As the fireball flew toward him, Verus clenched his teeth and charged straight toward it. Surprised, his opponent could only watch. However, right before the flames hit, Verus used his foot technique. Altering the way that he circulated ki throughout his body, he pushed a stream of the energy down through his back leg as he kicked off the ground, activating the Vanishing Feather Step. The ki burst out of the bottom of his foot and blasted into the ground, throwing Verus forward and slightly to the side. As he zoomed past the fireball, Verus altered his ki circulation again, and ki began streaming from his skin, protecting it from the heat of the flames as they sizzled through the air next to him.

A moment later, Verus was past the fire and charging straight toward Katar, whose smirk had completely disappeared.

Katar might be overconfident, but his ability to use fire ki gave him good reason to be. It’s ability to burn its target even if it didn’t hit straight on was one of the reasons that fire was considered one of the best offensive ki types. It didn’t require great technique or aim to use. You could simply spray it out and expect to damage and disable other people on your level.

Human ki was very different. It was fine for reinforcing, but it quickly evaporated once it left the body. You couldn’t expect it to travel far. It had its uses and quirks though, and Verus had been training hard over the past few days.

Katar reoriented to face Verus and punched the air again, sending another fireball at Verus. This time, the flames were almost right in his face, so he had to dodge immediately.

Using the Vanishing Feather Step, he threw himself to the side of the fireball, while still managing to land closer to his foe. According to Fang, Katar wasn’t a hard worker or a genius of any kind. He was a spoiled kid who'd gotten lucky with his attunement. He’d played around and learned a single fire technique, while forgoing his human ki completely. The ability to throw fireballs was certainly powerful, but it wasn’t some unbeatable technique. It had plenty of weaknesses.

Verus landed heavily and took a defensive stance as Katar turned to face him. There was an angry snarl on the disciple’s face as he twisted around and threw a punch at his foe. Verus blocked the punch and then skipped forward to deliver a sidekick to Katar’s ribs. The other disciple huffed in pain as he stumbled back from the impact, but he quickly recovered and came at Verus again. He threw a flurry of light punches that Verus had to dodge and block. One got through, hitting Verus’s nose hard enough to make his eyes water. The jabs were just feints though, Katar followed them up with a jumping kick aimed right at his face.

Ducking down low, Verus let Katar’s foot zoom right by his head, and then he threw his entire body into an explosive punch aimed right at his opponent’s gut. Ki cycled through his body and down his arm, enhancing the blow. Thus, while Katar was still in the air, his fist smashed through the other disciple’s guard and rammed right into his stomach.

The impact knocked Katar back and he grunted as air was forced from his lungs. Still, he landed without falling and didn’t look too hurt. Verus hated fighting people with more ki than him. It gave them a noticeable increase in strength and toughness. Maybe he should have absorbed some of those ki crystals after all.

“Alright, I’m done taking it easy on you,” Katar hissed as he stared daggers at the temple ward.

Dropping down, Katar did a sweep with his leg. From a safe distance, Verus hesitated and watched in confusion, until a wave of fire washed forth from the glowing trail his leg left in the air. The flames swept across the ground, and Verus was forced to jump up to avoid them. Okay, it seemed like he’d underestimated Katar a little. The spoiled brat actually had two techniques.

As Verus hung in the air, Katar twisted around and used another punching motion to send a fireball straight at his foe. Damnation in a handbasket, Verus swore mentally. This was obviously a combo move, and it worked.

“Pickles,” he cursed aloud as he landed too late to dodge the fireball. There was an elder present and some of them could be picky about blasphemy.

As the fire slammed into him, Verus raised his arms up in front of his face. Ignoring the terrible heat and thoughts of blackening flesh, he concentrated on his ki and reinforcing his skin as much as possible. At his direction, human ki oozed out of his skin to repulse the heat, but he didn’t stop there. He pushed a blast of ki out of his hands, directly at the fireball, in an attempt to disperse it.

A scream escaped Verus’s lips, and searing pain ripped into all of his exposed flesh as the fire savaged him. A moment later, the flames died down and Verus got a look at himself. His arms were red and blistered, and he expected his face was almost as bad. His robes were also quite singed, although he didn’t care all that much about them. It seemed like his defenses had only been partially effective, but they’d stopped him from getting any permanent damage.

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Moving his arms and their tortured skin caused Verus agony, but he didn’t stop.

“Pain is an illusion. The will triumphs over all,” he hissed as he took up an offensive stance.

He hadn’t been defeated yet. He needed to win. Verus felt his battle focus reassert itself. If anything, the pain made it stronger. Everything but the match faded away. He couldn’t take another blast like that, so it was time for him to give everything he had.

Without warning, Verus charged forward using a Vanishing Feather Step to close the distance between him and his opponent. Unfortunately, charging straight in had a serious downside. No matter how fast you were, it was a predictable movement. Katar saw him coming and unleashed a flurry of punches at the spot he was headed for. Verus was forced to shield his head and absorb some of the hits. The impacts on his damaged skin were incredibly painful, but he was almost beyond pain now.

