Though I’m eager to fight him, it’s not the right time. Still, this is a good opportunity to see how strong Baro is right now.

I throw a jab in his face. Nothing fancy, no qi or junk fu.

To my surprise he did the same. Our fists connect at the same time.

It was like punching a frigging bowling ball. I don’t think my raw power comes anywhere close. That bastard was definitely holding back, there was nothing fancy behind his jab either.

That smile on his face says it all.

Before I even get a chance to think about where we are, scores of laughter echo throughout.

As though pulled out a trance, I finally realize me and Baro are smack dab in the middle of the ring.

Besides that behemoth of a man, the very spiky red-haired demon who pronounced me his slave, all the official looking people in the ring have a look of shock on their faces.

Not prince Charrock though, I swear there has to be something in this world that can wipe that neutral stoic look off his face.

The background characters talk their trash between the waves of laughter thrown our way.

“Lookie the poopy trash duo finally decided to arrive.”

Poopy? Since when was that part of the title?

“Trying to look tough after your toilet adventure, we know the truth, lazy poop trash.”

I would have figured everyone would be angry seeing us come in the way we did… I know I would be.

As I take in my surroundings, I can’t help but notice the most subtle smile on Charrock’s face, but his piercing gaze is so sharp I can practically taste blood.

“What is the meaning of this?” says a bald old man with eyebrow hair that goes down to his knees.

“Now, now,” says a man in a suit, “our warrior prince just explained that his guards caught two of our students with the runs. They must be trying to distract us from their embarrassment with this little act.”

I look dumbfoundedly upon the prince. Seriously? You told them all that we’re late because of diarrhea?

The prince with just his eyes and a pulse of mysterious energy said something to me and me alone.

You dare look upon your master without reverence? Grovel like the worm you are.

The pressure drove me to my knees. I can’t even make a sound. My bones shake as I try to resist, to my shock no one else seems to notice.

Not even this group of official looking people.

Baro seems to be bowing of his own volition, there isn’t even the faintest change in his expression.

Charrock though looks surprised. Probably because the last time he subjected me to his power I coughed blood and passed out.

That’s right you arrogant bastard, I’m already strong enough to resist. Just wait until I grow up.

With his arms crossed, the prince taps a finger and my head crashes down. I raise it back on instinct.

He taps his finger again and my head crashes again, and again

“I humbly apologize for this arrogant display,” Baro says, kowtowing, “we unknowingly ate spoiled foods and got food poisoning. In hopes to save face, we sought to distract everyone with our martial arts.”

Dang, Baro is ridiculously articulate for a 6 year old.

Forced to kowtow, apologize, and be made into a fool. This must be what Baro meant by pound of flesh.

Damn that Charrock.

The mockery continues from outside the stadium.

“That’s what you get for eating sewer waste!”

“I see that Ash picking up scraps from the trash alley every day. Turns out that broke bumpkin eats it too.”

“Did you see the way he ran into the ring, no style at all.”

Okay besides being broke… that’s actually all true. Still it’s not at all what they think.

I catch Noana being scolded by her mother. With my poison clear sight I can read her lips.

“That’s the boy you say is stronger than the Sar brothers. Ridiculous. How could you embarrass your family with lies like these,” she says with a slap across Noana’s face.

Wow, I had no idea associating with me was even a burden in her home life. This pill is harder to swallow than trash.

She was the only one who stood up for me. You dare call her a liar and beat her for it?

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Junk style, garbage breathing.

With a slam of my hand, I force myself to rise. My knees shaking as I lift my head slowly.

One of the elders on stage shakes her head. Her hair white, medium length and curly. Her grey robe flutters with a wave of her hand.

“Look at him, so sapped of strength from his trip to the washroom. He can barely stand after a frankly pathetic apology. I see no good reason to let trash like him participate.”

She’s right. In the Khal sect, an upset stomach or a killer disease is no excuse for arriving late or not at all.

To even lose one soldier is to completely break the synergy of the trash disposal chain.

