V3C40: The Competition, Part 3

Wei Yi made sure to keep to her word, granting some energy to Chao Ru to allow her to wake up in the morning with enough energy to be able to fight in the arena, although she pretended that this was a coincidence and entirely unrelated to her.

She had gotten dressed after flaunting her figure a little more, obscuring any signs of her own excitement through her great level of control over her own blood flow, having cleaned herself with her physique energy while the other two were asleep, and left the residence early to get some time for herself.

There were several things she had done the previous night, and the first thing of note was her idea to attempt physique cultivation through failed talismans, mimicking the very thing that had initially put her on her current route. The circumstances wouldn’t be the same, as her mysterious characters were already fully saturated with the five elements of planar energy, but she knew that the more injured she was, the more her physique and cosmic energy was able to do within a short period of time to reconstruct and strengthen her body.

Thus, if she swapped out physique and body-related pills for failed talismans, which were not only highly plentiful but significantly cheaper, she suspected that she would be able to get far more work done in equalising her physique and planar cultivation realms in terms of stages, and advance both at some relative pace in order to eventually reach identical realms and stages for both, at which point she would hopefully be able to advance both at the same rate.

She couldn’t be sure whether this would work, nor whether it was a good idea to constantly allow her body to be ravaged by incredibly violent energy when she wouldn’t even let a woman do something like that, but she thought that it was worthwhile to investigate and attempt once, at the very least.

It would also grant her a golden opportunity for learning more about talismans, potentially permitting her to create or deal with far more talismans without needing to make any of her own, and if the cosmic energy infusion worked on talismans the same way that it did on pills, then she would be able to amplify the effect of this cultivation method to even greater heights with ease.

Besides that, she was rather curious to meet the woman that Luo Lia Kun had ended up describing when the combination of every action she had taken up to that point led to her logical reasoning being somewhat impaired, Zhi Qiu Ya.

Apparently, Zhi Qiu Ya was a cultivator with some rather unique traits that had led her to being recruited to the Brotherhood of Power, prime amongst which was the plague that she had picked up from the previous district in which she lived. It wasn’t contagious, so far as any member of the Brotherhood was able to tell, for it was some kind of unique entity that actively lived within the individual, but what was clear were the symptoms, including a great quantity of fur on various parts of her body, wolf-like fangs and ears, the latter of which appeared to function alongside her human ears with no issue at all, a tail, sharp claw-like nails and several mental conditions that occasionally made it rather difficult to interact with, according to Luo Lia Kun.

Amongst those many tendencies, there was one to engage in more natural, animalistic behaviours, which were not limited to minimizing the amount of clothing that she wore.

‘I can see that how that would be… inconvenient to deal with, to say the least, which is why such a figure wasn’t brought out today despite her significant strength – especially since it does appear to be true, from what I was able to gather with my Mental Intrusion threads – but I am curious to meet her nonetheless. Depending on the nature of the enhancements granted through the living plague, as she called it, and the side effects, it may be something that I can learn from, or learn to avoid,’ Wei Yi thought, looking around with her spiritual perception but finding no trace of such a figure in her vicinity, ‘Still don’t know where their base is, though. I will need to wait until the end of the arena duels…’

As for the thing that Luo Lia Kun had rushed over to tell them, she didn’t consider it to be significant in the slightest, as she was already placed into every battle save the one that involved one of the weaker men that she didn’t kill the previous day. So long as she unleashed a few planar techniques and inflicted sufficient damage on all of them to overcome the protective effect of the arena, none of the Brotherhood of Power’s combatants would need to worry about their chances of victory.

What she did appreciate was that the fight between her and Luo Rongmeng was the second one to occur, after Chao Ru’s battle with yesterday’s survivors, which she expected the quarterstaff wielder to win with ease after the night’s infusion of physique energy.

‘Even if she, or anyone else on my side, faces any difficulties, I can always intervene with killing will, which none of the people present at the arena appeared to have been able to detect the day before. So long as a member of a Great Family doesn’t appear, I doubt that it would be difficult to slightly nudge a blade away from an ally, or towards an enemy without anyone noticing.’

Furthermore, she had taken advantage of the little rest that she did opt to have and practised within her Realm of Potential, working mostly on the Phoenix Transformation and the Heeled Balance Art at the same time, as they were the core of her combat style and would be the easiest to improve with the least effort required due to their current low stage. She could always utilise the two hundred and forty points of anchor energy that she had obtained from the Ning District and the few deaths in the arena, but it just seemed highly inefficient when she could develop one of her primary cultivation techniques instead and potentially empower everything about herself with a single mental press of a button.

