When they heard the news that Julius and Artemis had to face each other, the other kids were all stunned. Out of 128 people they could choose from they had to choose members from the army, especially the two that had a big rivalry against each other. There was only a 1/16256 chance of getting that!

"Wow, what luck! Now I can finally prove brains beat brawns!" It seemed that Artemis had determination thriving through his veins. It bolstered his complexion and his eyes didn't have even a twinge of uncertainty. 

"No way bro! I'll show you what I've got!" Julius didn't back down either, and was rearing to go. This rivalry had sparked something, not a spark of hatred, not a spark of envy, it was a spark of true friendship! 

The crowd watched as the two kids slowly walked towards the stadium. Their eyes didn't back down as they looked at each other, leaving the other kids with shivers down their spine. 

They eventually entered the arena and saw, to the entire audience's dismay, that there was nothing in the middle of the arena to fight with. There were walls that were brimmed with magical incantations, however there was nothing actually in the arena. No trees, no ramp, no weapons.

"I am sorry to all those who enjoy battles with items, however that does not reflect the talent's true skill. If we put items then it's advantageous to one, if not then it's irrelevant because it doesn't improve either one's combat prowess. Rarely does it help both and even then it will provide someone with more help. The reason it's used in other tournaments is to increase the host's talents' strength" Hearing this put the audience deep into conversation of whether or not this was true. Some people had already realised this, yet couldn't tell anyone seeing as they were nobodies and couldn't match the power of the big forces. As a result of being so heavily oppressed the common folk used this time to badmouth the big forces as much as they could, not having even a shred of mercy.

The big forces were furious to hear this, but couldn't open up their discontent in fear of the host. The host this time was the Valhallan Combat Dojo, the strongest force in the continent! 

"Wow, all the strong forces are being forced down. I wonder how that feels. Actually when you think about it, don't all beings get oppressed? Like I mean the non-mages are being subjected to being slaves for mages. Then mages are basically slaves to anyone stronger. Even the strongest person is a slave to his own power and has to thoroughly practice in fear of being overthrown." Wess silently reflected upon this fact 

"Well then if none of you have objections let us begin." Both Artemis and Julius went into a fighting stance after hearing this, and the kids had a slightly excited expression. 

The one to move first was Artemis, he put his hands together like in a prayer and mage essence flooded the ground. This made all the experts excited as this was a clear sign that the kid's first move would be a wood type move. 

A long piece of wood that looked like a log started growing from the ground and rapidly rushed forwards towards Julius. Caught by surprise, Julius ducked to avoid the impending attack. The log narrowly missed Julius, leaving Julius with a frightful expression. 

Suddenly, the log distorted and twisted around towards Julius again. Julius saw this with a scared expression, but couldn't do anything to dodge it. It hit him square on, crushing several bones in the process. He flew and crashed into the side of the arena. This caused the several watchers to jump back. 

Julius slid down the wall and had blood flowing down from his chest. His shirt was damp from all the liquid flowing out, forcing Julius to take it off unless he wanted to limit his movement. When he took it off, the audience started giving off a noxious smell.

Looking down at his own body, Julius felt disgraced. His entire top half was covered in blood and there was a rib penetrating out of it. It was a white colour that was faded red. It didn't hurt when he moved, however his breathing was rough and coarse. 

"Haha! You see now? Although this doesn't prove brains over brawns, it does prove that I'm stronger than you!" Julius, hearing this, became enraged. He couldn't be defeated in one move. That was just too much face being lost! He started slowly walking towards Artemis, however he just didn't have the strength anymore and faltered several times. His face was full of mucky dirty, and his chest was now a brownish-red. 

AN: Face is your pride or the prevention of embarrassment. As I’m writing xianxia, it’s set in a world like ancient China, where face was extremely important.

"Stop! Stop! You're gonna kill yourself! " Artemis couldn't stand what Julius was doing. It was the equivalent of hurting himself, maybe even killing himself.

"Hehe, guess I'm more like my dad then I originally thought." This is all that Julius said before squeezing his mouth shut and focusing his eyes. He closed all his fingers except his index and middle finger. He then swiped at the air, sending a large slash towards Artemis.

Artemis easily blocked this with the use of his tree stump, however it didn't block the attack fully and cut Artemis on the cheek. Julius smiled at this and released five of them simultaneously. despite releasing a big attack Julius wasn't fully satisfied at this attack as it caused him to feel great anguish within his chest. 

Three thick, stocky tree stumps were called forth by Artemis and they veiled him. Julius couldn't help but laugh at this, he clicked his fingers and the five large slashes split into ten. Six of them went forth and smashed into the first tree stump, yet the other four were nowhere to be seen. Artemis looked to his right, left, upwards and downwards but could not see where the other four slashes were. Suddenly a sharp pain went through Artemis's back, making him fall forwards. 

"Who's gonna lose now? Hehehe." Julius's body was in a grotesque state, his rib was now protruding outwards even further. If you looked closely you could see the half refined mage essence floating around the wound on his chest.

"Julius! Your core is injured, you can see the half refined mage essence surrounding your body. Please just give up." Artemis's eyes contained great worry for Julius, if he pushed himself too hard Julius could make himself disabled. 

