Grand Master Yan allowed the audience to gossip freely for a half-minute before she announced the Orange-realm disciples and their matchups. Even after 800 years of life, she still enjoyed the frenetic uncertainty of youth. People above the blue realm, or anyone older than 200 really, were too sure of themselves. That made them too predictable. Newly-minted, Red-realm teenagers, though? They were a delightful grab bag of empathy, arrogance, talent, ambition, and terrible decisions. She didn’t need to fake a smile in front of them. It came naturally.

“I want all of you to watch very closely in these fights. It doesn’t matter how strong you were in your home city, or among your clan. The four cultivators you’re about to witness are stronger than you. Plain and simple. Surpassing them may not be possible for some, or even most of you, but they represent a level of power you will need to achieve before you can even be considered for entrance into the Inner Sect. First, please take the stage Hana Shio.”

With her chin up and her back straight, the girl with the three-pronged spear that Boneroot saw in the Grand Hall took up a position next to Grand Master Yan. Her appearance was ironically similar to Hana Kasumi. She, however, was more filled out and her features were even more elegant. Sapphires still dangled from her weapon and her braided, black hair. Boneroot noticed the master Venh had pointed out to him, Master Mamoru, eyeing the girl with interest.

“Next, Amina Zafi join us on the stage.”

A mirror image of the Sect Expert from Hamagari walked out of the crowd. She had dark skin and a broad face, with black hair, braided close to her scalp. Her red, silk blouse was cropped to only go halfway down her midriff. She wore sandals and shorts to match. The airy outfit was at odds with her severe expression.

The girl’s doppelganger, Alheri Zafi, looked on with smug approval. At her side, Sect Expert Salim Yashi just looked bored. Grand Master Yan allowed for another round of whispers and murmurs before continuing.

“Boneroot, come up.”

Kuroki decided to wait in the crowd with Biku and Iris, rather than feel out the fight from the boy’s shadow. Before he moved forward, his friends wished him luck and Boneroot detected what sounded like envy in Iris’ voice.

The crowd parted easily for him to walk up to the stage. On his way, he noticed a few looks of scorn, some sneers, and, surprisingly, some reverence. Once he got up next to the other two disciples, however, he was able to give his own look, one of intensely petty conceit, to two members of the crowd. Wei and Zhi Zhen were not thrilled with the display. Grand Master Yan did quite well in hiding her glee as she called the final cultivator up.

“Jota Guling, round out our numbers up here, please.”

From his position on high, Boneroot struggled to find the last disciple working his way through the crowd. Finally, he noticed a short, thin boy emerge from the inner ring of onlookers and approach the platform. He wore the sect robes, though he had the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His face was plain, yet pallid with some light freckles. His light brown hair was short and parted neatly to one side. Gripped in his right hand was a flimsy-looking book with a blank cover.

The four Orange-realm cultivators stood next to Grand Master Yan as she announced another surprise.

“Given we have two sets of you, I think it would be most interesting if somebody chose the combatant they’d like to fight! So, do any of you have any preferences?”

Each of the disciples looked at one another, but Jota Guling was the first to speak. He addressed the administrator of the entire affair with a carefree, easy tone.

“Grand Master Yan, am I correct in assuming Amina Zafi is a Fire cultivator?”

“If you have a question for me,” The girl in question cut in. “Then direct it to me, boy. I cultivate the Zafi clan’s art, The Inferno Rages.”

The Sect Expert of the same clan was so delighted by the girl’s interjection she almost smiled. At her side, Salim rolled his eyes and received an elbow in the side for his efforts. The audience of disciples traded in similarly animated reactions before settling back down.

“Excellent!” Jota clapped one hand against his book. “I should be at quite a disadvantage, then. I would like to fight her, Grand Master.”

Amina Zafi was slack jawed at the proclamation, but her expression quickly became a furious scowl. She growled her response, never taking her eyes off her challenger.

“Grand Master Yan, I would be grateful for the opportunity to meet this challenge.”

