It is an interesting experience observing cultivators fight. This is true no matter how one sided the fight is as you can still learn from watching them. The techniques that the combatants use and how effective they are against their opponents can give you some ideas on how to defeat them if you are lucky. Watching different sparring matches can also give you an idea of sort of techniques you should learn to cover for your own weaknesses.

-Excerpt from Telram’s notes on combat.

Telram’s eyes widened in surprise when he examined the Divine Beast as he finally made his appearance. The Divine Beast appeared to be a handsome young man with blue hair that hung all the way down to his waist and a relatively slender build, but it was what Telram saw with his spiritual vision.

Telram had never seen such a dense amount of Mana surrounding someone. Not even the most powerful individual he had ever seen Lord Irian who admittedly had more Mana than the Divine Beast did, but his aura of mana still wasn’t quite as dense. He could also tell that the Divine Beast’s soul energy was more powerful than anyone he had seen.

“Gerry how powerful is his soul energy compared to mine?” Telram whispered as he continued to examine the Divine Beast as closely as he could. The Divine Beast’s presence was so overwhelming that Telram hadn’t spared so much as a single second to look at his opponent. In fact, the number of people in the crowd of several hundred people who were paying attention to the other cultivator could be counted on your hands.

“Similar to your own, maybe a little bit stronger,” Gerry replied as he too stared at the Divine Beast. “But then his cultivation level is considerably higher than yours, so he does have an advantage there.”

“He’ll also be more physically powerful than I am,” Telram pointed out. “I really don’t think that I’m going to be able to defeat him even if I do find some sort of weakness.”

“Agreed,” Gerry nodded. “But if you do make it that far, fighting him should be an interesting experience for you.”

“That’s true enough,” Telram agreed. “And I’m tough enough that I should survive anything but an actual attempt to kill me. Not sure about his current opponent though.”

As they watched the two cultivators approached each other and Telram wasn’t surprised to see an extremely nervous look on the other cultivator’s face as he looked at the Divine Beast. Everyone who had cultivated for more than a couple of years knew how dangerous a Divine beast was and this poor bastard was about to fight one and he didn’t even have a body strengthening technique to protect him if something went wrong.

“Now then young master Feralt are you ready to begin this match?” the referee asked while looking at the human cultivator who flinched slightly and glanced over to where his family was watching from the side-lines. He knew that he was going to lose this fight and possibly be badly injured but he also knew that his father wasn’t going to let him forfeit either, so he straightened his back and looked the referee in the eye.

“Yes sir,” he replied.

“And young master Ryu how about you?” the referee continued as he turned to look at the Divine Beast who smirked slightly and nodded while keeping his blue eyes which both of the other men in the arena noted had slit pupils like a serpent fixed firmly on his opponent.

“Very well you may begin,” the referee said as the crowd cheered in excitement.

Telram and the others all leaned forwards as Feralt launched himself forward in the hopes of catching his opponent off-guard. Unfortunately he failed spectacularly and was sent flying backwards by a casual looking slap from Ryu who suddenly looked extremely disappointed in his opponent.

“Seriously?” the Divine Beast grumbled as he shook his head sadly. “I would’ve thought that someone who had managed to get this far in this tournament would provide more of a challenge, but you aren’t really any more impressive than the other humans I’ve fought to get here.”

The crowd fell silent as Ryu’s mana enhanced voice washed over them. Most of those present glared angrily at the Divine Beast who simply sneered up at them as Feralt slowly picked himself off the ground. There were however several members of the audience who agreed with Ryu’s words completely and predictably most of them were in Telram’s group.

While it was true that Feralt had actually used a fairly high ranked movement technique and a similarly powerful martial art when he had attacked Ryu it was pretty clear that like most cultivators his age, he had focussed on increasing his cultivation rank instead of mastering the techniques that knew. Not that Telram thought that Feralt had even the slightest chance of being able to defeat Ryu even if he had mastered every single technique that he knew.

Telram shook his head sadly as Feralt launched himself at Ryu once again. This time it was obvious that he was trying considerably harder than he had been before and was using his movement technique far better than he had a few moments ago. He even managed to dodge Ryu’s first casual looking swing ducking under it and throwing an uppercut at the Divine Beast’s jaw.

The triumphant look on Feralt’s face changed to a look of pained horror as he felt every bone in his fist break on contact with his opponent’s jaw and fell to his knees screaming in pain.

