Chapter 27 - Rules

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A week has passed since Arthur returned.

Over the past few days, the people within the city have been in a bit of an uproar after hearing about the Vermillion Family's family-wide martial contest.

An uncountable number of people are currently surrounding the city's martial stage. They all came to watch the Vermillion Family's disciples fight with each other.

Although it will still take several hours to completely prepare, none of these people were willing to catch a scene that might only happen once.

After all, this contest is basically the same as revealing the might of the Vermillion Familly in this current era. It could also serve as an entertainment for these people, either as a passing time or to experience an aging family's strength.

Not only mortals, cultivators were also present in this area. However, they didn't come their way merely for entertainment, they came to watch, as they call it, their final struggle.

Their decline is as clear as day, even a blind man would know if they've hit the bottom.

It was just about time to make their huge final gamble and now is just about the right time to do so.

And it seems that this martial contest was their choice.

Nonetheless, their presence was only a sign to show some respect. They didn't care about the results. Some of these people even felt happy in their hearts.

Some of them were pressured by the mighty presence of the Vermillion Family. They felt threatened.

They made many shady and dark deeds in the past. On the other hand, the Vermillion Family is extremely righteous and virtuous at heart.

Once the Vermillion Family knows what kind of actions they have made, it would be very bad for them.

However, since the start of the Vermillion Family's decline, they weren't really able to do anything drastic to them. They may be weak, but there are still so many people that support them, especially the city mayor.

But now that the Vermillion Family decided to make the last huge gamble on their future, of course they would be happy.

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These past few days, Arthur has been painstakingly cultivating and performing alchemy in his room.

Arthur didn't even bother to bathe anymore.

His bed was still glistering white. However, the floor was charred black and a pungent smell ran across the room.

This was the result of having to concoct numerous pills over and over again.

He was basically a pill-creating machine with the amount of pills he made in a single day.

Even all the alchemist in the city combined might not compare to him.

And even if they did, the quality of that pill would be 10 times much worse than a perfectly made one. This is one of the reasons why alchemy is considered to be only practiced by extremely patient people.

However, not only could he make a pill 10 times faster than average, the resulting quality has even nearly doubled!

What was talent? This is a talent!

What was even more shocking was that Arthur was concocting a cultivation enhancing pill! Which is considered the hardest and one of the longest pills to make even for a capable alchemist!

Normally it takes more than a week to concoct such a pill. But he was able to make three in 3 days, costing him most of the materials given to him by his father. Which is a rather small price to pay, considering the value of his work.

Using those three pills in hand, he made an astonishing amount of progress in his cultivation. Breaking through three stages at once.

And now, he's already reached the fourth of the Body Strengthening Realm, Cleansing Marrow Stage!

Arthur only spent 5 days in his room, but he instantly reached the level of the few geniuses within the city.

Even calling him a genius now might be an insult.

To become a formidable Cleansing Marrow Stage cultivator in less than a week... Just the thought of that might not even exist within the peoples' mind even after broadening their horizons.

"So this is what it feels like to step on the fourth stage of the Body Strengthening Realm...", exclaimed Arthur.

Since being born, Arthur received all kinds of pity and insult from others. And that only worsened after people found out that he was a talentless trash.

Even some people in the Vermillion Family felt a bit of a grudge to him for being so useless.

And that only worsened after he wasn't even able to step into the Body Strengthening Realm.

Thud.

Arthur stood up. Raising his fist, he could feel an astounding power coming from within his body.

Rising through so many stages at once, Arthur wasn't completely sure of his strength.

But he is absolutely certain that his power as of now wasn't merely increased by tenfolds... it was even more than that!

"I guess it was about time that I finally stopped hiding behind my Father's back..." Arthur laughed, "But first, I'll win this little martial competition and slap some senses to those simple-minded old fogs."

Arthur evilly smirked.

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The day arrived for the Vermillion Family's Martial Competition.

A lot of people gathered in the city's martial stage. The number of competitors almost rivaled the amount of people that were spectating. It was really a sight to behold.

However, most of the competitors were just at the first stage of Body Strengthening Realm, some were even mortals.

Many spectators were also surprised by this, unconsciously making them look down on the Vermillion Family.

"Are the Vermillion people crazy? Why would they even include these little ants?!"

"It can't be that they want to weed out the weak from the strong, right? That's so cruel!"

It wasn't known who spoke those words. But when the people heard this, they immediately expressed different kinds of emotions.

"Heh, so the Vermillion Family is so poor now that they dare to use these kinds of methods!"

"Don't say that, they really don't have much of a choice..."

"I've read that the first ancestor of the Vermillion was able to fight amongst peers with higher cultivation levels. Maybe they are looking for that kind of talent?"

"Laughable! How can those legends possibly be true? I've travelled far and wide, and have never encountered someone as stupid as you!"

"You!"

Amidst the clattering noise of the people above, were the participants of the martial competition of the Vermillion Family.

Currently, over a thousand disciples circled the martial arena. Those disciples were divided into two groups, one being the young cultivators of the Vermillion Family, the other being mortals. Clearly, the latter being extremely small in numbers.

Although they are mortals, they were still placed in this ridiculous tournament that they absolutely have no chance of winning.

They were unsatisfied but with their mere status as slaves, how can they possibly rebel in front of their masters?

'Whatever, I can just surrender right away and be done with this...'

That was what these mortals were thinking at the same time.

At this moment, a scholarly old man suddenly appeared right on the center of the martial arena.

His long red robes swayed in the air as he stood before the eyes of all present with his clasped hands behind his back.

"Everyone."

The people around gradually became silent as they turned and listened to the old man.

Giu Vermillion looked around and continued, "As an Elder of the Vermillion Family, I express my gratitude to all of you for bearing witness to our little Martial Competition. And since we have little time in our hands, I will just keep this short...

There are three rules in this competition. First, the participants must only fight inside the stage. Therefore, as long as they don't step anywhere outside, then they can continue.

Second, one must only fight with their bare fists. No weapons must be used during the fight. Those who violate this rule will be severely punished.

Third... due to some assessing reasons, one can only surrender after a hundred breaths of time. However, if one is able to touch the opponent at least once, then he can surrender at any time.

That is all."

The last part of Elder Giu's sentence instantly calmed down the spectators who heard him. It was evident that the words spoken before that almost caused an uproar.

"So it was like that... This entire martial competition is so strange. Why would they go to such lengths? Just what is the purpose of the Vermillion Family?"

"Damn it, shut up! Can't you see it's about to start?!"

"Y-you again! I swear I will fight it out with you today!"

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Greetings once again. My laptop broke so I had to get it fixed, just got it now and immediately made this chapter.

Updates will now continue as usual!