The elder cultivator in question was all-too-happy to oblige.

“Then it’s settled! Why don’t you two fight first then. No sense in delaying if it might dull that passion! Disciples Hana and Boneroot, it looks like you’ll have to be content to fight each other. Come, let’s vacate the arena.”

Amina thanked her, but Jota simply walked to one side of the arena, where Salim had stood a couple hours earlier. Quickly, the girl took her spot opposite him. The remaining disciples, Boneroot and Hana Shio, shared a quick look of amused resignation as they were unceremoniously guided off the platform. As they took new spots in the front of the crowd, the girl with the trident on her back assessed her soon-to-be opponent before addressing him.

“You must be talented. It is quite rare for a commoner to advance so quickly before attending the sect. I believe that boy in the arena is another such case.”

Delighted equally by the praise and the potential for his first pleasant exchange with a disciple other than Iris, Boneroot sputtered, “No, not at all! I just had a lot of help. Danh— Sect Expert Danh and some others helped me, actually.”

“Ah, of course. That explains it. Tell me, have you reached the Orange realm in both energies?” Hana Shio maintained a level tone and crossed her arms.

Boneroot was slightly put off by how quickly the girl accepted his explanation, but he put it out of his mind quickly.

“Yup! I didn’t even know people cultivated ki and qi separately until recently.”

She preemptively answered his own question.

“I’ve only broken through in ki, actually. My qi is still at the peak of Red realm. I suppose you’ll be at an advantage in our match.”

A wicked smile tugged at the girl’s lips as she turned away from Boneroot and toward the stage to watch the fight just beginning. Any relief the boy felt faded quickly. He too, turned toward the action, but with significantly less enthusiasm now.

On the stage, Jota had opened his book, seemingly at random, while Amina stood stock still, her arms crossed and her expression grim. Grand Master Yan signalled the start of the fight with a shout and a sweeping bow and the two cultivators went at each other immediately.

Jets of flame shot toward Jota and Amina was close behind them. The boy dodged the fire, but found himself locked in a physical fight with his opponent. Qi-enhanced fists battered at his defenses one after the other, but the smile never left his face. He didn’t even use both his arms to block the attacks, as one was dedicated to holding his book up.

When he disengaged from the close-quarters scrap, he waved one hand over the pages, which began to fly out of the book and toward Amina Zafi. The girl responded with quick bursts of Fire ki to incinerate the encroaching technique, but the paper was seemingly endless. Thirty seconds passed of the same dynamic and it was becoming clear that not only was the girl exhausting a lot of ki, Jota was hardly using any. Not even a single bead of sweat could be seen on the boy’s brow.

At the other end of the stage, Jota’s opponent was being pushed back slowly, but steadily. For every piece of paper she set ablaze, two more attached themselves to her body in some way. Once her arms and legs were nearly completely plastered in the pages of the boy’s book, she was forced to use a technique to deal with it. After a moment’s concentration, her entire body caught fire. The paper burned away and Amina seized the momentary lapse in offense. She sprinted forward, an avatar of flame, attempting to tackle her adversary.

Jota Guling kicked her. He kicked her hard, directly in the chest. While Amina certainly wasn’t in peak form with her ki partly exhausted and her attack rushed, she should have been able to deal with the strike. She should have been able to dodge it, or at least block the brunt of the force. Instead, the boy’s foot slipped right through her arms and she was sent hurtling backwards, nearly bouncing out of the arena entirely.

The flames engulfing her body went out as she wobbled to her feet. She didn’t even have a moment to recuperate before the paper was on her again. Each page that clung to her body had the effect of an iron chain hung about a mortal’s neck. She stumbled forward, just barely able to keep herself off the ground.

Jota’s book was out of paper, but more pages flew out from the sleeves of his robes, while others still the boy conjured in his hands. When Amina Zafi collapsed on the stone floor, her skin completely veiled by layers of paper, Jota didn’t bother to press his advantage. He just waited for Grand Master Yan to announce the end of the fight.