Ryu sighed once more and casually kicked his opponent just hard enough to launch him off the edge of the arena. He had to admit that he had underestimated Feralt slightly. He hadn’t expected him to be able to dodge his first attack which would’ve been more than enough to knock him off the edge of the arena without hurting him. Despite his attitude he hadn’t intended to actually hurt any of his opponents.

Ryu had always been interested in humans. He had lived in a small village where Divine and Sage Beasts lived his entire life and everyone else in his village had absolutely no interest in anything that humans were doing and as much as Ryu didn’t want to admit it, he was starting to understand why. The cultivators taking part in this tournament were supposed to be the best of their generation and so far, Feralt had been the only one to so much as land a single hit on him and it had worked out worse for him that simply being hit by Ryu would’ve. He did still have some hope for the remaining fights, but he was starting to think that his family and friends had been right about the humans.

Ryu took one last look up at the increasingly angry crowd one last time in the hopes of spotting something that would prove that he was actually right about how interesting humans were. Disappointment grew within him as he looked around until his gaze finally landed on a certain group in the area in the stands. The cultivator that finally piqued his interest was still only in the Human Realm but Ryu’s natural ability to see Mana allowed him to see that this young man was practicing a rather strange body strengthening technique that made his body more like a Divine Beast’s than a human’s. A feral grin crossed Ryu’s face as he realised that this cultivator might not be a match for him now but even this body strengthening made this human much more interesting than any of the ones that Ryu had fought so far.

A feral grin crept across his face as he was escorted off the arena by one of the guards.

“Excuse me, but what can you tell me about that tall young man with the black hair young man with the black hair?” Ryu asked the guard as he pointed up at Telram. “He’s sitting in the area reserved for other contestant, right?”

“Ah yes that would be Telram,” the guard who just so happened to be the same guard who had been escorting Telram to and from the arena the other day. “He’s a lot stronger than you would think a Human Realm cultivator could be.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Ryu replied with a chuckle. “I hope that I get a chance to fight hm. I think that it would be an interesting experience.”

“I don’t think that he’d stand a chance,” the guard replied with a frown. “I mean sure he’s able to defeat Ascendant Realm cultivator while he’s still only at the Human Realm but he’s nowhere near as powerful as you are.”

“You’re absolutely correct, I can defeat him easily” Ryu chuckled. “But that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be interesting to fight him.”

“If you say so sir,” the guard sighed. “I guess that I’ll see you later.”

Ryu smirked as the guard left him. That guard was one of the few humans who weren’t afraid of him despite the fact that Ryu could defeat the him with little effort but that was mostly because the guard knew that no matter how powerful Ryu was for his age, he was nothing compared to the monsters who ran the town.

Not that Ryu had so much as given the guard a dirty look. In fact, he had been very polite which had surprised the guard since a lot of people -the guard included- thought that despite their ability to take on a human-like form Divine Beasts had the manners of well beasts. However, the truth couldn’t be more different as Ryu was usually more respectful than the spoilt rich brats that the guard usually had to deal with. Except of course for his little outburst earlier in the arena.

When the guard left Ryu leaned back with a thoughtful look on his face. He had never so much as heard about a body strengthening technique that mimicked the power of a Divine beast before but then again, he was still young, and it wasn’t like he needed to know about body strengthening techniques since he was a Divine Beast. Still he really was looking forward to seeing what Telram was capable of.

Meanwhile Telram himself was being escorted down to the arena by one of the other guards who was surprised to see that Telram was still in the Human Realm. But he decided not to sway anything. There was no way that anyone could’ve gotten this far in the tournament unless they actually earned it through their own strength. In fact, the idea that there was someone who was still in the tournament who was still in the Human Realm was extremely intimidating to the guard simply because of the thought of how powerful they would be when they finally reached the Ascendant Realm.

Once Telram reached the bottom of the stands he leapt directly over the low wall and onto the raised stone arena where his opponent was already waiting for him a slightly confused look on his face as he glanced at the referee to see whether Telram was really his opponent.

“Is something wrong young master Hernan?” The referee asked with a slight smirk on his face.

“Is this really my opponent?’ Hernan asked as he glared at Telram.

“Of course,” the referee replied. “If he wasn’t, I would’ve kicked him out of the arena already.”

“Hmph,” Hernan snorted as he turned his attention to Telram who was watching him with a mildly amused look hon his face. “Well if you want to leave now would be the time. You don’t stand a chance against me at your cultivation level after all.”

“Is that so?” Telram chuckled. “I guess we’ll find out.”

