When the sect master finished his speech one of the referees walked up to all of us contestants and started to explain the rules to us while the other referees used techniques to create ten platforms out of the floor of the arena.

 

There were quite a few rules, but they all boiled down to this. There are ten platforms where the contestants will battle it out until one person is left standing, which creates the top ten. Afterward, the top ten will battle it out by challenging each other to create a ranking. From there, anyone who wants to change their ranking may choose to fight one of the top ten for their spot. During the fights, you are not allowed to intentionally permanently disable your opponent. You are also not allowed to aim for their life, and if the referees tell you to stop, you must stop. If you break any of those rules, you are subject to punishment by the sect.

 

After his explanation, I saw some people start walking toward a platform when the man that was antagonizing me earlier went to start talking again. However, he never got the chance, as the elder called my name and told me to follow him to my assigned platform.

 

The referee's expression was not the greatest when he looked at me, but he still maintained a veil of cordiality as I followed him to my platform.

 

Arriving at our destination, I was not allowed to step onto the stage as the match had not started yet. Since that was the case, I decided I would look around at the people around the stage to see who my opponents were.

 

As I was scanning through them I did not see anything of note until I stopped at one of the people towards the end of the group. It was there that I saw a man I barely recognized. He was the one that tried to touch my tail in the mission hall.

 

I wanted to burn him for a moment before I remembered that Lou Xia had already stabbed him for that. Calming down slightly at that memory, I then heard the referee ask all of us to get on the stage. This was the moment of truth, and I needed to make sure to find a good location.

 

Some people had already taken the four corners, and some were trying to find positions around the middle, so I chose a spot on one of the edges. It was not like we needed to have a specific position on the platform, but certain spots would give people a better chance of winning.

 

Once everyone found their spot and stopped moving, the referee called a start to this battle royal-like match. And it was that very action that sparked chaos.

 

All around me, I started to hear people shouting and saw the drawing of weapons, with three of the people near me looking in my direction.

 

Knowing that I did not have much time, I drew my sword from its sheath and got into a guardian stance. After all, they wanted to attack me, so why not let them come?

 

They did not disappoint either, as the ones on either side of me rushed with weapons ready to strike. The third was starting to make strange movements with their staff. That did not matter to me, though, as the other two were about to strike. 

 

Since they were both striking me at the same time, I chose to use the two idiots to my advantage and darted to the side, grabbing one of them before throwing him into the place I once was, effectively placing him in the spot to be struck by the other person. And strike they did as the blow caused the man I threw to be disqualified and thrown out of the arena by a burst of Qi.

 

With one person down, I went to strike down the other person in range when I felt a spike of spiritual energy to my left. Jumping and grabbing onto the other person's shoulders while he was still stunned, I flipped over him and watched as a spectral serpent made of Qi charged through my previous location.

 

Landing on the ground once more, I struck out with my sword, opening a gash on the man's back, causing him to be sent out of the arena. From there I turned to the woman that sent the serpent after me and saw that she was now doing another strange set of movements. I was not going to let her finish this time, however, and took advantage of one of the many openings that she gave to rush toward her.

 

By this point, I saw her eyes go wide, but she continued the movements as I sped up and thrust my sword at her side. My strike hit true, and my sword went into her side as I saw a spectral phantom begin to take shape on the staff. The phantom stayed there for a moment before it, along with the woman's arm, seemed to explode.

 

That shocked me, along with most of the participants on my platform, before she and the exploded pieces of her arm were taken off the stage and handed over to a couple of elders.

 

I honestly felt sorry for the woman as this was a competition, and I did not know that interrupting her would have such consequences. Regardless, this reminded me that techniques exist, and I took this quick breather to try and enter the mental state where I would be able to see the Qi around me much better.

 

It was not hard, and half a second later, I saw the floating specks of light around me, as well as what looked to be concentrated streams of the same lights in other people. This was also about the time that everyone decided that the match was back on and started fighting each other again.

 

Someone then charged at me once more, shocking me out of my focus and causing the lights to go away.

 

This annoyed me, and I dodged their attack while trying to bring that sight back. It was, of course, not that simple, and I also had to do that while dodging my opponent's attacks. Thankfully, they were not as skilled as Mom, so it was more of a cakewalk than I thought it was going to be, but it still took a few more minutes before I saw those lights again. 

 

By this point, I had already dealt with my previous enemy and was now fighting a new one. As I was fighting, I noticed that the lights were flickering initially, but as I fixed my mistakes, they gradually stopped. Soon, I finished with my seventh opponent in this match and started to notice that something was off.

