45th of Season of Air, 59th year of the 32nd cycle

  Newt’s taunt worked. The wielder of the slender sword, probably a woman by the shape of her body, lashed out. Newt thrust his glaive towards the center of her chest, but she sidestepped. With a twist of his wrist, Newt turned the blade and slashed towards the charging silhouette while stepping back.

  The woman did not block the blow as Newt had expected. Her body bent at an impossible angle, and the blade swept above her so fast Newt failed to change its direction again. She was inside his reach, her sword stabbing towards his heart.

  He kicked and leaned back. She allowed his kick to land, swiping her sword down, flowing from stab to a slash with ease, but she had made a mistake, she underestimated Newt’s physical strength. Newt’s foot landed first. He hit her abdomen, her shield wetting his foot, and the woman flew towards the ceiling.

  She twisted mid-air, but still slammed against the white bone above their heads. Newt ran for her as she fell, sweeping his glaive to cut her in half, but a black tendril struck his spear. She tugged at his spear, hardly moving it, then the flowing black tendril became solid, and Newt’s opponent used it the spring away from him.

  Newt smiled. His opponent used their spiritual energy twice, while he used no techniques at all. I will drain her slowly, make her use up all her spiritual energy and then capitalize on physical advantage.

  Newt stayed true to his plan, fighting conservatively, while he failed the attack, but drew the opponent into his pace.

  ***

  Maelstrom was furious. She had less than a tenth of her spiritual energy remaining. Her group eliminated the Golden Pagoda in the previous battle, and were exhausted.

  Is there a lower floor? She wondered as she faced the black spearman. I should conserve strength if there is, but I should go all out if there isn’t.

  She regarded the spearman, who just stood there, waiting for her to make a move. His technique was poor. He was a long way away from mastering his weapon, but he was strong, and good enough to use his body to make up for the lack of skill. Probably less than a year of dedicated training.

  The problem was he was rated black. Like her, like all the other thirty-year-olds from the grand sects, like Golden Pagoda’s Granite the Bonebreaker, whom she defeated after exhausting herself.

  “Pumpkin, is that you?” she muttered, but her opponent remained silent. The realm prevented any form of communication between teams to prevent cheating and bribery.

  The black silhouette had the same general body-shape. Frail, stick-like arms, a messy bun, and a thin face. But if her opponent really was Pumpkin, his looks deceived her to the extreme. He hit like a stegosaurus.

  “Come on, you have double fire and earth affinities, show me some sign of your skills, Pumpkin.” She lunged at him again, thinking how she would have defeated him in five moves, if only she had access to her full reservoir of energy.

  The silhouette jerked back, signaling the diagonal sweep. He was fast, faster than Maelstrom, she had to give him that much credit, but revealing his attacks the way he did removed the speed advantage. As for physical strength, Maelstrom could not and did not try to contend after her first attempt.

  She was freakishly strong, enhanced by pills and tonics she had started drinking ever since she started cultivating some twenty years ago, and yet she was like a child before him.

  “Your tactic is obvious, Pumpkin,” she said, “you want to exhaust me and finish me off in a purely physical contest. Are you doing this because your reserve is full or empty? How many grand sects have you fought so far? Two? Or are we the first? No, no, you don’t have to speak. I’m guessing I’m your first? Right?”

  Maelstrom guessed her opponent would watch the recording of the battle, and, assuming she really was fighting Pumpkin, she wanted him embarrassed.

  She had a great time last night teasing the young man. She never would have guessed he would receive a black rating.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  How did he do it? With hardly any skill with his weapon, and techniques which are probably just as poor as his weapon skill, yet he still scored black.

  Pumpkin got bored and started attacking. His spear flashed forth, striking like a viper, but Maelstrom blocked and backed away with practiced ease. Suddenly, her vision turned white, a horrible explosion deafened her. She stood there, frozen. Light pressure tapped against her chest, then the world once more had color, and she stood surrounded by her teammates, which had fallen in the previous battles.

  “Senior Apprentice Sister,” Brightflowers said, her voice laden with sorrow. “Are we getting eliminated?”

  Maelstrom shrugged. “It seems there will be one more round for us, possibly more.”

