Spirit District Arena-

The third day of the arena battles came quickly. The number of competitors had been whittled down to only 26. Some of these competitors had managed to sneak into the top 26 only by sheer luck at having lucky draws from the box, while others had stepped into this position through a great deal of hardship.

Of the 26 remaining competitors, 9 of them were from factions unaffiliated with a nation or super power and weren’t seed members. One of these people was the sword girl, who had basically walked through the competition so far without even raising a sweat.

The other 17 members were all seed members. Betto, his older sister Baily, and the arrogant youth, Aris, were all from a Nahtiro faction called the Atsunari Sword Sect. That old man that always accompanied them was the vice guild master, simply referred to as Owl.

So far, none of these three had displayed any significant level of proficiency and seemed to all have had an easy time reaching this point, not even bothering to reveal their elements.

One member of both the Soel Church and the Hastoel Aristocracy remained. The son of the Pope, also called the Son of the Order, Brightly, was the Soel seed member and from his battles could be considered rather powerful. He wielded the element of light and carried himself with a noble grace customary of a man of powerful position.

The Hastoel seed member was the son of a very influential member of the Hastoel Council, which essentially ruled Hastoel. He was one of those lucky few that had been matched up with rather weak competitors earlier on and hadn’t needed to display any significant level of power yet, making him somewhat unknown. At the least, everyone knew he wielded the element of wind and was named Gregor.

The Profit Sect had two remaining competitors, and as far as the standard set so far could go, they were rather weak. However, what they did have going for them was a massive horde of artefacts with all sorts of nasty abilities. They’d achieved their position through the use of an endless horde of artefacts, which actually made them rather frightening. Their delegate leader was the big nosed Feng and another older man dressed in very expensive looking robes.

James could only smile when he watched Feng and the man he presumed was his master, casting confused glances at the Hall Master of the Blood Gallery every now and then. Naturally, even with his face covered by mist, the duo recognised their most trusted aide and assassin.

The other two Nahtiro factions were surprisingly guilds. One of them was a dark guild called the Skull Guild. It had two members remaining who kept their face constantly hidden behind masks. They both displayed water element skills and were incredibly proficient in deceptive tactics and assassination techniques.

The other Guild was called the Hell Pill Guild. As opposed to most other guilds, this guild didn’t focus at all on public services and job requests. In fact, very much like the Brotherhood, it was structured similarly to a sect. The only reason it wasn’t a sect was that members retained some amount of freedom and weren’t bound to the sect for life, which is often the case in many sects.

This guild was actually founded by Tantsu and was the most powerful and well respected alchemist guild in all of Atsunari. Naturally, a man as aloof and narcissistic as Tantsu wouldn’t deign to come to this little backwater city for some boorish fighting. Instead, he sent his oldest alchemist apprentice, Tier 4 Alchemist Hallow.

The two competitors remaining from the Hell Pill Guild were similar to the Profit Sect. They didn’t appear to have much personal combat strength, and instead wielded a vast array of pills, potions, poisons, and everything else under the sun that could be derived from alchemy to cause harm or heal damage.

The remaining 8 were from the various other nations of Atsunari, including James. Because of the number of remaining competitors, the battles today would instead all be 3 way battles, with one two way battle. However, against James’ expectations, weaker members all chose to bow out.

This was for two reasons. First, they realised that they would most likely not be able to achieve much better than what they had so far and most likely, if they continued to battle, they would get killed instead. They can’t really be blamed for this. After yesterday’s battles, many of them acknowledged that some of these genius’ were like bloodthirsty monsters.

The second reason was that they had been able to accomplish their goal. For the competitors that entered the top 26, they all received discounts from the Brotherhood and the right to buy equipment and other services that were normally reserved from sale, even to account holders.

For the smaller factions that they represented, this was already a huge boon.

In total, more than 8 people backed out of the competition. This left 18 remaining participants. Due to the numbers, Gary decided to only have two three way battles this round. That would result in only 8 competitors next round, which would lead to the semi-finals.

Lots were drawn, and the battle order was arranged. James somehow found himself trapped in another 3 way battle. This time, his two competitors were both unknown variables. The first was a strangely familiar young man who couldn’t be more than 13 or 14. He was dressed in ragged common clothes, and his faced was still young and immature. He seemed to look on other competitors with some level of disdain.

The other participant was an old woman, who was a representative of the United Islands. She was dressed in graceful flowing robes and looked quite well off and seemed to be a part of the upper class of the United Islands.

James hadn’t paid much attention to the boy until the three of them stood in the arena together. He seemed to remain under the radar for most of the competition and had been rather lucky in getting weaker opponents until now.

The Old Woman had been in a few intense battles, and James could tell that she had taken a similar route to him in her cultivation. Instead of increasing the quantity of her spirit power she instead chose to increase its quality.

This made her rather dangerous, but not unable to be dealt with. James found himself focusing on the boy’s face, again and again, unable to shake that feeling of familiarity. Just as the bell of the arena rang out, James’ face suddenly changed dramatically.

Without thought, James flicked his hand and summoned his Arc Cannon from his storage ring. His body swivelled as he raised the Cannon to his shoulder and looked down the sights at the boy. Until now, the only time James had used his Arc Cannon was in the previous round. That said, everyone readily acknowledged it as a serious threat.

The boy, who had been watching James this whole time, seemed slightly shocked and his eyes widened into two saucers, revealing his surprise. “Woah! Woah! Master James, please give my Master some face and...”

BOOM!

The resonating boom of the Ark Cannon sounded out just as the boy began back peddling and yelling. The world seemed to slow down to a crawl, and the supersonic slug that had just been fired seemed to be moving at the same pace as an ant.

Apart from the rapidly backpedalling boy and James, everything in the world seemed to be on the verge of stopping. Then, out of nowhere, a man appeared and plucked the slug out of thin air.

James’ pupils dilated into pinpoints and he, without reservation or conscious effort, began trying to run. Before he could even turn his eyes away, the man appeared only a few steps away from him.

This man was very familiar to James. In fact, perhaps for the rest of his life, he’ll never forget the scene this man made when he broke into his lab. Staring at James from only a step away, through relaxed and half closed eyes, was the Old Riddle Speaking Monk.

“Ho ho! Interesting Interesting! A Dragon is hidden amongst Tigers. It looks like the Fairy Compass was wrong, when it is always right. The thunder booms with a titan’s might and young men will always have to fight.”

James felt powerless ... and speechless. He couldn’t understand a thing this old bastard was saying. He also could tell that right now, he could be squashed by this old man with a wave of his hand. Just as the bell rang for battle, James recognised the young man in the arena as the boy who came to his lab with the old monk.

With that thought in mind, James acknowledged him as a threat and immediately took actions to nullify this enemy. He couldn’t be sure if that boy was even really a True Spirit Realm Practitioner, and thus took the most immediate route.

To his chagrin, the old monk was nearby watching the spectacle and stepped in to save his disciple.

James could only smile wryly as he saluted the prune faced old monk. “Junior James greets Senior.”

After a moment’s thought, James decided to respond like he did last time. “Ahem ... errr ... The sprouting grass sways in the wind under the shade of the great oak?”

This was phrased as a question, mostly because James had no idea what he was saying. He was just making up synonyms and metaphors to express himself.

Whatever he just said, the prune faced monk liked it. “Ho ho. Good! The strong eat the weak while the weak are eaten. The Tigers prey on the hoppers, unaware of the dragon ... Stop using these toys and fight with my apprentice seriously.”

Then to James’ great surprise, the old monk finally said something understandable. However, just as quickly, he reverted to his usual speech pattern. “A thousand li is a long way to walk without shoes.”

James was now convinced that this prune faced old bastard was just a huge dick that liked fucking with people. Regardless of that, James got the message and simply saluted again after putting his Ark Cannon away.

