Chapter 17 – The continuation of the tournament arc, Quick clickbait – You WON’T believe who wins!!!

 “You can’t just slap a tournament arc to solve all your problems.”
“Yes I can, watch me” - Garnet

Day two of the tournament, she would have to complete a task against a total stranger from the Academy, she was debriefed, his name was Dale Wang, another main family member. The Wang family was well known for their Soulcraft, and if he hadn’t been sick, Simone Tai, from their school would probably be representing their branch, in a bid to improve their rating, as the Tai was a branch family for the Wang.

Apparently, he won the competition in their school using Metal from the Four Cardinal Options, the Wang family was well known for their usage of Gold Mastery, and using traps along with Body Realm in the second part. They hadn’t adopted a no-middle ring as was common in the ‘new’ cultivation. Change in the cultivation world surprisingly took a very long time, when a large number of immortals were in charge of changes.

Lang didn’t have time to think about cultivation changes, she had a tournament to win.

On Tuesday morning, she woke up early and got to school preparing for the task, she would have to solve. This might be the quite unimportant as the bonus isn’t big enough to off-set the balance unless they are already extremely close, profficiency-wise.

Lang however, wanted to win.

She stood about 15 feet away from her opponent Dale Wang, he had the golden hair of the Wang family, they focused on Gold-based cultivation. This included both Body Realm, Alchemy and Soul Realm.

Outside of that, his face was plain, he was a bit taller than Lang and he looked smug. Scratch that, the shit-eating grin branding half of his face was obnoxious.

He looked at Lang “Hey old lady, today you’re going down.” And he pointed at the ground.

“Typical children these days, no tact, just like their entire family.” Lang said back, and from the way the grin lapsed for a second or two Lang knew, she had struck a nerve.

They came out of the hallway, into an arena with a large podium in the middle. The tribunes were full of people, which Lang thought to herself ‘Must be great for parasite spreading.’ Representatives of most of the main families were somewhere in the audience along with a large number of other cultivators.

As the two of them got to the podium, a large bird cage was in front of them, with a dark cover over it. But even through the cover and being 10 to 12 feet away, Lang could feel the heat emanating from it.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!” The announcer voice boomed “Today we have a magnificent task, as the first part of the Soulcraft competition.” He made a small pause before the dark cover on the cages blazed away. “PHOENIX...EGG…NEUTRALIZING!” Revealing a tiny Phoenix in each cage, which released a wave of heat over both Lang and Dale.

He sped up as Lang and Dale braced themselves for the task. “This task is complicated and tricky.” You could hear the smile in his face “As they have to kill a Phoenix and then neutralize the egg before the Phoenix gets reborn.”

The Phoenix in front of her was about two feet tall, it looked quite similar to a parrot. It had a group of multicolored feathers at the top of its head, while waves of red and yellow streaked its mostly orange feathers. At the bottom it had incredibly short legs, like an owl.

Lang’s mind was racing, she prefered using lighting to water, but it would be the most efficient for killing the bird, or maybe a combination would work best. For actual neutralization, most of her Soulcraft techniques wouldn’t cut it, she needed a ritual.

“As you can notice, these are tiny phoenixes, which means they are relatively easy to kill.” He made a snorting sound as he said relatively. “But, they will also take a much shorter time to rebirth.”

Lang knew about phoenix egg neutralization, it was a classic since time immemorial, however, slightly out of the caliber, students of her age usually trained on.

‘No matter.’ She thought, ‘I can prepare a sealing ritual, and then use water and lightning Soulcraft techniques to turn it into an egg.’

She started making a circle around the egg and preparing symbols needed for a complex ritual. As she finished on one side, she stopped for a moment. All sweaty, she swept the perspiration from her forehead. Lang heard a large boom and looked at the other side, where Dale had already turned the wings of the phoenix into metal and it was receding into the egg.

‘My only chance to win is, if he fails to neutralize it before it resurrects. I have all the time to finish my ritual either way.’ Lang couldn't speed up her ritual preparation so she might as well be thorough. If Dale doesn’t manage on his first attempt, he’ll probably need some rest before he can try his second attempt, so Lang felt no rush.

Going through all the motions to prepare the ritual, Lang heard a ‘Gaoo’ as the egg, Dale was trying to neutralize hatched. “Being headstrong is a negative in cultivator competitions.” She said half to herself and half out-loud.

She finished the ritual as Dale backed out of the cage, drenched in sweat. He looked pretty haggard, but Lang found him to look kind of cool as well.

‘Anyways time to do this.’ Lang slapped herself on the cheek and cleared some more sweat off her face. She entered the cage.

Lang created water with her hands and drenched the Phoenix. The water was rapidly evaporating into steam, which affected Lang, the high temperature seeping her strength and the high humidity made her clothing stick to her, while making her sweat not evaporate.

However, that was good enough. ‘Even a small cloud of steam is going to increase the potentcy of my lightning by a large margin.’

Lang focuse a large amount of Soulforce into her right leg and after about a second she kicked forward, electrifying the Phoenix.

It shielded itself with its right wing, which somehow looked fried from the attack.

The Phoenix went on the offensive. Its pinions turned into red plumes of flame and disconnected, aiming at Lang, who blocked them using a Barrier Soulcraft.

Lang used more water to create a steam cloud and imbued Qi into lightning from her head while covered by the steam. Hopefully the people in the stands wouldn’t notice its change in color.

