Rain pattered over a forest canopy, watering the trees before dribbling down and soaking everything undeath. Yoshino Yuki crouched behind a log, his core-treasure, the “Monocle of the Seer” rested in his lap. A thin line of blood dripped down from Yuki’s scalp. The red blood darkened Yuki’s pale hair. Yuki’s last fight had been a mess. A group of sword-dancers from one of the Tree of Passionate Verdance’s many rivals, managed to get the jump on Yoshino Yuki, and he’d barely been able to get away.

Yuki’s Monocle of the Seer took the form of one of the rare and largely obsolete firearms of the old-world. With so much of the old-world gradually being rediscovered, relearned, and brought forward into the current world one would think that there would be a return of firearms and their ilk. Alas, the existence of magic and spirit arts meant that there hadn’t really been a need, or place, for guns. Why would anyone go to all the trouble of learning how to re-create complicated, finicky, weapons that couldn’t match the power, efficiency, or ease of use, of a simple stick mounted with a common beast-core and inscribed with a spell.

Thus Yuki’s path as a cultivator, and martial artist, had always been a path of thorns. It was only after being cast-out by his family in the high-realms that the secondary abilities of his core-treasure’s scope were unlocked. That was when his hunter’s rifle gained the “monocle” moniker. The sight on the rifle now not only provided a form of “true-sight” but the core-treasure could turn into a monocle that would serve as a piece of wearable equippable. A valuable feature that surely would have changed Yuki’s fate if this was the form his core-treasure that had awoken first.

Now, however, Yuki was already thoroughly invested in the path he was walking. By then, the scars, and humiliations, had built up to the point where he couldn’t give up on becoming a legend that the entire Shattered World would know of, despite the handicap of his obsolete old-world weapon. Now, within Yuki’s heart lived an insistence on proving all those who’d denied him wrong by becoming a warrior that others in the field would be forced to acknowledge. Within that same heart, lay a fear that all his detractors were right and their shattered world truly was no longer a world for guns and firearms.

This made it all the more important for Yoshino Yuki to make it to the last into the tournament ranking. He needed to become one of the ranked 1000, who made it to the tournament's second round. Those who failed to make this standard would just be considered slightly talented trash, it was only ranked 1000 who could be considered heroes of the up-and-coming generation.

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There was a snap and a bang as Hong Soomin retreated from the range of her opponent’s glaive. The soil and greenery sizzled as a caustic and corrosive purple fluid dripped from the halberd's blade, like venom from the fangs of an adder. Hong Soomin winced. She hadn’t gotten away clean. There was a worrying tingle on one of her calves that would need to be seen to, if she didn’t want to end up illuminated by virtue of having gotten too injured.

The woman with the glaive wasn’t Hong Soomin’s only opponent. There was a man with a war-hammer, and another man with a bow. The fight was three versus one, yet Hong Soomin couldn’t help smirking. Her hardass of an Aunt hadn’t spent ten-years training her for nothing, and what’s more, after the anger at having her life suddenly up-ended faded, Hong Soomin reluctantly found that the “spark” she felt from a clean theft, could also be felt when taking down a worthy foe.

Hong Soomin took a second to catch her breath. She curled and uncurled her fingers, strengthening her grip on her core-treasures, the “scoundrel tonfas”. Thunder rumbled overhead and the rain began to pick up. Hong Soomin made a quick decision and launched herself forwards. With a snap and crack, she appeared behind the archer. Or rather she appeared on top of him, landing on his shoulders, in a handstand, and then pushing away from him in the next instant.

All her opponents immediately found her. Fully moving through the void was always noisy. She wasn’t strong enough to fully suppress the sound yet. The man and his compatriots turned around as they heard her, but Hong Soomin had long ago learned to cope with that loss of the element of surprise.

Hong Soomin struck the archer with her tonfa, and teleported away again in the same instant. An arrow whistled through the space that she’d once occupied, and struck down the top half of a tree. Hong Soomin reappeared behind the man who held the hammer, striking the back of his knee and the side of his temple and managing to actually take the man out of the fight. She popped in and out of existence. Teleporting at such a pace that her opponents were unable to react. Teleporting so fast that she overwhelmed their numbers with her speed and placement.

The woman with the glaive fell last, with Hong Soomin having kicked the woman into the air and then teleported above her to strike her down. When the last of the group fell, Hong Soomin sighed in relief falling back onto her haunches and realizing that her Aunt might have been just a hair right about her thrill-seeking tendencies, and risk-taking ways. Hong Soomin also knew that she, Hong Soomin, would never in a million years ever admit this aloud.

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Breathing heavily, Zhou Weifen ran, and not for the first time in her young life, she found herself wishing her parents had been horses instead of people, or the very least she found herself wishing they were one of the centaur-like races. Sometimes two legs just weren’t enough. On her back, she carried her sect-sister. Yin Qing. The short woman, with light-tan skin, seemed even smaller as she unconsciously clung to the much taller Zhou Weifen’s back.

Yin Qing wasn’t just her fellow disciple. Despite originally being Zhou Weifen’s maid, Yin Qing was Zhou Weifen’s sister in all the ways that counted. A close friend and confidant, that had been in Zhou Weifen’s life since they were both little kids. Thus when Yin Qing was injured in battle, falling to a thrown blade, Zhou Weifen decisively picked up her partner and fled.