Chapter 15: Weak?
The close match between Tai Yuwen and Wei Ling entertained the audience greatly. It became a benchmark for the remaining fights in the third round.
Their fight also warned the remaining challengers about challenging Taxia Dru. Some hesitated and changed their targets but one who came from the Golden Wheel Merchant Organization was firm on challenging him.
Both were sword users, thus, their fight was like a show of swordsmanship between two sparring partners.
With the same cultivation realm and stage, their fight also became a close one just like the first match of the third round.
Fortunately, Taxia Dru, who was dedicated sincerely to the way of the sword, managed to outdone his challenger through displaying a greater control and precision in his every sword move.
He didn't even have to use his trump card, the Soaring Sky Sword Art given to him.
Ji Chen lightly clapped his hand seeing a battle between two sword users. It was always pleasant to his eyes seeing a match only involving swords.
For the next matches, the challengers tried to defeat someone in the top 50 to no avail.
Ximen Tian also tried to challenge an early-stage archmage but failed miserably as his figure was sent flying out of the stage. He did not bother using the art manual he received from Ji Chen since even with it, he would still eat a lost. His scene of being sent out of the stage was meticulously captured by Xu Kai with a recording talisman to serve as a secret memorabilia.
What a true friend, indeed.
After the 13 challengers finished their turns, 2 archmages who lost in the earlier rounds stepped forward to challenge someone.
"Who do you like to challenge?" The referee asked the slender man with a squarish face and dressed in the uniform of the Golden Wheel Merchant Organization, a white loose jacket with a golden wheel image on its back.
The man looked at the list on the projection, skipped over all the early-stage and mid-stage archmages, and set his gaze on a woman's name.
"Ling Jingjing." He replied to the referee.
The referee was surprised to hear his choice but still called out, "Ling Jingjing, someone wants to challenge you. Come down here."
Ji Chen and his group looked over at the challenger on the stage. Seeing the challenger's familiar uniform, Ji Chen sneered before looking past the seats of City Lord Feng and his group.
There he saw the calm Mister Lee and his subordinates while their disciples were clamoring about the challenge, clearly favoring their challenger.
'Heh. Targeting my disciples twice in a row?' Ji Chen knew it was not a coincidence since the man was at the peak-stage of Archmage Realm. Clearly, he chose someone a stage lower than his cultivation and it happened to be one from his sect. Although he was irked by it, he knew this was a competition.
"Hmph. What a pesky man." Bai Ningshuang was also irritated as their girly talk was interrupted by a stranger.
Hesha whispered something to Ling Jingjing before winking at her.
The latter nodded and a cold glint flashed in her eyes. When the latter left her seat, Bai Ningshuang asked Hesha about what she whispered.
"I told her to trash the man so hard that he'll pee his pants."
Bai Ningshuang covered her mouth and suppressed her laughter while glaring at Hesha. Her friend was really a bad influence on a pure woman like Ling Jingjing. She too was corrupted by this demoness.
It was not only Ji Chen who was suspicious as both Pavilion Lord Su and Veranda Lord Wuji raised their eyebrows but did not comment anything. Just like Ji Chen's reasoning, they knew the competition allowed it.
Also, it was not to the point where it became too obvious like if an emperor contestant intentionally forfeited in the early rounds, just to have a chance to battle someone way weaker. That move would be disrespectful to the City Lord Residence and the kingdom.
As Ling Jingjing faced her opponent on the stage, a thin short sword of pure azure came out from her storage ring.
The referee inspected the sword and confirmed it was only a rare grade weapon.
"No offense, I called you since you look weak." The squarish-face man mocked Ling Jingjing while his spear was being checked by the referee.
It was obvious he was talking to his opponent but he did not even look at her, a form of disrespect.
The spectators could hear the contempt of the man in his tone. His spicy words boiled the already warm arena.
Ling Jingjing was rooted momentarily hearing it. She was not accustomed to verbal sparring specially with the opposite sex.
She was even more accustomed to blood and corpse than replying to verbal insults.
