Shen made her way to the Fire district of the inner city, where she signed up for the tournament. Unlike last time, where she was stronger than most of the other outer disciples, she had barely made it into the early Foundation. The only thing that she thought might help her out is the fact that her foundation was much more solid than the other inner disciples, as most of them hadn’t tried to be the best they could be before advancing to inner disciple. On the other hand, they would all have superior combat experience, as most inner disciples spent their time going on missions. She wasn’t sure if her better foundation would be strong enough to deal with their superior skills, but wanted to at least try her best.
She stood in line for a few minutes before signing up. The rules for this tournament were slightly different than the last. As everyone here was practiced in combat, they allowed you to use all of your equipment. You weren’t allowed to send attacks outside the combat field, which had a formation on it which put a barrier around it to protect those outside, and weren’t allowed to kill your opponent, but other than that almost all attacks were allowed.
Shen went over to the waiting area and sat down on the ground before taking out the book she had bought. It discussed the various things that could be done with the divine sense, like sending your other techniques through it, though didn’t actually contain any new techniques. Shen sent her divine sense around to a few of the other people in the area, often bumping into their divine senses as well. Many of them spread it in an area around them so that they could extend their normal senses, after all, which made bumping into other divine senses inevitable.
An hour later the first of the fighters were called onto the stage. Today 117 fighters had signed up, so the 11 highest ranked from the previous year had been allowed to skip the qualifying round. None of them had managed to break through to Nascent in the last year, though several had went from Late Foundation to Peak Foundation during that time. The fact that only around one in a thousand people with Foundation potential also had Nascent potential meant that advancement to Nascent was quite rare, even for a sect with tens of thousands of members.
As Shen hadn’t fought in last year’s Inner Sect tournament she was ranked at the bottom, so she had to face another disciple in the ring. He was a sixteen year old boy that was also in the Early Foundation realm, but had been taking missions since he advanced a year ago, just before the tournament. His loss in the first round of last year’s tournament put him at the bottom of the rankings as well. He seemed to favor Metal, as when the field master signaled the start of the battle he immediately threw two knives coated in Metal energy. She could have thrown up a fire shield to block them, as Fire destroys Metal, but the blade itself would likely make it through the barrier, so instead she grabbed a chakram from her waist and used it to parry them.
The blades he used seemed familiar, and when he waved his hand to call them back she realized that it was a pair she had created around a month ago from Blood Iron. They shouldn’t have more than a simple recall formation, derived from the Accurate Shot formation, as well as the ability to coat their edges in an element, in this case Metal. That type of weapon had been mass produced so that she could practice. They weren’t the best weapons available in the sect, but were far from the worst.
She threw the chakram in her hand at him, forcing him to block it with his newly returned blades, then charged him, using the Explosive Steps technique she had learned but rarely used to boost herself forward on a series of explosions. Just as she reached him he managed to throw her first weapon to the side, having it push into his block for the last several seconds at Shen’s command. He moved to swing at her but she knelt and slid the last two meters, bringing a fire coated fist up into his stomach.
He dropped his blades and grabbed his stomach before collapsing on the ground. “Winner, Shen.” the field master announced. It seemed that the boy had spent all of his time fighting spirit beasts and beasts instead of bandits. While beasts were good at forceful attacks, few knew how to properly exploit an opponent’s weakness that way humans could. That, combined with her use of Body Cultivation to enhance her muscles meant that she was able to do enough damage to take him out of the fight by exploiting a single gap in his defenses.
Shen cleared the field and returned to her book, relying on her bracelet to recharge her chi. The book suggested that you could create Bolt type attacks anywhere the divine sense touched, so Shen decided to test that in the next round. After all, it shouldn’t be that difficult of a fight, as they had you fight someone similar to you in the rankings.
The next opponent was a woman who favored fire, just like Shen. When the match started she opened by sending several fireballs at Shen. Shen threw up a Water barrier and saw the attacks sizzle out. The woman seemed surprised at this, likely because Shen had only used Fire in the previous battle. In actuality, Shen wasn’t that good at using most elements outside of fire, but had learned to do so in order to make items with such effects. Creating a barrier from elemental energy was easy enough that she could manage, though.
The woman used Explosive Steps to get closer while moving a bit sideways to try and get around the barrier. It wasn’t a bad strategy, Shen had to admit. If she could get close enough even a single Explosive Step might take her far enough to the side that she could send an attack beside the shield, but if Shen wasn’t good at moving barriers she might not even need to get close to bypass it.
The woman continued to move to Shen’s right while throwing Fire bolts to test the barrier, but Shen knew that once the barrier was far enough to the right the woman would jump to her right, leaving the barrier in completely the wrong position. It worked well against lower ranked spirit beasts who couldn’t see through the ploy, but wasn’t that good against humans that could unless they weren’t that intelligent. Shen had two ways to deal with this. She could continue to play defense and simply create a second barrier in the way when the woman shifted. Or she could let the attack through, relying on her armor to block the attack, and counterattack.
Shen chose the second. The woman shifted her weight to jump left and Shen readied an Earth bolt to fly at the woman when she arrived. It would absorb the Fire chi in the woman’s ready Fire Ball and become much stronger before hitting her. The woman jumped and Shen threw the bolt, but instead of throwing her own Fireball at Shen, the woman shifted her weight and jumped upwards, using Explosive Jump to send herself half a dozen heights in the air. Shen hadn’t thought of such a possibility, and was hit with a Fire Ball, which knocked her off her feet and caused her to lose concentration on her barrier, which quickly dissipated.
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The woman charged her, drawing a dagger, and Shen threw a chakram as she stood up. The woman parried it and swung at Shen who hadn’t quite stood yet, but Shen brought up an arm to block the attack, relying on the Formation barrier of the armor to block the swing. The woman simply drew another dagger and swung it with her other hand, which Shen had to block with her other arm.
Shen knew that if she remained on defense this woman would be able to beat her. Luckily Shen hadn’t lost her concentration on the Chakram, and ordered it to return. The woman was in between Shen and her weapon, however, so the weapon slammed into the woman’s back. There was a flash as a barrier around the woman collapsed, and the Chakram fell to the ground. The woman was probably using one of Shen’s barrier rings for a bit of extra protection, and the chakram hitting her wouldn’t have caused enough damage to do more than break such a barrier.
Shen knew that the ring’s barrier would reestablish itself within seconds, though weakly, so while the woman was distracted and taking a bit of pressure off of her arms Shen crouched and kicked at the woman’s legs. This sent the woman onto her back at which point Shen forward rolled behind her and put her in a sleeper hold. The woman used her dagger to stab at Shen’s arm, but when the barrier blocked it she started aiming for Shen’s unprotected face. Shen was forced to move her head to the side several times before the woman started getting weak enough that she couldn’t continue and soon passed out.
“Winner, Shen.” the field master called out, and Shen released the unconscious woman. If the woman had been mortal that move would have taken her out instantly, but cultivators could hold on for a lot longer. Still, the woman wouldn’t face any serious problems from the attack, just a headache, especially considering her own accelerated healing rate as a result of cultivation. For a mortal it would be a much more dangerous attack.
Shen left the stage. She hadn’t gotten to use her Divine Sense to remotely attack the woman in that match, so she would have to try again in the next round.
Around twenty minutes passed before the thirty two remaining people were told that they would soon begin the proper tournament.
Shen gathered on the stage with the other thirty one inner sect members. She was sure that she had been lucky to get this far, as she was among the weakest in terms of realm. She looked around at the other inner sect disciples. She was the youngest one there, as she wasn’t quite fifteen yet, but there were three others that looked to be only slightly older than her. The first two were related to elders within the sect, a daughter and grandson, and so likely had been given better resources. It was likely that only Shen’s inventions had allowed her to reach Foundation at a younger age than them.
The last person, however, was someone she knew. Danka. She hadn’t known that he had advanced to Foundation, but saw one of her space rings on his finger. The sect had been handing them out to the elders who wanted one, and last week had started giving them to newly advanced inner sect disciples. That meant that he had advanced in the last week, and managed to keep his level hidden from her, likely by using Restrict any time he was near her, like at meals. She sent her divine sense out to touch him and saw that he was at Initial Foundation realm, with less chi than her, about half as much.
An elder was giving a speech, which she knew had nothing to do with the tournament, so she wasn’t paying attention. Instead she was sending her divine sense out into the crowd in order to practice. All but a few of them were Foundation, with all but three of the remaining ones being elders in the Nascent realm. The three that were left all sat with an Elder. Master Xing wouldn’t be attending, so the two elders who brought family with them were the most powerful one there.