By the end of her training session, she felt herself nearing the Minor Achievement stage of both techniques, bringing her so close that she was almost certain that a single sufficiently involved battle would elevate them both to that stage.

Considering the fact that she was limiting herself quite a bit during most conflicts in her current identity, such a thing wasn’t necessarily impossible, although she did not expect anyone other than Luo Rongmeng to be able to put up even a semblance of a decent fight, since he was the only one with a semi-decent physique and the skills to make use of it.

As for the theory that she had recalled earlier, regarding the potential link of the Redeemer’s Frost, Hunter’s Toxin, Warlord’s Banners and Crusader’s Runes, it was one that called the combination the Conqueror’s Eye. According to it, every individual bearing one of these physiques could be seen to possess a unique feature within their eyes that seemed to resemble a quarter of a circle, although it was thin, vague and easy to miss, even for those that were actively looking for it, which was likely why many dismissed the idea initially, in addition to the unfeasibility of combining physiques in one person.

Given that Wei Yi was an exception to that rule, she might have been the first in countless hundreds of thousands of years to consider this possibility once more, starting with a basic confirmation of the presence, or absence, of this quarter of a circle.

If it was present, she would know that there is an incredibly slim possibility of this theory having some credibility, although it was just as plausible that this was a random side effect of the four physiques that someone linked together and came up with something entirely absurd, even by the standards of the world that had just recently seen the absolute might of the Master of Yi City and the primordial gods that he had fought, meaning that they were really open to new ideas at the time.

Finally, the last thing to pop into her mind before she came near enough to the arena to require any of her mental energy to understand the things around her, was the discovery about her own unhealthy tendencies, which were somewhat awakened so early as in the first weeks of her life in the prison realm, during that one attempt to attack her while she rested inside of an inn.

Back then, putting on clothing to repel the attack seemed unnecessary, especially as her notably stricter focus on the goal of freeing herself and fighting back against the Greats would not allow such nonsensical ideas as shame or modesty to enter her mind – what was the use of either if they could cost her life or the success of her goals? Now, having escaped and understood that some delays would be necessary before she could go all out against the Great Families, she had recovered some traces of both, making it very clear that there was a trace of enjoyment within exposing herself, or dominating others, or, in an entirely different way, patting the head of someone and watching them visibly struggle to comprehend what just happened.

‘Still, no matter how much free time I do have, wasting it on this kind of thing is still inefficient when I could be attempting to improve my techniques, be observing Senior Yi Yi and his attempts to understand the process of making blood wine, and the like,’ she reminded herself, having noticed that she had quite the ability to get distracted by tangents of the erotic or lewd kind, which could be highly dangerous if she encountered a woman that wielded the same technique as the one that Yi Jiazhi had attempted to use against her with little success.

Her significant mental foundation would protect against those kinds of techniques, but if a first generation member of a Great Family attempted to do the same thing, with the power to cause entirely new ideas and thoughts to sprout within her mind, she might not be able to do much against such a form of attack.

‘I don’t think I’ve checked whether mental attacks can be tested within the Realm of Potential. If they can, I will most certainly need to practise extensively, just to be absolutely certain that I can withstand any kind of influence or temptation,’ she noted this in the Ascendant’s Library, then brought all of her focus back onto reality, where she and a number of combatants from the Brotherhood of Power had arrived to the arena just as the doors for the competitors were opening, meaning that they would not need to stand around and risk standing around beside the Gang Hong Clan for an unpleasant length of time.

Luo Lia Kun arrived some time later, her gaze having returned to the state it had been in prior to the sparring session with Wei Yi, granting her the aura of authority and confidence that seemed to have been entirely weathered away during her brief stay in Chao Ru’s residence.

As if on cue, the quarterstaff wielding warrior arrived soon after, also looking as she did at the beginning of the previous day… until she glanced in Wei Yi’s direction and blushed vividly, biting her lower lip as she looked away and pretended not to notice her. Due to the extreme vibrance of her embarrassed expression, however, she had been seen by everyone with functioning eyesight, and so her little act was of little use.

She tried to hide for a little longer, but perhaps realising that the number of eyes on her would actually lessen if she acted as she had initially wanted to, she took a deep breath, raised her head and headed over to Wei Yi, although her hands continued to fidget in a manner that made it seem as if she was an inexperienced girl trying to ask out someone she liked.

