Two months passed

Name:

Kuma Zhao

Race:

Prodigious Ailuropoda melanoleuca (panda gigante)

CULTIVATION

Qi

11th layer Qi gathering realm

Mental

Middle 3rd stage Spirit Sense realm

Physical

3rd layer muscles refinement realm

SKILLS

Spirit Sense (Lv 3) - Crystal mind lake (Lv 3) - Bear combat style(Lv 1) - Qi infusion(Lv 9) - Stealth(Lv 7) - Regeneration(Lv 1)

It is all going well for me. I cultivated my mind lake during the day and the night I practiced my stealth skill while eating the qi-infused herbs stolen in the cave in which Huan Long had found Ling.

Also, my second salary arrived and with it a breakthrough in both my qi and physical cultivation.

As I was anticipating my third salary, Huan Long came for me.

He found me munching on a bamboo shoot while a young girl patted me. The bamboo sprout wasn’t the usual bamboo sprout but one that had almost become a real qi-infused herb.

Huan Long’s highbrow twitched. Then he said to me “Come on, come. we have a tournament to win”

The girl panicked “ No Xiao Zhao can’t fight! He will get hurt.”(Xiao means piccolo in Chinese)

Before an argument could break out, I got up. The girl tried to stop me but I in response licked her face.

(girl) “Aww, drool”

While the girl was distracted I exited the pen following Huan Long while he for some reason decided to explain this tournament thing to me.

“It’s organized two months after every recruitment to determine the ranks of the outer disciples. The first 10 will obtain a stipend raise and the first three a special prize that will be announced at the beginning of the tournament. The first 100 will also obtain something but it isn’t very important: we aim to the top”

We arrived at a central plaza at the center of which had been raised a platform where the fighting would take place.

An elderly man descended on the stage and started talking. Even though he wasn’t talking very loudly, I could hear him very clearly and I could tell that everyone could too.

(Elder) “Greetings everyone, as many of you know I am the elder responsible for the tournaments in the outer sects. As you should know the first 100 people will obtain a bottle of raging bull pills, or healing pills, or of qi replenishing pills.”

(I) ‘Hmm, the first and the last sounds useful in a short or a prolonged fight while the second is useless to me since I have my regeneration skill.’

(Elder) “ the first ten will also receive double the stipend until the next tournament. The first three will receive a Foundation establishment pill, the first two will receive an offensive magical treasure and the first one will receive a defensive magical treasure.”

There was an uproar. The foundation establishment pill served to augment the chances of breaking through to the foundation establishment realm from the peak of the qi gathering realm. While the offensive and defensive magical treasures could be wielded only by foundation establishment realm cultivators.

The first three were assured to break through foundation establishment in the future while the first two would have been already armed when ranking up.

(Elder) “ ensure the fairness of it all we elders have decided that if you can not make use of demonic beasts at the 1st rank and above. But since a beast companion is part of the cultivator's strength the demonic beasts of first rank and above can participate on their own.”

At this point, I saw Huan Long's face falling. It seems that he hoped for an easy victory by ganging up with me on the others.

But he quickly recollected himself and readied his state of mind for the competition.

I picked up a corner and observed the fights. Most of the kids were an embarrassment to look at. They shouted grand names while swinging their swords with sloppy swordsmanship.

Then some kids used a more sophisticated swordsmanship while coating their weapons and bodies with qi when needed.

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In the end, a few kids were demonstrating incredible prowess while utilizing qi attacks infused with various elements, usually an element per kid.

I started thinking: ‘My qi infusion skill has been stuck at the peak of Lv 9 for a while. Maybe if I can use elemental qi I would be able to rank it up. Hmm, I have two affinities after my evolution: yin and yang. I’m not used to the yang element since I barely used the regeneration skill but I am used to stealth.’

I was interrupted in my musings by the calling of the referee who would preside over my match.

My opponent was a little kid shaking as a leaf. Who could blame him? With my current strength that sword was no better than a noodle.

I decided to try my theory and use a thin layer of yin energy in my muscles and see what would happen.

I concentrated on the sensation that my stealth gave and then used it to transform my qi into yin qi.

It worked but as I dashed ahead an acute chilling pain pervaded my body and I stumbled rolling stupidly ahead.

As I, dazed, tried to understand what happened, the youth in front of me hacked me with his sword. Only for it to fail to do any harm to my tempered skin.

I then slapped him away, ending the match.

‘I need to understand what I did wrong. What’s the difference between me and the others? They are human and I am a bear? Well yes, but what else?’

‘Bingo they are using the qi externally. I shouldn't infuse my muscles with elemental qi but only the exterior of my skin and claws!’

My opponent in the second match’s opponent wasn’t much better than the first and I decided to not test my new theory for fear of accidentally killing him.

I slapped him away as I did with the first.

Both I and Huan Long advanced in our subsequent matches and I had the chance to see him in action. In these two months, he had improved by leaps and bounds in both strength and technique.

