a moment of hesitation. I went to the side of the ring and received some medical care. I glanced at the sect Master and wondered if I was allowed to do the next fight as soon as I recovered. I thought that it was highly likely, so I took off my shoes and sat down.
It only took me twelve minutes to recover my Qi fully. I was about to put on my shoes again, when I noticed that there was no real reason to do so. In fact, it would be slightly beneficial for me to keep them off, since my Qi regeneration was better with direct contact to the earth. I turned to the sect Master and just pointed at the next weakest opponent. He seemed to catch my meaning and announced, “It seems Miranda has already recovered and is ready for the next round. So, let us continue.”
My next opponent was a man who looked around thirty. He was slightly overweight and was easily over two meters tall. I had seen him use earth Qi, though compared to me, he used it a lot more defensively. He tended to create walls to trap the opponent slowly and then finish them, by using the walls to deliver fatal blows. And as far as I could judge, he had more Qi than me.
When we got into the ring, did I make some light jumps, though my toes never fully left the earth. I planned to finish the fight as fast as possible, by closing the distance and using my superior strength. I wanted to supress whatever he created to block me, as I got closer. I would lose if he could endure my assault, since I would expend a lot more Qi than he would.
I felt the earth around us and tried to see if I could estimate where he would build up his walls. I noticed slight changes in the Qi inside of the ground at some spots, but nothing concrete. I waited for the signal to start as I got more and more focused on my opponent and the ground of the arena. I almost missed the signal, due to being too focused.
I used Earth Strider and went as fast as I could, while still not going above the speed I felt confident in maintaining. From the corner of my eyes, did I see two walls appear behind me, to both of my sides, but I ignored them. I then noticed him gathering Qi in front of him and waited for it to activate.
He didn’t disappoint and a wall began to shoot up. It was timed perfectly, I was too far away to cross over it easily, but I was also too close to avoid crashing into it. At least, that was the case until I pressed it down with brute force. I didn’t try to stop it completely but just slowed it down enough that I could jump over it.
During the jump, I made sure to pull my rock armour to my right shoulder, as I wanted to crash into him with it. I didn’t have time to form anything complex like a sharp edge, nor did I want it to potentially break, so it ended up just being a blob of stones that crashed into him. He barely managed to not topple over, due to bracing himself with the ground. Sadly, I broke no bones on my landing, but I quickly focused on placing my feet back onto the ground before continuing any offensive.
The man recovered and put his arms around me, in a bear hug. He then tried to lift me back off the ground, which I stopped by connecting my feet to the ground. At the same time, did I simply stab him in his side with a small spike that I formed on my knuckle. I then started to let the rocks expand in his body, which he supressed immediately. Although, I could see his attention being on the wound. I used the opening, to force his arms open and launched a punch at his chin.
This time I was not stopped and I heard his jaw break. He stumbled backwards, pulling the spike out of his body as he went backwards. I quickly followed him and punched towards his throat with my spiked hand. The man barely managed to put his hand in between my fist and his neck, but I was far stronger and had momentum on my side.
The spike was stopped right before it could injure him. The referee announced that I was the victor. I realized that this fight had been easier than the first. My best guess was that I was simply a bad match for him or that the first disciple was just a bad for me. I sat down on the ground and began to replay the fight in my head, since it would take me longer to recover this time as I expended significantly more Qi.
After I fully recovered, did I pick the next weakest disciple as my next opponent. It was a young man, who had used fire. Although, he had by far not the same explosive strength the first place disciple had. Still fighting against fire was difficult. I was worried that my clothes would catch on fire, since it would be hard to fight, while my entire body was on fire. I considered stripping before the fight, but decided against it, since the fight was meant as a learning experience and I didn’t need to win at all costs.
He had so far fought while keeping his opponents at a distance, peppering them with smaller fireballs until he finished them off with one big explosion, when they were unprepared for it. I was unsure how to go about this fight, since I had seen that he should be as fast as me while keeping his distance and I didn’t have anything to surprise him with.
We got into the ring and into our starting positions. I was still thinking of any good plan to counter him with, when the fight started. He threw a fireball at my face as soon as the battle started. I would have reflexively put my arms up and closed my eyes but was saved by the fact that these actions required active thought now. Instead of blocking or moving out of the way, did I run straight through the fireball.
It was surprisingly easy to pass through the fireball, since it was just a flame and I had barely spent any time in it. I saw my opponent move to the left side as I emerged from the fireball. As I made my way towards him, I begun to cover my head with stone, to prevent any unnecessary burns. He began to slowly lead me around in a circle, as he accelerated by creating small explosions in the air.
I knew first hand how difficult it must be to keep a technique that up, especially at these speeds. He was by quite a margin faster than me and used the moments when I was too far away to throw a few more fireballs my way or simply let them float around the arena reducing where I could go. I knew that I would lose this fight, sooner or later if this continued even if I would not run out of Qi or stamina. So, I decided to increase my speed.
I knew that it was an extremely risky decision, but I saw no better path to victory. As the speed increased, at which I ran the harder it became to dodge all the fireballs hovering in the arena and still keep track of my opponent, without missing a step with earth Strider. But it was paying off, since I was slowly gaining on him, even though I was not fully sprinting yet. He had less and less chances to throw fireballs at me, as I got closer, since he apparently couldn’t use two techniques at once.
When I was only two meters away from him, he stopped using his technique for speed and prepared something as quickly as possible. It was a big fireball, which I pretty much just ran into. This fireball actually exploded, shattering a few pieces of my armour and throwing me back to the edge of the ring.
I managed to stop myself, by digging my feet and hands into the dirt. I felt that my face had been badly burned, but the pain had not set in yet. A few other parts of my body were also burned, though primarily it had affected my torso. This would limit my flexibility, so I launched myself forwards as soon as possible to reach my opponent before he could recover.
His hair had almost entirely burned off, and he had a lot of burn marks all over his body as well, though they did not look as bad as mine. Even though he was in better shape than me, he took longer to recover. The difference most likely being, due to me being a body cultivator. I went to throw a punch, noting that my torso was too burned to land anything on his face, without damaging myself more.
Instead of attacking his face, I opted to send a punch towards his chest. I knew that the difference between our bodies was big enough, for me to crush his ribs. I felt a hand stop my fist before I could make contact with his body. I began to twist my body to attack with my other hand as well. This attempt was stopped as well, and I finally realized that it was the referee who had stopped me. I relaxed and performed a small bow in apology, before going of the stage.
I knew that I had been declared the winner, even though I couldn’t really hear anything at the moment. A few people rushed to me and began to treat my wounds with various medicinal pastes and most likely Qi. I was grateful that the adrenaline, had blocked out most of the pain and that these procedures didn’t hurt.
It took around ten minutes for me to be fully healed, and I spent the rest of the break to recover as much Qi as possible. Although, I didn’t manage to fill it up completely as I had spent quite a lot during the fight. I only had to fight one final opponent for the day. It was a male body cultivator, who looked like he could model. Contrary to his appearance, did his fighting style focus on landing cheap blows and winning through various tricks. And from what I had seen, he was also stronger and faster than me. Though I should have an edge in terms of durability, with Stone skin.
As we went into the arena, he begun to talk to me, while smiling and making himself look as vulnerable as possible. I guessed that it was a strategy to make me let done my guard, since he had done the same to every other opponent before this as well. I still couldn’t think of any solid plans on how to fight him. Getting into a direct fight, was probably the worst outcome, since he also had the upper hand in hand to hand combat, but I had never fought any other way.
As we waited for the fight to start, did I decide to take a risk and deviate from how I usually fought. I felt the earth under me and as soon as the signal for the start of the fight happened, did I pull the earth up to cover me in stone. It was the second time I had actually used the entirety of the technique and this time I could actually move. Though not fast, but it was progress.
I saw that my opponent had backed off to the edge of the arena, clearly to prepare for my charge, that never happened. Since he was being cautious as he approached me, did I use the chance to get used to controlling the stone with Qi to move. It felt surprisingly intuitive. I planned to finish the fight in a single attack and thus would need to catch him by surprise. I moved towards him, at the speed of a regular human and watched as he began to circle around me.
I was stumped for a brief moment, as to how to follow him, without exposing my speed. I considered turning the earth underneath me to turn around, but decided against it, since it was a giant waste of Qi. Instead, did I let a spike shoot out of his path, that he barely dodged by stopping his movements. I used the opportunity to close the distance between us.
He accepted the close ranged combat and ducked under the punch I was throwing. He then grabbed onto my sides and slid one of his legs behind me. He tried to topple me, but since I barely managed to connect a few pieces of stone with the ground, did it take a moment for me to begin falling. I managed to land a shot to his side before falling over. Though my fist wasn’t spiked, it still looked like it had hurt.
My fall was hard, as I didn’t manage to catch myself in time. The air was pressed out of my lungs and I felt dizzy. For a moment, I was completely disoriented until I felt a weight land on top of me. It was a young man, who I quickly realized was my opponent. I immediately took control of the stone on my body again, as he pummelled the stone covering my face. I shot my right arm upwards, using something similar to Earth strider. Caught by surprise by the sudden speed, did I manage to land a blow on his chest. I heard the sound of bones breaking, but he didn’t stop hitting the stone on my face.
I felt the stone crack under his assault and tried my best to fix the cracks, but he jammed his fingertips into the cracks and ripped the stone open. My face was completely bare and his head shot down, headbutting me. I felt my nose break and tears shot into my eyes. I felt dizzy again and couldn’t move my limbs. I took control of the stone again and tried to grab onto him, but his head crashed into mine again. I passed out for a brief moment.
My arms wrapped around him, as I got to myself. I pulled him down to me. I formed two spikes on my torso, as he let himself get pulled towards me. I felt his body twist at the last moment, just before his blood covered forehead crashed towards my face again.
In the last moment, did a hand appear and pull him away from me. The referee had intervened. Everything hurt and I had a splitting headache. But I still heard the announcement that I had lost the fight. I stayed awake, though I could not follow anything that was happening. I only felt a cool hand touch my face and everything began to feel clearer. The healer looked down on me and said, “Don’t move yet. Your skull is cracked open.”
I tried not to worry about it and thought about the fight. I was sure that I could have won, I just had the wrong strategy. I tried to think of anything that would have won me the fight. Though, I was satisfied with how it felt to have the Stone skin cover my entire body. I wanted to use it a few more times, when I got the chance and after I got better control over the earth, since it felt so natural.
The healing was finished, while I was still in my contemplations. I stood up and exited the entire colosseum, since the fights were over for the day. Devi, Estella and Ivia were waiting next to Master. They congratulated me on my wins, since I did win most of my fights. I was slightly curious how many, Master expected me to win in the entire tournament but didn’t ask since it wasn’t important. I planned to talk with her about my fights after the last four were done tomorrow.