“H-Hey,” she said, still unable to look her straight in the eyes, “Last night was, uh… really intense… for me… I would love to do that again, and again, and- ahem…”

“Sure, I’m open to it. You did say you wanted me to help train you, too, didn’t you?”

“Hm? Train? O-Oh, shit, I did say that,” Chao Ru realised that it, amongst a lot of other things, must have slipped her head the previous night, “Right, I still want that too… Rather, I know I need that more than… no…”

“It’s fine, we don’t need to spend as much time on one thing in the future, so we’ll have plenty of time for training and fun,” she stated in reply, “I’d not ruin your chances here just to have some fun.”

“Well, with everything that you’re able to do… Maybe that would be a different kind of power that I could showcase,” the quarterstaff wielder managed to say with no stuttering, somehow redirecting all of the vocal embarrassment into an even more intense blush, “I mean, I’d been with quite a few people before, but those were usually limited to a day or two, and neither of us had much creativity besides, y’know, the obvious stuff…”

‘I do, but if you’re intending not to be blushing all day, saying in this in front of a large group is rather counterproductive,’ Wei Yi commented internally, although she wouldn’t say something so aware out loud, “You wouldn’t be able to use these kinds of methods against most men, though.”

“Wha- ah. Yes… You’re right… Fair enough,” she sighed, clearly put off by the idea as her blush diminished significantly.

They stood beside one another for a while, with Wei Yi not attempting to engage in conversation while Chao Ru was in too confused a state to properly make an attempt of her own, thus standing by until Luo Lia Kun joined them, managing to keep her calm far better than the quarterstaff wielder even as she began to speak.

“Are you feeling well today, Chao Ru?”

“Y-Yes, of course, why wouldn’t I be?” she nodded, “I’m always up and ready to go!”

“Good. It’s good to see that you’ve recovered from yesterday. Has Wei Yi informed you about the slight change in your opposition?”

“Naturally, their cultivation has- wait, what do you mean? I-I didn’t do anything that bad yesterday.”

“Didn’t you and-” Luo Lia Kun stopped the moment that she understood exactly what the other woman was doing, prompting her to cough and hastily change the subject, “Just in case you need a reminder, you are very likely to be fighting foes in the Half-Step and full Active Core realm in a minute, so make sure that you are very careful. Don’t let your guard down just because you might have easily defeated them the previous day.”

“Alright… and thanks…”

While she continued blushing on her own, Luo Lia Kun turned to Wei Yi and asked to speak with her away from the blushing mess of a warrior.

“I… don’t think that I’ve ever seen that woman be so flustered as she is today. I’m rather afraid to ask any questions about what had happened, or I may be unable to fight with Shi Taihao properly at the end of the day…” she said, shuddering at the very thought, “However, I would like to make sure that you are aware of a few things before you go off with any more members of the Brotherhood.”

“Oh, sure. What is it?”

“I just want to inform you about the Brotherhood’s policy on relationships. Neither I nor the leader are against any kind of, shall we say, friendly interactions between members, but I would appreciate it if you could strive not to tire everyone out to such a great extent in the future,” Luo Lia Kun said.

“Don’t worry, I can control myself. I’ve just been travelling for quite some time, so it’s been a while, y’know?”

“R-Right… Anyway, I need to be anywhere but here, so good luck, and may your sands be still,” she used a phrase from the Northern Desert as she turned away and rushed off to the spectator stands, leaving Wei Yi there to wait for her turn in the arena. She could have remained there for a little while longer, but she saw her raise her hand as if to pat her on the head once more and did not wish such a thing to be seen by others in the Brotherhood.

She also had no ability to stop Wei Yi, as her physical strength was far too great and drawing upon planar energy to resist a pat on the head would bring far too much attention to her actions, resulting in the exact same result as not avoiding it whatsoever.

As Wei Yi was mostly doing this to explore her limits and to see what she could get away with, she didn’t mind in the slightest, although she was curious what the vice-leader would do if they were the only ones in a room once more. Would she be a little more open to the rather uncommon expression of approval, or perhaps even something more, given that she had been showing some interest in their nightly activities, was something that she was curious to learn for the sake of her personal interest and entertainment, as well as a potential weapon to use later.

Despite what she had said to Chao Ru, she did think that there were plenty of methods of succeeding, and that their numbers were more limited by which ones a person was willing to use, rather than their quantity. The likes of the Greats were very well aware of this, considering how much they had done in the past to ensure their dominance, and she had understood this as well, except the methods that she was willing to use and the goals she was aiming for differed significantly.