Being insulted publicly rendered her speechless for a moment before she recalled Hesha's way of handling insults.
Ling Jingjing smiled faintly after recovering and only replied, "Cultivators use actions rather than mouths, especially a man like you."
It was something she often heard from her Sister Hesha. Of course the 'man' part was interchangeable with 'woman'.
"Yah girl! You said it right!" Hesha on her seat felt victorious. She felt like a teacher who saw her favorite dumbest student finally acing the exam.
Ji Chen, who was nearby, twitched his eyebrows. 'As expected, she learned it from this demoness. But this is good for her. She lacks fierceness.'
The most shocked by her delivery was her master, Li Xianyun. She felt her disciple had grown up from childhood to teenage at this moment. She looked at Hesha and gave her a thumbs-up in her heart.
The squarish-faced man also did not expect the innocent-looking lady to rebut his words and anger welled up in his heart.
He seemed to hear the spectators mocking him for stepping on his own foot.
He seemed to see the ladies pointing at him and giggling while the gentlemen were smirking.
"Then you can't blame me for my actions." The squarish-faced man said with distorted expression.
"Alright, state your names." The referee did not care about their verbal sparring and impassively announced the start of the fight.
"Ling Jingjing."
"Tang Ju."
"Begin."
As soon as the referee signaled the start, Tang Ju wielded his spear in a rotating manner.
Sharp rotating wind currents formed at the tip of it. Thrusting his spear towards Ling Jingjing, the sharp wind currents whistled before it swarmed her direction, covering a large part of the battle stage.
Ling Jingjing did not get flustered as she pushed her left palm forward.
Immediately, a palm imprint with raging water energy shot towards the incoming wind currents. The sharp wind was unable to pass through the palm imprint after the latter dampened the former until it dissipated.
Tang Ju did not stay idle during the process and fired multiple wind attacks using his spear as a medium while he gradually inched closer towards her.
He knew that water-based cultivators could not be defeated easily with long-range attacks since they had the most versatile defenses.
The dampening effect of water could even make the sharpest metal to become dull.
Ling Jingjing knew her opponent's plan and maintained a fixed distance by using the Phantom Step Art, a low-tier earth grade movement technique taught to every archmage in the Three Peak Sect.
Every step she made created an afterimage to the eyes of mages and most archmages. Of course, it was not worthy to show before the emperors who could see her movements.
While moving continuously away from her opponent, she made sure to send her own palm attacks.
"You can't run away forever." Tang Ju snickered before executing his own set of movement techniques. The afterimages produced by Ling Jingjing were blown away and all the palm imprints were dodged.
She did not panic seeing her tempo destroyed and proceeded to create two rotating whirlpools between her and her opponent.
Tang Ju scoffed at the two whirlpools as his spear glowed greenish before he stabbed it straight at the center of one of the whirlpools.
The wind howled on the tip of his spear and wreaked havoc, disrupting the flow of the whirlpool and destroying it after several seconds.
He did the same with the other whirlpool.
When Ling Jingjing attacked with a palm imprint, he would dodge using his movement technique. Her created whirlpools were also obliterated everytime by his disruptive wind energy.
Gradually, she fell into the disadvantage.
The man saw this trend and laughed before saying, "You and your sect are really just so-so.."
His words finally got into the nerves of Ling Jingjing. She could tolerate the insults aimed at her but not the ones toward her sect and friends. Her eyes glowed strangely for a split second.
At the same time, Ji Chen, who was monitoring the battle, felt more pity for the man who dug his own grave. 'You can't provoke Jingjing like that. Tsk, poor man.'
What happened next made the arena silent.
Everyone witnessed the scene of Tang Ju suddenly bleeding from his orifices. He twitched for a moment before falling to the ground with a loud thud.
His expression was contorted in extreme pain as if he was tortured in the eighteen layers of hell.
There was no sign of how it happened. He was charging towards his opponent for the final attack but then, he suddenly stopped moving, twitched, before bleeding all over.
Several breaths later, the crowd went into an uproar.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone