I decided to use the time until the next fights to practice Earth Strider more, since it had been the greatest asset I had at the moment. I didn’t manage to accomplish much, though I was now able to confidently run at the speed I had against the fire cultivator. Fighting seemed to help me develop faster as it seemed. While I was recovering my Qi, did I think about strategies against my last four opponents. Though I gave the least amount of thought to the winner of the tournament, as I knew that he was way stronger than me currently.

  The first opponent I would fight was the last body cultivator. It was a woman who had fought with a longsword. I had already noticed that weapons were not as widespread as I had first expected, due to the range at which most people fought. She was faster than me, though I couldn’t tell how strong she was, since she had used her sword to win all her fights.

  The opponent after this was a wind cultivator, or that’s what it had looked like to me. It was a bit hard to tell without being able to feel the Qi. She had disqualified most of her opponents, by throwing them off the stage. I guessed that this was rarely seen, due to the fact that it didn’t really showcase the skill of both fighters, which was the point of the event after all. The few she had not been able to throw the stage, she had simply crushed with an onslaught of wind blades, or something of the like.

  After this was only the second place, with the ice girl who also seemed way too strong for me to face at the moment. She was just way superior in terms of power output, technique and control over Qi and the battlefield. I couldn’t really think of any good ideas on how to beat her. And after her was only the winner, who I knew that I stood no chance against. Though I would still try, I at least hoped to land a single blow on him.

  My time for rest ended before I felt even remotely ready, but the fights wouldn’t wait for me. I went into the arena one more time. I actually paid attention to the people who were watching us for the first time. I noticed that a few people were chanting my name, with Devi being the loudest voice. The majority of people were outer disciples cheering for my final four opponents. I then turned my attention onto my first opponent of the day.

  I had some idea of how to fight her, though it mostly boiled down to not getting cut by her sword. We went into the ring and got into our positions. She got ready as she held the sword in her two hands. I had kept my stone armour relatively light this time, with only a few pieces covering my shoulders, hands and part of my neck. I didn’t keep any on my chest, since I hoped that she would just assume that I still had armour there.

  As we waited for the combat to start, did I feel the ground underneath us and began to plan where my first few steps would be. I planned to go as quickly as possible to surprise her, so the planning felt necessary to me.

  Then the starting signal finally came, and I followed the steps I had planned out. She moved slightly to the left, so I adjusted my sprint. She then also began to shoot towards me. She raised her sword for a slash, and I tried to go even faster to stop the sword from properly hitting me. I knew that this was my only chance. I managed to increase my speed to a full on sprint. I saw a slight bit of worry flash on her face as I got closer to her. I was only a single step away from her, when I missed the timing of my support of the earth.

  I stepped on air and lost balance, falling face first towards her. Luckily, I was already too close for her to swing the sword, with any sort of leverage. She used this and dodged to the side. I barely managed to catch myself from falling over completely. I was besides her when I caught myself and could practically feel her chopping down with the sword.

  I pushed myself to the side while straightening out. Because of this, she only managed to make a deep cut in my leg. I could feel her sword scrape along my bone, and as I tried to turn towards her did my leg give up underneath me. I managed to stop myself from falling over again, by forcing my leg to straighten out by encasing it in stone. I saw her sword come towards me again, while I turned.

  I angled my hands and let the sword scrape along the outside of my stone covered hand, pushing outwards to redirect it. The sword missed me entirely, and I forced my leg to push me forward towards her, by moving it with the stone that surrounded it. I landed a clean punch against left arm, but the bone didn’t break like I had hoped. She tried to create distance between us, so I followed her, while also gripping onto her left arm.

  I was about to push it to the side, when her knee crashed into the stone covering my wound. Pain flooded my mind, and I only stayed upright by using her arm as support. I somehow managed to hit her in the stomach through all the pain, though I couldn’t tell how much that had hurt her. She shook off my grip and created distance between us, as I regained my senses properly.

  Everything felt heavy as I stared at her and I felt slightly cold. I ignored these feelings and focused on my opponent. She was at the moment only watching me. She was bent forward slightly and had switched to a one handed sword style. The hits must have hurt more than expected. I took a deep breath to dispel the drowsiness that threatened to overcome me. Then I charged towards her again.

  I didn’t use Earth strider this time, since I could not focus enough to control the earth underneath me and move my leg at the same time. She simply dodged backwards and waited for an opportunity. I realized that I could not catch up to her and stopped running after her. She wanted to win by letting me bleed out. I turned my attention towards my wound without moving my eyes away from her.

  The stone around the wound was pressing it together, though her kneeing the wound had made the wound worse. I moved a bit of stone that was on the wound and began to stitch it together. I made sure to not make it visible from her perspective. I closed the wound properly this time, making sure that I would no longer leak any blood. With this I had prevented me losing from time.

  I still was not fully recovered, as I felt the effects of the blood loss. I wondered, why she was this cautious. Even if I was still bleeding, it would have been in her favour to finish me quickly before any surprises could happen. I stared at her and began to feel the earth around her. While I could wait longer to recover more, I wanted to have the element of surprise, as she was stronger than me either way. I then shot out a few spikes from all directions under her. She dodged them by jumping into the air towards me. I stopped focusing on the spikes and also used a small explosion under my feet to get closer to her.

  I did manage to surprise her, judging by her expression, but I had underestimated her creativity, as the sword was flung towards me and was stopped right before piercing my heart. I ran into the referee who had stopped the sword. I barely managed to stay standing. This had been the first time, that I had felt the limitations of my body, since I started cultivating. I walked off the ring and removed the stone stitches to let the healers treat the wound. I was starting to want some sort of self-healing technique.

  As I waited to recover my Qi and being healed, did I think about the fight. I couldn’t see any big issues in my strategy, even if trying to actually sprint had been a gamble that didn’t work out. I felt that my recovery from that point had been rather good, since my opponent had to throw her sword at me.

  My plan for my next opponent was to stay attached to the ground throughout the entire fight, since I would lose as soon as I went airborne. It was not much of a plan, but I also just needed to reach to win, or at least I was certain that it would be enough since she wasn’t a body cultivator.

  The sect Master interrupted my thoughts with the announcement that my break was over. My Qi had been full for a few minutes by now, but I had sunken into thought. I still had no proper plan for the fight. Still, I felt that I had a better chance against her than my previous opponent. Since I would be slower either way this time, did I cover myself completely in stone before entering the arena.

  I noticed that this might count as cheating, but nobody stopped me. I assumed that it just counted as something like armour and thus was fine. I stared at my opponent and slowly began to ignore the outside world with the exception of the referee. She was a short woman, with a few obvious scars on her arms and hands. She looked extremely focused as she stared back into my eyes. I prepared myself to connect my feet to the ground as we waited for the battle to start.

  The moment the signal came, did my armour connect to the ground and a few moments later, did something crash into my stomach. It felt like a small ball, that had almost pierced through the armour on my stomach. Then a second ball hit my shoulder. I repaired the armour and began to shuffle forward. I made sure that my feet were always touching the ground as I moved towards the middle of the arena.

  I was certain that she had not used this technique in any of her fights. I was sure that it was at least as strong as any of her blades and far more cost efficient. The real problem was that it worked well against me, since blunt damage was better at breaking through stone than something like a blade. I tried to think of a way to win against her. More shots hit my armour, and I knew that I was slowly but surely running out of time.

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  I made a spike underneath her to see how she would react to it, though I barely put any power behind it. The spike barely exited the ground, but I saw that she was being pushed upwards the same amount. It took me a moment to realize what exactly happened, but my guess was that she had some sort of field of air under her feet that would push her up alongside any spikes. She must have prepared herself based on my previous fights, while concealing as much information as possible.

  I finally reached the middle of the arena, while more of her shots peppered my armour. For a few moments did I consider lowering my armour in a few parts, to not need to expend as much Qi, but I dismissed the idea since it would be more exhausting to bleed out from the resulting wounds. I tried to think of any way to cross the distance between us. But only Earth strider would be even close to fast enough, if I were to shed my entire armour.

  Even then, I had no guarantee that I would even reach her. Still, I saw no other options. I gave myself a bit of time to map out the steps I would need to take, while sprinting at her since I didn’t want to stumble again and prepared to leave my armour behind. She continued to shoot at me while I was preparing and even managed to hit the same spot twice in a row, exposing my shoulder for a moment. I could hear something other than one of the balls flying through the air and shot forwards.

  Separating from the armour was not completely smooth, but I still reached my top speed within the first steps. I saw surprise flash across her face, as I reached the halfway point between us, before she did anything. I then felt a sudden wall of air slam into me from the right side. The moment I felt it touch me, did I let my right foot sink into the ground, to anchor myself. My ankle almost broke but I wasn’t thrown of the platform.

  The push ended as abruptly as it had begun, while my opponent had barely moved away from me. I then used the earth around my submerged foot to regain momentum. I caught up with her before she made another attack, which felt wrong. She had had enough time to at least do something. But even if this was an obvious trap, I needed to take it, seeing as it was my only chance to achieve victory.

  I managed to get close to her and threw a simple punch, to see what she would do. I didn’t have any stone covering my fist anymore, but I was certain that it should still hurt to be hit. For the first time since fighting another cultivator, did I notice how much faster I truly was, as I saw her react to the punch. Or at least her body itself was slow, she pushed herself around my punch at an extreme speed. I still managed to clip her shoulder and felt the shoulder give in slightly with a low pop that echoed through the arena.

  I wanted to turn my body to follow her, but I felt my body being encased by the air. My arm was stuck in its outstretched position, and I was completely frozen for a moment. I pushed against the wall of air, when something accurately hit my elbow joint breaking the arm immediately. Pain flooded my mind.

  I tried to take a deep breath to calm myself down, but the air was not moving into my lungs. My head was still stuck within the air trap that she had made.

  I needed to breath.

  I tried to rip my head out of the trap, when something hit my spine. This didn’t push me out of the trap, and instead almost made me hang by my neck from it. The panic in my mind cleared out for a brief moment, when I realized that only my head was still trapped. I felt the air around my head with my not broken arm. It felt like a solid wall, with a constant stream of cool air coming out. I got a bit of stone to cover the hand and smashed it into the barrier.

  I felt air stream into my face right before my fist would have hit the barrier, and tried to slow it down, but failed since the referee stopped my hand. I took a few deep breaths as I recovered. I went down from the stage and let myself be healed. I realized that I had underestimated my opponent massively. I had not even considered that she would prepare herself to face me, nor had I considered that she was holding back this much in her other matches.

  I had just assumed that everybody had done their best to win every fight, like I was doing at the moment. In hindsight, it seemed obvious that they didn’t need to try too hard, after they reached the top eight. They would already be picked as long as they won, and thus only needed to defeat me. It seemed so obvious now. I quickly pushed these thoughts to the side, since they wouldn’t help me in the next fight.

  I went over everything I knew about her in terms of fighting style and tried to guess what she realistically could have hidden. I felt sure that the control that she had displayed was already everything she could do. The only things she could have hidden were the techniques she used, although they already seemed numerous to begin with, so I expected at most only one trump card. And she could have how much Qi she could output, though she definitely had less output than the first place.

  I did my best to create some plan for my fight with her. I knew that she would cover the ground in ice, to have an advantage in terms of the environment. So, to make the ground still easy for me to walk on, did I plan to give the entire ground small edges, so I could have proper grip while moving around. She also would gradually cool the air of the arena down, if her opponents couldn’t be defeated in a short amount of time. I didn’t have any plans on how to counteract that, so I decided against wearing any armour, except around the hands.

  My break came to an end before I could think of counterplays to all of her techniques. I went into the arena and looked at my opponent. She seemed ever so slightly nervous, but she gathered herself when she went into her starting position. I expanded my senses across the entire field, getting ready to change it when the fight began. I then waited for the signal to come. I saw her getting more concentrated as well and we waited for the signal.

  When the signal came, could I see the ice spreading on the ground from her position. I followed my plan and made the ground as easy to move on as possible. It was slightly uncomfortable on the feet, but I didn’t mind it. I then began to move as I rearranged the ground. I didn’t use Earth strider, since I wasn’t able to split my focus on more tasks, but I was still fast and my opponent looked surprised at the change in the ground.

  I then saw out the corner of my eye that she was creating something above me. She made a bunch of small ice spikes which began falling down on me. Their course changed slightly to follow my movement. I let the ground explode under me on my next step and shot forward enough to largely ignore the ice spikes. A few thin walls of ice shot up in front of me, as I made my way towards her. I knew that she would move now, so I tried to feel the direction she was moving in.

  To my surprise did I notice that she was standing still. I got close to the first of the walls and did my best to move around it without breaking it, since I knew that she would otherwise use the resulting ice spikes to shoot me in the back. As I dodged to the right, she began to move in the opposite direction. I realized that she must be able to track me similar to how I was perceiving her.

  After I went around the first wall, did I change directions to directly sprint towards her. She stopped for a brief moment before she continued to hurry along while more walls were made in my way. While I knew that I would inevitably catch up with her, even if I didn’t break through the walls, it would make the entire arena into her domain with all the ice walls standing around. So, to avoid this scenario, did I begin to smash through the walls in my way. I could feel the ice shards being embedded in my shoulders and back, as I moved closer to her.

