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28.88% Learning To Live As A Cultivator / Chapter 93: Chapter Ninety Three - We begin the fourth day of the Standings

Chapter 93: Chapter Ninety Three - We begin the fourth day of the Standings

"I would have beaten you, had I not fallen into that nest of nibblets," Bowyer complained as they chatted about things over their evening meal.

Pike chuckled, admitting that Bowyer had bad luck. Those vermin always hovered in groups and would tenaciously chase any out of their territory and beyond, meaning Bowyer had to deal with them or have to watch his back while fighting stronger prey. Not that the little ones did much damage, but it would accumulate and that is if they did not get lucky and throw something in your eyes!

"I had to keep reminding myself that you guys were just in an illusion!" Sun said, brightly. "It looked so real! And the way that you dealt with the Mesmyr, that was awesome!"

Pike ruffled Sun's brown hair, fondly. He had grown to like this little brother, much more likeable than Jin Li, who was glaring at the food in front of him with a shadowed expression upon his face. Leon, on the other hand, was yawning frequently, struggling to lift his spoon to his mouth.

"It'll be your turn to prove yourself next year," Bowyer grinned. "I'd like to see how both you and Jin Li fair."

"No problem!" Sun agreed, cheerfully. "We'll storm the top ten and meet you in the inner school without fail!"

Pike chuckled. "I'd rather bet that the pair of you will be fighting in the Standings within our school rather than challenging entry into it." Sun beamed beneath his praise.

They heard a spoon fall and a soft thud and turned to see Leon face down and leaning upon the table next to his plate. He didn't stir as they watched him for a moment, but they could see that his breathing was steady. "Looks like we should find Leon a bed," Pike mused.

"No need," Jin Li replied, darkly, shoving his chair backward and moving around the table to pick Leon up into his arms. The youth's eyes struggled to open, so gave up and simply nestled into Jin Li's hold. Sun watched, wide eyed as Jin Li princess-carried Leon out of the Food Hall, before they widened further as they fell upon Jin Li's plate.

"He left food!" Sun whispered in awe. Pike and Bowyer exchanged knowing glances and slight grins.

"You should stay with one of us tonight," Pike invited the youth, who remained. "We can give you tips to help your own fights in the future."

"Really!?" Sun asked with happy excitement.

*****

On the fourth day, the one on one battles would begin. The students were grouped based on their points over the last three days. There were ten groups of twenty four students and one group of twelve. This final group held the top twelve performers of the Standings so far, although the total points were quite vast from first to twelfth. Ari, with a score of two hundred and seventy five dominated first position, while in twelve, having snuck into that position by a mere point was a young woman named Delphi. She had one hundred and sixty five points.

Pike and Bowyer were sixth and seventh respectively.

"The matches are listed like this," Pike advised, using a stick to draw in the loose ground beside one of the practice stages. He drew a long line and twelve small points below it, indicating twelve students that were grouped together to fight. He then joined two points together and then had a third line meeting a point above the pair. "Basically, two students will fight and the winner will then fight a seeded student. Ah, a seeded student is simply one of the top four or eight in their group, so that the top performers don't face each other early on. The top four in our group are Ari, Crux, Ophius and Certi."

"Ari and Crux were first and second last year as well," Bowyer mentioned. "Main, who was third left school last year and Piter, who is now Fifth was fourth."

"Hmm, he's not doing as well this year," Pike said, before continuing. "The Teachers randomly place the seeds then randomly place the other students. For each win, a student can add ten points to their final score, the seeds get twenty for their first win, to keep things fair. Otherwise, non-seeds can earn more points than them overall, which can result in unfairness. There also might be a few grudge matches at the end, but these too have rules."

"One can't fight anyone more than ten places above them and they can't challenge anyone lower placed than themselves," Bowyer added. "These are worth ten points for the win, two for a draw and a loss of ten points for the loser, which is why there won't be too many grudge matches."

"W-why b-bother in the f-first p-place?" Leon asked, curiously.

"Generally, it's about final placement," Pike explained. "See, Delphi is in our group, but is just one point above a seeded person in the second group. If that person wins, they will gain a lot of points and could push Delphi out of the top twelve. So Delphi has the right to challenge this and get back points and her placement."

"There probably will be scores settled as well," Bowyer admitted. "Which is why grudge matches are timed, unlike the groupings."

"It sounds c-c-complicated," Leon sighed, to which Jin Li privately agreed, though as a martial artist, he could also see some benefits of having the varying rounds and battles. These were to challenge the students into considering their skills, martial arts, spiritual abilities, strategies and teamwork. It was no good being superior with your weapon of choice if one could simply sneak up behind you and stab you in the back, just as it was no good at being great at teamwork, if you could not hold your own. Understanding the skills of another martial artist was also not the same as knowing the abilities of a beast. But this whole points thing; keeping tally was a headache.

