Chapter 034

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‘ ‘ for thoughts.

“ “ for speech.

<> for non-verbal communication like telepathy

Please point out any mistakes/inconsistencies you find and feel free to comment on anything regarding this FF.

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Warning: May contain mature content (18+) of an adult nature. Read at your own risk.

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Note:

Although the full name mentioned here are Chinese style, (example: Fang Hao, surname Fang first then given name Hao), the names clubbed with descriptions are description and then given name instead of description and surname (example Fatty Hao and not Fatty Fang).

Btw, I read all your comments, but may not reply to each and every one separately.

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The senior was announcing “Now only one person among you will have the right to compete for this reward! As for the fights, it will be -” The outer hall management senior was interrupted as a Coal Black young man with shoulder length hair appeared out of thin air with little distortions accompanying him. The outer hall managing senior stopped in his tracks as he cupped his fists and bowed deeply, “Junior greets Elder!”

All the assembled outer disciples also repeated the greeting after a heartbeat in a loud chorus, “Junior greets Elder!” Suddenly, the swarthy turtle burst out from the crowd and cupped his hands, bowing deeply and screamed at the top of his lungs, “This Disciple here greets his honored Master.” as if he was afraid that someone would miss his greeting. The coal black elder nodded in satisfaction as he said,

“Now that we are done with the greetings, there will be a slight change. The qualifying match here will be a free for all without any weapons. All of you will fight until you cannot fight any longer or admit defeat.” The elder snapped his fingers and a 200m diameter glowing red circle appeared out of nowhere on the ground nearby. “Those who move out of the circle or get knocked out are considered to be defeated. Now all of you present are at least the 7th Qi Gathering Layer, right?”

A few hundred voices replied in a chorus of “Yes, Elder.” The Elder replied, “For this fight only those who are at the 9th or 10th layer of Qi Gathering can participate. The rest of you will have a separate competition later. Now those who have the required cultivation step into the ring.” Around 60 people stepped into the glowing red ring, warily distancing from each other, but still clustered near the center. Fang Hao looked around and none from his fat clique had qualified. He saw the swarthy turtle nearby and they exchanged a meaningful glance. The elder continued, “Begin!” As soon as the elder exclaimed, a heavy pressure enveloped everyone. They found that they needed to put twice as much effort to move half as fast. Obviously the elder had arranged a formation of sorts and almost everyone was slowed down to a crawl.

There were a few notable exceptions; chief among them was Fatty Hao and the swarthy turtle. Still, Fang Hao restrained himself to around 2/3rds of his strength as he walked towards an unfortunate nearby cultivator who was panting audibly with each step. Lord Lard then smashed the poor cultivators liver causing him to groan and faint collapsing on the ground tasting dirt and grass. Meanwhile the swarthy turtle was achieving the same results with more finesse. Instead of collapsing people with one blow of pure strength, he tripped or unbalanced them and then kicked the shit out of them till they stopped groaning.

Fang Hao appreciated this behavior. Perhaps the opponents who collapsed were just pretending to faint. Better to make sure they faint! He then turned backed towards the collapsed outer disciple on the ground and gave him a nice kick at 2/3rd of his strength. Audible noises of ribs cracking could be heard as the prone figure spasmed for a bit…but no groan came from his mouth. ‘Hmm looks like he really fainted. Still better make sure they actually faint. I should keep this in mind for future battles too. If in a life and death fight better behead the opponent to make sure they die! Just like butchering those chickens.’

Fang Hao became more ruthless and aimed bone-breaking blows at the limbs of his opponent’s limbs and ribs. If they fainted, he still kicked them a couple of times for good measure. Soon hearing the audible screams of pain, the nearby people tried to retreat away from fatty as far as possible…but they were still too slow to avoid the Lord’s wrath. ‘Ok. This test seems to be tailor-made for me. No weapons, and a gravity field of some sort. Only those who have cultivated some body refining scripture have hope here. Didn’t the swarthy turtle say that his master is an elder who specializes in body refining? Such nepotism! Only the swarthy turtle and a couple of others could walk normally under this pressure inside the glowing red ring. This means I am not a unique flower or something among the outer disciples. At least a few others also cultivate their body.’

Little did the torturing fatty know that while the others who were walking were exerting all their effort to do so, he was quite leisurely walking a bit faster than them under the pressure while withholding a third of his strength. In a quarter of an hour only the four disciples who could walk at normal speeds under the pressure were left, including fatty and the swarthy turtle. The two other outer disciples saw that fatty was the main threat and made a beeline towards him, in order to beat him up before confronting others. They knew their only hope to do so was ganging up on the ruthless and shameless fatty!

The swarthy turtle was trying to intercept them, but he had purposely maneuvered himself far away from the other body cultivators while dealing with the rest. He initially thought that master will make things favorable for him. While the restrictive pressure did favour him to a certain extent as he had initial success in the Mountain’s Physique Scripture, why did master not allow any weapons? Without a polearm of some sort, he had no hope against Fang Hao! ‘Master is an esteemed Elder with unfathomable cultivation base and has to keep some face after all. He can’t favor me too openly in competitions by altering the competitions itself at the level of outer disciples…and perhaps this is a trial for me to overcome!’ thought the swarthy turtle as he struggled to walk as fast as possible towards Fang Hao with renewed vigor.