The old monk smiled delightfully and then disappeared. Moments later, time seemed to catch up to itself, and James looked over to the distant disciple of the monk. The crowds were stunned when they realised that the boy had traversed half the arena in the blink of an eye. The old Tower Realms that were watching along with their disciples were also stunned.

Although no one else had witnessed that scene a moment ago, they all realised that something strange had just happened.

James, on the other hand, hadn’t moved a single step. He looked around at all the crowds for a moment before finally pulling his eyes back and assessing the arena. He saw the old women rapidly moving towards him, while the young boy had also started to move again.

James gave a slight chuckle when he realised that the both of them had recognised him as the greatest threat and seemed to have come to some tacit agreement. Kill James first.

He flicked his arms and allowed his Ark Pistol and Scimitar to materialise into his hands. Then without further ado, and under the loud cheers of the people, James rushed towards the old woman.

The distance between the two rapidly closed until they were only 20 odd meters apart. James raised his Pistol in his left hand and let off a few shots. The moment James had raised his arm and made an aiming action, the Old Women started taking evasive manoeuvres, dodging left and right sporadically.

Her element was the wind and she seemed like a leaf being blown this way and that on a turbulent gust. The moment she was distracted and began dodging, James rushed forward at full speed. In less than a second, he’d appeared near the old women and swung his scimitar, filled with the power of fire and wind.

The Old Women, still off balance from her rapid and sporadic movements was stunned when she felt that killing intent. ‘Just how fast is this boy?!’

With a practised motion, her body seemed to roll in the air and spin. The chopping Scimitar lightly brushed against her robes and with that simple tiny bit of contact, a massive tornado of flames sprung up engulfing the Old Women.

James quickly jumped back a few paces to observe. The moment he stopped, he had a strange sensation, deep in the pit of his stomach. It was so odd that even his true spirit seemed to be feeling this sensation. Just as James turned to glance behind him, he saw the shadow of a copper staff.

With all his effort, James raised his pistol to his left side and managed to block the staff with the pistols blade. What he didn’t realise until the staff made contact, was that the force behind it was like a train. His blocking arms felt a tremendous amount of pressure and almost seemed like it would snap at any moment.

The staff continued on in its swinging arc as if unhindered and James was launched through the air as if he was being used for batting practice. He flew dozens of metres through the air, and his body spun rapidly and uncontrollably. All he could see was the earth and sky quickly changing place until suddenly it all became earth.

Thud!

His body issued a soft thud and then rolled on a few more metres. Just as he was getting his feet under himself, that strange sensation in the pit of his stomach intensified. This time, without even looking, James blurred and shot off another 10 meters.

Just as he stopped and looked back, he saw the young boy’s staff make contact with the ground, and the entire arena shook. The ground looked like it had been struck by a meteor as it caved in to become a crater.

James was shocked. This swing had the power of an Ark Cannon behind it. Although so slow it was clear to the visible eye, the power in this swing was enough to level a building. From the corner of his eye, James saw his flame tornado seemingly being sucked up into the sky, and the slightly singed and charred old woman walked out.

The crowd was shocked by the combat power of these 3 True Spirit realm practitioners. James was also slightly shocked by the duo in front of him. He was already aware that the boy would be difficult, but he only now realised that the Old Women was just as much a pain in the ass.

Seeing a slight break as the duo eyed him cautiously, James moved his left arm about a few times. Luckily, it wasn’t broken. Otherwise, this battle would be a hundred times more difficult. As he was testing his left arm, the Old Women put her hands into the sleeves of her robes and retrieved a simple Chinese paper fan. It had no intricate paintings or marking and was pure white.

The Boy also stood up and straightened himself. Strangely, at this stage of the battle, when the duo should have been pressing their advantage, they both saluted James. “I am Cheng, Disciple of Old Monk Hong.” “I am Lacy, Vice Director of United Islands Maritime Affairs.”

James’ eyebrow twitched for a moment as the duo respectfully made introductions. ‘What the hell are you doing? Where in the middle of battle. This is hardly the time to be creating an opening by introducing yourself and bowing.’

James smiled like the Cheshire Cat then raised his weapons in preparedness. “I’m James.” He simply replied, then without further warning he fired his Arc Pistol at the boy and began running forward towards the duo.

The duo was stunned by his total lack of decorum, but at the same time were grinding their teeth together. They’d both hoped that when James introduced himself, he would also show the proper respect and at least salute, giving them an opportunity to do exactly what he was doing right now. Seizing the advantage.

What they didn’t realise was, James never bowed, and rarely saluted. He was unorthodox in this world and showed respect only to those strong enough. Needless to say, he obviously did not acknowledge this pair as strong enough.

With a shot from his pistol fired, James was already a few paces from the Old Woman. The Boy flicked his staff at a rapid speed, which was the total opposite of its slow, cumbersome speed form beforehand, and deflected the bullet from the Pistol.

Although this bullet was far smaller than a Cannon’s slug, it still packed a huge amount of punch. When the bullet was deflected, the boy stumbled back a few steps. At this moment when he was occupied, James was already swinging his scimitar at the Old Women again.

As she straightened up from her bow, the fan in her hands flicked out and waved towards the blade chopping towards her from an upwards angle. The moment the two intersected, a huge gale of wind was created which blew back the inferno generated from the scimitar.

At the same time, the pair was pushed back from the collision. As James backpedalled a few paces, the boy was already racing towards him at an unnatural speed. It was only now that James realised the boy had two attributes. Wind and Earth.

That explained the strangeness of his two martial forms when wielding his staff. One was quick and agile but lacked significant strength, which was why he was knocked back by the pistol shot just then. The other was strong and forceful but lacked speed and agility, which explained why he’d caved a 10 meter crater into the floor of the arena.

As the boy approached, James’ left hand flicked out, and 2 consecutive shots were fired from the pistol in the same moment. The moment James had aimed towards him, the boy slowed and spun his staff. It deflected the two shots, but because they were both focused on the same spot and shot in the same instant, it broke the boys balance a great deal more easily than the previous shot.

At the same time, the Old Women rushed towards James and waved her fan, which now seemed to have a leaf painted on it. James was stunned when his focus returned to the Old Women. He was starting to feel the pressure from the duo and decided to fully release his scrying field, which he’d been holding back because he wanted to test his limits in this competition.

The moment he released it fully, Gold James and Jasmine both released their own. Three points of focus suddenly appeared in James’ scrying field. One focused on each of the opponents and the last just keeping a general eye on everything.

As James scanned the old women, he realised that her fan had some strange properties inside it. She swung down and infused her wind energy into the fan. Moments later, a huge gust of wind formed and pushed towards James like a tidal wave. Rocks and dirt sprayed up towards James, and he quickly back peddled.

As the tidal wave of wind energy was released, another leaf formed onto the fan. James’ mind was spinning rapidly as he noticed the fan retaining some of the wind energy from the attack and instead appeared to be ... eating it to create more free wind energy which was fused into the fan.

Jasmine, who was the one who’s shared scrying focus was directed at the old women, couldn’t help but let out an; “Oh?”.

“James, that fan appears to be able to multiply it’s attack power the more it’s used. You should focus on limiting her ability to attack. If she feeds that fan too much, it may disadvantage us later in the battle.”

Meanwhile, Goldy was focused on the Boy.Hmm, that boys weapon is also quite disastrous. The staff is filled with both earth and wind element. He doesn’t seem to be able to use them both at the same time, but if he does it may become very difficult to deal with.~

James wasn’t surprised. He already felt the pressure from the duo and could tell that they weren’t a pushover. James swung out his scimitar filled with wind energy. A similar tidal wave of energy to the Old Women’s was released and nullified the Old Women’s.