At least he looked out of breath.

In the immediate aftermath of the match, most observers exhibited the same stunned silence. A few stood out, however. Salim Yashi, for one, was laughing hysterically. The noise of his gasping guffaws was amplified by the absence of other chattering. Next to him, Alheri Zafi was furious. Heat broiled the air around her while she resisted the urge to incinerate either the boy on the stage, or the countryman at her side.

Boneroot also noticed Venh looking suspiciously pleased and Hana Shio eyeing the victor with clear concern. She turned her gaze to the commoner beside her and reassessed Boneroot.

“So, how does your talent compare to that?”

Boneroot thought she was trying to rebuild her confidence after watching a fellow Orange-realm disciple humiliated in front a hundred peers. He didn’t feel like acquiescing, though.

“I guess you’ll find out soon.”

Her eyes narrowed and his smile widened. Alheri Zafi swept her young doppelganger off the stage and carried her to the medical tent, which had relocated to a dozen paces behind the arena. The disciples in the crowd broke into frenzied discussion. Boneroot even heard some rather nasty accusations being leveled at Jota, while others questioned if the strength of his opponent was overblown.

Grand Master Yan stood once again in the center of the stone platform after congratulating Jota on his victory. The boy took up a position in the crowd a few feet away from Boneroot, but he didn’t deign to glance at the other two cultivators with whom he’d shared the stage just a few minutes ago.

“Certainly, that was an exciting display! However, I couldn’t help but overhear some of our audience members questioning the strength of Miss Zafi. Know this, young disciples: You are welcome to challenge anyone of equal or higher cultivation to yourself. As concerns Disciple Amina, most of you would be unwise to do so. For now, anyway.”

She let her words sink in to some of the abashed heads in the crowd.

“Let’s not forget, though, there is still one last fight to observe! Disciples Boneroot and Hana Shio, please come back up.”

As Boneroot emerged from the throng of cultivators once more, he heard a few whispers as to what sort of name ‘Boneroot’ actually was. That, at least, he found amusing. Hana Shio didn’t say anything as the two made their way up to the raised, grey platform.

Boneroot took up the same position Jota Guling had, while his opponent stood at the other end of the arena. The two sized each other up one last time, each of them standing tall with crossed arms.

In the crowd, the boy saw with one quick glance Iris, Biku, and Kuroki sharing anxious predictions among each other. Boneroot had to block out the tsovar’s mental voice to focus, though.

He stared down his opponent while waiting for Grand Master Yan to signal the start of the fight. He was working under the assumption that she was attuned to Water ki. The three-pronged spear on her back resembled the ‘trident’ his mother had once told him of in stories and the azure jewelry hanging from it seemed like another hint.

The thought had only just occurred to him, however, that he might get stabbed. He had seen a few of the other disciples using weapons in the previous fights, but few of them seemed particularly adept. Certainly none of them were as comfortable with armed combat as the hunters of The Village. Boneroot had to cut off that line of thought, though. Now was not the time.

Just as Boneroot was starting to feel anxious about fighting in front of so many people for the first time, Grand Master Yan announced the spar’s start and all the extraneous emotions were stripped away. Just like he had in so many fights with Kroshieshi, the boy cleared his mind in an instant, singularly focused on the task at hand.

Hana Shio made the first move and it was an aggressive one. She threw her spear at Boneroot right out of the gate. He had seen it coming, though. The girl was too obvious in fiddling with it, frankly. Finally, watching all those spars in The Village had paid off. Boneroot was so ready, in fact, that he managed to lean to one side and catch the spear by its shaft.

He flashed his opponent a proud grin, which slipped immediately when he felt the Water ki coursing through the weapon in his hand. In an instant, streams of water seeped out of the gemstones on the trident and connected to similar conjurations from the gemstones in Hana Shio’s hair. The Water ki snatched the spear out of Boneroot’s hands and sent it flying back into his opponent’s.