  I felt the shards bury deeper into my flesh as I came closer, but I managed to ignore the pain for the most part. She waited near the edge of the arena when I finally regained sight of her. The ice shards inside me suddenly stopped wriggling around for a moment, before they all changed their forms to something more like hooks that bore themselves into my body. They then were ripped to the left and right of me, when I got closer to her. I felt my skin giving in and ripping slightly, and a searing pain drowned out my thoughts.

  My body still continued moving, either because of the momentum I already had or out of stubbornness. Still, it carried me forward and I could barely feel the hooks break over the pain. And in that moment, everything except my opponent began to fade. I saw her face and the traces of fear on it. She did not manage to create any other defences to slow me down in time. I moved my arms in a clean punch to her chest. Some thin ice barriers appeared and slowed down my fist slightly. I could still feel the bone breaking when my fist connected.

  Before she could get flung away, I managed to grab onto her hand. I felt her arm dislocate as the force of my hit dragged us both forward. I then made a single step using the momentum and punched towards her head with the hand that I had used to hold onto her. The hand of the referee stopped my fist just barely before it hit her face. The healers immediately rushed to us and began to fix up my back and her ribs.

  I did not care about the pain and was focused on the fight that I just had. I should have brought at least a few pieces of armour before engaging in the fight. I discarded the thoughts about the fight for a moment and considered the state I was currently in. My mind felt clear and the pain was completely ignored, though I knew that it was still there. I wondered if this was something like a fighters high, similar to the runners high. Although it had only happened when I was about to die or felt like it.

  I wondered if I could reach this state on my own, by purposefully putting myself into a life threatening situation. It should be easy to achieve in the next fight, since my opponent was way stronger than me. I knew that the only chance I had at winning the last fight was through some sort of gamble. A single attack that connects should be enough to end the match after all. So, all I needed was an opportunity, no matter the cost.

  I spent the rest of my break trying to remember how he fought and search for some kind opening I could use. His fire was more physical in nature than the other fire cultivator I fought. He could create explosions and the like to push me back. He had not shown enough techniques that I could find any weaknesses. All his fights had ended within the first few seconds due to an overwhelming difference in firepower, or more accurately Qi output.

  I realized that I didn’t have any ideas on how to raise my own output. Another thing I would need to learn. I let out a small sigh after I realized how much I was still lacking. I went onto the stage after I recovered all my Qi, since I could not realistically get any more ideas to fight him by waiting. He soon joined me on the stage. He looked confident, and I noticed a small necklace hanging around his neck with its center piece going into his robes. He smiled and said, “Before we fight, can I ask how long you have been cultivating? I couldn’t find anybody who could actually tell me.”

  I was surprised and then began to count the days. I quickly realized that I had almost lost track of time already, which would have been horrible since my deadline was precise. After a few moments of silence, did I respond, “29 days.” I was not entirely sure if this was correct or not, since I had spent quite a lot of time unconscious. I needed to ask Master about it as well. For a moment did the colosseum go quiet and I saw a clear look of surprise on his face. He then wished me good luck in the fight and went into his starting position.

  I also got into position and waited for the signal to come. While I didn’t have high expectations, I wanted to at least try my best. I again only had armour on my arms, since I doubted that it would help me in any way to be even slower. When the signal happened, did I begin to sprint with Earth strider while he gathered fire between his hands. He formed it into a ball slowly that compressed.

  I began to forget everything around me and just focused on him, as I accelerated even further. The world seemed to disappear as I ran faster than I had ever ran. The explosions under my feet happened on their own. The technique felt just right. I had almost reached him when the fire he had continued to compress between his hands, exploded outward. It felt like I ran into a solid burning wall when the explosion reached me. My eyes popped under the heat or the pressure, every bone in the front half of my body shattered and I felt my skin burn.

  I passed out before my brain could even begin to comprehend what just happened. I woke up outside of the ring surrounded by a bunch of people smearing different remedies on my body. I felt my internal organs being reconstructed as the bones set themselves. It took less time for me to recover this time, and they even regrew my burned of hairs from the previous matches. After they were done healing me and gave me new robes, I made my way to the exit. I saw Master waiting for me with all of the opponents who had won against me, including the winner of the tournament. It seemed like he had not picked another master.

  There was another man standing next to Master. He looked small, but he gave off the same air of danger Master was. Before I caught up with them did Devi, Estella and Ivia stop me for a moment. They were congratulating me, but I brushed them off, by simply saying “Tired.” Which seemed to do the job. It was not even a lie, I was tired. But I first wanted to talk with Master about the fights. When I caught up Master, did she introduce me to the man next to her, “This is my other direct disciple and your senior sister, Selune.”