The next few hours passed quickly.

  After more speeches Chang Heng didn’t care to listen to, the tournament finally began. Names started being called, informations about the fighters given to the public as if they were to be sold in an auction.

  Of some was pointed out the age, others how long they had been Cultivators, or their background, looks, feats…

  The boy couldn't help but be pulled out of his musings during some of the fights.

  Most of the participants came from important families or sects, and fought with elegance, showing their skills and experience, how good they were with their techniques.

  Their fights were slow. Beautiful, but for someone inexperienced like him, boring.

  Those who came from nowhere, instead, were… rough. They lacked the refined skills of their opponents, but more than made it up for it with their complete and utter lack of restraint.

  They would barely wait for the round to start before running straight at their opponents. And when they did, they showed no hesitation, attacking wildly like feral beasts, no qualms for hits below the belt, bites, hair pulling, and more.

  It didn't matter if they, or their opponent, were men or women, younger or older, more or less capable, they still fought with the same… desperation.

  Chang Heng felt he could learn from them.

  Not how wild they were, but more how they just couldn't accept defeat, no matter what they needed to do to achieve victory just once.

  One of those was a young woman one year younger than him. He could've noticed her looks, or her weird name, or how she was dressed, or what the announcer said her origins were.

  But all he saw was how starving for a victory she was as she fought, and the fear she had in her eyes. It was the fear of loss, the same one he carried, just so much… deeper.

  As she walked away from her victory, she absentmindedly sat beside him, with some of her flowing, extravagant garments ending on his lap.

  As the next fight started, he looked at her. Her gaze was on the arena, instead. Every second, it looked a bit more worried.

  “Hey, uhm… are you alright?”

  She was pulled out of that sight as she looked back. Her eyes were surprised, as if she hadn't even noticed he was there.

  Ouch.

  She waited, as if the question confused her.

  “I said… is everything… fine?”

  Obviously it isn't, you idiot! Did you just see her or not?!

  “I'm sorry, I-”

  “Yeah, yes it is. Thanks. Sorry.”

  The girl stared at him as if he was some kind of freak. Like he did something weird.

  Her eyes distracted Chang Heng just long enough for the announcer to scream the name of the winner and call his.

  Already? How fast was that last duel?

  Despite his curiosity, he still got up and walked to the arena, waving a bye to the girl.

  He felt compelled to turn away and walk to the centre of the simple arena, as the man introduced him to the crowd.

  “... and against him will fight the new child of the Chang Clan! Cultivator of a month at the age of sixteen, witnesses say he's been trained by last year's prodigy Chang Jian, who even shared with him his unrivalled sword skills! Give a round of applause to… Chang Heng!”

  There, another boy waited for him.

  He had dark blue hair and a determined expression. From his face, he seemed a bit younger than him- he hadn't heard the introduction, but would most likely be fourteen, fifteen at most, with serious eyes and a square chin. From his body to his fighting stance, he wasn’t particularly distinctive, except for his dark-green robes of high quality.

  He straightened his posture and bowed slightly, with dignity.

  “This Xu Gouzhi greets you, Senior! Let’s learn from each other, Senior!”

  Chang Heng was taken aback by the boy’s antics- for someone who fought more often, it wouldn’t have been that unusual, but it wasn’t something he was used to.

  He haphazardly did the same, minus the “senior”. He knew his father wouldn’t have approved of the haste he put in it, his posture, the way his voice came out, the amount of respect he was supposed to show to a peer…

  They both got in their stances as the announcer, now turned referee, gave them the start.

  The redhead boy took a low stance, his feet kept wide, back slightly bent and arms hiding his face. It was one he had been forced to learn all the times he got pummeled by his cousin, focused on balance and defence of his weak points.

  Finding the right footing, he stood there, planted. He would make this a battle of endurance, putting his main strength to use.

  The opponent instead had a more offensive stance, his hand open in front of his, open with straight fingers as if ready to chop. He slowly advanced.

  They got closer. Closer.

  Chang Heng’s heart kept accelerating. His hands were getting both colder and sweatier in his closed fists. It was his first true fight, and unlike his training, his mind started to race.

  What will he do? Will he attack? How? How do I react? Should I maybe-

  Xu Gouzhi threw a palm at his face, and he did nothing to defend or retaliate. His footing held, barely, as he tried to gain distance again.

  The younger boy saw his retreat and scared expression, but didn’t give him even a second to calm down and focus again, and he kept coming with his attacks. His palms never stopped moving, leaving slightly red marks all over his opponent's body.

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  He did just as he was taught, chaining his attacks together, aiming for the parts that would incapacitate the redhead or hurt him enough to distract him.

  A palm in the face, another, then two parried, then three on the chest and belly, one parried, and more, all while advancing and advancing, pushing him slowly closer to the stands.

  It was a strenuous task, as all that Chang guy was doing was defending and slowing things down. In another kind of duel, it wouldn't have been a problem, but in a tournament he was showing his skills to his future opponents, letting them learn more as time passed.

  So, since he wasn’t in danger, he showed less.

  Those he wanted to land most, debilitating palms to the head, were soon removed; it was defended more and more, making them pointless, so he focused instead on his chest and shoulders, at times lower or with chops on the sides.

  He kept hitting and hitting, slowly shifting his focus to the other’s middle section, switching in kicks to the legs at times, but those too eventually faded away.

  He wasn’t a fighter, his training had started just three months earlier, but he was certain of two things:

  This Chang Heng… he has even less experience than me, but he’s also so damn hard!