Hana returned his grin, but hers too was short-lived because she found an angry Light-cultivator trailing closely behind it. When Boneroot was in range he lashed out with a Radiant Claw to the girl’s upper thigh, trying to limit her mobility. Though he managed to gouge some flash from her, Boneroot found his own leg speared in return.

The boy knocked the weapon away and the two disengaged. Each cycled qi to their wound before readying themselves for another clash. Boneroot still didn’t have a proper read on his opponent, so he didn’t want to commit himself to another full-on attack yet. He continued to probe her defenses with Radiant Claws, but Hana caught on quickly. Soon, the Spatial techniques were finding their way barred by manifestations of Water ki.

Boneroot switched to firing off beams of Light ki, but it wasn’t much better. Though she couldn’t block those with water in time, she still managed to dodge each attack. The same held true when he alternated Radiant Claws and Mini Mega Beams. Even firing all ten at different spots didn’t grant him an opening. Hana Shio’s defense was immaculate and it was beginning to frustrate Boneroot.

After a couple minutes of attacking at range, the Light cultivator decided he needed to change tactics. He was clearly running out of ki quicker than his opponent. The moment he let up on attacking, however, he found himself on the defensive. Hana closed the gap in an instant, propelled forward on a small wave of her own ki. Boneroot was boxed in by spear jabs and water jets, forced to retreat backwards.

In Hana’s pursuit, she scored a number of glancing blows on the boy, which were starting to add up. Boneroot was bleeding from his face, neck, arms and legs. The wounds were nothing compared to the beatings he received daily from Kroshieshi, but he felt his desperation mounting, nonetheless. Like his fight with the Wood cultivator in that crystalline, mountain arena, Boneroot decided to put his all into one more attack.

As before, he channeled Light ki into his fingers while dodging his opponent’s attacks. As Hana’s spear drew back from a failed thrust to his side, he unleashed the beams and began to inject Void ki into the space in front of him. She evaded each one with little effort, but, of course, Boneroot was already behind her.

Just as the Sunless Stride finished and he was striking to end the fight, Boneroot jerked to a stop. He looked down to see Hana’s trident sunk several inches into his gut. The look on her face was surprised, but her instincts hadn’t failed her. Surprise turned to relief and Hana clearly thought herself the victor.

That was the moment her defenses finally faltered. Boneroot stepped forward with a grunt and swiped at her face with a close-range Radiant Claw. The girl stumbled backwards, clutching at the deep gouges running down her cheek. Unfortunately, she took her spear with her. While a weak smile crept onto his rapidly paling face, Boneroot frantically cycled qi to his stomach. The trident had dislodged chunks of something on its way out. He knew if he moved forward any more he’d be risking more than a lost spar, so he decided to try out his newest technique.

The strands of Light ki quickly formed a ball in his palm, but the technique never got the chance to finish. Tentacles of Water ki sprouted from Hana’s enraged form and assaulted Boneroot from every angle. His CHAOS YARN unravelled in his hand, lashing out at random between the two cultivators. While Hana had the skin flayed clean off her clavicle and four knuckles by the Light ki, Boneroot lost consciousness after the fifth water tendril pummeled the side of his head.

Grand Master Yan considered intervening, but there wasn’t much need. Venh had already shielded the boy from further beating, while Master Bo was right behind him, dissipating Hana’s technique. Frankly, she was surprised by each of the young cultivators. She wasn’t taken aback by their strength, given their backgrounds, but by the sheer brutality of the fight.

Most disciples, particularly those in the Outer Sect, were too used to spars. Frequently with the cultivators who joined the sect’s Martial Defense Force, they had no sense of the mortal danger that came with a fight between cultivators. These two, however, were willing to spill more than blood over a preliminary sparring match.

Turning to face the other disciples in the crowd, Grand Master Yan didn’t care to suppress her wild amusement. In announcing Hana Shio’s victory, she wanted them all to know what was necessary to thrive in the world of immortals.

At the very least, the audience had four new people to fear.