Seeing this action, the old women was slightly stunned. ‘Did he just use my own martial technique to negate me? Truly as Master Clay said. This man is, without a doubt, a Genius amongst his peers.’

Without further thought, she lowered her stance slightly and began rapidly approaching again. The boy also rapidly started running towards James from the other side.

James could only smile wryly seeing the duo attempting to catch him from both sides. He raised the pistol towards the boy and readied his scimitar for another round with the Old Women. The moment the pistol was aimed at him, the boy started darting about as he closed in.

James pulled the trigger, and this time three rounds were shot in succession. Instead of their previous single trajectory they each seemed to curve off in slightly bent arcs from each other. At the same time, he decided to take things slightly more seriously. He imbued his scimitar with Lightning creating a strange flaming lighting on his blade.

He then spun and swung it towards the Old Women, releasing a huge arcing bolt of flaming lightning energy towards her. Seeing him using his melee weapon to try and launch a distance attack, the Old Women couldn’t help to let out a ‘humph’. After all, everyone knows that melee weapons lose a great deal of their combat potential when used to fire projectile martial techniques.

She waved her fan and created another huge wave of wind. However, to her surprise, James simultaneously followed up with a wind wave. Of even greater surprise to her, was the flaming lightning bolt. Although it seemed to lose some of its power, it continued on through her wind wave mostly unperturbed. If anything, the wind energy had only helped to agitate the fire energy even further.

She got careless and thought that it would be enough to just block it with a wind wave. What she didn’t realise, was that the very nature of lighting was to travel through the air. Admittedly, if the wave of wind was dense enough and had compressed a strong enough force of air, it could indeed block lighting. Unfortunately for her, she was not powerful enough to achieve such a feat.

As the third leaf appeared on her fan, the lightning struck her right shoulder, and the fan was flung out of her hand. She was shot back a few meters and rolled.

At the same time, James launched his wind wave to block her wind wave, he turned and began sprinting towards the boy, and he let off another shot from his Pistol. This time was 4 shots in a row. Even more interesting was that these four shots were imbued with his spirit power. Each one had a different attribute imbued in it.

This was the speciality of his pistol ... or rather, to be more accurate, it was the effect of his ammunition. Each clip had different properties. The one loaded in the pistol at the moment fired consecutive shots. That being the case, he used this pistol to deceive people. At first, it only seemed like it fired one extra shot each time he fired it, and the bullets were always the same.

Instead, each of these bullets had a purpose. He purposefully left the first three bullets in this clip as normal pistol arc bullets. Then, as he held the pistol during the combat so far, he imbued each of the rounds for the 4 shot with different attributes. At the same time, he could imbue the pistol to slightly alter the bullet trajectory when it is released.

It wasn’t just this clip, but all of his clips stored in his spatial ring had different purposes. He even had one that was only filled with paintballs ... It wasn’t unusual to see Harvy walking out of the HQ arena with James, covered from head to toe in paint.

The young boy, not realising the strangeness of these bullets, did what he’d done since the beginning. He spun his staff infused with wind energy and prepared to deflect the bullets. However, when the first bullet connected with his staff, he was blasted off his feet as if he’d been struck by a bus.

Following this, the next bullet grazed past his shoulder as he was in the air and a current of electricity filled his body, stunning him instantly.

The next bullet seemed to simply shatter on impact with his chest and suddenly released a huge concussive blast and raging inferno of flames, shooting the boy into the ground with a great deal of force. Although the boy had managed to protect himself with his earth energy, the concussive force and the collision with the ground both caused his body to ache and he even felt a rib fracture.

Finally, the last bullet, which had only been a back-up in case the boy managed to block the others, continued on and collided with the distant invisible arena barrier. The moment it made contact, the barrier shuddered to life like a thin ethereal bubble and another explosive concussive force burst to life creating an explosion of flames.

This whole battle, from the moment James engaged after the duo paused, to now, happened in less than a minute.

The crowds were astonished and made no qualms about letting the world know with their cheers. The other factions attending the war of world’s and the other competitors still hoping to win first place were all stunned.

Their thoughts were running wildly as they looked at James with incredulity. They began discussing among themselves as they watched perplexed.

“Isn’t this too much? Isn’t this too powerful?”

“His weapons are too unique ... and his elements can easily counter other’s elements.”

“Is he really a True Spirit realm practitioner? I’ve seen that old woman battle, and she’s clearly at the top of her class within her realm. How could she be so easily defeated?”

“There’s something strange about this battle. There’s no way that senior sister Lacy would be so severely injured just from that attack right? Isn’t that lightning element too powerful?”

As they discussed, and the audience cheered on, James rapidly sped over to next to the boy. Seeing him struggling to fight off the paralysing effects of the lightning bullet, James reached out a hand and placed it on his shoulder. “Good effort young man. In the future, don’t take me so lightly. I’m sure if you’re his apprentice then you should be powerful. However, you were too careless this time.”

After saying this, James shocked the boy again, and he passed out.

Without giving her time to get herself back under control, James rushed over to the Old Woman. As he reached her, she suddenly released a gust of wind and shot to her feet. Although still numb and in pain, and having a clearly broken and burnt right shoulder, she still managed to stand and face James.

James smiled like the devil. “Say, Old Granny, you’re rather injured. You should retreat today, and return again next year.”

The old women glanced over at her fan lying on the ground a meter away. She then looked back straight at James and clenched her teeth as she staggered towards it while grasping her broken shoulder.

James didn’t move to stop her. As far as he saw it, he had basically won already. The old Women picked up her fan then faced James again. She was slightly woozy, and her feet were unsteady, but she lowered her stance a prepared to battle nonetheless.

James was shocked at the persistence of this granny. “Old Granny, aren’t you afraid that I will just kill you outright? If this goes on, you will most likely die.”

Lacy coughed up some blood, then very unbecoming of her image as an old lady, spat it on the ground. “City Master James, this battle is already a battle for my life. If I forfeit now, I will only die later on. If I can’t win the assistance of your guild, my homeland will be ravaged and destroyed. I can’t afford to lose.”

James then remembered that this granny was from the United Islands and understood that her resolve was fixed. Their nation must truly be in a disastrous state if she was willing to bet her life on it here and now. James thought about it for a while.

He couldn’t help but praise this old women’s resolve. She clearly loved her homeland a great deal and was willing to put her life on the line for any little bit of hope she could find. She needed to win this competition to save her people, her family and everything she loved.

James knew that his guild had the power to help their nation. He could easily amass some weapons of war that could turn the tide for the United Islands. Even if he didn’t give them weapons to fight for themselves, he could infiltrate the enemies of the United Islands and eliminate their powerful practitioners.

With all these thoughts in mind, James looked at the resolve on the Old Women’s face. Even the crowd was slightly swayed by her resolve. Everyone knew of the plight the United Islands was in.

Then James, without warning, raised his pistol and shot the old women in the head.

Stunned. Speechless. A great wave of confusion spread throughout the crowds. James lowered his gun and began walking out under the stunned gazes of the crowd.

James chuckled to himself as he walked out. “Do I look like a charity? I warned you didn’t I?”

He felt no remorse what so ever. In fact, he wouldn’t even defend himself if people accused him of being cold blooded and heartless. He didn’t care. The United Islands could have tried to deal with him through normal channels or back channels. Instead, they tried to take the opportunity provided by this competition to use the opinions of the soft-hearted crowds to influence James.

Even if he didn’t forfeit the battle, he would surely show some magnanimity. He would at least not kill her and would at least show some kind of sincerity to the United Islands plight. Instead, he did exactly as he said he would. He killed her and then left without even an afterthought of the United Islands.

The crowd felt their guts turning and their blood boiling.

“Monster!”

“Murderer!”

“Vile! The City Master is so Vile!”

