Chapter V: Scamming Combat Techniques II

City 19 Arena

The Mind Net

The Great Plateau

Month of the Pangolin 2, 172 ,328 DE

Most of the Cultivators in the arena have confused expressions on their faces. There were forty or fifty of them sparring with one another or practicing with sparring dummies created by the Mind Net. Sparring dummies are one of the services that can be purchased from the Mind Net for point and are probably the most common way Cultivators use any points they earn.

The ancient War Masters built the Mind Net as a form of meritocracy. Those, who show ability, will be rewarded. They expected their students and disciples to struggle and fight with one another to improves themselves. Only by clawing their way over the competition would they attain the better rewards.

In the Mind Net, users can earn points from many things, but they have to make achievements to earn those points. The easiest way to earn points is through defeating other users in arena matches, but that only works on lie and death matches. In a life and death match, the loser gets forcibly kicked from the Mind Net for a period of time. I have seldom seen Cultivators participating in these matches. They probably do not consider the points to be worth the risk. Most Cultivators operate as part of large groups and participate in territory to control the buildings in the cities. They seem to think that controlling territory is the primary purpose of the Mind Net and only use the city arenas for sparring practices. Granted controlling territory does gain points for the group controlling the territory, but the amounts are pitiful when divided up among the number of members in those groups.

The greatest benefit of the Mind Net is its repository of techniques, but the Cultivators cannot use most of the techniques left behind by the War Masters, and they can use need to be modified to work with Yuan Qi. I use to think that Yuan Qi was polluted Mana Even if,, but even it if looks that way, it is not. The differences between Yuan Qi and Mana are are what often cause the War Masters' techniques to fail for Cultivators. But now that I am a Triune, I can use any of the techniques that I have enough Power to activate. The only problem is getting access to the ones I want. Just because I have supervisor access, it does mean I can give myself anything and everything. But there are, still, ways to use my access level to get the techniques I want.

While flipping through the control tome, I grin. Seeing my expression, some of the nearest Cultivators shrink back. When I find the page, I want, a few Cultivators shiver, and their extreme nervousness becomes palpable within the Mind Net. Pausing, I focus my awareness on one Cultivator and "see" an image of myself in his thoughts. As the Cultivator returns my stare, a mix of confusion and fear blurs his thoughts. Despite the odor of fear in their scents, the fear in their Minds seems extremely muted. More than feeling fear, perhaps, they believe they are afraid, without actually being afraid. Is that possible?

The full scope of the Mind Net lies far beyond my understanding, but have I been being an idiot? I never had any sense of the Minds or thoughts of others with the Mind Nets, but the Mind Net is an Eidos construct. Even if it was constructed to mimic a physical realm, we enter it as Minds embodying constructs that supposed mimic our Bodies to perfection, and its purpose is to train Soma combat technique without endangering the real Body. I never found anything about the Mind Net being used by the War Masters to train the Mind, but can it be used for that purpose?

I will have to experiment later. For now, I am here to acquire Trinity based Body combat techniques.

In the Mind Net arenas, it only takes a thought to bring up a list of combat options available. I change some of the settings in the control tome and choose "Unlimited: Death or Surrender" from the list of combat rules. We will be able to use any techniques that we could use in the real world. The Mind Net will replicate Mana and Ki based techniques and effects perfectly, and Yuan Qi appears to be treated the same as Mana. Combatants will only be able to leave the arena when they die or surrender, but surrender will have the same penalty as death, being expelled from the Mind Net for a full week of real world time.

Glowing numbers appear in the center of the stadium, and most of the humans stare up at them with confused expressions. As they understand the Mind Net, they cannot be forced into an arena battle; they must give their consent to enter one.

Team Battle Mode

Team 1: 2 Members

Raymon

Vorn

Team 2: 273 Members

One Slap Man

Super Sengoku

Big Dikku-sama

. . .

As he looks at the list of Team 2's members, Vorn snickers. "They pick some moronic names."

I shrug. "No one wants to reveal their real names. They're too scared of what might happen if they offend the wrong person."

Vorn sneers. "Gutless cowards."

Life and Death

Unlimited: Death / No Surrender"

5

4

3

2

1

The countdown finishes, but no one moves. Their eyes wander from Vorn and me to each other and back again. As I take a slow step forward, the humans in front of me shrink back.

One human female, wearing a mask with sakura blossoms on its cheeks, raises hands and waves them at us. "I surrender!"