After sparring a bit amongst themselves (with the exception of Leon), the men went inside and towards the main arena, where their matches would all be held in full view of any who wished to peruse them. Logan and Luna were due to fight first, whoever won had the misfortune to face Ari. It also happened that in the third match, Pike would have fight Bowyer. However, neither seemed displeased by this.


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Ebonsolaris Ebonsolaris

For this book, I’ve hit 100k view on Wattpad, so I promised a double update, so here is the first part.

Enjoy x

Chapter 94: Chapter Ninety Four - And the top martial artist is...

By the time the group had entered the arena, the sky had turned a steely grey and rain had begun to splatter down upon a barrier dome above them. The other seniors in the top twelve had begun to prepare for the battles and the first bout was ready to begin.

Luna stood with her sling tucked in the belt of her robes and holding a thin rapier like sword. Pike mentioned that the slender woman favoured this when forced to fight up front. She would not be the only martial artist to toss aside their favoured long range weapon for a melee one.

She was facing a youth named Logan, who clearly had hearts in his eyes. He was also slightly injured from a battle that happened to occur two days ago. It was just a bruise and it had not affected him the previous day, yet for some reason, he clearly used this as an excuse to not perform as well as he should, ultimately losing the match to the girl.

Both Bowyer and Pike shook their heads at this. Logan was currently ranked eighth and although he would still be ranked eighth if he had beaten Luna (neither considered he nor Luna having the ability to beat Ari), it was not as if he had done Luna any favours either. Luna was placed tenth, but Lopard, who was ninth had (prior to this win) more than thirty points more than she.

Logan's choice was further shown to be the wrong one when Lopard not only beat Delphi in the second match, but later managed a brilliant win over Certi, the fourth seed in their group. These twenty points meant that he stole eighth position away from Logan before he lost to Ari in the semi finals of their group.

Bowyer and Pike met in the third battle, grinning wickedly at each other as they wasted no time in attacking each other. Pike had set aside his two smaller hammers for a large war hammer, this lost Bowyer the advantage the reach his sword held over the smaller weapons. Still, he had speed, seeing as his blade, while not light, was certainly not the bulk and unyielding mass that Pike's hammer was. The stage was cracked in several places as Pike swung his weapon downwards, only to miss Bowyer's flighty form. It was due to one of these cracks that Bowyer's steps fell ill, providing Pike with an advantage that he previously lacked and he was quick enough to take it.

Bowyer was forced to concede defeat or break a leg in this match. As it happened, his arm was already severely bruised and swollen, having been caught by a seemingly wild swing just a minute before. Pike was no less injured, he sported a slice of several inches across his stomach. The two men welcomed the pills that Leon offered, a blood pill for Bowyer and a one heart pill for Pike's external injury. They were most pleased with the effect of the pills, but were too caught up in adrenaline to notice just how good the effects were.

After the fourth match where Piter fought Culven and won (the latter was in eleventh place, so this was unsurprising), Ari's first fight occurred. He fought Luna and soundly had her admitting defeat. He did not heed her pleas to go easy on her and she fled the stage in the end in tears, causing Ari to be the villain in many students hearts. Pike and Bowyer just rolled their eyes over the girl's dramatics.

The fights continued with only Lopard surprising all to win against Certi in the seeded match. Otherwise, all other seeds, Crux (who beat Pike) and Orphius (who beat Piter in a very close and tense match) all fought in the semi finals. Eventually, it came down to Ari and Crux, the first and second placed students of last year would fight for first and second place of this year. With just seven points between them, their final battle would settle scores or keep things unchanged.

Ari was as cold and silent as usual as he stood before Crux, a rather angry looking man, with clearly a grudge to bear. If he lost this battle, he could challenge Ari for another bout, but he did not want the gap between them widening any further. He had already decided that he had to win this time or not at all.

Ari favoured two long knives, while Crux held tonfa's, both men favoured speed over strength. Their battle was not a cautious one, their weapons met soundly each time, while they attacked, dodged, parried and counter-attacked. Their bodies were so quick and their movement so effortless and swift that Leon had difficulties keeping up with their movements. Sun too was bouncing up and down in his seat, he had never quite encountered such a thrilling match. His own skills relied on swiftness and speed, so the battle was both amazing and enlightening for him.

Eventually, Crux's movement began to wane. Although both men's martial arts were similar, there were still differences, for instance; Crux preferred using techniques that required bursts of speed, while Ari sought those that he could use with his usual rhythm and pace. Neither particularly outweighed the other in terms of performance, both could be considered crucial in certain fights, however Ari happened to have a little more endurance than Crux and the latter's influx of special moves had drained his away to this point, while Ari's consistent movement meant he was still in good form.

Crux couldn't quite dodge the blade that made it's way towards his leg and the slice along it burned, slowing him further and earning him a cut with the other knife in his shoulder. He held on for a minute longer before he conceded defeat, unable to cope with the numerous scratches and cuts that were added in that time. Ari did not come away uninjured having received a few bruises and grazes as well as a broken finger. However Ari was announced the winner and reclaimed his position as the top student in both the inner and outer schools. No one came forth to challenge him.


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