Everyone was stunned! They felt some little bit of compassion for the United Islands, and seeing James just killing an injured representative of the Islands like that, they were enraged.

However, strangely enough, after the silence was broken by those curses and angry shouts, a huge cheer erupted. Most of the crowd were visitors who came to watch the competition from other places. What they never realised was ... James was loved by his people. In the eyes of the true residents of the City, James could do no wrong.

This created a huge divide in the crowd. All the visitors thought him to be a heartless bully and villain, while the other half unanimously and ... blindly, loved him.

James, who had now left the arena, just chuckled to himself. He saw the faces of the other competitors when he walked past them into the competitor area of the arena. Disgust, hatred, anger, they all had different expressions on their faces.

Amusingly, the only people who didn’t were those few truly powerful competitors. The sword girl didn’t seem to be occupied by what happened in the arena at all. In fact, she was busily cleaning her sword and didn’t seem to recognise anything going on outside her own little world.

Betto, the Nahtiro contestant, was looking at James with shining eyes like he was looking at an unclaimed mountain of gold.

Everyone else seemed to be looking at him in a negative way. James didn’t care. Now that his round was finished, he left the arena.

-James’ Spirit Realm-

Gold James was pumping his fist in the air and yelling as he jumped around on the floating rock.Woohoo! Oh Yeah! Another flawless victory! This Godly Young Man can’t be stopped! HAHAHA!~

Meanwhile, Spirit James and Jasmine were seated at their table enjoying tea as they watched the next battle commencing.

On the screen was Betto. He looked rather disinterested with this fight and was simply observing the arena. His competitor was one of the Profit Sect’s two remaining seeds. A tall skinny man carrying on his back a huge backpack that dwarfed his body and was stuffed so full it was like a small planet. It almost looked like he could, at any moment, be crushed under his massive bag.

Goldy, finally having calmed down, re-joined the duo at the table to observe. Of all the other competitors, this Betto fella was the most promising for a good battle in his opinion. When he saw the Profit Sect member standing hunched over with his bag, he couldn’t help but let out a whistle.

~Phew. Talk about being crushed by your baggage.~

James’ eyebrow twitched slightly as he glanced over at Goldy. “Can’t you be ... I don’t know, a little more dignified. You’re supposed to be my pride aren’t you?”

Then, as if an afterthought, he also added his two cents about the profit sect man. “Besides, the guy’s clearly got the weight of the world on his shoulders.”

Jasmine, always amused by the antics of ... James talking to himself, couldn’t help but cover her mouth as she giggled. This in itself was a rare sight. It was only recently that she started to display any sorts of emotions like mirth or humour.

As they watched on, the bell sounded in the arena, and the Profit Sect man simply dropped his bag onto the ground and pulled open the top. Moments later he started pulling out talismans, swords, knives, floating shields and all other assortment of artefacts and unusual items.

James couldn’t help but perk up as he watched Betto simply start sprinting straight towards the man as multitudes of artefacts whizzed past him and exploded everywhere. It almost seemed like Betto was always a step ahead and maneuvered in the slightest of motions to avoid.

He was so skilled at it that the whole scene simply looked like him running forwards in very obvious zigzagging manner. Although Betto’s profound skill was rather interesting, James wasn’t paying much attention to it. Mostly, he wanted to face Betto while he didn’t know much about his abilities. That would make it all the more exciting for him.

As a side bonus, he was observing all the artefacts being thrown about his arena like throwing breadcrumbs in the park. He couldn’t help but sigh quietly. “Sighh ... Profit Sect truly is Profit Sect. It must have cost them a fortune to accumulate all those tasty treasures.”

James then looked at Jasmine. “Jasmine ... what happens to all the treasures left behind in the arena? I’m sure Gary’s said something about it at one point or another, right?”

“Certainly James. In the beginning, Gary drew up a simple contract for all the competitors. You don’t know this because you are a guild member, but all the other competitors knew what was expected and had to swear an oath to uphold their part of the agreement for participation. This was done the morning of the first bouts.

“Also, Gary swore an oath on the Guild Seal that he would uphold the Guilds part of the contract. The terms were rather simple. It just stated the rules of the competition and each parties responsibilities. In the Guild’s case, they will uphold the rules of the competition within their best judgement and with complete impartiality.

“In the case of the competitors, they agree to risk their lives in the competitions and acknowledge that should they die, no fault will fall on the guild and they accept all responsibility for their death. By extension of that, if a party is killed in battle, all of their items and equipment are forfeit to the guild. The only exception being whatever the victorious party can walk out of the arena with.”

James cupped his chin for a moment. “So what you’re saying is ... If that young lad doesn’t pick up all this stuff after killing that fellow, I get it all?”

“That would be correct James.”

James’ customary devilish grin spread on his face when he heard this. “That’s excellent news. So, does that mean that old women’s fan is now mine as well?”

Jasmine nodded her head with a smile. She knew the only reason he was watching this duel was that he was interested in all the artefacts the Profit Sect’s Seed was throwing all over the place. By this point in time, Betto had somehow gotten within striking range of the Profit Sect man and looked like he was rearing up for a punch.

Just before the action got good, James waved his hand and made the Screen disappear. He was muttering to himself and rubbing his hands together like a greedy banker as his eyes shone with a mysterious light.

Back in the real world, James was rapidly moving towards the lab. “Jasmine, have that fan sent to the lab immeadiat...”

“I’ve already sent it James.”

James’ smile just became even more disgusting as he sped up his pace towards the Lab Elevator.

-The Lab-

James briskly walked past the Spatial Seed Chamber as he moved towards an empty testing room. The moment he entered he saw a single white fan laying atop a single white desk. There was nothing else in the room.

Like a ghost, James’ visage blurred from the doorway and appeared next to the desk, holding the fan up for inspection. He waved it a few times causing huge gusting winds to suddenly spring up and rattle the room.

With every wave, the winds got stronger. By the time the fan hand nine leaves, he’d already completely destroyed two of the walls in the room, revealing two similarly empty white rooms with only a single desk inside.

At this point, he left the now decimated room muttering to himself as he waved the fan about. As if completely oblivious, he destroyed parts of the lab everywhere he went. At one point, some new faced Lackey’s were busily dragging in all the artefacts just scavenged from the arena after Betto’s Battle.

After a few of them got blown away and became red paint on one of the lab walls, a considerably more experienced Lackey stepped forwards and pulled them all back towards a hidden hallway. He and 5 other Lackey’s patiently stood there until the roaring sounds of winds slowly died away.

One of the youngest, a boy, could only cower and shiver. He looked up at the more experienced senior with big eyes, scared out of his wits. “Senior Lackey 87. Why is the City Master destroying the lab?”

This Senior Lackey, 87, had somehow miraculously survived the longest out of everyone in the labs, with the only exception being Norman, who generally never left the safety of the alchemist lab ... in saying that however, even the Alchemy lab appeared to be an ancient battlefield of life and death lately.

87 looked like a grizzled veteran of endless wars. His face and arms were littered with scars and his skin weathered and leathery. His voice was aged and gruff, and he seemed to constantly be alert for any sudden danger. Many of the young initiates who joined the lab for some ‘quick and easy’ contribution points believed him to be an old time war hero or something. Never would they have guessed that only 8 months ago this man was simply a healthy middle-aged farmer, and all of his ‘battle hardened experience’ was earnt here on the front lin ... err, the lab.

“Don’t mind him 192. You’ll soon learn that this is a regular occurrence in the City Master’s laboratory. I remember back when I first started and Lab Master Skay was still around. He was just as bad. It seems after he left, the City Master has picked up some of his bad habits.

“Let me tell you, back then, you’d know trouble was brewing if you ever saw one of them mumbling incessantly. This should be a warning to all of you, this lab may have seemed like an easy job when you started because the City Master has been busy with his War of the Worlds, but in truth, it’s a constant struggle to survive just a day.

