As the countdown reached zero, Rising Dragon made the first move. With a grin, his body started to emit a reddish aura. A very faint reddish light covered his entire body as he charged at Li Wei.
"He is really going all out. To even use [Fire Coat] like that; he must be planning to show off and finish this quickly," commented Cai Wenji with a sigh. He was sitting in the spectator’s seat of the arena with the rest of his party.
"Ahhh why did he not choose me... I wanted to face that [Fire Coat]! If it is really as effective when used on the human body rather than a weapon, then Seven might be in trouble!" exclaimed The One Hero.
“Believe in him. If he really did reach the last floor of the Tower of Heroes, I expect great things from Seven.”
...
When the countdown reached zero, Li Wei immediately charged towards Rising Dragon. From his point of view, he saw a change in Rising Dragon's expression followed by a faint red layer appearing on his body.
‘Probably a unique skill.’
He became cautious. He did not know the effect of that layer but it was clear that it meant nothing good.
[Strengthen]
To be safe, Li Wei used his skill and raised his left sword, preparing to pierce his opponent. Rising Dragon was smirking, he raised his right fist as if he was going to punch the tip of the sword piercing towards him.
Right as the fist and the sword were about to meet, Rising Dragon suddenly made a short and quick lateral jump. It was just enough to avoid hitting the sword. He quickly followed up with his left fist aiming right at Li Wei's head.
The latter noticed the quick movement and reacted accordingly. Slightly tilting his body, he aimed his second sword at the trajectory of the fist.
Rising Dragon was immediately forced to stop; he did not dare to meet weapons with bare hands yet. It was possible to do so in real life with his skills, but it was different in the game. Here, weapons gave bonus stats; by relying on his fists, he was giving up a few points of damage each time. However, using his fist made him feel more comfortable and would also allow him to use his own technique.
Noticing Rising Dragon's move, Li Wei quickly followed up by continuously swinging his swords at him. However, he still could not hit his opponent even after more than 15 sword strikes. Rising Dragon was fast and agile; he was constantly moving with short jumps.
They traded a few blows where both sides lost some HP. But none seemed to have the upper hand. The Fire Coat was effective in compensating for the lack of weapons.
"So you are the dexterity type, huh?" said Rising Dragon with a grin.
Li Wei did not bother to answer. It might just be a distraction to make him break his continuous strikes.
"Fine! let me show you how dexterity warriors should be!"
Suddenly, Rising Dragon made his move. Instead of jumping to dodge the sword like the previous time, he ducked just enough and punched the sword on its flat side, causing the sword to harmlessly fly above him. Li Wei was momentarily stunned, it was a bold move that he did not expect. He applied a lot of pressure and violently punched towards Li Wei.
The latter quickly stepped to the side to avoid the strike; Rising Dragon was too close for him to use his swords correctly. But the latter did not let him; Rising Dragon quickly followed up and activated his skill. A small flame suddenly lit up on his left fist, '[Blazing Uppercut]' shouted Rising Dragon as he punched towards Li Wei. It was at least twice as fast as normal. Shouting the name of the skill was not necessary, but it did add an effect to the scene.
Li Wei panicked for a second. There was no way he would be able to dodge that strike. But it did not mean he would necessarily be hit.
[Howl]
The small wave was instantly releasedand knocked back Rising Dragon by a step. It did not seem like much, but that was enough to cancel the skill just as it was about to hit his jaw.
Enraged at his failure, Rising Dragon charged at Li Wei as soon as he recovered.
[Strengthen]
He used another skill on top of [Fire coat], making him even more dangerous.
[Blade Draw]. Li Wei went back on the offensive. A wind blade flew at Rising Dragon but to everyone’s surprise, Rising Dragon openly punched the wind blade dispersing it. He still took 9 damage from it, but in exchange, he took Li Wei by surprise and bridged the gap between them.
The latter quickly jumped and used [Cleave] to follow up. He would have preferred if Rising Dragon jumped to the side to avoid the wind blade, but that did not stop him.
With a vicious smile, Rising Dragon stepped aside to dodge the [Cleave], but he did not retreat. Instead, he used his left hand to grab his right one and violently slammed his right elbow at Li Wei's stomach, "-24".
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The latter was taken by surprise, but he took the opportunity that his opponent was close to swing his second sword, "-23".