Perhaps due to the extensive amount of time that she had spent right below a network of brothels within Beast’s Rest, she had little opposition to the concept, and although she did not intend to actively sell herself to build up the funds for a war against the Great Families – although establishing some brothels throughout the districts could be a wise idea so long as she was able to prevent overly eager individuals from harassing, attacking or possibly even trying to kidnap those that they find attractive just to force them to remain with them and only them – if she could advance her goals through some use of her sexuality, she wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to it.

‘Yet again, that’s something for far, far later down the line, since there’s no way that I can establish and keep any kind of business open in the long term, as the Greats would be bound to hear of someone who fits the description of one of their prisoners and investigate, and if there is anything to make them assume that I am an escapee, they will be bound to investigate the prison realm and send in someone to confirm whether it is still in the same state as it had been. At that point, they would either avoid using it in the future, or send in a force to recapture it, and even with Yi Shi Ming’s aid, keeping them away would be incredibly difficult,’ she considered, as the strongest of the Greats should be in the seventh realm, the same as Yi Shi Ming, ‘With everything from the era of the Master of Yi City, she should be able to deal with one or two, but if there is a Great Family for every single district, then she would have dozens of foes. Too many, in short.’

Instead of this, she brought her spiritual perception out of the room for combatants and followed Chao Ru as she left the chamber alongside another to face off against two foes from the side of the Gang Hong Clan, quickly confirming the vice-leader’s speculation and observation.

The two men were both in the Half-Step Active Core realm, made obvious by the faint sheen of solidified planar energy around their hands that remained within the third realm, suggesting that their core had formed, but that their energy had not advanced with it. That both of them managed to attain the same outcome was fortunate for them, as they would both be able to attack with far denser and harder energy that couldn’t easily be dispersed or dispelled by powerful attacks, although if one had acquired fourth realm energy while the other had solidified energy, the latter could have sealed the former’s power within his own energy and thus gain the benefits of both.

‘Most don’t choose which one of the two possible outcomes they receive, and not everyone has enough control over their own energy to be able to perform something like that without more than a single night to practise, so perhaps Shi Taihao decided that this combination would be superior against someone with weaker control over planar energy,’ she understood, paying careful attention to them and to Chao Ru, as she did not want someone she had slept with the day prior to die on her watch.

In the long run, she knew that she would not be able to protect everyone, so she did not plan to forge some kind of harem wherein she would safeguard anyone who she managed to bed.

She didn’t expect to need to provide much help during the upcoming battle, or in the future, as a result of her earlier actions, but it never hurt to remain on guard, especially if she could catch some meddling from the other side, which she could randomly comment on in the manner that would be expected from Wei Yi the Clawed Warrior, thus giving the Brotherhood of Power some leverage over the Gang Hong Clan with little actual effort required from her. Depending on the nature of the interference, she could even learn from it and use it against the other side.

Perhaps the most fun thing that she expected from this, however, was the reaction that Chao Ru would have upon noticing a slight difference within her own strength.

“Alright, everyone, the second and final day of the duels begins! Our first battle features familiar faces, so I won’t bother introducing them, but I will point out one detail I notice regarding each one instead! The two on the Gang Hong Clan’s side have both advanced the previous night, so they now possess a cultivation of Half-Step Active Core! Exciting!”

Some of the audience shared his excitement, but the rest wished for him to move on, so he did.

“On the side of the Brotherhood of Power, the man appears to have a good night’s rest. As for the woman… Heavens, she is practically glowing today! Can you see that, everyone?”

Chao Ru froze, her eyes widening slightly as she attempted to inconspicuously glance down at herself to check his description for herself, at which point she felt her heart begin to race. She had not noticed it until then, but her skin did look as if she had lost a few years of age and had just exited the baths.

In her surprise, she openly glanced behind herself, her eyes meeting with Wei Yi’s.

“Ohoho… Ahem. Now that everyone is seated and prepared, you may begin… Now!”

With the embarrassment of all of the eyes on her, Chao Ru moved first, and with speed that she did not expect to ever be able to produce, rushing towards the nearest foe without any care for the potential attacks that could be directed towards her. As a result of having slept around with quite a few other women, it had been a long time since she experienced either the immense sensations of yesterday, as well as any shame regarding her activities, so now that she felt it again, it was far more intense than she could handle without blatantly showing it.

Her foe couldn’t miss something this obvious, and so he capitalised on the obvious nature of her strike by quickly throwing out several layers of solidified energy to block her quarterstaff, then prepared a technique with which to target her heart.