“If you plan on staying here for any long-term period of time, you must learn the Master’s mood and be prepared to die at any second. Always be on guard at every moment ... and ... If you should ever actually meet Death, don’t speak ill of the Master in his presence.”

One of the younger more brash looking Lackey’s gave a humph. Although he’d been hiding away here with the others as well, he was too proud to admit how frightening the City Master and his lab was. As such, he barely hesitated before putting on a false bravado.

“Hmph! What’s so great about the City Master anyway. If I had these resources, I could just stroll around swinging an ancient artefact and killing people too.”

The moment the words left his mouth, the grizzled lab veteran 87 turned pale. He spun around to berate the young lab member only to see a strange black smoke materialising in the hallway behind them. Without hesitation, he dropped to his knees and slammed his head into the ground in prostration.

Everyone was momentarily stunned by this action, until they turned to see a whirlpool of dark spirit energy that stank of rotting corpses and immediately sent a chill down the spine and one’s hands to become clammy with sweat.

Before any of them could fully register what was going on, a withered hand wrapped in dirty, miserable looking bandages, reached out from the void like the hand of Death himself. It clasped onto the neck of that loud mouthed Lackey then without pause slowly sucked him back into the whirlpool of death energy.

Despite his kicking and screaming, the man couldn’t even slightly resist. In a matter of seconds, which to the newbies felt like a year, the man’s face made contact with the death energy and his whole body rapidly began to wither and decay in front of the astonished gazes of the others. The only one who wasn’t watching on horrified as the man was slowly mummified was 87, who remained prostrate on the ground.

Then, as if it had never even been there, and as if there had never been a Lackey 195, the whirlpool sucked the body in and disappeared.

The bone-chilling sense of chill remained, but the evidence that 195 had ever existed was suddenly gone. 87 slowly climbed up to his feet as he dusted himself off. “Like I said, never speak ill of the Master. Death is around every corner in the City Master’s Laboratory.”

Then without further ado, he turned and continued to push the cart filled with the profit sect man’s artefacts off towards one of the empty testing rooms.

To 87, this was a regular occurrence in the Lab. Even James didn’t know that this sort of thing happened. Not that it would bother him if he did. Harvy could basically do whatever he wanted. James wouldn’t care. Especially not in regards to the Lackey’s which James didn’t even acknowledge as real people.

While this had been going on, James had already reached the arena on the 1st level and was still playing with the fan.

Whoosh ‘Truly mysterious.’ Whoosh

By now, James had figured out that the fan couldn’t have more than 9 leaves. He also figured out that with each leaf, the power the fan could display increased by half each time. That meant that at the time there were 9 leaves, the fan could release 38 times the power it initially released.

On the first few swings, this ability was minuscule. However, by the time it reached the last three swings, it was truly overbearing. The catch of this was that each swing had to be within a set timeframe of each other. Otherwise the leave’s would dissipate.

Initially, James had thought that it was some kind of unique spirit energy that had been used to forge this fan. Now that he had it in his hand and played with it a few times, he realised it wasn’t just the spirit energy that was unique, but rather the distribution of the free spirit energy inside the fan.

Normally, when he crafted something, he simply forced out impurities and then fused in new energy for the effects he wanted. Unfortunately, he had been too naïve. He only now realised that everything he’d made had an uneven distribution of spirit energy. Usually, this was caused by his method of refinement and fusion which generally forced spirit energy to propagate at an edge of an artefact and had poor and uneven distribution.

He suddenly discovered a new step to forging. Or perhaps not a step, but a trick that he had overlooked. When forging, he can’t simply refine and fuse energy. He needs to properly distribute the spirit particles around the object, so they are mostly uniform or perhaps even distribute them in set places for exaggerated effect.

Not only this, but he also now realised that because of the method, he’d overlooked a number of other things. For example, forging had 4 major steps at the moment.

Physical Refinement was used to work out the impurities of the material. This prevents the artefact from building up free energy that isn’t related to the artefact. As an example, if he made a sword from iron, but the iron still had normal dirt scattered through it, then it would slowly begin to build up earth energy in those areas. This would weaken the blade and reduce or interfere with the expected reaction between the free energy and the refined energy of the wielder.

Purification is the step where the forger needs to remove all the foreign free energy that remains inside the material. For example, no matter how pure a material was, it would still retain trace free energy from the environment it was created in. Wood would still retain trace elements of water and wind, while ores would retain traces of earth energy, etc.

The only exception to this rule is certain materials that have existed for so long that they naturally force out all other energy. Otherwise known as an Essence. These essences have generally existed for aeons and have propagated so much of their specific type of energy that they affect the spirit energy in their surroundings and even affect the material in their surroundings.

In the case of Black-Iron Essence, it most likely started out as a single lump of black iron. Over millennia it gradually generates more and more Black-Iron free energy. Once it reaches a certain saturation, it slowly starts to force back weaker free energies, such as earth.

Provided that there isn’t anything with an equally strong natural free energy nearby, most of the earth energy near the Black-Iron will be forced away. When this happens, the earth material, that has been saturated completely by the Black-Iron energy, will slowly start to be affected until it completely becomes Black-Iron itself.

This sort of almost parasitic expansion continues, and that’s how naturally occurring spirit materials are suspected to have formed over the millennia. Most of this research was pieced together and elaborated on through endless numbers of texts that Jasmine had been absorbing from the library and other sources.

Naturally, James had at one point or another had all of this forced into his head by Jasmine.

Regardless of that, the purification process usually requires the forger to use a refined spirit energy that ‘agitates’ the free energy in the material. They can then use their soul force to migrate spirit particles that don’t belong out of the material. The problem with this is, any spirit energies that have begun to fuse together or are fused together, generally get sucked out as well.

The majority of the time, with lesser quality materials, that is a substantial amount of the free energy that the material has. 9 out of 10 times, almost half the free energy will be partly or fully fused. Sometimes, with enough control, a good forge master can separate these energies.

The other problem, which James has only now realised, is that regardless of how precisely he controls his soul force, it still affects the position and distribution of the native free energy. Generally, it will pull quite a bit of it to one side of the material. This creates a problem in that the spirit energy is not evenly distributed.

Next, comes Fusion. This process works similarly to Purification, only in reverse. Instead of trying to pull out foreign free energy, the forger is trying to introduce it. This has a few problems.

Firstly is the method of introduction. Song had taught James that for the best effect, it was better to grind the material that produces that energy to dust and introduce it to the material used for forging.

The forge master would then need to use his soul force to try and force as much of the energies in the hybrid material to fuse and then would once again re-smelt the material to remove the impurities. This causes the spirit energy distribution to become even more skewed and more often than not a great deal of the foreign energy the forger is trying to introduce, won’t fuse or will be lost in the process.

Secondly, once the process is finished, there will be parts with elevated energy levels and parts that are completely barren of free energy. Although normal forge masters wouldn’t notice this defect, James could tell when he inspected and looked for it with scrying.

The final stage is Soul Granting. Which is basically constantly imposing your will onto an artefact until a piece of your soul detaches and merges with the artefact. This creates a brand new soul that is fresh and new. In addition, it’s severely limited by its new ‘body’. It takes centuries for an artefacts soul to develop to the stage that it can assist with proper spirit power control in battle.

There is one more stage that is limited only to forge masters with array knowledge. Which is the Inscribing. Generally, in this stage arrays are carved or painted onto an artefact to create certain extra effects or assist in certain ways.

The two most important things James learned just from this fan, is that proper distribution of the free energy in an artefact can dramatically affect its performance. The second thing was ... that he could create array patterns inside the artefact using the free spirit energy. Which is actually how this fan operated.