Both took damage, but Li Wei suffered more even though he used a sword. Rising Dragon invested more in the Strength stat than Li Wei and the Fire Coat provided an increase in Strength over its duration.
"It's over! Learn your place!" shouted Rising Dragon as he ignored the sword strike and charged at the retreating Li Wei.
When he was struck by the elbow strike, Li Wei was forced to take a few steps back. He did not expect that his opponent would disregard his sword strike and charge at him. Li Wei slashed his swords in front of him, but Rising Dragon did not allow him to.
[Howl]
He used his skill offensively, disrupting Li Wei's move and took the opportunity to punch Li Wei twice on the chest. "-18","-19".
"And now... The finishing move!" he raised his two hands to grab Li Wei's neck as his gloves lit up. His pair of gloves was his only equipment accompanied with a skill. His family heavily invested in him by spending more than a hundred gold in this grade 2 equipment for him.
[Strangle]
The two hands were about to viciously grab his neck. If Li Wei allowed it to happen, then he knew he would lose. In a desperate situation, he quickly thought about the possible options he had; [Howl] was on cooldown and [Earth Wall] would not be able to rise in time.
But at that moment, Li Wei was not alarmed. He was in fact very calm. His hands naturally moved his swords, but not at Rising Dragon since there would not be enough time to strike him. Instead, he struck the ground and pushed against it. He used his sword as a lever and forcefully changed the direction of his body.
With the swords, he managed to push himself just enough to avoid the [Strangle]. Rising Dragon was surprised. Using swords as support to move? A simple move and yet, it was all that was needed to disrupt his combo.
Rising Dragon quickly retreated, but his right leg was still hit by the sword,"-23". He was about to counterattack when he suddenly noticed something; his mana was almost depleted. Rising Dragon frowned. Things were not going as he had planned. The fight was going on for too long. Fire Coat was a technique that gave him 3 Strength and 2 Dexterity, but it had a severe cost: 5 mana for every 10 seconds.
He did not invest any point in Intelligence and therefore, his mana pool was quite small. Rising Dragon now only had enough to hold for 20 more seconds. But the depressing fact was that he could no longer use his finishing move, [Blazing Uppercut].
He did not want to rely on items, but he had no choice. Rising Dragon quickly punched Li Wei to force him to stop attacking and jumped back a few meters. Quickly, he took out a Mana Potion from his inventory and started emptying the bottle.
Li Wei was surprised upon seeing that. He did not know that consumables could be used, or else, he would not have remained with this amount of HP. But he quickly understood that this was not the Tower of Heroes; rules here were different.
He quickly smiled, but instead of taking this small break to refill his own HP, he quickly took out a throwing needle from his side and aimed at Rising Dragon.
The latter noticed his movements but there was nothing he could do; since he was in the process of consuming the potion, any movement or taking damage would interrupt the process. The needle flew straight at Rising Dragon. With a furious expression he chose to dodge to the side, but he was immediately met with Li Wei's swords.
"You... How dare you sneak attack!"
10 seconds left on Fire Coat, Rising Dragon quickly dodged the swords and kicked Li Wei on his chest to push him away. The latter easily dodged the kick and attacked from the side.
5 seconds left. Rising Dragon was getting more and more frustrated, Li Wei was not letting him get away. He was even sacrificing his HP just to stick to him.
Eventually, the red layer around Rising Dragon disappeared. Without [Fire Coat], he immediately became more vulnerable. It was not just because of the decrease in stats but also due to the psychological blow at his confidence.
He continued to dodge the Li Wei's sword, but he was clearly not as careful and agile as before. Rising Dragon was constantly looking for an opportunity to break away and drink the Mana Potion but in vain.
Li Wei immediately noticed when the red layer disappeared, and he understood the situation. This was why his opponent was desperately trying to drink the Mana Potion. With renewed confidence, he became more aggressive. Without the [Fire Coat], Rising Dragon now was truly disadvantaged because of his lack of weapon.
Quickly swinging his sword, Li Wei hit Rising Dragon 2 more times, "-20","-21". The latter was only left with 24 HP which put him in lethal range. Despite all his attempts, Rising Dragon simply could not break away. Eventually, before getting completely defeated, he made a large jump back and shouted while raising his hands:
"I surrender!"
