Sunwhisper had hoped that a decisive display of superiority would be enough. After all, the purpose of this test was to demonstrate the truth of his transformation, and resisting the proctor’s strike should have been sufficient for that purpose, but Ryu Ken appeared to have a different perspective on the stakes of the match.

(This guy seems like a jerk.)

{He is behaving as if he has a personal stake in the matter, but it may be that he simply wants to confirm an initial observation.)

The proctor was a burning red bonfire atop the pillar at the opposite end of the arena. His mastery of the first Ascendancy technique was even greater than Makoto’s, and the comparison caused Sunwhisper to think back upon his first introduction to the world of cultivators. Optus, Betamax, Syringe, and the others, were all behind him. He mourned their loss, but he did not dwell in mourning. His mind and his spirit had undergone a number of evolutions since the day when the men of iron were wiped out by a single old man on the border of Hollow.

Ryu Ken could have wiped out the exploration team as easily or easier than the border guardian had, and in a matter of months, Sunwhisper had advanced to the point where such a foe was no threat to him. This was the ultimate proof of concept for his Quest. Magic, specifically the magical system of cultivation native to Hollow, was a link to a source of power that made all the sophisticated technologies of Earth obsolete.

Sunwhisper’s body was composed of materials far denser than organic origins allowed. When those materials had been converted into a mana body, the result had been a decided improvement upon what was traditionally achieved through the process. His physical statistics were now a fraction of his dao rating at the time of the ritual, similar to the effect of the lowest rank of Xanthous Ascendancy, except that the change was permanent.

Furthermore, his body was still metallic, even though it was infused with mana, so Eight Mines Clutch of Lead could still increase its density and durability. He had dumped as much mana as he could into the technique when the proctor attacked, and the result had been suitably dramatic.

Sunwhisper currently weighed about two thousand pounds, and he was tougher than any natural material. His main worry was shattering the roof with his footsteps. Compared to that, fighting off Ryu Ken was a minor obstacle.

The red veiled cultivator launched himself from the pillar in a flying kick. His air affinity granted him tremendous speed and maneuverability, but Sunwhisper had taken Copper Mantis Stance to improve his reaction time, and he was prepared to intercept the proctor.

Ryu Ken moved through the air as swiftly and deftly as an eel in water, first feinting, and then coming at Sunwhisper from his flank. His rubious aura expanded into a sphere of spirit energy without a weak point, spinning to add the maximum momentum to the kick when it came.

Sunwhisper was not as fast as the proctor in the throes of his Ascendancy technique, but he managed to catch his leg at the price of accepting the blow. The impact was sufficient to lift him off the roof, but not to break his bones, so he gripped Ryu Ken’s leg as tightly as he could and brought the proctor with him in a spiral to the arena floor.

The stone tiles cracked like glass where they landed, and Sunwhisper, gripping his opponent’s leg with both arms, continued to turn. Ryu Ken fought back, striking with his hands, but Sunwhisper continued to turn until he had bent the proctor’s knee out of joint. They wrestled for a few moments more, near equals in strength, until Sunwhisper was able to tangle his opponent in webbing. It flowed from his hands in long strands, aiding his efforts at restraint, and soon Ryu Ken was thoroughly enmeshed.

“Yield,” Sunwhisper said, but the proctor was lost to the influence of his own mana. Red hatred bloomed in his eyes, and he ripped himself free of the binding Sunwhisper had created, following up with a series of quick punches to his chest and abdomen.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Sunwhisper rolled away, back up into a defensive stance. The proctor came at him in a flurry of blows, but one of his legs was broken, and though Sunwhisper was an inferior martial artist, his bones were unbreakable. Ryu Ken felt like a mortal man for the first time in decades, striking a surface harder than his own mana enriched fists.

Blow after blow, and it was his own hands that suffered; his forearms, his shins. Ruby Ascendancy hardened his body, and filled him with a rage that was beyond pain, but a part of his mind still registered the wounds he was sustaining, and after a few minutes of continuous exchanges, he knew that he had lost.

Red mana burned in his meridians and in his core, refusing any possibility of defeat.

The candidate was attempting to grapple with him again, and he head butted him, crushing his own nose in the process. Blood flowed down his face and into his mouth, and the taste of it brought him to his senses. Though he had struck his opponent many times, these strikes had been to no visible effect. They were nearly equal in raw strength, and he was the faster fighter between them, but his body was ready to fail him, while the candidate appeared to be drawing upon vast, largely untapped reserves.

Two cores.

Ryu Ken stopped resisting, releasing his Ascendancy technique, and falling limp in the arms of his opponent. The pain of his injuries came all at once, and he shuddered with its intensity.

Sunwhisper laid him down flat on the arena flagstones, careful not to do any more harm.

“Do you find me an acceptable candidate?” he asked.

Ryu Ken could only groan.

The audience displayed diverse reactions to the outcome of the duel. Janna was proud of Sunwhisper, in a way, but a part of her hated him. She had had a taste of power, but she knew that his alien nature, his System, meant that she would never be able to advance the way he did. She could learn a thousand techniques, and he would somehow make them irrelevant. She had achieved her transformation shortly after him, but it hadn’t been the same. She was not a demon, and the same rules did not apply to the two of them. This fight would not have gone the same way for her, it looked like Ryu Ken was going to require a recovery period, which meant she might have a less vindictive proctor to deal with for her own test.

Starscream had been both a witness and a participant, as he resided in the candidate's chest and was the source of his Flesh aspected techniques. Unlike Janna and Sunwhisper, he had not taken a turn in the ritual chamber. While he desired to advance, he had been forced to consider how his already imperfect core would react to being ruptured. Even more than that, he wondered whether the conversion would interfere with the possibility of building himself a more complete body in the future. That was his ultimate goal, not to be a mere appendage, but to be a whole mechanoborg once more. It was the main reason why having to leave behind so much raw material in Jigoku had bothered him as much as it had.

Until the time when the materials were ready, and his own knowledge had expanded to the point where he believed he was equal to the task of creating his new self, he was content to wait. Starscream knew that he was smarter than his brother. Sunwhisper was still naive enough to think that he could advance without killing. But Yuyu’s generosity would only take them so far, and it was not really generosity at all, but a means of seeing her own desires fulfilled. While the fight went on, he reminisced about the days of the Red Spider. It had been a frightening, fraught period, forever at the edge of annihilation, but he missed it. There was something offensive about the idea that though they had defeated the proctor, the man would be allowed to live. Starscream would never know the taste of his core. A waste.

The Zaibatsu clansman had followed the fight closely. While he had witnessed nothing to confirm that the person of interest was anything other than human, the candidate had certainly proved to be exceptional. Lady Makoto had made a shrewd choice in taking him under her wing rather than killing him for his crimes against her clan. The situation warranted further investigation, to say the least.

“He is stronger than we expected,” Ise Ebi said, tapping his muscular tail against his mistress’s leg. “He might be able to give us both trouble now.”

Immediately after the completion of the ritual of sublime transformation, Yuyu had been shocked by the change in Sunwhisper. The transformation was always a dramatic one, but his had been something else entirely.

“We have created a monster,” she said, and laughed.