As soon as the fight died down, Qiu Ye's adrenaline faded. She now realised the skin on the index, middle and thumb fingers on her right hand was torn. It stung a little but she just washed it off and left it alone. Seems like the ice arrows caused the moisture on her fingers to dry up and cause damage. Seems like she had more uses for the salamander partial transformation than she thought.

A larger crowd had gathered while they were fighting, seems like news that a student was having a spar with the coach had got out and attracted more people. Even teachers and other members of the faculty had come to watch. Qiu Ye suddenly threw her bow at the coach and said.

"Hey coach, can you shoot that blue arrow at me?"

"You want me to hit you with it?"

"Yeah don't worry I just want to try something."

"You sure? I can get some blunt arrows first."

"No really, trust me it's fine."

By now the coach had been able to relatively gauge Qiu Ye's strength, the arrow would no doubt pack a punch but it shouldn't do anything lethal to her. He was even more relieved when he saw her summon her partial transformation and arm guards. He fully drew the bow and shot the blue arrow at Qiu Ye. It struck her arms and bounced off harmlessly, but the blue energy coursed through her body. The crowd watched, confused. No one knew what Qiu Ye was doing.

Qiu Ye guided the blue energy through her body, she felt it and understood it. It was simply a part of the coach's soul strength injected into the arrow. Like a weaker form of physical soul manifestation. Qiu Ye picked up another bow and drew it fully. The arrow started growing blue, but much stronger and brighter than the coach had. An icy mist spread from the arrow tip as it continued to build strength. She turned around and fired it at one of the targets across the hall. Luckily people had gave both the coach and Qiu Ye enough room to spar.

The arrow gained speed and crashed into the centre of the target, causing it to splinter and break. Suddenly the blue light zipped around the room and caused the rest of the targets to explode, the entire back wall was covered in a thick layer of clear ice.

"Whoa that's cool."

Qiu Ye exclaimed, she wanted to try mixing that with her thunderstorm arrow when she had time. Maybe then she'd be able to hit more targets at the same time. The coach seemed surprised, the blue arrow was more of a gimmick than a skill but being able to learn it that fast was unthinkable. Most people at Qiu Ye's stage aren't even able to manipulate their soul in anyway other than flowing it through objects. But Qiu Ye was able to create Elysium in her mind something as simple as this was not a problem for her.

Not only was Qiu Ye able to recreate the skill perfectly, her understanding of it was deep enough to incorporate it with her other skills. The man standing in the doorway nodded, happy that his intuition had been right. He sent the video recording to his superior.

"Qiu Ye you're participating in the mid autumn contest right?"

"Of course, why ask?"

"I'll be your sponsor, you know what that means right?"

"Yes of course, it means I'll be representing you in battle."

"I'm trusting you with my name, strong fighters will be targeting you. That's what you're after right?"

"Yes sir."

"Good, from now on you're training with me."

"Alright."

Class time was over and people continued to request spars with Qiu Ye, but she remembered she had something to do so she turned them down and left. Winter asked while they made their way back to the dorm room.

"Is that coach guy strong?"

"He doesn't show off often but he used to be part of the city lord's personal guard."

"Oh wow."

"Yeah. Don't overestimate the things I've learnt from my past life, I just got lucky having support from the deities. I still have a lot to learn, I doubt I'll luck out again."

Qiu Ye put everything down and logged onto Battleground, ever since her first fight with Huang Ling a while back, she had been sent requests by Huang Ling and people directed from her over and over again. Normally Qiu Ye would feel irritated that she was being bothered like that but every single of the fighters were as strong as Huang Ling and she was able to develop her arsenal of fight styles from sparring with them. Huang Ling had asked to speak with her tonight, considering how many powerful fighters she had contact with, she must be someone important.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

In the past they had communicated simply through messages, but Huang Ling had requested to actually speak with Artemis so Qiu Ye knew something was up. She put the tablet on the ground and the familiar semi-physical ring appeared with Huang Ling standing there. Qiu Ye still had the face blurring option turned on so she wasn't worried about having her identity prematurely revealed, her voice wasn't distinct enough to be recognised but Qiu Ye subconsciously spoke deeper and slower as Artemis.

"Thank you for meeting me Artemis."

"There a problem?"

"Not really, I'm just here to extend an invitation to join my squadron the Bulldogs."

"Your squadron?"

"I guess we're not as famous as before. I am Huang Ling, head of the Bulldogs, a military branch on Terra Arbor."

"Oh that overgrown subsidiary planet."

"That's the one. So are you interested?"

"Well unfortunately, I'm a little preoccupied right now."

"Of course I'm willing to wait, you've fought all my squad mates and come on top. If that's not a sign for me to sign you up then I don't know what is."