Immediately, a loud announcement was heard. "Victory!" A large banner appeared at the top showing Li Wei’s name.
Li Wei was taken by surprise. He could not believe what he was hearing. ‘Did he really just surrender?’
"You win this time! But things would be different if I had a weapon!" declared Rising Dragon. He immediately turned to leave. He has already lost enough face and did not want to stay there anymore. The entire young generation of the Fleeting Clouds Sect had witnessed his miserable defeat. He wanted to strangle Li Wei but to save the last bit of dignity he had, he chose to surrender and leave.
He was enraged at the situation but what could he do? Act like a sore loser in front of the entire guild? Although he knew that he lost because he was careless and abused Fire Coat at the beginning, he also was not 100% sure to be able to defeat Li Wei.
The latter was expecting Rising Dragon to create a ruckus and challenge him again but nothing like that happened. "Thank you for going easy on me!" finally said Li Wei at the departing figure of Rising Dragon. The latter trembled for a second in rage but quickly left while grumbling.
Li Wei sighed. He was still confused at the sudden ending of the fight. He did win in the end but he understood that it was mostly thanks to his swords that he was able to keep Rising Dragon long enough for his Mana to run out. But more importantly, it was his first experience dueling players; it was different from NPCs as players would often do unpredictable moves.
‘I hope that he won’t run away from our bet.’
After 10 seconds, he was automatically teleported out of the arena since the fight was over.
Outside, he was welcomed by the cheers of his party.
"You really won! How did you know the weakness of Fire Coat was its heavy mana cost?" joyfully declared The One Hero as he tapped Li Wei's shoulder.
He was quickly surrounded by the others who all loudly congratulated him. Cai Wenji only silently nodded at Li Wei. He was inwardly very satisfied with his performance but as the leader, he could not behave like the others. He was well aware that all the eyes of the room were currently looking in their direction.
The surrounding players all looked at Li Wei with renewed respect. Although they knew that Li Wei had the weapon advantage, it was still impressive that he survived Rising Dragon's technique.
....
In a corner of the waiting room, a furious Rising Dragon stopped next to a group of players. A lackey quickly followed him while wiping the sweat off his forehead. His boss was furious! All he could do was to try to cool him down by sweet-talking: “That idiot only won because of the advantage of weapon boss! Let him play around for now. As soon as our blacksmith develop the knuckles! Things would be different. You will be invincible!"
Rising Dragon just ignored his lackey and turned his attention to the other players. "What the F*** was that! Did you not say he was a scam! Now all my reputation is gone! You baited me, Li Feng!” angrily shouted Rising Dragon.
“What do you think about him?” asked a player, completely disregarding Rising Dragon’s attitude.
The latter was fuming but he still answered: “He is decent but he only won because I was careless! I estimate that he can beat the 13th floor but I doubt he could defeat the 14th one. He is quite good. Not everyone can dodge by punches like that. His throwing needle was something I did not expect but I could have beaten him if I had a proper weapon."
"We now know the strength of that guy. We should keep an eye on the Cai Family. They made a good recruit. He is quite skilled but don’t think too much of him. He’s just an outer member of the sect and does not have access to too many resources. He will fall off very soon," declared a player that Li Wei would immediately recognize as Li Feng.
"I second that! We should also focus on recruiting the new players. There might be many players like him. It is a good opportunity to strengthen the guild," commented another player.
Li Feng turned toward Rising Dragon: "Don't worry, we will compensate you for your loss today. Don't think too much of it, once our Blacksmiths are able to produce decent weapons, I am sure you will be able to easily defeat him. In the meanwhile, I will make his life a nightmare. He must pay the price for running around my woman like a fly."
...
After the fight, the players quickly started to disperse as the event was over. Li Wei also did not stay much longer. He still needed to purchase a lot of things for his travel. Having obtained the permission from Cai Wenji to leave the city, he needed to prepare for his trip.
Alone, he went through the Trade District, upgrading his storage bags and buying provisions and consumables. He also purchased a map and a tent since he would need to spend a couple of nights in the wild.
Travelling was not easy in the game, but the one advantage player had was their inventory. They did not need to physically carry their needs.
Having bought everything he thought he needed, Li Wei went to the training center to practice his Gliding Steps before returning to the inn for a meal and planning his trip to Abe's Forest.