 

There were only around a hundred and fifty contestants for this competition, and with ten platforms, that meant around fifteen people per platform. Yet I had just finished off seven of them, and there were still around ten others fighting here. It was almost like they were putting on a show so they could all fight me for some reason.

 

Since that was the case and I now had an entire section of the field to myself with no one behind me, I started to use my Qi to form a segmented ball of wood behind me rapidly.

 

The square segments made it kind of look like a pineapple as it finished forming. I then filled most of it with highly compressed water that had a highly concentrated ball of heat in the middle, separated by a small barrier of air. 

 

It was when I finished this that two of the people fighting noticed me alone and decided to confirm my suspicions of something being wrong by breaking apart to come attack me. This was not the right move, though, as in response, I threw the wooden ball at them while hitting the deck.

 

That last part proved to be the smart thing to do as one of the idiots thought it would be a good idea to slash at the small wooden ball packed full of so much Qi that one of them could have already broken through to the foundation establishment stage.

 

The resulting explosion almost threw me off the stage, but it did not cause me any serious harm besides the ringing in my ears. I then got up from the ground and looked around me to see if anyone was left.

 

That was unsurprisingly not the case, as they were all rolling on the ground with various injuries, and the man who cut the grenade had burns all over him that clearly came from steam.

 

Everyone seemed to have stopped what they were doing after that and were looking in my direction. I was unsure why, as many different techniques were going off at once, and the constant ringing in my ears was annoying, but everyone was focusing on me for some reason.

 

It was then that someone grabbed me by the collar of my robe and started screaming in my face. I did not hear anything of what he was saying, and I was confused about why he did this until he threw me to the ground and pulled a sword out of nowhere. That was when a beam of silver light pierced his arm, and a familiar tang dao sword appeared lodged in the ground behind him.

 

Mom then floated down from the sky in front of me, and the sword flew from the ground into her hand. She then said something before walking towards the referee.

 

I then noticed some movement from the corner of my eye and saw someone approaching me, trying to touch my ears. This immediately sent me into high alert as I pulled my rifle from my inventory, but before I could do anything, they changed the place their hand was going for and touched my shoulder instead. I then felt a string of power flow from their hand into my body and towards my ears.

 

Soon, my hearing came back and the world stopped ringing, allowing me to hear the slight growl I was making. The person then explained that they were merely trying to heal my ears before we both heard what sounded like the squealing of a dying pig.

 

Turning to look at the source, I saw the referee lying with his back on the ground and a sword blade resting on his neck. Mom, who was holding the sword to his neck, then asked in an emotionless voice, “Am I understood?”

 

The man went to nod his head when he remembered a blade was currently on his throat, so he instead said, “Y-Yes, M-ma’am.”

 

Mom did not respond to that. Instead, she turned towards me and asked, in her normal tone of voice, “Are you alright?”

 

I nodded in response before she then asked me, “What was that you just used? Because I don’t remember giving you something like that or you working with explosives.”

 

With that question, I finally understood what was wrong as one of the weapons they probably checked for was something devastating like what I had just made. I still quickly explained, “Well, I used wood Qi to create a hardwood fragmentation shell by having the Qi create the cellular structure of oak. I then filled the inside with water Qi compressed in such a way that there was a lot of pressurized water, and the Qi that was not used would constantly create more water until it ran out. I then used Fire Qi to create a highly concentrated core of heat in the middle and separated the heat core from the water using a small barrier made of air.

 

This was all held together in a fragile balance that would be broken if the outer shell made any sort of violent contact with anything. A good example of violent contact would be someone hitting it with a sword.”

 

I only realized after I finished explaining that my words were being broadcast to everyone in the arena.

 

Mom then asked me, “How much Qi did you use to make that?”

 

I now understood that Mom was trying to explain my innocence, so I said truthfully, “About as much as it would take for someone to advance to foundation establishment.”

 

That caused another minute of silence, which ended when Mom asked me, “Why did you use that much Qi?”

 

I did not have any hard proof for this part, but I still stated, ”Because I was almost certain that everyone on my platform was merely putting on a show for everyone else while trying to exhaust and eliminate me from the competition, so I decided to end this early by taking them all out at once.”

 

Silence returned to the arena for a moment after I said that, only to be broken by Mom once more when she said, “That is quite the serious accusation. We will be sure to investigate whether that is the truth or not. However, since you did not manage to sneak in a banned weapon and made it yourself, what you just did could be classified as a combat technique or even a spell, so you will not be removed from the competition. And since you are the only one left standing on your platform, you will also be given one of the top ten spots.”

 

Mom then looked around at everyone still not moving, and said, “That means the competition should resume now.”