Every member has a crucial role to play to maximize our efficiency in disposing garbage. Of course, these roles are interchangeable, and many sect members are trained to fulfill multiple roles.

However, when we get into workflow, our speed at exercising our specific and repetitive tasks increases exponentially.

Losing one-member mid-shift requires an immediate reorganization of the chain to make up for the sudden absence. This reorganization severely disrupts workflow.

In most cases a supervisor takes over until a suitable replacement comes.

In bad cases the chain must be reorganized into a structure that supports less people.

Either way, once the process is interrupted, the flow state ends. In a recent study published by our sect, it takes up to 2 hours to re-establish a hyper efficient trash disposal chain.

In that time, hundreds if not thousands of people will be affected by the disruption.

On a macro scale that’s thousands of kilograms of waste unable to be disposed of. All this trouble because of one person’s lack of foresight and commitment to their work.

There is no problem with taking a day off by reporting the need in advance, there is however serious repercussions for tardiness and causing mid shift disruptions.

It is for this reason that there have been cases of workers preferring to shit themselves mid shift than to disturb their colleagues. With such rancid smells all around, most people don’t even notice.

Even when we do, we respect the commitment to synergy.

If I were in this elder’s shoes, I’d kick us out immediately for our transgressions.

Still, my sole disciple’s honour is on the line. I can’t let things end like this.

“What the heck are you doing, Ash?” Baro whispers as I steadily rise against the pressure.

It’s as if gravity were multiplied by 5. With my years of training, I can resist.

Prince Charrock smiles. No subtlety at all, the first real change in expression I’ve ever seen on his face.

His eyes gleam with excitement as he taps his finger again. I sink back on two hands, gasping for breath. If I had to guess, that 5x pressure just doubled into 10.

“This is hard to watch,” the lady elder says, raising her hand, “he’s so pale and can barely stand. That little display earlier was the limit of his strength. Clearly this child is still food poisoned and unable to compete.”

Prince Charrock grabs her hand, stopping her from finishing her disqualification speech. Though his smile has faded, his eyes are still glaring at me with excitement.

“Tell you what. Whoever manages to stand gets a chance.”

What? This is clearly nepotism. Baro isn’t under any pressure at all.

The long eyebrowed elder shakes his head, pointing at me. “It’s only this one struggling to stand, the other seems to have made a full recovery.”

The prince points at Baro, “that one is just really good at hiding it, give it a second.”

As if on cue, Baro turns pale as he kowtows again. Poor guy looks like he’s about to vomit.

Me too honestly. I don’t know how much more of this pressure I can take.

I judged too soon. There’s no nepotism here at all, just a blatant challenge from the prince.

“As you suspect I too am suffering,” Baro says while struggling to lift his head from the ground.

“But I will not make excuses, I am here to fight.” Baro adds, punching the floor. He looks at me, with a mocking smile, “I’m not like this one here who’ll break apart under a little pressure. You’ll see soon enough.”

Oh, that does it.

I circulate my qi as ferociously as possible, but the pressure on me is thick as tar. No matter how much I push, I can’t make my qi overflow.

Though it heavily drains the qi in the reservoir, overflowing gives a tremendous surge of temporary power.

My qi however is entirely suppressed by this mysterious energy, I can’t use any junk techniques in this state.

People around mock us with every venomous sting they can conceive. The prince narrows his eyes.

“Now we don’t want to waste any more time, you two have 10 seconds.”

If I can’t rise in 10 seconds, I’ll never be able to rise period. This condition of his isn’t added challenge, it’s a mercy. My strength is depleting with each passing second, it’s now or never.

I force my qi out with all my might, Baro doing the same. No doubt my veins are bulging as violently as his.

If I could speak under this pressure, I’d be roaring with all my might.

The peanut gallery continues their mockery, to them we look like we’re taking real aggressive dumps.

The only one showing any signs of concern is Noana. I can’t let her lose any more face; I must rise even if it shatters every bone in my body.

To do so I must surpass my limits.