"Never." Growled Julius. "This is the end of this fight!" A bright, lustrous light shown from within Julius.

"N-no this can't be true. This is aura magic! Magic that's only possible in legends! How is he capable of doing it!?" The host looked towards Julius as if he was looking at a monster. Even the Valhallan Combat Dojo, with all their experts, didn't have someone capable of doing that.

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The light slowly became darker and darker, redder and redder until it became a very dark red. It surrounded Artemis and his eyes, almost immediately, started becoming wider. Artemis's hands clawed at his neck, hoping to let in some air. However the air was clogged with Julius's aura and it was impossible to breathe. Looking down at his arms and legs, Artemis realised that he couldn't move at all except from gently swaying his head.

"This pain is unbearable." Thought Artemis to himself. Time faded by with Artemis silently hoping for Julius's weird magic to stop.

"Hehehehe! Now what is better? Your stupid brains or my brawns?" Artemis didn't reply and closed his eyes to concentrate. This greatly startled Julius, but he couldn't make a move.

CRSSSSSSSSSSHHHH

A loud thud reverberated throughout the stadium. A giant tree branch landed just a teeth's skin away from Julius's face, causing Julius to involuntarily jump back in fright. Consequently this caused the giant rib to protrude out of Julius even more. Gritting his teeth was the only thing Julius could do to stop himself from screaming out from the pain caused by the rib.

Julius looked back and what he saw caused him to go pale in fright. It was a giant tree with a hole as his mouth. It swung its branches around wildly and small cracks could be seen within the stadium. This added to Julius's fright and caused the audience a small shock. It was not impossible to break the ground and walls within this stadium, however only top notch talents and skills were able to do that.

The sudden shock and lack of concentration was enough to allow Artemis to break through from the constrictions and move his arms, therefore he was able to reach within his pocket. 

A small pure white pill was produced; the entire audience gasped seeing the white pill. This was clearly cheating

Artemis popped the pill in his mouth and the sound of grinding could be heard from the audience that was closest to the arena. Artemis's feet started hovering on top of the floor. He slowly started floating higher until he eventually floated outside of the aura. As soon as he left the aura he started flying in the sky. However this was cut short, and Artemis landed on the ground within the span of a few seconds.

"Host that's cheating! He cannot have pills prior to the match!" The host sneered at the people trying to make him lose face. 

"He is allowed you imbeciles. He created it during the match and so it's valid. Look at the match and pay attention before you start sprouting bullshit." The audience was didn't notice the insult as they were to busy looking at the kid. This kid was able to make a pill while also fighting. You required extremely good concentration and multitasking skills to be able to do this. Considering his amazing concentration, fighting skills and mindset, he would be at least a peak level 2.

"Well this time the army produced some fine talents. One has the concentration, mindset and multitasking skills of at least a level 4 at level 1. The other has the ability to control aura, which is only possible for someone beyond level 8. Of course the latter is much, much stronger, but I wouldn't have minded on having either one. I just wish I had them skills." The host sighed to himself sadly. His talent was great but nowhere near as great as these kids. 

"I'm... not finished!" The entire right side of Julius's body was drooping and there was nowhere on his body that didn't have blood or mud on it.

"Why are you so adamant on winning? From what I know you're not like this. You wouldn't go to the extent of killing yourself over a fight. You do care about face, but not to the extent of death. Why?"

"..."

"Fine then, but don't blame me for what happens." The left arm of the giant tree monster smashed down towards Julius. Julius could only shove himself to his right, but that didn't save him from harm fully. He landed on his four limbs and the brunt of the violent shove made his body even more painful and weaker. 

Suddenly, violent tremors resounded with the ground, making the rubble fly up and down like a trampoline in fast motion. Several small fissures were made and you could see something green lurking and slithering. The green lurker abruptly lashed out and wrapped around Julius. Soon his entire body was mummified and nothing was visible.

"Host, this match is obviously over. Please give me the victory."

"Mmmmmmm!Mmmmmmm!" Humming sounds came from the mummified Julius, however the host acted indifferent towards this attitude.

"Okay, you are the winner." 

Julius and Artemis were both quickly brought to the hospital and treated immediately. All of the officials that were currently supervising the talents for the Polios army were waiting in a distressed manner, hoping for nothing to happen to their talents.

"They are fine now, but do not put too much of a burden on them for the next few weeks. No fighting or cultivating in that period of time." When they heard this they all wanted to rush in and see the current condition of their talents but were restricted by the healer. Only seven people could go in at a time. At first it was the two masters of those kids and then the second batch of people to be brought in were the fellow kids.

The kids paid an equal amount of attention to both Artemis and Julius, however Julius shut them out completely and just stared into space. Luckily, the madness and overwhelming determination in his eyes were now lost and replaced with a calm, gentle look as if he was reminiscing he past. He even smiled once or twice. 

"Well hello kiddos! We need to talk!" A young man who looked to be in his late teens or early twenties barged into the children's conversation. This didn't give them a good impression of the man, as well as making them wary about him. They knew people would try to recruit or harm them for Julius's power. They had never even seen this man!