Much to Yi Qiang's chagrin, the crowd went wild. They seemed to be drinking in everything the colorfully-dressed judge was doing, which the lowkey marksman found irritating. Looking around, Yi Qiang also spotted expressions of annoyance on all the other three contestants' faces, proving it was not just him.

  Instead, it was nobody but him and the contestants. 

  Regardless, Yi Qiang had to admit he was slightly anticipating whatever the finals entailed. After all, he still hadn't been able to get accustomed to his new Strength, and hopefully, strenuous battle would provide an opportunity for that.

  As for how difficult any fight would be, suffice to say that Yi Qiang was less than confident in the ability of his opponents to threaten him. Still, he held out hope. As such, he listened when the judge spoke again, having, naturally, paused to let the roars of the crowd sink in.

  "No special rules for these finals, just combat, so lucky for you! We'll put each of you into pairs and have you duel. The winner of one match will duel the winner of the other game, while the losers from both will also duel. Finally, the winner of the fight between the losers and the loser of the match between winners will duel, determining the final ranking. Simply put, the first four matches will determine the preliminary ranking of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. The final match will make sure there are no mistakes or any error out of sheer chance. Got it? Good! Alright, you and you, pair up. You and you, go there to fight. Begin!"

  There was only one opponent Yi Qiang truly anticipated fighting against, and that was the young girl who wielded magic. After all, she was the only fighter that could likely challenge him. Yi Qiang had next to no experience with magic, and the other combatants were focused on close-range combat, meaning they could be picked apart easily by him, barring any strange occurrences.

  That meant that Yi Qiang wasn't particularly excited about fighting the girl with the katana, who the judge had paired him up with, but he still saw it as a chance to sharpen his control. And, he could never be sure if someone would end up surprising him.

  This time, as there were only two fights going on, all the other five arenas had fallen into disuse. Yi Qiang was rather sure they could have been retracted back into the ground if necessary, but he assumed whoever controlled the inscriptions didn't want to cause that much of a scene again when it was so unnecessary.

  Yi Qiang redirected his attention back to the woman with the katana. She was just as cold as ever, but the marksman's keen eyes spotted a hint of wariness in her posture. To be sure, Yi Qiang identified her.

Maria Languez

Level: ??

  At least I know her name. Yi Qiang internally shook his head. What is with everyone I can't identify, and why is that becoming increasingly common? No matter.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Yi Qiang readied his bow. This time, the opposition was bound to be harder, so Yi Qiang poured in a full 400 points of Qi. He nocked his arrow into the golden bowstring, too, formed of 5 Qi points. If I'm fast enough, this should be over soon enough. 

  Luckily, Yi Qiang was familiar enough with bows that he did not need to practice his aim with every individual Qi point cost of every conjurable ranged weapon. If he was sufficiently intimate with his strength, the marksman could accurately judge the power the bowstring had and aim accordingly, regardless of whether or not he had seen it before.

  Though that skill was less useful now that he had experienced such a sudden, unfamiliar leap in power, it was still usable, and Yi Qiang was only worried about his estimate of his strength being wrong.

  That problem would be resolved soon enough, though, if the katana-wielding warrior he faced now was as impressive as Yi Qiang hoped she was. And the only way to find out if that was true was to test it.

  The moment the judge dropped his hand, signifying the commencement of the match, two things happened.

  Firstly, Yi Qiang loosed his arrow and it shot forward, at a slightly higher trajectory than the marksman's predictions, but well within his expected range of error.

  Secondly, Maria Languez, as Yi Qiang now knew her name to be, darted forward at a surprising speed.  

  As a result, Yi Qiang's arrow missed, and he had a cold-faced, katana-wielding fighter dashing directly at him with agility even the marksman found shocking.

  It was all he could do to conjure a second arrow and nock it, pulling the bowstring back and releasing it. Unfortunately, that smooth, hurried attack failed to connect, even though this time around, it was perfectly aimed. Instead, Maria drew her sword and knocked the arrow out of the way, continuing forward unaffected.

  At this point, Yi Qiang had already acknowledged that she was able to match him. As such, Yi Qiang tucked into an adroit roll, successfully avoiding the katana that replaced the space of his head. It glowed with a bloody sheen, a crimson sheen even more brilliant than before.

  Yi Qiang also noted that there was no black cloud surrounding the battlefield, unlike her previous battles. That could mean one of two things. The first was that she acknowledged his strength and didn't want to waste energy or attention on such a technique. The second and, to Yi Qiang, worse, was that she had indeed activated it, but Yi Qiang wasn't able to notice it because of a particular quirk of the ability.

  The marksman far preferred the former to the latter, but it wasn't as if he could choose.

    The bow in Yi Qiang's hands grew more condensed, and the light emanated by it grew stronger. It was apparent that Yi Qiang had seen the need to inject his weapon with more Qi, further empowering all of his attacks.

   Pressed for time, he quickly got back into shooting position. Yi Qiang pushed his Agility and Dexterity to the maximum, drawing a graceful line in the air as he pulled the bowstring, nocking an arrow and firing it the same second. 

  However, by this time, Maria was close to Yi Qiang. Too close - a roll was not an effective way to create distance. As such, his arrow had little effect, its speed rendered obsolete by the superiority of the blade at that range. 

  The cold woman's blade snaked its way toward Yi Qiang's throat, inches away from closing in. It advanced further and further, its sanguine light shining onto his neck. The marksman, though, was calm, his battle-hardened mind able to recognize that no matter how much stronger the woman called Maria was, there was no way she would be able to break the enchantment unless Yi Qiang had drastically underestimated him. And that was almost impossible.

  Even if she were able to bypass the inscription, there was little Yi Qiang could do about it.

 So he just stopped, waiting for her blade to reach his throat.

  The expected shield appeared, halting her katana inches away from Yi Qiang's death. 

  That outcome was... unexpected.