After a brief moment of hesitation, Verus decided to go over and observe the fight. It would be useful to know about the fighting styles and skill levels of some of the best disciples in his year, and it would be a pleasant distraction from his problems. He watched the fighters carefully as he approached. They both were both obviously high born and quite skilled. Many of the outer disciples looked like powerful fighters and could never be mistaken for mortals despite their current low Realms, but these two were particularly unique.

The first combatant was a muscular young man with messy brown hair and tanned skin who stood half a foot taller than everyone else present, even the referee. He was wearing brown pants and no shirt, but he did have on a tan leather vest, tall boots, and metal bracers on his arms. The gear looked tough, personalized to his build, and expensive. With a determined expression on his blunt face, the muscular disciple used one of his vambraces to deflect a sword slash that had been aimed at his thick neck, sending sparks flying.

Only then did Verus realize what he was really seeing. Those weren’t metal bracers at all, but shaped metal essence. The male combatant was using a technique to solidify metal ki and turn it into armor. That was beyond anything Verus could do. It not only required a cultivation technique for metal ki but enough skill to compress that ki into solid essence outside of the body. Different types of essence could be manipulated to do different things, but generally they mimicked their element. Metal essence was as tough and sharp as steel and thus incredibly useful, while human essence was more variable and much harder to use effectively. Verus didn’t know a single human essence technique. He could barely create it at all, and when he did, all he got was a leather like mass that wasn’t particularly useful.

The muscular disciple’s opponent was a young woman in a slim yellow martial artist’s robe with white flower patterns decorating it. It looked like it had been designed for both form and function. While it was almost as pretty as a traditional woman’s robe, it obviously allowed her a greater range of movement and didn’t slow her down at all. The blade in her hand was oddly short and straight, but she used it with great skill. Her black hair was pulled back into a long ponytail that bounced as she danced around her larger opponent, looking for weak points in his defense. Every movement she made was graceful and fluid in a way that was as beautiful as it was dangerous. It was fascinating to watch, and so different from the straightforward martial arts Verus had been taught.

Suddenly, the large male fighter abandoned his defense and went on the attack. He shouted in a deep voice as he ducked down low into a horse stance and put his entire body behind a sideways punch at his opponent. Ki rippled forth from his skin as he empowered the attack.

Startled, the robed woman jumped back, but was a little too slow to dodge completely. As the man’s beefy fist zoomed toward her face, she brought up the flat of her blade to block it. The defense looked meager, but right before impact, her weapon suddenly unfolded to catch the blow. It wasn’t a short sword at all, but a metallic fan.

The force of the punch slammed into the fan and threw the woman back. However, she was already in the air and somehow managed to keep her balance. There was a swirl of wind around her as she deftly landed on her feet without injury. Then, she twisted her upper body around, dragging her fan through the air as she waved it in the direction of her opponent.

Much to Verus’s surprise, this whipped up a mighty gust of whirling wind that slammed into the large disciple she was fighting. He stumbled back and shielded his face as the wind tore across his skin, drawing blood as it gave him several shallow cuts. The woman took advantage of this opening to throw herself at her opponent and force him back on the defensive with several swipes of her bladed fan. Its somewhat awkward shape didn’t stop its edges from being razor sharp.

As a cool breeze caused by scattered wind ki swept over him, Verus glanced around. Most of the audience seemed like the usual arrogant scions of cultivator families that looked down on temple wards like him, but he did see one nearby spectator who seemed approachable. A young man in plain shirt and trousers that would have looked normal on a mortal walking down the street. He had short black hair and an excited grin on his face as he watched the fight. Other than that slight savage twist to his smile, he looked like a regular friendly young man though.

Coughing to get his fellow disciple’s attention, Verus then gave a quick respectful bow. “Excuse me. My name is Verus, and I was wondering if you could inform me as to what is going on here. This fight seems to be at a high level.”

Glancing toward Verus, the young man rolled his eyes. “You temple brats are all so polite and humble. It’s obnoxious, although I suppose that’s simply how you were raised so you don’t know any better. Meat for the hounds.”

Confused, Verus could only stare. Why did he consider politeness to be such a bad thing? Verus’s first instinct was to apologize, but that probably wasn’t the proper response.

The man then turned back to the fight, but he didn’t ignore Verus. “I’m called Fang, and what’s happening is simple. Selesta Guus challenged Adev Ironheart for his medallion. Now they’re fighting to see who gets to keep it.”

Verus had been hoping for a little more information than that, but he doubted pressing the issue directly would help. “She is quite talented to have developed her wind attunement so quickly. Even using a tool such as that fan, that wind ki emission technique was rather impressive. I wouldn’t want to face it,” he observed politely instead. He couldn’t help himself.