James wasn’t fully certain which master created this artefact, but he was certain it was someone leagues beyond him in ability, or perhaps that had some special method to achieve it.

With this discovery, James was itching all over to go and try forging something new. Unfortunately, Jasmine, ever the killjoy, reminded him that he often got absorbed in the process and wouldn’t appear for days once he started.

James didn’t seem to understand why that mattered until Goldy excitedly grabbed his Spirit Body and shook it violently.What about the sword girl! And that strange Nahtiro Boy! I must fight them!~

Only then did he remember the competition. With that said, he decided to go and rest up and meditate on his discoveries today until his duel tomorrow.

-Arena-

The next day, the final 8 competitors stood in the arena to draw lots. Of the remaining contestants, James, Betto and Sword Girl were Givens. Everyone readily acknowledged that it was most likely going to be one of these 3 that claimed victory. One of the profit sect duo, Gregor the Hastoelian and Brightly the Son of the Order all managed to sneak into the top spots.

The final two were both Dark Horses from the non-seed members. One was an average looking girl with red hair and pigtails. She was covered in freckles and was a powerful water user while the other was a young man who looked sickly pale and on the verge of death. He was constantly hunched over and seemed to always be shivering like he was cold.

James hadn’t seen any of his matches, so he wasn’t too certain how this fellow made it to the quarterfinals. One thing he was certain of though, was that the fellow was very suspicious looking. Regardless of that, James wanted some surprises, so he limited himself from investigating him with his scrying.

At last, after a short speech from Gary, the 8 finalists took turns digging out a little numbered ball.

James somehow ended up being matched up against the sword girl already. He was hoping to meet her in the semi-finals but now was just as good. Amusingly, Gregor and Brightly ‘somehow’ got matched up together.

The final two matches were between the pigtail girl and the profit sect man as well as Betto and the creepy guy.

Unluckily, James’ match was last, which meant he had to sit in the waiting area until the other matches were finished.

The first up was the pigtailed girl. James watched on with some shock as she simply approached a small stream running through the arena and suddenly half the arena was flooded. Moments after, before the Profit Sect fellow had even managed to prepare properly, a massive wave engulfed him and crushed him against the arena barrier.

Surprisingly, even the rest area he was in shook violently from the collision. Considering James had diverted the Super Cube from the Spire to power the arena shields for the last 3 finals matches, his mind shook from the sheer force of such a collision.

‘Jesus, that girl must be some kind of deviator. Who rightfully has the kind of power needed to shake the arena while it’s powered by the Super Cube Reactor.’

James couldn’t help but feel some small amount of fear towards the girl. Even worse ... the stingy bitch took the profit sect guy’s big bag of tricks. James swore that if he met this girl in the next round, he’d kill her for that transgression.

Next to battle was the Hastoel and Soel sons. James was most interested in this battle. With the recent troubles in the two neighbouring countries, the tension between the two had been slowly rising. Adding on to this, Hastoel had vast lands of lush crops and farms. Which Soel desperately needed right now. Seeing as Hastoel was very quickly approaching civil war, it looked ripe for the picking.

Just to help add some fuel to this fire, James had accidentally released a little something special in the arena.

As the two sons squared off, and just before the bell rang, a strange aroma spread out within the confines of the arena. No one outside the barrier could detect it, and the duo both assumed it was some insidious method of the other.

In a little vent in the arena wall was something special that had been cooked up by Skay way back when he was still kicking around. It was just a simple incense stick, but its purpose was truly twisted and nefarious.

Within this incense stick was the combined powers of four of the deadly sins. Greed, Envy, Wrath and Pride. It took Skay quite a while to cook these up in the lab, and he had endless headaches with Goldy during that time. The only reason Golden even agreed to ‘give part of his essence’ to something like this was that he enjoyed chaos only slightly more than the pride of squarely facing off and destroying his enemies in a real battle.

In the end though, that was just an excuse. He had just been too proud to admit that he had no idea how to impart his pride energy into objects. It was only thanks to the enraged and tireless assistance from Skay that he learnt a method to achieve such a thing ... which he was naturally incredibly proud about and regularly reminded the rational part of James.

Anyway, as it stood, the two son’s suddenly began to become restless. Brightly grew envious of Gregor’s richly diverse and plentiful crops. This envy then led to wrath due to their total negligence of how good they had it while his own nation was in dire strife thanks to the two Calamities. Naturally, Greed also helped him along and only fuelled the other two on.

However, he was too proud to admit that with political channels they could easily co-operate with Hastoel to import the food they needed. Similarly, Gregor had a whole different but equally, irrational thought process being fed by the vile aroma of the 4 sins incense.

Something like the 4 sins incense could both be incredibly powerful but equally useless. It was only because the two sons already felt the weight of their nation’s plights that the incense had the chance to stir up these feelings. Adding onto that, they were both young and easily swayed by their emotions.

Of course, when young men meet under the effects of drugs, they become even more irrational and difficult to control. As it has gone with such things since the dawn of time ... they started cursing at each other.

“You greedy Hastoelians! You’re pathetic! All sitting inside your country squabbling like children and stuffing your fat faces. While my people starve you all just yell insults at each other and spend your time screwing each other’s wives. By the Holy Light of the three Sun’s, I will purge your adulterous existence from this world.”

“You’re existence is adulterous! Your whole family’s existence is adulteress! Look at you preaching to me about screwing people’s wives! I heard half your country’s wives are all screwing other men just to feed themselves! Don’t act all righteous with me! Prepare to get a fuckin smack down bitch!”

At this point, James was smiling like the devil. Not because of the scene of the two young man trading insults, but the look on the faces of their respective nation’s delegates. Firstly, Brightly’s father, Solaris the Pope, looked like he just ate a handful of dirt.

The Hastoel Aristocrat was no better. His face had a scowl that looked like it could hold a porcelain plate steady between the creases of his frown. Just at this moment, James triggered the vents in their private VIP Boxes.

Being significantly further along in their cultivation, the upper echelons of the two powers immediately detected the scent and noticed something wrong with it. The only problem was ... they were suddenly distracted by the bell of the arena.

Moments later, their two son’s began truly trying to kill each other. Not all parents in this world are as cruel and heartless as old Artimus. The moment the battle started their attention suddenly got sucked into it. The more their respective candidate got a whooping, the more their mind spun.

By the time the battle had raged on for 15 minutes, the duo in the arena were only covered in scraps of clothing and each panting heavily while covered in sweat, grime and blood.

They’d traded countless blows and given each other equally as many injuries. They’d gone mad in their endless desire to reap the other’s life.

Finally, Brightly rose his shiny golden sword above his head and a huge influx of spirit energy began to gather on it. Rays of light shone out like the blinding lights of a lighthouse and spread across the entire arena.

Gregor lowered his stance and began to rapidly spin the dual wield blades in his hands. Very quickly endless numbers of wind blades started firing off from his dual swords, and great twisters began to form around him.

This carried on for about half a minute, and the suspense of the audience rose just as quickly as the duo’s martial techniques charged up. By the time they were prepared to strike, the crowd had grown dead quiet and were being held on the edge by the suspense.

Suddenly, Brightly dropped his sword and slashed towards Gregor nearly 30 meters away. At the same time, Gregor suddenly slashed both of his swords out towards Brightly.

“Sun Like Beam Thing!”

“Twisty Wind Attack!”

The whole crowd suddenly fell out of their seats and James palmed himself in the face. ‘Come on guys! At least make some effort in naming your shit if you’re going to yell it out to the whole world.’

~What? Like my ‘Zappy Blasty Shot’?~

James just buried his face in his hands after Goldy’s input.

In the arena, the two attacks collided like an immovable object being struck by an unstoppable force. In this case, the immovable object lost because the unstoppable force just punched straight through it like a needle through paper.