  His family was one of merchants, not Cultivators. But as soon as he awakened, they got him the best teachers and bought the best techniques their small business could afford them. He wasn’t particularly talented, but he put in effort in all his practices and studies, showing a level of competence that was praised by his teachers.

  That competence was being made null by a guy who only had four himself a name and a damn sturdy body.

  Knowing some grappling moves would have been useful to force him to surrender, but he had made the decision of focusing more on the traditional methods- grappling was useless against the monsters he would have to fight soon.

  He stopped his relentless attack, and put some distance between them. The boy seemed relieved at that.

  Xu Gouzhi saw his eyes. Over time, as he was hit time and time again, they had shifted from panicking to focused. From a scared animal to someone willing to fight back. The change was one he noticed also in his defence: at first, he was just turtling up, covering his head with his ridiculously hard arms, but as soon as he had the chance to, the left one was moved to cover his lower torso, the only soft part.

  By then, it was the one he most aimed at, as his hands were starting to hurt, the added variety of kicks and chops added not of much use.

  The Chang was still bad at parrying all his attacks, but was very slowly getting better. And still, not even one attempt at hitting back.

  How long has this been? Five, ten minutes? If it keeps going like this, either my hands will break, or his defence.

  Two solutions came to his mind: keep this slow pace, but only strike where it would hurt the most and make him surrender, or break his defence with few, stronger attacks with his Technique.

  He really wanted to pick the first, but…

  I have to think of the reputation of my family! Bullying him will only send the wrong message to potential customers watching.

  At the same time, showing my trump card this early wouldn’t be that great either, maybe even cost a future match…

  In that break they had silently agreed to, he looked at the stands. His family was there, in a few, somewhat decent seats, but still those for commoners.

  They nodded at him.

  I can focus on myself then. On getting as far as I can in this tournament. I'll break this guy down!

  …

  Chang Heng felt he was doing… decently. At first, he was almost literally eating every palm strike that came at him, but as time passed, less and less hits actually reached him.

  The boy in green was doing the same thing his cousin did during training: use always the same pattern, aiming for the same targets, until he figured out how to at least defend from it.

  As a form of training, it made sense, but there… just what is he up to?

  When they finally took a break, he was more worried than relieved. It hadn't even been twenty minutes since they started, yet he seemed tired.

  An act. Is he plotting something? What does he see that I don't?

  Chang Jian had made it clear to him that he'd miss obvious clues most of the time- the mentality of “I don't know what is truly happening” was deeply ingrained in him by then.

  His opponent glanced away.

  Oh come on, not even I am that bad of a fighter to fall for such a dumb bait! I'm not falling for that.

  He had steeled his gaze. If he seemed to lack resolve earlier, now he more than had it, as he slowly shortened the distance between them again.

  One hand to cover the face, one to cover the chest. Then I just make him tire ou-

  The next hit was low, lower than any palm before, and made him see white; his footing failed, and he fell on his knees.

  Xu Gouzhi had rushed in and attacked his… manhood.

  Chang Heng couldn’t even scream. He was used to living with pain, but not ones like this, a flashing stab that came and went every instant. He wanted to scream, but his stomach felt far too ready to puke to let him.

  A hit came to his face, but he barely noticed it.

  He growled, and from his low position he dashed into the other boy's knees, throwing the both of them on the ground, and quickly saddled on his stomach.

  The pain was extending to his legs and gut, but he shoved it down too, and started pummeling that uncivilised, honourless, heavens-cursed damn kid.

  He knew he wouldn't hurt him much, so he just kept going.

  At first, the piece of garbage simply tried to defend himself, but as he felt how weak the attacks were, he retaliated. His hands to the redhead’s shoulders to push him away, but there was no way he'd let him!

  He connected to those feelings he had in the night, and channeled his Technique, [Mountain Weight Fist] through his whole body.

  He failed, and the distraction ended with their positions exchanged.

  The Xu guy had lost any care for his looks, and instead of elegant palm strikes he was now hitting him with a rain of messy punches.

  Chang Heng didn't let the failure distract him a second time. Those attacks were sloppy, weaker than before despite the rage they showed. Every time he was going to be hit, he enhanced his toughness with Qi- always the bare minimum.

  A stronger punch came, one hand blocking his movements and the other cocked in the air, energy flowing to it, and as a counter, more Qi was spent.

  The punch came down, rattling his head as it was smashed on the ground. He ignored it: Xu Gouzhi was busy holding his hand in pain.

  He grabbed one wrist, then the other. They were suddenly locked there, all four arms unable to fight. The blue haired boy was ready to desperately counter, expecting to be thrown off. Instead, Chang Heng spread his arms, making him fall forward.

  Their heads smashed on each other.

  Then he did it again, and again.

  The stronger tried to force his hand on the ground and stand back up. A shove to the inside of the elbow forced him down again into another, angry headbutt.

  Chang Heng had made the fight a contest of endurance at first, but now it was one of pure, simple willpower, toughness and anger as he forced their heads one against the other time and time again.

  “I shurr-” crunch “I SURRENDER!”

  He heard the scream, but didn't register it.

  As he tried to hit again, he failed, a golden barrier encasing his whole body. It was the City Lord's doing.

  He forced himself to refrain from trying to attack once more, and looked to the side.

  The referee, in his rich garments and merchant iconography, was standing there, stunned.

  He faintly heard City Lord Liu Peng speak as he was separated from Xu Gouzhi, but didn’t listen to a single word.

  With a bit of a struggle, he got up, and slowly walked back to his place in the waiting stands. He let his body plop right to that cute girl's side, but he didn't care how he looked.

  He could feel Chang Jian's proud smile burning on his back.

  The girl said something, but again, he didn't listen.

  He had won.