Hernan snorted again. He hadn’t believed it when the man that he had sent to scout out his possible opponents the other day had told him that it had been Telram who had won the fight and had hoped that the referee would force him to withdraw from the tournament. His scout had told him that Telram was a formidable fighter despite his low cultivation level, but Hernan just assumed that Telram had gotten lucky.

The referee asked if they were both ready and the fight began with Telram instantly going on the offensive. Sudden thunderclaps announced the use of his movement technique as he blurred towards Hernan.

Hernan’s eyes widened as he quickly raised his guard just in time to block Telram’s first punch which Telram quickly followed up with a powerful kick that nearly took Hernan off his feet from the force of the shockwave that the attack produced.

Hernan gasped in pain and surprise as he stared at Telram who was still holding his leg up as he stared back with a smirk on his face. Seeing this a snarl crossed Hernan’s face as he realised that Telram was now mocking him and started to channel mana into the bottoms of his feet.

Telram watched with some amusement as flames burst out of the bottom of Hernan’s feet causing him to take to the air. From the looks of things Hernan was planning on blasting Telram with attacks from a distance which made sense. Ranged attacks used up much more mana to use than melee ones and it was even more difficult to find a ranged technique that could even be used by someone in the Human Realm because most of them required the use of elemental mana.

Unfortunately for Hernan, Telram did have a ranged technique that he could use but Telram decided to be a bit more careful than he usually would be. Hernan may be arrogant, but you had to be skilled to make it this far in the tournament and Telram didn’t want to get surprised by a powerful technique and end up badly injured.

Grey mist flowed out from Telram’s body as he activated his Dissonance technique causing Hernan to smirk triumphantly as a fireball appeared in his hand. Hernan threw the fireball at Telram who quickly sidestepped the projectile which blasted right through the grey mist without so much as slowing down making him raise an eyebrow. Apparently, Hernan was taking him seriously now because from what he could tell that fireball was considerably more powerful than that particular technique normally was. Or maybe Hernan was hoping to take Telram out in a single hit.

More fireballs followed the first but Telram dodged them all with ease making Hernan grind his teeth in irritation. Each of those fireballs used up almost fifty percent more mana than they needed to and while he still had plenty of mana remaining, he had already used more mana than he had wanted to against an opponent that was still in the Human Realm.

With a thought another fireball appeared in Hernan’s hand but this time he continued to channel even more mana into the attack than he had been and tossed it at Telram who sidestepped like he normally would.

It was at this moment that the fireball split into several different smaller fireballs making Telram curse as he realised that he had messed up. Because each of the fireballs had less mana in them than the larger ones that Hernan had been throwing up until now, they were affected far more by his Dissonance technique and some of them burned out entirely. However, some of them still had enough force to strike Telram in several places.

Seeing this Hernan threw his head back and laughed as he assumed that Telram would finally understand the difference between them and yield. His laughter soon trailed off when he realised that he couldn’t hear Telram screaming as the flames burnt his flesh and looked down from where he was hovering to see Telram brushing himself off with a bored look on his face.

“You little shit!” Hernan snarled before trailing off when Telram glared up at him and gulped as he felt a chill run down his back.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Telram asked as more grey mist billowed from his body as he channelled more mana into his Dissonance technique. Then something strange happened the grey mana slowly turned red and forms that resembled mouths with sharp teeth seemed to form in places. This was what happened when Telram used the bestial soul energy that he had been refining in his Dissonance technique.

Hearing his words Hernan snarled and summoned a large number of fireballs that orbited around him a couple of times before flying at Telram who just waved a hand at them with a bored look on his face and spoke a single word.

“Devour.”

As he said this a large cloud of mist broke off from the rest and shot up to meet the rain of fireballs. Just before the two techniques collided the glob of mist changed shape becoming a large fanged mouth that snapped shut on the fireballs.

Hernan watched in horror as he felt the mana being leeched from the fireballs that he had launched at Telram. While this attack wasn’t his most powerful one, it did use up the most mana. He still had plenty of mana remaining, but it was pretty clear to him that Telram hadn’t even broken a sweat when he had used the strange technique that had absorbed his attack.

With a curse Hernan concluded that Telram was just as powerful as the man that he had sent to scout out his competition had warned. Even with his low cultivation level if not more so. He had been hoping that he would be able to take Telram out with his ranged attacks and save his trump card for the semis but if Telram could survive that attack then his normal attacks weren’t going to be able to defeat him.

