49th of Season of Air, 59th year of the 32nd cycle

  Whenever a lull happened, Sleek came to the game of microraptor and mouse played by the Explorer’s Gate’s Newstar Blazing Salamander and the Shadow Valley’s Willow Blackeye. Fairly early on, the game had changed into microraptor and ankylosaurus, since the assassin-in-training could not breach the explorer’s defenses, then the game devolved further into a two-person comedy act for which Sleek failed to find natural counterparts.

  “And Willow’s bolt strikes yet another of Newstar’s opponents with surgical precision as he dodges her missile.” Sleek chuckled. “You’d think she would learn her lesson after the first three enemies she disrupted on Newstar’s behalf.”

  “She should ask for a commission,” Northstar muttered to herself, covering the voice-transmission spell formation to keep her words private, and Sleek loved the comment.

  “Willow should try to negotiate a percent-based fee.” He changed the wording to avoid possible idea infringement complaints filed to the disciplinary elders. “Maybe a flat twenty-five percent of each kill. Just look at her scowl, is that really the face an assassin-to-be should wear publicly?”

  Sleek stopped poking fun at the young woman. The audience got their laughs, and he still had some leeway before an elder came to issue a warning for improper behavior.

  But the assassin seemed livid as Newstar finished off the opponent, seemingly without a care in the world. She was bound for a scolding by her master after showing such gastonia-like stubbornness, but that was her problem, not Sleek’s.

  “Ooh! Thunder Titans’ Hardstone Thunder Titan just walked into a trap by Diamond Talisman’s Drake Softcloud. Will the young master break his way out of the spell formation?”

  ***

  Newt was about to collect another easy cluster of flags, this one worth thirty-seven points, when he stopped. He already had two hundred and forty-eight points. Thirty-seven were no small amount, but he just wanted to leave.

  “Hey, whoever you are,” he addressed the forest in general. “You can come pick these up if you promise to leave me alone. You’ve been chasing me for over an hour already, you can’t have more than twenty points. One simple decision, and you can cut your losses and triple or quadruple your point total.”

  Newt waited, and no answer came. He stepped away from the flags, still nothing.

  Fine! Be stubborn! Newt picked them up, already aware of what the assassin was thinking. If they, no, she, only a woman could be so stubborn. If she stuck to him until the end and eliminated him then, she would win the event.

  Why doesn’t anyone find her flag already?

  Newt raised his hands, hoping the heavens had heard his wish, but he was still in the jungle, and a bolt whistled for his heart. With an already practiced ease, he jumped and rolled.

  “I heart you too!” With a snort, Newt continued his walk around the jungle.

  His spiritual energy was around half-full. And after realizing he could use the assassin like an ultimate hidden weapon, Newt minimized energy use by focusing on defense and enduring attacks until his stalker found an opening and loosed a bolt into the melee, trying to eliminate Newt, but unerringly wounding and confusing his opponents instead.

  A rustle and a scream cut short came from behind Newt. He turned around, facing a fourth realm deinonychus, its flag count at fifty-nine. The beast and Newt locked gazes for a split instant, and at the same time lunged at each other.

  The creature pounced with its hind legs, flashing its sickle-like claw at Newt’s torso. Without ceremony, Newt speared its heart, and the monster vanished just before bodily slamming into Newt.

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  He collected the flags and raised his hands, vanishing from the jungle with three hundred and forty-four points.

  Newt barely materialized on the bone square when his teammates picked him up and threw him into the air. He guessed he had done good.

  “We have three hundred and fifty-six points, seventy-one per person.” Flare’s voice reached his ear, and Newt felt kind of grateful the assassin pushed him into staying longer than he had wanted.

  “There’s only twelve hundred points left in play, and only seventeen disciples from the top seven sects.” Newt immediately spotted Maelstrom, carrying one hundred and seventy-two points’ worth of flags.

  Newt also spotted six projections with fourth realm spirit beasts roaming the jungle.

  “What are the point totals?”

  “I don’t know, Senior Apprentice Brother, but I don’t think anyone’s even close to us.”