As the human female disappears from the arena, dozens of other humans look toward the empty space where she was a moment ago.

"I surrender!"

"I surrender!"

"I surrender!"

One after another the humans around us give up on the match. They probably do not understand that they will be blocked from the Mind Net for an entire week, but for many of them, it might not matter. The only use the Mind Net has for Cultivators is to practice their Martial techniques. Since the Body does not exist in the Mind Net, they cannot practice Cultivation techniques. After thirty seconds, seventeen humans remain.

With his eyes wide-open, Vorn looks at me. "You really are hated. No one wants to stick around."

"Go fuck a cat."

"You're obsessed with cats."

"I hate cats. Their furry balls of narcissism and malice. Only perverts like you would like them."

"You're scum. Cats are cute and cuddly." The eyes of female Cultivator glare at me through the eye-holes in her cat-like mask.

I grin at the female. "No I'm a Beast."

As I close the distance between the female Cultivator and myself, other than her eyes widening slightly, she does not react. Wrapping my hand around her throat. I lifter her off the ground, and fear floods her eyes and her scent. She grabs my wrist, but with both hands clinging onto it, her fingertips barely meet. Her strength is not even enough to give me a bruise.

The Mind Net's mimicry of the physical world is impressive as always. The cat-masked female makes gagging noises, but she cannot draw in a breath. As her face quickly turns red, bead of seat cover it.

With a mocking smirk, I shake the female. "Peak of Qi Condensation? You're at least twenty years old. You're too weak. You're pathetic"

I swing the female around like a limp rage. "Are any of you stronger than this little bitch. Abusing the weak gets boring. I want someone strong to abuse."

A human male, with a build no bigger than the female in my grasp, strikes a pose and points at me. "Bastard! Let her go!"

With a single bound, I cross the ten meters between the male Cultivator and myself. As I display a predatory grin. he shrinks back, and I laugh. "Take your best shot. Your best super-secret technique. I'll wait."

"Don't you dare use the lady as a shield! I'll never forgive you if you do!"

I laugh, again. "I don't a shield against the attack of some little bitch, who's barely stepped into Foundation Building."

The male Cultivator spreads legs into a deep horse stance and draws both fists back to his waist. Opening his mouth, he lets loose a scream, which is far too high pitched for a male who still has his balls attached. "Aaaaaaaaa!"

As Yuan Qi begins to circulate in the male Cultivator's Body, the female, who I still have by the throat, tries to kick me in the balls. I turn my hip, and as her toes hammer into the muscles of my thigh, she winces in pain.

"Beast! I'm fucking bored. Do these bitches around here even know how to fight? I mean it's not like when they had you outnumbered a thousand to one, but they still have us outnumbered seventeen to two."

Pausing, Vorn looks at the female hanging from my outstretched hand and frowns. "I suppose she doesn't count. But it's still sixteen to one."

I snort. "When this little bitch finishes screaming like a little girl and makes his weak-ass attack, it will drop to fifteen to one."

More than fifty meters away, standing in a tight group, six male Cultivators carefully watch everything that is happening. All of them have rough skin, coarse features, and burly builds that are completely out of place on a Cultivator. Hiding their mouths with their hands, they whisper to one another, and the nature of the arena muffles the sound enough that I cannot understand their words. But even without hearing their conversation, there is no mistaking the belligerence in their postures. After they see the results of the effeminate male's attack, those six will do something.

"Hey, smug cat! Go play with the six idiots! They look too full of themselves."

Drawing a two-handed sword, which looks like the one he had when I first encountered him, Vorn saunters in the direction of the six idiot Cultivators. In the Mind Net, since everything is a Psi construct instead of physical, everyone has the equivalent of a spatial storage device. Any item from the external Realm that you register, you can use.

"Aaaaaaaaa!" While circulating his Yuan Q faster by the second, the effeminate male in front of me keeps screaming.

The female Cultivator in my grasp has fallen unconscious and I toss her aside. Like a limp rag doll, she tumble across the stone floor of the arena. IShe can surrender or die later.

As I stare at the effeminate male, I scratch my chin through my short beard. "How long are you going to take? Is your super-secret, super-special Martial technique putting me to sleep from boredom?"

After a few more second, the Cultivator focuses his blank stare on me. Swirling air forms around his forearm, looking like a miniature tornado has enclosed it. Drawing in his back, he springs forward. I do not dodge and his fist hammers into my abdomen just beneath my solar plexus.