In his eagerness to capitalise on a lack of caution, he himself was unnecessarily reckless, forgetting to prepare a single defensive talisman.

Chao Ru saw the barriers appear, and just as he expected, she paid no mind to them, thrusting her quarterstaff forwards with the intention of breaking through them, realising only the instant that the tip of her weapon came into contact with the planar energy that her meagre physical strength wouldn’t be enough to do more than lightly crack the first of the series of four barriers. That was the limitation of her physique-less form, and to surpass them, she couldn’t even imagine what she might need to do.

And yet, even as she prepared to fail her attack and considered some method to defend against the strike that would have to be being prepared already, something beneath her skin, within her muscles, glistened like the sun, and the strength within her strike felt as if it had tripled.

The tip of her staff not only went straight through the first barrier, but then the second and the third, the fourth only pausing the tip of her weapon for only a single instant before it shattered and the quarterstaff struck the man’s ribs, knocking him back and entirely disrupting the circulation of energy within his body.

Before he could react, Chao Ru delivered a second strike to his head, throwing him entirely off balance, then followed up with the hardest blow she could deliver straight to his abdomen, as the rules dictated that attacking any lower would be punished regardless of effectiveness and effect, but she primarily intended to target the dantian, even while knowing that it was protected by the core of the fourth realm. She couldn’t tell whether this was just the overexcitement from her extreme success getting into her head, or if she actually stood a chance at disabling his cultivation, but as her staff was already descending, she saw no opportunity to change her intent.

As if to cooperate with her attempt, that glistening golden light within her muscles infused deeply into them, vanishing in their entirety, but their strengthening effect appeared to only grow.

Her quarterstaff dug into the man’s abdomen, audibly colliding with some sort of invisible force that pushed – no, threw – her back with great force, practically sending her flying directly into her other foe, who disengaged from his current engagement and tried to take advantage of her uncontrollable flight to stab at her own dantian, which lacked the same protection due to only being in the third realm, but she deftly deflected the strike.

‘Heavens, what is happening? Everything feels so much slower, and their attacks are so much weaker… It couldn’t be that just sleeping with a woman can do this? No, this is the first time something like this has happened, so… Is it something about her physique, perhaps?’ she guessed, becoming a little more comfortable with her newfound strength and speed by blocking a few more simple strikes from the second foe while she continued thinking, ‘So she not only knows of things that I could never imagine, and is incredibly skilled with every part of her body, but she has somehow strengthened me to such an extent? I… I might actually develop feelings for her…’

However, a combination of emotions that she couldn’t name on short notice arose within her, prompting her to attempt to ward them off by engaging in combat with far greater effort and intensity than before.

Each time she pushed herself further, she found herself gaining a little more power, encouraging her to go even further the next strike, quickly bringing her into a battle with both opponents, while her ally had little choice but to back away and to target those foes from the back so that he wouldn’t get in her way, with both his cultivation and strength being inferior to her.

By some fortune, she caught herself just before she attempted to go too far, limiting her exertion to a level where she could continue fighting for some time before focusing on ending this battle as quickly as possible, as the more time she spent at her current strength, the better her foes would become at managing it, and would eventually be able to regain their initial advantage and defeat her, at which point they would likely end her life due to the sudden growth that she had just displayed.

‘I cannot let them do that!’ she knew, for losing her life would be an obvious failure on her part, ‘Whether I was gifted this by Wei Yi, or if I have just uncovered some hidden strength, I will not let it go to waste!’

She unleashed her planar energy at that point, flooding the quarterstaff with a deep green hue that caused a burst of wind to emanate from it, her short blond hair quivering in the localised wind, as the entirety of her body gained a similar light as the third-realm energy permeated her entire being. This method of infusing the self with planar energy might often be viewed as primitive and unsuited for those within her realm, but empowering herself through planar energy had allowed her to get as far as she did, being considered capable even within such an organisation as the Brotherhood of Power, so she would never forsake it simply out of shame or outside pressure.

Dodging to the right in order to get both her foes closer to one another, she charged forward, practically shutting her eyes as she focused on nothing but maximising the effectiveness of each strike.

Thus, it came as somewhat of a surprise when she suddenly heard the announcer declare, “And so the Brotherhood of Power claims victory! Let me be the first to say that I had not expected this, and that I am now far more glad that I had made a certain bet the other day. Hehe… Now, once these combatants leave the arena, you shall get to see the clawed maniac once more!”

Chao Ru was so invigorated and lost at the same time that she was able to ignore her earlier thoughts.