I smile, under pressure like this no matter how much qi I force into my body, I won’t explode.

Re-scrapjitsu.

The qi violently surges through my body, tearing my muscles and cracking my bones from within. Loud pops come from inside me as the blood inside dyes my skin red.

Baro must have reached a similar conclusion, smoke rises from within him as his eyes burn red-hot.

The air violently shakes as we slowly rise to our feet. Qi violently surging throughout my body, unable to escape, tearing me apart from within.

My violent qi pushes back against the pressure, decreasing the burden on my body.

If Baro didn’t have the same idea, I would never have been able to resist to such a degree.

It's as though a massive boulder were dropped on us, and 2 people pushing is better than one.

Prince Charrock takes a step back as a violent gust of wind washes over the stadium, his pressure on us falters for a sliver of a second.

More than enough time to finally rise on our feet.

With our qi so violently suppressed, no one managed to notice how much we had to use to accomplish what we did.

In all honesty it sounded like an aggressive fart. They all erupt with laughter, their mockery growing to an all-time high.

Noana is getting repeatedly smacked in the head too. The guilt is too much, I need to prove myself in battle as soon as possible.

But my condition is simply horrible.

Thankfully, the elders are not fools. Though they seemingly couldn’t detect Charrock’s mysterious energy at all, they realized me and Baro used some sort of internal qi circulation to help us stand.

Based on what I’m picking up from their whispers to one another, they are impressed with our ability to circulate qi.

Of course they’d be impressed. Internal qi circulation is a qi expert level technique, of course we are capable of such a feat.

In fact, we had to circulate far beyond that level. To them we had simply pushed beyond our limit to a level we haven’t reached.

Though they made the correct assessment, Charrock’s suppression hid the actual level of which we had to circulate our qi.

These elders are no doubt more formidable than everyone here, me included. I can't say for certain how strong they are, but it’s clear as day they are nowhere near the level of the prince.

If only I could make out more of their whispers, they are showing signs of concern. They must have realized the damage we had inflicted on ourselves to be able to stand here.

Unfortunately, I’m on the brink of passing out. Despite us being on our feet, the prince has only mildly decreased the pressure.

He’s incredibly astute. Right now, we’re balancing the pressure from the outside with some serious pressure from within. If he were to suddenly release his hold on us, that internal pressure would immediately make us explode.

I focus on my breathing as I try to let my qi leak out from the increasing gaps in his pressure.

At the same time, I try to pull as much qi back into my reservoir as possible.

As the prince congratulates us, the pressure decreases bit by bit. He says since we’re last, we’ll be slotted into the two furthest brackets on opposite sides of the tournament.

So, one of us is the first match while the other goes last, and that me and Baro will be fighting at the end. He has two of his guards escort us off stage.

He says that we still need to be punished, and that’s why the first, match will be pushed to second last.

I still haven’t had a chance to view the brackets. How many students are competing?

They carry us off stage as the pressure entirely dissipates.

We managed to survive, but my qi is almost entirely depleted. I’m grateful for two reasons though.

Forcing re-scrapjitsu made my qi tear my body apart from within. This was no mere expansion of a qi network, rather it was a complete breakdown of my body. It was as though an entire month of working out was pushed onto me at once. I just need time to recover now.

Second, though it’s nowhere near enough, I was given a chance to somewhat recover.

Baro’s condition is eerily similar, I’m sure there are a few differences since he obviously used a different technique than me.

If not for these soldiers carrying us, everyone would have seen us fall to the floor immediately after standing up.

“Hopefully after you’ll be able to have a fair competition with the rest of the students.”

So that’s his game. For such a barbaric and cruel monster, Charrock is very cunning.

No doubt the way we are now, we won’t be able to dominate the rest of the competition with our qi master techniques.

Shit, the way I am now I’d be lucky to execute a simple garbage collector’s glide.

There is no way I can beat Noana right now… and those Sar brothers just became a serious threat.

Charrock you bastard.

That was not a pound of flesh, it was an entire trash bag worth.