“Ha, take this, you peasant,” Katar roared as he stepped back and sent a powerful scythe kick straight for Verus’s ribs.

The kick slammed into Verus’s side and then blew through his body, dispersing it into smoky ki. It was an afterimage. That was when Verus – who’d used a Vanishing Step to dodge to the side while his enemy was distracted – lunged forward and grabbed the collar of Katar’s robe.

Verus grinned savagely as he pulled himself closer to his opponent and twisted Katar around so that he was off-balance. While useless for long range emissions, human ki did have its own quirks. It was the ki of humans, so it naturally took their shape. It was thus easy to create a momentary image of himself using it. All he had to do was leave a cloud of shaped ki behind as he moved.

“What?” Katar exclaimed in shock as he tried to figure out what had happened. Struggling, he tried to pull back away from his opponent and regain his balance.

Verus didn’t give him a chance. Using his weight, he dragged the other disciple’s head down and then used an altered Vanishing Step to empower a short jump that ended with him slamming his knee into his opponent’s stomach. The improvised move required some complicated ki manipulation that he would have never tried unless he was fully in the grips of his battle focus, but it was the only thing he’d come up with that had a chance of ending the fight fast. Despite his ability to ignore the pain, Verus really wanted to get his burns looked at.

The power of the knee strike lifted Katar’s feet off the ground, and Verus took the opportunity to lift the other disciple up and throw him aside. That turned out to be a good move, because as soon as Katar had collapsed onto the ground, he began vomiting uncontrollably. Verus thought he saw some blood mixed in before he grimaced and turned away. Ugh, disgusting.

“I believe this fight is over. Ward Verus is the victor and will be awarded the prize of two ki shards,” the refereeing elder announced as he stepped forward. He then eyed both the combatants and grunted, as if doubting that the prize had been worth the damage they’d taken.

After a quick bow and a promise to visit the sect infirmary, Verus claimed his prize. By then, Katar had managed to pull himself up into a sitting position and was glaring at Verus with undisguised fury, although he still seemed unable to talk.

“I will pray for your quick recovery,” Verus told his defeated foe as he clasped his hands together and gave him a polite nod. Ha, Katar had gotten exactly what he’d deserved. After being so rude, he should be happy that Verus hadn’t kicked him again while he was down. That would be unbecoming of a cultivator seeking enlightenment though.

There was a smile on Verus’s lips as he walked off the dueling arena, despite his painful injuries. Not only had he put down an annoying spoiled brat of a cultivator, but now he had two shards to use for training and would be getting more next week. Maybe he could even absorb one or two instead of using them all for channeling.

However, his first stop was the infirmary. Now that he was no longer fighting, his burnt skin was really starting to ache. Katar’s flames had done a lot of damage. Reaching up, Verus felt his face, and was relieved to find that that he still had his eyebrows.

“Wow. Are you sure you should be walking? You look like a boiled beet,” Warin said as he hurried over to his friend’s side. There was a concerned look on his face.

“I’m fine… I think. I won and I can still walk, so it’s all good. Winning was the important part.”

“You look like you’re about to fall over and pass out. I’d take your arm to steady you, but I don’t want to touch you, lest I open your wounds and get slime from your sores all over myself.”

Verus knew he was wobbling a little now that the excitement and rush of fighting was wearing off, but it wasn’t that bad. True, he wasn’t quite managing to walk in a straight line, but he was still pointed in the right general direction.

“I said I’m fine, but if I do fall over, just call for someone from the infirmary to come. I’m sure they’d be able to move me without tearing off any of my remaining healthy skin,” Verus joked half-heartedly.

“I’ll do that,” Warin replied as he rolled his eyes and walked beside his friend. They stayed together right up until they reached their destination. Only then did Warin leave to attend to his own business.

The infirmary was a clean and spartan looking building. As soon as Verus stepped inside, a servant in white walked over and led him to a side room, where an inner disciple that was also wearing a white robe had him sit down on a bed. Neither of them seemed to find his injuries odd or even worthy of comment. Apparently, disciples came in here all the time with burns across their entire bodies and their skin peeling off.

The attending medical disciple had Verus remove most of his clothes before applying a salve to his skin. Thankfully, he was a man. Verus was still uncomfortable around women, even when he wasn’t half naked and getting rubbed down. As the man applied the salve, he also pushed ki into Verus’s skin. Thus, when he was done, Verus immediately felt much better and a lot of the inflamed redness of his burns had been replaced by a healthy pink color.

“Your burns should clear up without any complications by tomorrow, but return here if they persist,” the medical disciple told him.

Verus thanked the healer and then set off to the requisition office. Now that he had some shards to spend, it was time to try testing the next attunement.