He was stronger than the decent guys using qi-enhanced strikes but not as good as the guys using elemental qi, even if he was getting there. Considering that he achieved that in two months while they stayed here for at least a few years it was quite an achievement

At some point, there were only 16 of us. The match-up was done pretty well because all the strongest ones weren’t put against each other until this point.

The strongest that I could see so far were: a purple-headed girl using a bow and lightning qi, a red-headed kid using a greatsword and fire qi, and a blue-haired kid using two daggers and ice qi.

’I have decided I will call them Purple, Red and Blue: easy to remember, good.’

My first match was against one of the others and I defeated him with a slap.

Huan Long also won with some difficulty: so now we both were in the top 8.

My next match was against Red while Long would battle Blue.

I decided to test out my new yin-infused paw strike against his greatsword.

At the beginning of the match Red charged while I stayed put. When his greatsword was already above my head I stuck: I gathered yin qi into my paw and smashed it against his weapon. In the beginning, they were evenly matched but then Red’s fire started freezing and so did his greatsword. In the end, the sword shattered and Red remained dumbfounded looking at the hilt of his weapon.

I was stupefied too but I quickly recovered and ended the match with a slap.

The audience was awestruck too and after a moment of silence, everyone was asking what that was. Soon the answer came from the referee: ”That was yin qi, a composite type of qi, that is to say, a type of qi created by merging other qi seamlessly. In this case, yin qi is the combination of water, cold, darkness, and death attribute qi. Composite elements are stronger than the elements that they are made from and are very difficult to defeat in the same realm.”

After a while the tournament continued and Blue went against Long. Long took out two ordinary swords while Blue had a couple of mortal-grade daggers.

After some trash talk, where they openly displayed a budding rivalry, they clashed with daggers coated with ice qi and swords coated with black flames.

(I) “Hmm, that black fire is very hedgy”

After a while won the one with better weapons and the journey of Huan Long in this tournament ended.

The next matchup was: Blue vs Purple and Me vs Extra Character.

Blue vs Purple was a great clash with lightning arrows zipping through the stage and ice-cold daggers hitting them in mid-air while Blue chased Purple across the stage. In the end, blue missed one shot and the arrow penetrated his tight paralyzing him. And so Purple won the match.

My match ended with a slap.

The referee decided that the final deserved a proper introduction, so:

(Referee) “ Outer disciples, I present to you the final of this tournament. On one side we have a girl whose arrows are as fast as lightning and whose power is only matched by her beauty: Thai Hua.”

(I)‘So that was Purple’s name’

(Referee) “And on the other side, we have a demonic beast who has slapped away all his opposition with fluffy might. It’s cute, it’s mighty: Xiao Zhao”

(I) ‘Hei, what the heck was that introduction? And my name is Zhao, Kuma Zhao, don’t add suffixes as you wish.’

Well, the match started. We stared at each other and she seemed to be hesitating about something. I tilted my head and she fidgeted, blushing.

’What the heck, my cuteness seems to have hit the center again. What to do… Ah, I know.’

I roared.

She flinched and then refocused looking at my ready-to-dash form.

Purple whispered: “Thanks”

I heard it.

Then the first lighting arrow met my qi-enchanted paw. My paw destroyed the arrow but a current of lightning qi entered my body stiffening it slightly.

‘Ok, dodge it is then’

I charged at a speed that would allow me to react to her arrows and dodge them. The game of cat and mouse continued when she suddenly started to fire more arrows at the same time making it even harder for me to dodge. A couple of arrows grazed me but I, having learned the lesson, contrasted the lightning qi with mine, neutralizing it.

At this point, it was obvious that she was running out of juice and I was pretty tired too. she stopped moving around and started charging instead an arrow with as much lightning qi as she could. I decided to meet her expectations, staying put, and not taking the chance to end the match by hitting her still form.

Her eyes flashed with surprise and a small cute smile adorned her lips. When she was ready she released the arrow. It formed a purple lightning dragon that smashed against my yin-infused paw. I was pushed back three meters at once and only continued pushing until I was at the edge of the arena. Only then I was able to stop the overbearing attack, but my paw was fuming and giving off a barbequed smell.

I looked at Purple, no at Thai Hua, and, noticing that she was barely standing, I made a decision. I jumped down the arena. I didn’t need the defensive magical treasure, heck the offensive magical treasure and the pill will probably go to Huan Long, who is my dDaoistcompanion. The defensive gear is better off with her than with this freeloader, plus she is cute.

Huan Long came to me and started berating me for not winning. I tuned him out and started concentrating on my regeneration skill to heal my burned paw.

After a few inconsequential matches, the rankings were set: first me, second Tai Hua, third Blue, fourth Long, fifth Red, and then all the other extras.

The referee declared that the rewards would be delivered at the respective residence three days later for everyone to recover.

And like this, my first tournament concluded with a second place.