Well, there might be an exception to that rule. One of the Foundation people she sent her divine sense into was Peak Foundation, judging by his chi pressure, but seemed to have a chi reserve five times as great as hers. At first she assumed that he had simply trained his base more than her and perhaps had the bonus of being part spirit beast. After all, he only needed a chi multiplier roughly 130% larger than her’s to have reserves that size. Then she touched his dantian and noticed that it was linked to something else inside of him. It felt much like a Beast Core, which reinforced her idea that he must be at least part spirit beast, but that didn’t quite seem to fit.
First, the core didn’t have an element. Beast cores almost always had an elemental affinity related to the type of beast. This was even true for Dragon Cores, which were similar to beast cores but not identical. When she had sensed Sho’s chi she had found a Dragon Core which put out Water chi. This wasn’t what the man had, however, which meant that he likely wasn’t a Dragon in disguise.
The second was something that she had never seen before. Beast Cores formed upon the death of a spirit beast. She had once asked Master Chen where they came from and he explained that the formation of a beast core was a survival mechanism. When a spirit beast started to die it instinctively drew all of the life force in its body, what some called True Chi, into its dantian. This would help preserve its memories and experience. If it survived, that true chi could then be reabsorbed by the body, or if the beast died it could be eaten by a member of its race, usually a close relative, as they were less likely to die or be injured by doing so. This would pass on much of its knowledge to its pack, insuring that they didn’t completely lose its knowledge.
When the Life Force mixed with the chi left in the dantian it would start to crystallize. If it had long enough to do so before the beast died, it would turn solid enough to remain behind after death. This was a beast core, and because it contained the life essence of a creature with a strong elemental affinity it would continue to have that elemental affinity, as well as what chi was left in the dantian and some of the memories of the beast. If the man had managed to do that while still alive it would have required a rare technique at best, though she didn’t think that is what he did, just something similar.
As she watched the man she felt something shift inside of him. His own divine sense entered his body and she quickly pulled hers out of him. That’s when she opened her eyes and noticed that the other disciples had started to leave the stage. She would have to investigate the strange disciple later. She saw Danka near the stairs and ran over to where he was.
“Hey, Danka. I didn’t know you had advanced.” she said to him.
“Uh, yeah, I wanted it to be a surprise.” he said, a bit embarrassed. “I asked Commander Kril for help advancing and he’s been training me for the last month. I managed to succeed three nights ago, but used a stealth technique to keep you from knowing.”
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Fei Hua forced himself to slow his breathing, entering an almost meditative state to do so. One of the contestants in the field, the youngest one there, had used her divine sense on him, and he had sensed it. Normally he wouldn’t react to that. While it was considered rude by most people to enter another person’s body with your divine sense, many people, especially those in security positions, ignored that social issue. What had caused him to react this time was that she touched his core.
This had happened before, of course, but he always had a ready excuse. After all, his shape shifting ability was among the best his people had to offer, so if anyone pushed the issue he would simply tell them he was half dragon. If they wanted proof he could just partially shift while claiming to be ‘returning to normal’. If they asked about the fact that he didn’t have an elemental affinity, that was because he was half human and hadn’t inherited his mother’s element, which would lead to an acted out sob story about being kicked out of his Earth dragon village at a young age and adopted by a poor trader. The discomfort this caused was enough to make everyone stop asking questions.
Something about the way she had felt his core, however, told him that that excuse wouldn’t work. She had spent too long with it to be fooled by such a story. Anyone who had encountered real Dragon cores would be able to tell the difference between his Core and one from a Dragon, and with a Dragon village so close to this sect it was likely that the girl had encountered a real Dragon Core before. This was even more likely, given that he had seen her talking to a disguised Dragon last night at one of the town’s restaurants. He could hope that she didn’t know the true identity of her friend, but that was unlikely in his opinion.
He briefly considered leaving before the tournament, but decided against it. He knew when he sneaked into the Inner city, pretending to be a disciple using stolen robes and ring, that he would face risk. But he wouldn’t abandoned his mission this easily. His people needed information on the strength of the people of this sect, and Foundation ranked members were always the main fighting force. He would just need to be careful after this. If he was caught here he could just claim that he had won a bet to get the items and sneaked in for the entertainment. Plenty of people had tried to do the same, as the Inner City tournament was always better than the Outer City tournament.