Once the huge light show commotion from their two martial techniques died down, the standing victor was Brightly, while Gregor was on the ground with a big burning slash mark running from the right side of his face to the left side of his torso.

The Hastoel delegation shot to their feet and rushed down to the arena to check on him. Moments later, the enraged and mournful cry of the old Aristocrat that was Gregor’s father sounded and he suddenly rose to his feet and appeared directly in front of Brightly prepared to throw a punch filled with the power of the Tower Realm.

Before he could land the punch, huge ethereal shackles materialised out of thin air and bound him in place. “HALT!”

Gary’s authoritative side came out, and his voice echoed like thunder across the arena. Everyone looked up to see his hand pointed down at the Hastoel Aristocrat like he was grasping something invisible.

Even James was surprised when he saw this. “Holy Shit! Just how powerful is this guy? Jasmine, please tell me that’s an array from the arena restraining that guy?”

“It’s not any array I’ve ever seenJames. I believe that power is entirely Guild Master Gary’s.”

“Holy Shit! Holy Shit! What kind of monster is that guy! Since when did he have such powerful techniques? I’ve never even seen a martial technique like that.”

Back in the arena, the Soel delegation arrived and pulled Brightly back behind them. Solaris eyed the Aristocrat with a hostile glare. “What’s the meaning of this Halzar?! You dare attack my son?!”

Halzar’s eyes were filled with madness, and he seethed violently through clenched teeth. “How dare you Solaris! This was simply meant to be an exchange between the younger generations, yet you gave your son the Sword of Sun Like Beam Thing?! Was it your intention from the beginning to murder my son at this battle exchange?!”

James, seated in the waiting area watching the show, slapped his palm into his face again. ‘Good God! They even named a sword like that! I’m glad I chose to have these two nations eliminate each other first. Just their naming sense deserves death.’

~Right, right! Why couldn’t they give it a cool name like the Blindy Eye Hurting Sword.~

James’ eye suddenly began twitching violently. What the hell kind of pride was this? He made the sword sound like a stick some kid walked around with for stabbing people in the eye.

Solaris stood tall and dignified as he gazed down upon the seething form of Halzar. “This competition doesn’t disallow the use of any artefacts. If I should choose to assist my son by lending him my Sword of Sun Like Beam Thing, then who’s to fault me?”

At this point, a small army of Brotherhood members ran out covered in Mk 4 Combat Suits ... which looked like tight fitting latex suits. They all carried a Mk 4 Ark Cannon and had a holster with a pistol and single black blade on their backs. James’ eye looked like it was trying to start a fire from its twitching.

‘Oh God. Kelly that bitch! What the fuck kind of design is that? The weird bitch. Don’t bring down the image of my guild with your weird fetishes.’ James suddenly had a traumatic flashback to that one night with the ... you know what. No one wants to hear about that.

Back in the arena, the brotherhood members all aimed their Arc Cannons at the offending party as Gary’s voice echoed out once more. “I would like to ask that you all return to your seats. You all agreed to the rules when you joined the War of the Worlds. If you wish to seek vengeance, then I suggest you seek it outside of the city.”

Suddenly, a huge hand slowly seemed to fade into existence over the heads of the offending parties. “Unless you wish to test the patience and power of the Brotherhood here in our territory?” finished Gary.

Everyone had witnessed the power of this strange god like hand as it smashed multiple sneaky bastards to paste at the entrance to the Spire and even Solaris didn’t want to test it. With that, the excitement of this small interruption ended. Gary released his bizarrely powerful shackles, and the two delegate teams both withdrew from the arena.

However ... not before Brightly added insult to injury by looting Gregor’s corpse right in front of his father. James’ smile was in full bloom as he watched Halzar’s Wrath simmering right under the surface. He almost couldn’t stop himself from poking this ant’s hill.

The crowd had so far been loving this. The last battle was filled with excitement and politics which sparked a heated debate between audience members about what exactly was going on with the three great nations lately.

“Wow! Did you see that! It looks like Soel and Hastoel are at loggerheads now. Has their relationship always been so bad?”

“Oh? Haven’t you heard? Soel is suffering from a strange famine and drought. The whole nation’s been affected by it. I’ve heard rumours that it’s the ghost of a farmer’s wife raised from the dead. Her family died from starvation because of the greed of the church, and so she came back to haunt the nation with famine. Tens of thousands of people have died already. I reckon it’s caused the tensions to rise somewhat between the three nations.”

“Oh, not just Soel. I heard a succubus has infiltrated the great nation of Hastoel. Lust is on the rise in Hastoel, and all sorts of slanderous accusations are flying about. I heard that no small number of nobles have been castrated by their spouses. Not just that, but a rebel movement has formed among the populace, and they’ve been releasing all sorts of damaging secrets about the noble households. The whole nation is on the verge of civil war!”

“I also heard a rumour. But it’s about the northern nation of Baquerro. Apparently, a strange curse has fallen over the entire nation. On the 5th day of the 4th month of the year of the Tiger, the whole nation holds a huge celebration. This year, the capital city sent out millions of badges to every citizen in the nation. That’s not the weird part though. What’s weird is ... they’re all still holding the celebration to this day. It’s like Groundhog Day, and if you ever go there, they’ll make you wear a badge. Whatever you do, don’t wear it. If you do, you’ll never stop celebrating.”

James, being currently tapped into the arena surveillance, was of course busily rolling around on the ground laughing his ass off in his spirit realm. So far, there hadn’t been any problems and he was quite happy with the way everything had been progressing. It was only a matter of time until everyone started connecting dots back to him ... but by then it will be too late.

When he finally regained control of himself, he returned his focus to the next battle. Betto vs. Creepy Guy.

Betto was, for a strange change, focused on the opponent. Clearly, he felt something off about this guy as well and was wary enough to focus his attention on him. Creepy Guy was instead busily scratching at the sleeve of his robe vigorously ... so vigorous, that blood could be seen staining his robe and dripping down from his hand onto the ground.

It wasn’t just his arm he scratched at. He scratched away at every part of his body like he was trying to get something out from under the skin. It was a very odd and disturbing image.

James couldn’t help but squint his eyes slightly as he observed. There was something about this guy that didn’t sit right with him, and now that he’d started scratching himself so manically, James’ suspicion of him only grew deeper.

James didn’t have to wait long before the bell rang and Betto flicked his arms, revealing his weapons for the first time since the beginning of the competition. Two short swords fell from his long robe sleeves and effortlessly slid into his palms.

James began to wonder just how much these people could hide inside their robe sleeves. Every time he fought someone it seemed like their robe was some kind of storage treasure and had everything from daily necessities to artillery hidden away in them.

Betto’s short swords were both different colours. One was a deep black crystal sword filled with shining little floating lights like glimmering stars. The other sword was even stranger. It was white but looked ethereal, almost like it was just a ghost of a sword. It had a strange misty opaque energy floating around it and seemed to shimmer in and out of existence.

James immediately perked up at the sight of this. Then, just as quickly, he waved his hand and caused the screen in his spirit realm to collapse into dust. Without a word, James just sat there in meditation.

Goldy didn’t say a thing and also returned to the centre of the lightning nucleus to begin meditation. Jasmine looked at them both quizzically.

“James, it seems those weapons are quite profound. Are you certain you don’t want to watch this battle?”

James just shook his head. “Jasmine, what’s the point in living without a little mystery? If Betto wins and I have to face him in battle, I want it to be a complete surprise. Besides, I can already guess what his spirit affinity is just based on the appearance of those swords.”

Jasmine considered for a moment then just returned to drinking her tea and whatever else it was that she did in her free time.

Meanwhile, James was considering his options for his battle should he face Betto. ‘Space-Time spirit energy. I’m certain of it. How the fuck do I fight against something like that? Moreover, what sorts of attacks would I create with that sort of energy? Heh, this battle should be interesting.’