Cursing once more Hernan channelled his fire affinity mana into a shell that covered his body which seemingly burst into flames. This was an advance version of the same technique that allowed him to fly and massively increased his melee capabilities while also burning anyone who got to close.

One of Telram’s eyebrows rose as he recognised the technique as The Avatar of Flame. It was quite a powerful technique for someone at Hernan’s cultivation level to be using and was actually quite difficult to master as you had to protect yourself from the flames covering your own body while you were using it. Keeping it active also used up quite a lot of mana so it would be in Hernan’s best interest to finish this fight fast.

Which was why he wasn’t surprised when Hernan dove down towards him. Telram grinned as he drew all the mist created by his Dissonance technique close to his body until it resembled the technique his opponent was using. This was a technique that he had come up with to counter techniques like the one that Hernan was using. However it wasn’t complete yet so not only could he not control it well enough to risk using the bestial soul energy that he had been refining recently it would probably only be effective enough to allow him to get close without being burned by the heat of the flames covering his opponent’s body.

Their fists collided with enough force to send them both flying backwards. Hernan paused briefly to stare down at his fist in surprise, when his fist had struck Telram’s he had felt his mana struggle against his control. The effect wasn’t enough to really trouble Hernan who had more soul energy than average which was part of the reason that he was able to use the Fire Avatar technique, but it did make things a bit more difficult for him.

Seeing that Hernan was distracted Telram launched himself forwards and began to pummel him continuously with his fists. With every blow it became harder and harder for Hernan to keep his Flame Avatar technique active, both because he had to use more mana to increase the defence provided by the technique and because every single strike carried with it the same effect that the first blow had.

Seeing that Hernan was struggling to defend himself Telram decided to sneak in a few attacks using his Resonance Palm technique. He had been hoping that he would be able to avoid revealing this technique until the at least the semi-finals but if his opponent was going to be the Divine Beast then he wasn’t sure how effective it would be and besides he was coated in mana right now so it wouldn’t be very easy to see what he was doing.

The next time Telram struck Hernan the other young man felt like his control over his mana was being ripped away by an unstoppable force, but this faded pretty quickly allowing him to regain control over the mana covering him before he lost control of his technique. Then the next attack struck him, and the same thing happened only this time he did lose control over the technique and screamed in pain as the flames that he had created scorched his flesh.

Hearing this Telram cursed as he realised that he had miscalculated, if he only partially disrupted Hernan’s control over his mana then he could be killed by his own technique. He probably could defeat him without using his Resonance Palm technique but after what had just happened Hernan would be desperate which meant that he would be considerably more dangerous.

Sure, enough Hernan started lashing out at Telram with powerful swings of his flame covered fists that were burning brighter than before forcing Telram defend himself. Because Hernan was burning through even more mana with these attacks than he had been to defend himself the grey mist that coated Telram’s body was unable to do much more than stop him from being burned but that didn’t stop each attack from being surprisingly powerful due to the fact that Hernan was using the flames coating his body to accelerate his fist just before impact.

They weren’t really doing that much damage to Telram but that didn’t mean that he could let his guard down especially since he didn’t know if Hernan had any more techniques that could cause problems for him. This was especially important because it was rapidly becoming clear to Telram that despite Hernan’s earlier attempt to take him out with ranged attacks Hernan actually specialised in melee combat like he did.

In theory he should be able to wear Hernan down over the next few minutes but the longer this went on the more likely it was that things would go wrong. As such he decided that he would have to finish this fight as quickly as possible while avoiding badly injuring his opponent.

A plan to deal with this started to form in Telram’s mind. It would require him to do a couple of things that he hadn’t been able to master up until now, but he hadn’t attempted anything like this since he had increased his cultivation level.

Telram concentrated and pulled all of the mist that had been covering his body until it was only covering the front of his torso where Hernan was striking him. Once this was done Telram then channelled even more mana into his Dissonance technique before releasing the mana from his control causing it to shoot out like a shockwave blasting his opponent back so that he had some space for what he was going to do next.

When Telram had first come up with his Resonance Palm technique he had always hoped that he would one day be able to completely negate an opponent’s attacks. Unfortunately until now he had been unable to master this technique due to the incredible amount of control that was required to do so as well as how difficult it was to ‘learn’ how an opponent used their mana because everyone used a slightly different method to do so.

However, something was telling him that he would be able to use this technique properly this time and mana formed around his right hand as he prepared for one final attack.