 

She then walked towards me and put her hand on my shoulder while saying, “Please don’t do that in a competition again.” After that, she flew up into the air and went back to the balcony where the sect master was.

 

I was then instructed by one of the elders to return to the waiting area for contestants while some others dealt with the injured on my platform. Doing just that while thanking the elder, I sat down at the side and waited for the others to finish. This wait lasted for about ten more minutes before the victor of the rest of the platforms was decided.

 

With that, there was a small ten-minute break before the next round started. This round would be a challenge round where each of us would have a starting opponent chosen for us before we would then be allowed to be challenged by others in the top ten or challenge others ourselves.

 

My starting opponent was also someone I knew and would somewhat enjoy fighting with, as it meant that I would be getting some payback. I was also the first to go up on stage this round. So when the ten minutes ended, I walked up to the central platform, which was now the only one remaining, and looked at Mo Xia standing across from me.

 

He did not look like he was having a good day, but I did not care that much as I was not going to be that nice to him either.

 

The Referee then called the start of the match, and I used about half of my over twelve hundred points of agility to dart toward him in what must have been a blur of motion. In no time at all, I arrived in front of him as I watched his eyes grow wide before I grabbed his head and slammed him on the ground hard. It was not enough to cause him any major injury, but he most likely had some form of concussion at this point. I then made sure to deliver a solid punch to his gut while taking care to avoid his dantian. This made his body curve around the punch for a second before the referee called an end to the fight and had one of the medical staff check Mo before the competition continued.

 

The elders in charge of medical did not find much except for the concussion that they quickly dealt with, so I was ruled as not having gone overboard, and I was now allowed to be challenged.

 

The next challenger I had was a woman who had an icy demeanor and held a spear in her hand. She did not seem to hold any hostility towards me, so I calmly drew my sword from my waist and waited for the match to start.

 

I was not waiting too long, and as soon as the referee gave the signal, the woman struck out at lightning speed. It was not faster than I could move by any means, but it was definitely faster than I was expecting. I still blocked the strike and stepped forward to slash at her when she blocked my strike in turn. This pattern then started to repeat as we both kept exchanging strikes. The entire time this was happening, I was keeping an eye on the energy movements in her body while making sure to fix the errors in my sword work that I was not able to iron out previously due to not having good enough opponents. I also noticed that the woman was improving in her spearmanship as we fought. It was not the same degree as I was improving, but it was still more than enough to be called a genius in almost every other circle.

 

This fight went on for about twenty minutes before the woman stepped back from our engagement and forfeited, saying, “I won’t be able to beat you through skill in this match. Nor will I be able to beat you through strength either, so I forfeit and accept my defeat.”

 

It was somewhat sad that the fight ended so quickly as I was getting good experience from it, so I decided to step out and say, “Thanks for the sparring match, and if you ever want to have another one, you are welcome to come visit me any time.”

 

That seemed to surprise her for a moment before I saw a flash of a self-deprecating smile that was quickly wiped off her face. With that, she stepped off the stage and returned to her seat.

 

I then looked at the other members of the top ten only to see that none of them seemed to have the intention to fight me. Or at least that is what I thought until that same antagonistic man from earlier walked onto the stage and said, “So the lowly fox thinks she has a chance. Well then, let this young master show you your rightful place.”

 

That ticked me off. It really ticked me off. I wanted to do a lot of things to him, but I held myself back as this was a competition, and I did not want to get disqualified. That did not stop me from humiliating him though.

 

The man then drew his sword, and the referee then called the start of the match. The man did not wait for me to make a move and charged at me with the tip of his sword glowing. I saw that and made sure to set into his attack while leaning slightly to the side, letting it sail past me. This obviously shocked him before the flat of my blade smacked him across his face. He staggered back slightly at that before anger seemed to consume him, and he lashed out at me once more. This only made his attacks even more predictable, and he did not make it out without a few more smacks on the face. The referee then called it as my win and asked the man to step off the stage.

 

The man, however, did not listen to that and bellowed, “Why won't you lowly little fox give way to your betters!” He then swung his sword at me with the intent to kill. That was the final straw that I needed, and I parried his sword to the side before kicking him in the chest with all of my strength. The sickening crunch that came from his chest and the pain on the man's face filled me with a dark sense of satisfaction as he went flying from the stage.

 

The referee then stepped in and said, “Since Disciple Calor attacked Disciple Vale with the intent to kill after the match had already ended, Disciple Vale’s actions will be considered self-defense, and the attacker will be taken to the law enforcement hall for punishment. Now, is there anyone else who would like to challenge Disciple Vale?”

 

None of the other participants seemed to want to challenge me, but I could see the concealed smiles of all the women who were here, both in the arena with me and in the stands.