As James remained locked away in his spirit realm and ignored the outside world, the outside was in tumultuous chaos. The crowds were stunned by this battle. With every slash of his sword, Betto caused strange spatial tears or flickered in and out of existence. Every time a sword moved he would cause destruction.

This wasn’t what astonished everyone though. Space-Time experts were truly rare but what shocked the crowd the most was that the creepy guy was able to keep up and even appeared to be barely suppressed. Even stranger was his spirit energy. No one really paid attention to him until the finals, but they now realised that was a mistake.

All the major powers were barely restrained sitting in their seats. They wanted to rush out and slaughter this calamity. That was because they could all feel the creepy guy’s spirit energy was incredibly vile and evil. He was undoubtedly a demonic cultivator of some description.

Although deviators were frowned upon in the Ascension continent, they were still considered people most of the time. On the other hand, Demonic cultivators were hated with every fibre of every being from east coast to west. That was because their cultivation methods generally relied on some kind of sickening practice like sacrificing innocents or devouring corpses and similarly disturbing things.

It was rare to meet a demonic cultivator that was still so young and weak. Normally, demonic cultivators only appeared at frighteningly higher levels. Most people weren’t aware, but that was because most spirit beasts would often become demonic cultivators when they failed to become human.

That’s not to say that only beasts can become demons, after all, not many creatures are eviler than humans anyway. It’s not unusual for some poor fool to stumble on some ancient artefact or ruins that contained the soul of a previously deceased cultivator. More so than that, it was rare for these people to escape the lures of demonic powers and inevitably becoming possessed.

This was the case with Creepy Guy. He was only a boy when he stumbled on an ancient black bead. After he joined a sect and started cultivating his spirit energy awoke the demonic bead, and it lured him into practising it’s evil cultivation methods. At this point in time, although the boy had become a man, he hadn’t reached a high enough level to release the demon’s soul and become fully possessed.

This was why everyone felt an increasing desire to jump down and kill him without hesitation. If he got to a high enough level to release the sealed demon’s soul, he would completely become possessed, and a huge calamity would drown the entire continent in blood.

Unfortunately, every time someone moved to try and get into the arena, they were blocked by the array patterns and Gary, who stood above everyone in a very imposing manner. Solaris, who had just been gently pushed back by the giant finger pointing hand, looked at Gary enraged.

“Guild Master Gary! What are you doing?! That creature isn’t human, how can you allow it to continue to exist? If we aren’t allowed to destroy such an abomination, then your guild will surely be marked by others as a demonic cult and culled by the powers of Atsunari!”

Gary glanced at Pope Solaris and the other representatives from all the nations present. Then let out a sigh. “I’m afraid, you all are underestimating the power and integrity of the Brotherhood. Although we may take any job, good and bad, we have never broken a contract and never will. You all know that we agreed to be impartial in this contest and cannot simply kill a person because we dislike them.

“In addition, our founder often stressed to me that there is no such thing as good or evil, only the intention of others. Even if this man is a demonic cultivator, so what? As long as he doesn’t offend my guild, I couldn’t care less what methods of cultivation he has. He can slaughter entire cities of people if he wants. As long as he doesn’t offend my guild.”

With that said, multiple huge array hands appeared all over the arena and gently ‘persuaded’ everyone back to their VIP Box seats. Although the tower realms and palace realms felt that they could contend against the power of these arrays before, they only now realised that within Tech City, they were powerless.

Perhaps the only power level that could contend against a hand of that sort of power was a Core Realm expert. None of which were in attendance. By now, the battle had raged on for quite some time. The Creepy guy’s attacks were growing more and more ruthless, and he was clearly now suppressing Betto.

Even though Betto’s spirit attribute was almost godlike in its power, such a powerful attribute would take aeons to properly get accustomed to and utilise fully. Right now, the young Betto, even with his powerful artefact swords, could only display a smidgeon of their true might. At this level, he was greatly limited by the huge amounts of spirit power he had to use just to keep up with the endless onslaught of thick demonic spirit power that now filled the arena in the form of black flames.

It soon came to a point in which Betto could feel he’d already surpassed the limit of his ability. He was now being completely repressed and could barely keep up with the lashing black flames as he slashed out spatial tears and strange time anomalies that reversed or froze time in places for a brief moment.

Despite how drawn out he felt and the danger of the situation, he was actually incredibly happy and continued to smile and laugh as he pulled out just a little bit more of his power and continued to surpass his limits to survive this trial.

Unfortunately, it was inevitable that he couldn’t hold out forever. Finally, a lance of black flames shot out from towering demonic flames and pierced into Betto’s left shoulder, flinging him back and causing the sword in his hand to be flicked out and stab into the ground.

As soon as this happened, the old man who accompanied Betto from their Sword Sect calmly stepped to the edge of their VIP Box. “Our Atsunari Sword Sect’s disciple withdraws from this battle!”

Despite the chaos of the crowd and the arena, the old man’s voice still rattled out to every corner of the arena and overpowered every other sound. In the arena, the Demonic Creepy Guy was standing over Betto with another lance of black flames in his hand.

He looked over to the old man, then glanced back down at Betto. Slowly his face formed into an evil grin and he stabbed down towards the heavily injured Betto. His lance stopped only a few centimetres from Betto’s heart as shackles suddenly came into existence on his limbs.

Before the Creepy Guy could urge his spirit power to shoot forth that last little distance and slay Betto, a massive overpowering pressure descended on the arena, and the demonic energy seemed to be like an ant under a foot as it was suppressed into nothing.

Gary frowned as he looked down at the demonic cultivator. “Please show some respect for this competitions rules. If you wish to kill someone that’s forfeit, you can do it outside the City’s limits.”

Creepy Guy just gave a ‘tsk’ and then turned to leave the arena after the shackles released him. Everyone watched as he slowly began to hunch back over and quickly became sickly looking again with every step he took.

‘Demonic Possession. So the boy really is carrying something with a demon soul on it.’

‘He must be quite a powerful demon to already be capable of possessing that man for a short period of time.’

As he walked out of the arena, the vigilant eyes of Atsunari’s powerful factions followed him. Although Demonic cultivators popped up rarely, they still had heard enough about them to know some of the characteristics of their types of cultivation. In this case, from that battle where the creepy man had unknowingly become a completely different person at some stage, they could all at least tell the man was in possession of something that had a demon sealed in it.

The arena slowly calmed down after this huge upset, and finally, James was notified that his battle was about to start. He was rather surprised to see the state of the arena when he arrived. Due to the black flames of the demon cultivator, the arena had become a dust bowl and was flat as the surface of a calm lake.

Clearly, whatever power was used in the battle before his, had obliterated the little stream and the various shrubs and torches that were scattered around the arena.

Although water was still slowly pooling in over from one side of the arena, there was no stream to follow, so it just started slowly soaking into the ground and spreading out from the outlet in the arena wall.

Mind you, at this level of combat, most practitioners only received some small benefits from using the free energy of naturally created materials. Most practitioners with the power to fight in the finals would be capable of utilising just their spirit energy to materialise what they needed.

As James walked out, he saw Sword Girl standing a few hundred metres away at the other end of the arena. She carried her sword sheath with her and just stood there staring off into space. James couldn’t help but give a wry smile when he noticed how disinterested the Sword Girl was.

He was, however, hopeful that she wasn’t looking down on him. If that was the case, she was going to end up like the old monk’s disciple. James knew that the old monk’s disciple was definitely more powerful than he seemed in their battle. It was simply because he’d been negligent and received an attack from James’ stunning lightning bullet.

After James stopped and faced the Sword Girl, he flipped his hands and pulled out his sword and pistol. Without delay, the most anticipated battle of the day started.