"You might need to wait a few years before I'm free to accept your offer, I haven't really thought about joining the military either way. What is it your squadron does?"

"Well our main function is to support the research team here on Terra Arbor and protect them. But we also serve the general kind of job as the military to control gang activity in the In Between."

"Is it so dangerous there that they'd employ a special team to protect scientists there?"

"Honestly most of the beasts we find here are at mostly around the Viscount level so they didn't need to send the elite squads. You're around baron rank right? You'll fit in just fine."

"I'm still currently a knight rank, If I'm free I might get back to you. But honestly I'm not really looking to get tied down to anything really permanent, doing mercenary work is more down my alley."

"Well it's more than alright for our squad to hire you as a consultant instead of an actual member of the squad."

"Maybe in the future."

"Alright."

"There was actually another purpose for me contacting you tonight."

"Oh?"

"Seems like news of your odd fight style got out to the rest of the military and someone reached out to me to send you an invite. She's already a Viscount though so there might be a pretty big power difference, you interested?"

"Oh sure, I'm curious why someone important would be interested in a small mercenary like me."

"Honestly I'm curious too, I'm sending you an invite right now."

Wu Hou stood in her office waiting patiently, it wasn't often that she had time to have a fun spar. If Qian Hua and Huo Zhen's info was accurate, even with their difference in rank, the fight should be interesting. She didn't know why the student was using an alias but didn't bother revealing it to Huang Ling and Blue Moon's staff. If it wasn't for a source spotting Qiu Ye practicing Huang Ling's signature knife style, Wu Hou wasn't sure she would have found the connection between the student and the mercenary.

Wu Hou's invite went through and a woman appeared before her. She was developed for her age, her skin was smooth and unblemished, she couldn't believe this girl was a powerful hunter able of taking on beasts two levels above her strength. She stood there waiting for Wu Hou to select a weapon, Wu Hou heard from Huang Ling that Artemis had always chosen to fight with whatever weapon her opponent wielded. This was most likely for her to learn and take their skills but it didn't seem like Artemis was going to leak them anyways and fighting against a mirror image of themselves was great training.

Qiu Ye watched the woman pick up a thin sword and ready herself, she also had her face masked so she didn't recognise her. Qiu Ye picked up a sword herself and stood in the corner holding the sword and sheathe Iai style. For now she was just going to observe and prepare for sudden attacks. Wu Hou shot forward and sliced diagonally at Qiu Ye, it seemed slow but she could tell it had a lot of power behind it. Qiu Ye raised her sword so Wu Hou's blade would collide it and slide off, causing most of the power to simply dissipate.

However as soon as swords came in contact, Qiu Ye felt her left arm collapse and her entire body folded as Wu Hou's sword continued it strike into Qiu Ye's hip. In an instant, Qiu Ye's health was completely wiped and she was defeated.

Wu Hou was slightly disappointing by how short the spar was but it just confirmed that Qiu Ye wasn't lying about her power level. Not many of Wu Hou's own level could go up against her. Qiu Ye immediately sent another invitation and engaged in a second round of combat. She had forgotten to activate hawk eye and time difference as she was already able to see where each strike would land, but now that she knew she wasn't able to block them, she would now have to focus on dodging.

Wu Hou repeated the same action, shooting forward and slicing diagonally at Qiu Ye's hip. Qiu Ye leaped and dodged the strike while spinning to use the force and strike at Wu Hou's neck. But it was like the sword was homed in on her. The path curved down and up like a parabola and struck Qiu Ye in the back, though the force wasn't as strong as the first time, she was left with only about a quarter of her health. Seems like jumping was a bad idea since she couldn't change directions in the air. Wu Hou was a tall woman so she had a long range too, Qiu Ye could not get close enough to strike, she was now wishing she had a spear instead.

Since defence was impossible, Qiu Ye had to go on offence. She imitated Tian Xing's thousand hand sword style and struck Wu Hou from every angle. Seems like the only disadvantage to her sword style was it's speed, now she was forced to guard from the onslaught of blades. Qiu Ye's sword and arm looked as if they were made of rubber, she swung at one direction only for it to curve around and reach around. It was completely unpredictable as Qiu Ye herself was acting on pure instinct with the information being fed from hawk eye and time difference.

Wu Hou smiled, while stubbornness was admirable, it was the smart choice to adapt and change. She slowly walked back while deflecting the sword strikes. As soon as a gap appeared where Qiu Ye overextended to hit Wu Hou, she changed the grip on her sword and thrust forward. A huge burst of energy knocked the sword out of Qiu Ye and the rest of her health was eliminated. Qiu Ye once again lost while Wu Hou only attacked twice.