Fang laughed. “Oh, she’s talented without a doubt, and you’re right about the Billowing Gust technique being more dangerous than it seems, but your naivety is showing. Her father is an elder of this sect. She’s had had far more than a few days to train the Way of Gathering Storms. The same goes for her opponent and his cultivation technique. He’s from the Ironheart clan, and they all use the same Way. It runs in their blood.”

“I see. Thank you for illuminating me,” Verus replied with grimace. He should have expected this. Of course, nobles had such advantages over temple wards such as him. If they had the resources, why would they hold themselves back from learning cultivation techniques until the initiation ceremony? Their parents could simply pass their techniques on directly.

That was especially true for people like this Adev. Fang had mentioned that his method ran in his blood. Verus had heard of that, although he’d never been sure if it was real. Apparently, it was. The children of powerful immortal families could inherit a measure of their ancestors’ power, giving them the same attunements as their ancestors and instinctive knowledge of their cultivation technique.

“That’s a rather daunting advantage,” Verus mused aloud.

Fang nodded in agreement. “Every noble that can is taking full advantage of their lead to seize the medallions early and get even more resources for themselves. The outer disciple competition is a rigged game, which is to be expected since their parents run this place.” He didn’t seem too concerned about it, even though he talked as if he wasn’t a noble himself.

Verus on the other hand was quite concerned. It would be extremely difficult for him to catch up to either of these fighters, even without the system favoring them. Maybe the nobles who’d remarked that he was only here at the main temple to be a steppingstone for others had been speaking the truth after all. That was troubling. He really didn’t need more problems right now. Ugh, why did everything have to be so complicated and unfair? All he wanted to do was meditate on enlightenment. Why was that so difficult? The Archon - if he existed - was seriously testing him.

“Pardon me, but I’d like to ask how you know so much about the fighters,” Verus asked Fang. “Are you from a prominent family yourself?”

Fang laughed. “Ha, no. My common origins are no secret. My parents work for Selesta’s family, and when my talent was discovered at a young age, they sponsored my education in return for my oath of service. It’s not a bad deal, and Selesta at least is tolerable. Unlike some of her peers.”

At that moment, Selesta won her match by forcing her opponent out of the ring with another gust of air. Bleeding from several shallow wounds, Adev tried to hunker down and resist the wind, but he failed and stumbled out of bounds a moment later. The referee then called the match, so Fang quickly went over to congratulate his mistress. As he bowed, she spared him a quick glance and a single word before turning to address the small crowd of other outer disciples that flocked over to congratulate her on winning a medallion and taking a place in the top ten.

Fang’s sudden departure left Verus standing alone, so he walked away from the dueling ground and went to grab some food and tea from the cafeteria. Lacking sleep as he was, he needed to get all the energy he could get. He had to stifle a yawn as he entered the building.

When he was done eating a quick lunch, Verus went to the requisition office to recharge his channeling orb with a new type of ki. Last night, he’d studied the book from the library some more and decided on testing himself for a poison ki attunement. It was rare and had a bad reputation, but wasn’t illegal and had some obvious uses. You could use it to poison people, usually temporarily and non-fatally. Verus liked the idea of being able to disable someone with a touch or smother them in poisonous fumes.

The man behind the counter at the requisition handed the orb full of poison ki over without comment. However, after spending a shard on the dream ki and another on poison ki, Verus only had one shard left. The little crystal shard seemed packed full of invigorating ki to his senses as he held it in his hand. He wanted to absorb it right away to fuel his ascension, but he knew that would be a mistake. He needed to spend it wisely.

Thus, he kept the shard and hurried back to his room. There, he sat down on his meditation mat and immediately began to perform the poison channeling technique from the library book. Unfortunately, even after skipping supper and training until it was dark out, he failed to make any progress in sensing the poison ki in the orb. Refusing to give up and fall behind even more, he kept going, but he failed to make any headway even as it grew closer to morning. Tired and dispirited, Verus could only sulk over to his bed and try to get an hour or two of sleep before class.

Closing his eyes, Verus considered his situation. He’d managed to make it to main temple of his sect, where the young geniuses congregated and trained to become elders, but it seemed like he was falling further behind every day. If he had been more devout, he would have prayed to the Archon for a miracle, but he’d always had a hard time believing prayers got granted. Surely, God and the Archon – if they existed - were constantly being bombarded by contradictory prayers. So, that meant it was up to Verus to solve his own problems. He’d simply have to do what he’d done all his life. Work hard and use every trick at his disposal to fight off despair.