262 Clashing Swords

These facts about the specializations of those sect members proved once more that the base information that I had was somewhat only limited to the Light Domain, albeit in certain parts only…

But that still meant that I would have to take note that the common sense in the Light Domain may not apply here, so that I won't stand out like a sore thumb if I didn't adapt into this domain quickly.

In fact, the best way to describe how that domain work was to think about some of the wuxia novels that I read before, which reminded me of…

'I wonder how the trio are faring back in Starry Night city…'

Remembering the twins who liked to masquerade as if they were spit out of a martial hero novel, I felt a bit of mixed feelings, a little bit of it could be translated to nostalgia, which was somewhat weird as it wasn't that long since I left them…

'Well, they should be alright considering that the whole 'Light Association' was eliminated, the oppression that they were facing should have been long lifted…'

"No.111 Vs No.222!"

Putting these old thoughts aside, I left the ground watch platform as I headed towards the ring at which the referee that called my number stood…

`~~`~~`~~`

A few hours later…

It was currently 5 PM, which was more than halfway into the second day since the 2nd stage started…

Somehow, my first random match landed me against another recruitee who actually forfeited in his own, which made it seem like he was trying to save his strength for the other match that he had, since he had actually won his first which was also against another recruitee…

'He wants to try his luck to qualify through the bonus round, I guess…'

However, at this point, I encountered my second match which I was lucky enough to have in the same day.

'Just one more match and I won't have to come for the rest of the round!'

Besides, my opponent this time wasn't normal as well…

"..."

'The silent type, huh? That's better…'

It was actually the attention catching fire swordswoman who seemed to be quite the introvert as well…

"Start!"

With the referee announcing the start of the match, the swordswomen drew her sword and stood still without dashing towards me like an idiot just like the fire fist guy did.

Answering by drawing my sword as well, which was in its longsword form as well, I calmly activated the wind vein within the sword…

Stepping forward without haste, the opponent mimicked me as she used the same pace, till the point where our swords clashed.

Klang!

While I did activate the wind vein, I held back from using its power as our first exchange was a sword clash that depended on pure raw strength completely, which I obviously had the advantage on.

As a result, the swordswoman was almost sent back out of the ring, but she somehow managed to stabilize her stance before she reached the tip.

'Some sort of a footwork…?'

The battle's first phase was basically strength and agility exchanges which would almost make one think that we were merely having a friendly spar in some kendo club, but even I was somewhat surprised by this…

Even though she was known for using her fused fire elemental sword technique to finish the battle before it started during the first stage, this wasn't the case in this match as she seemed to adopt a different style…

'Mimicry…?'

It was that she was basically mimicking my move to the core, but she seemed to take the same approach as if to limit the possible damage, which meant that she already understood that I couldn't be finished off in one overpowered move like the recruitees who faced her during the first stage.

The reason the battle had already lasted for five minutes wasn't just that though, it was mostly because I also held back as I wanted to gauge her strength as well, which resulted in this friendly spar atmosphere, but that wasn't going to last that long…

At this point, it was obvious that continuing this would only result in a draw due to the time of the match running out and even if she was willing to do that, I wasn't.

I had already judged her weapon practice tier, which seemed to be higher than mine, at tier-6, though my judgement wasn't that accurate, I could at least tell she was still a bit far from Tier-7, which was still somewhat shocking considering she wasn't a practitioner of the sword alone along with the fact that she was likely to be younger than 20 years old…

'Let's see how far is your other path practice then…'

The wind elements that I held back to this point burst out as she already moved far from my sword before I released the elements…

'Elemental perception?'

Judging from her moves and the description of her signature move, she didn't seem to start working on her 'Elemental Domain' yet as she had probably have reached the upper layer quite recently, so her quick move meant that she had quite a high perception stat that helped her took notice of the elements' movements as well as…

'Another dual element holder…'

having such a high sensitivity to wind element obviously meant that fire wasn't her only attribute, with that said, I could say that I have managed to get a good grasp of her standard of strength.

'Above the average of the earlier sect members, you should be able to get a good rank…'

However…

'You will have to move over through the bonus round though.'

It was about time that I stopped fooling around…

After all, I was merely going easy to this point for the sake of having a good grasp of the limit my opponents' strength could reach, so it was better to finish this fast so I could go back to lazing just like she did against the newbies in the first stage...

'Wait, what?!'