  Newt smiled, his tense stance mellowing. Winning first place would net him over thirty-five hundred fourth realm spirit stones from betting on Explorer’s Gate’s victory. The thought seemed absurd; a single tournament’s winnings would eclipse his clan’s worth.

  “And the Tidebreaker Abyss’s Young Mistress runs into the Sword Abode’s Feather Darkheaven…”

  Newt tuned out Sleek’s drone and focused on the fight. Maelstrom grinned like a tyrannosaurus, while Feather remained calm and aloof. He saluted, and she returned the gesture before they lunged at each other.

  Maelstrom was slower, her movements conservative and reserved as the overwhelmingly quick air cultivator threw attack after attack. Maelstrom’s defense devoured the force, building up like a tidal wave, and Newt saw how the battle would unfold if she endured the initial onslaught.

  Just as he had guessed, Maelstrom’s attack came crashing. Like a tsunami, she surged forth, and in one sweep made Feather vanish. It was obviously a technique of some sort, a method with which she absorbed a portion of each incoming attack’s momentum before unleashing it all at once.

  The young woman smiled, her face much gentler in her happiness, and even somewhat attractive. The numbers on her flag surged, and she raised her hands into the air with two hundred and sixty-three points won in total.

  Only eleven disciples remained, but all six spirit beasts were still in play, with two of them on a collision course, which would result in a carnage. The beasts had grown frenzied. They must have been starved, yet any prey they encounter vanishes before they can take a bite.

  Newt did quick math, there were some eight hundred and fifty points in play, two hundred of which in the claws of the dinosaurs, and six hundred and fifty split unequally amongst the cultivators.

  “I think we have won the round.”

  “Diamond Talisman should be second, Sword Abode third, Tidebreaker Abyss fourth, assuming the second and third place don’t lose a massive amount of points.” Surprisingly, the usually quiet Twochains commented on the situation, impressing Newt.

  “How many sects’ points have you been tracking?”

  “The grand sects, mostly. Your friend Dandelion was unlucky, he got himself surrounded by a trio from Fiery Glory and got himself eliminated. He should have quit, but even if he had, he wouldn’t have won first place with how many points you earned.”

  While Twochains spoke, a spinosaurus and ankylosaurus exchanged violent blows in which the earth-attributed living fortress decimated the water-attributed carnivore.

  Time passed and the number of humans dwindled further, reaching six half an hour later, with nobody surrendering, despite each of them having over a hundred points total. The exciting battles revealed Newt’s shortcomings as well as advantages. The humans struggled against the spirit beasts one realm above them. A Sword Abode’s disciple fled the ankylosaurus, but others were less lucky in their encounters.

  Newt could fight the spirit beasts, relying on brute strength, but against humans such an approach did not work nearly as well. Granite Crust was the only reason he had survived encounters with significantly more skilled opponents.

  Time. Newt cursed the resource he lacked once more, recalling how Elder Woodhopper had described it as the one thing crushing all cultivators without mercy. Even though less than two years had passed since her speech, Newt could feel it hitting home. If he wanted to have a well cultivated, high realm, polished techniques, and weapon skills, he would have to sacrifice all else.

  Newt scanned the screens, unfortunately, all the remaining combatants used swords, and there was little he could learn from their fights. He wanted to go say hi to the people he still knew, but groups were supposed to keep to themselves until the event ended.

  Time ticked away, and everyone save for the three remaining Diamond Talisman’s disciples surrendered. The three remaining participants were as fun to watch as grass growing. They hid themselves in a field of traps, waiting for a victim to enter their web, but the only one still roaming the area was the ankylosaurus, which was impervious to the spell formations the grand sect’s disciples had scribed.

  Uneventful hours passed, and Newt somewhat regretted leaving the challenge early, but in truth knew that there was little he could do to defeat the already armed and ready spell formations. He might have even lost, had he entered a trap unprepared. He took a mental note of it, not to wander around aimlessly in the final event, lest he walk into certain defeat.

  Finally, the twelve hours passed.

  “The winner of the third round for third-realmers! Explorer’s Gate! Second place Diamond Talisman, third place Sword Abode…”