  ***

  Newt made a frustrated snort. In the end, his opponent’s skill forced him to use Flashfire again. Coupled with reinforcing his body with spiritual energy, he had wasted around three percent of his spiritual energy.

  He eliminated the two remaining reds with minor expenditure of spiritual energy, but learned from the experience. Each of the reds outclassed him in weapon skills. With neither side using their techniques, Newt should have dominated, and yet he merely won after lengthy exchanges.

  “Good job, Senior Apprentice Brother!”

  Newt shook his head at Redleaf. “I need to dedicate a year or two to mastering the glaive as soon as I reach the fourth realm. My skills are horrible.”

  He could still see how the black silhouette just flowed around his attacks. The only reason I’m winning is Flashfire and the fact that the third eye doesn’t work.

  The group continued in silence towards the next opponents.

  ***

  “Dandelion, the champion of the elimination rounds is doing remarkably well, but what will he do about the Diamond Talisman, the grand sect focused on production of talismans, spell formations, and enchanted weapons?” Hardy’s voice still irked Woodhopper.

  The main broadcast had changed focus in the middle of Newt’s fight with Maelstrom. She monitored Newt’s battle with spiritual perception while nine youths entered the battle-room within which Dandelion awaited.

  A full group this late in the tournament was impossible, but Diamond Talisman’s disciples held themselves remarkably. Even the weakest members punched above their weight, relying on spell formations, which only needed powering against exceptional or skilled opponents.

  A youth walked towards the center, where Dandelion paced, to prove he was not meditating. Woodhopper had to admit, the man’s skill and staying power were impressive. He defeated a pair of enemies, black rated disciples more often than not, in two to three exchanges.

  Maelstrom on a different broadcast called Newt pumpkin, and it annoyed Woodhopper to no end. Everyone in the tavern laughed at him, but they stopped laughing when he pierced her heart.

  Good riddance.

  The voice of the venerable who created the challenge called for a start and Dandelion charged forth. When fighting a spell formation scribe, everyone knew the first priority was to take them out as soon as possible, if they set up a spell formation, the battle was as good as over.

  The simple contest of speed is how the others culled the Diamond Talisman’s numbers. Not Dandelion.

  The Diamond Talisman disciple infused the spell formation flags with spiritual energy, and threw them, guiding them to make a spell formation. Dandelion changed direction. In a sudden burst of fire, he stood before a flag flying through the air. He swept his staff, shattering the enchanted wood.

  The other flags landed in place and did nothing.

  “What a counter!” Sleek roared over the broadcast as half the tavern applauded. “How skilled do you have to be to do something like that?”

  Very. Woodhopper considered the implications. Dandelion knew which spell formation his opponents would use and where they would place the flags all based on the initial throw. The amount of information he needed to process was immense, the clues almost nonexistent.

  “I don’t know who could do this? He has to be a grandmaster spell formation master—” Hardy stammered. “Wait, we just got confirmation from the spell formation scribes’ guild that Dandelion is a grandmaster, an honorary exalt, in fact, since his realm is too low for the real title.”

  Hardy went silent, and Sleek picked up where he stopped.

  “And Softline Diamond’s moment of stunned silence cost him the victory.” The man said as Dandelion smashed Softline’s head with his staff.

  The other disciples stared in confusion, and Sleek spoke jokingly, trying to ease the awkward moment. “If Dandelion is a member of any other guilds, let us know, I bet a lot of people are interested in—”

  “He’s an honorary exalt of the blacksmiths’ guild.” Hardy gulped, then started laughing. “Every guild is sending us information that he is an honorary exalt, which is complete nonsense, the man is not even two hundred years old, one hundred and seventy-seven based on his registration information. Look, the herbalists even sent a message claiming he is a full exalt and an honorary saint in their association, since realm doesn’t matter as much for herbalists. Maybe they all just accepted him after seeing his performance—”

  Hardy’s voice was suddenly cut silent, replaced by a formal, mellow voice.

  “The Fleeting Dream Association deeply apologies to all the guilds for our former member’s careless remarks. Sleek Jade will continue the broadcast alone until his new partner arrives. If you don’t mind, Sleek, the next duel is about to start.”

  The man’s threat was undisguised, and the whole tavern would have laughed, if not for the revelation of Dandelion’s associations and titles.