Chapter 58: Making Friends?

Jia Yuan’s competitive spirit was finally ignited.

For the entire tournament, he had looked over everything with a lazy, uninterested eye. Although he had been briefly intrigued by the prospect of picking up a royal weapon, he hadn’t even needed to try to achieve that goal.

The tournament, for Jia Yuan, had been a walk in the park. However now, finally, he had an opponent that had given him some trouble.

After jumping through the wheel of fire, Jia Yuan landed on the stage and sheathed HiRyu, throwing it aside after.

Jia Yuan wanted to be able to fight to his heart’s content, but he also didn’t want to harm the opponent. As such, he threw away his sword to be able to fight without the fear of killing Lin Xuan.

As for Lin Xuan, he was completely bamboozled as to why Jia Yuan had thrown his weapon away.

However, he didn’t think about it much as he prepared his next attack while rushing at Jia Yuan.

Lin Xuan had a rather crazed look on his face! He knew that if he were to beat Jia Yuan, he would have to do it before the fight dragged long, or Jia Yuan’s superior cultivation base would overwhelm him.

However, he didn’t anticipate that Jia Yuan would be rushing toward him as well.

Jia Yuan unleashed his cultivation to the tip of the 5th level of Absorption, and stomped on the ground, planting both feet shoulder-width apart. He raised his left arm in front of himself, while his right arm tensed up, ready to strike.

Just before Lin Xuan was in striking range with his staff, Jia Yuan punched the air in front of him, backed by the power of the 5th level of Absorption.

The physical punch ended about a foot in front of Jia Yuan, but a mass of tightly condensed aura continued along the trajectory of the punch, and crashed into Lin Xuan.

Lin Xuan had been caught off guard by Jia Yuan’s moves! One second, Jia Yuan had been charging at him with full speed, while the next, Jia Yuan had already established a stable stance and attacked him.

Lin Xuan was knocked back by the force of the punch, to the point that he was about to fall out of the stage!

At the last millisecond possible, he reached down with his staff and thrust it into the stage, providing him with a pole to hang on to so that he wouldn’t fly off the stage.

However, Jia Yuan had already expected this: it was the only course of action that would have saved Lin Xuan from elimination. With Jia Yuan’s current competitive mindset, how could he let Lin Xuan off easily?

As such, he had already sliced his leg through the air in a diagonal arc, releasing a large blade of flame comparable in power to the punch he had thrown earlier.

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The blade of flame soared through the air and cut through most of Lin Xuan’s defensive aura, knocking him away from his staff, and off of the stage.

He had lost!

The crowd went wild as they saw this. Not only had they been able to see a clash between two candidates who had both been invited to HuoShen Palace, but they had been able to see one completely dominate the other, even without a weapon!

A weaponless contender had beaten a fighter wielding a royal weapon! Although Lin Xuan was at the 5th level of Absorption, with the royal weapon he should be able to easily compete with those at the 7th or 8th level of Absorption!

In fact, Lin Xuan was even stronger than the audience thought. Not only was he at the 5th level of Absorption, but he actually had a high level Song! Aside from Jia Yuan, he probably had the strongest cultivation in the tournament!

Thankfully, Lin Xuan hadn’t lost a bout before, so he could still compete in the tournament for a higher ranking.

However, nobody really cared much about that. Instead, they were all discussing Jia Yuan’s strength.

Up in the royal box, the King was not present, but some of the ministers were there. They hadn’t been at the tournament on the first day, and hadn’t seen Jia Yuan fight before. However, they had heard stories from the other ministers.

“It seems that that monster Guo Huo really did bring the Kingdom another genius… was even Guo Huo this strong when he was 12?”

“I don’t think there is anyone alive who was this strong when they were 12. It seems that the Gods have gifted our Kingdom... A pity though. If only he was a few years older, he’d probably be a great asset to us in the upcoming war.”

“Hm… it’s unlikely for the war to start for another few years. By that time, who knows how strong this kid will be? He should only have trained for 2 years or so, but he can already supposedly beat those at the 9th level of Absorption? If he is able to reach the Manipulation level, he’ll still be of great use, I think.

“I hope you’re right…”

The two ministers left the royal box and began walking down the stairs, continuing the conversation.

At this time, Jia Yuan had approached Lin Xuan.

“I’m sorry, I went a little overboard at the end there. It was just that you were so strong that my competitive spirit took over. My deepest apologies.”

Lin Xuan laughed. “Haha, no worries! I was surprised by how strong you were too! Hmph, you’re younger than me but already so strong… It looks like I will have to train harder in the future!”

The two laughed and began to chat while walking out of the stadium.