Blasting the Phoenix’s whole body with bouts of lightning imbued by Qi, caused it to disintegrate from the bottom of its legs, throughout. And as it’s disintegration peaked it made a horrifying scream “Gwagah!” and parts of its body flew together to make an egg.

The egg was yellow with what looked like red freckles, dotting around it in a random pattern.

Lang knew, that each of them was a Soulforce sink. A Phoenix egg would suck up Soulforce before it could ressurect. This is also where their use came from, they would try to suck up Soulforce which could be siphoned away, creating a long term alchemical supply device, or, the easier way was to seal them off.

This was the ritual that she had prepared. A sealing ritual, 4 simple steps to stop the Soulforce intake. A Soulforce spending portion, which generated heat from Soulforce, the simplest transformation.

A Soulforce linking portion which linked the other 3 parts to each other, so Lang needed to only supply the first part to get them working.

A Soulforce gatherer and a Soul force shield which Lang manifested on top of the egg.

The Soulforce shield would stop Soulforce from entering the egg, while the gatherer would disperse some of it and gather the rest, hopefully enough to power the shield.

Sucking Soulforce out of a Phoenix egg, wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy sucking it out of anywhere else than gathering spots. This was also the oldest and most primitive way of using Phoenix eggs to power machines.

Woefully inefficient as it was, Lang was monitoring the egg and the Soulforce. Her patchwork ritual actually worked and after 3 minutes, the Soulforce in the array had increased to the point where it started turning some of it into heat. ‘That’s a done deal.’ Lang thought as she broke her concentration and looked up at the crowd. Looking to her side, Dave managed to turn the Phoenix into an egg and was working to neutralize it a second time.

Lang left the cage. The announcer started back up “Aaaaaaaand, we have our Winneeeeeeeeeeer!”

After a short pause, during which cheers could be heard from the tribune, “Lang Bao showcases her proficiency in Soulcraft applications by first using water to reduce the potency of the Phoenix, then finishing it off with her signature lightning. Of course, the most important part was making a ritual that would stop it, and Lang’s ritual has been expertly crafted. This is the type that would actually be used 300 to 400 years ago.”

Lang slowly left the arena, having an advantage was ideal, however she would still need to win the actual one on one

********

Lang was preparing for the next fight, as her opponent used a Body Realm technique in every round. The problem was, if she got knocked out, she would lose, no matter how few points her opponent had.

It was a problem with the way the tournament was created, and she certainly wasn’t bad at Body techniques, but after her growth she still didn’t completely feel in tune with her own body.

There was an easy win solution, if he wasn’t ready for it.

They allowed tools for this battle, and knowing that her opponent had a history of ignoring Body Realm bans, she decided that she wanted a sword, and a special contingency plan for if he cheated. Points were only a decider if the match lasted more than one hour. She had a way to make sure that they would fight for one hour.

She was given a stronger ward, and ten points. The stronger ward turned damage into a lower amount of knock-back than the slightly weaker one Dale would be wearing.

“Contestants! Enter the ring!” The announcer sounded,

‘He had a Bagwa1 sign! Does that mean he’s a Yin-Yang user?’ If so, that would suck for Lang, as she hasn’t really read up much on that particular style of magic. ‘I think it’s shorter range, and works heavily with martial arts. Not that he needs to use Body Realm techniques if he just comes close and attacks me with his fists and feet. And the ward only stops Soulforce in all its forms, it doesn’t stop Qi. Typical.’

They were about fifty feet away from each other, her magic definitely had the reach, but maybe his magic didn’t. She would see.

DING DING DING! The match had started

Lang was preparing a large chain of Lightning releases and she kicked in quick succession, while her opponent started running forwards, ‘So he IS lower range.’ She smiled, Letting out a blast, which he dodged to the side.

‘My contingency is unsportsmanlike, so I don’t want to use it, unless he starts using Body techniques.’ Lang made a quick kick and put more distance between herself and Dale. She prepared it so he would have to dodge to the right on both occasions. This way she could ring around the rosy we with him.

Kick, Jump back, kick, Jump back. He’s dodged everything by moving and distortion, spending only very little Soulforce.

Zap! Her fifth bout of lightning hit him in the leg and decked him to the floor. ‘That’s two more points for me.’ Lang thought as she threw out two kicks in quick succession.

He used a Body Realm technique to dodge them. ‘Now you fucked up.’ She thought. She took out her sword from her scabbard while running backwards.

He was too close, this wouldn’t be a clean fight otherwise.

Her blue-tips shone bright and she unleashed a ray of lightning from her forehead, that perpetually hit Dale. She followed him with her head for about 4 seconds while she jumped on the sword.

She gave the sword a single command “Up.” As it was a Body Realm technique, it would cost her 5 points, so she was at 7 to -5. After initial take-off, she steered the sword a bit in a serpentine fashion she flew in a spiral ending at the middle.

All the while, Dale was running after her, and at one point he pointed the Bagwa sign at Lang and said “Wind” where a strong gale of wind started blowing, but it didn’t cause Lang much backlash. This technique was also short range.

As she rose to about 80 feet above the ground, she used a second command to slowly stop in the middle of the arena, hovering. Lang thought ‘that’s 2 to -5 I still have this.’

Lang felt lame, she had just cheated on a massive tournament. Obviously, her opponent cheated even first, but she felt bad about doing it as well.

Now to win. Lang started focusing a lot of Soulforce at her head. She had grown to like the new style, despite not having trained forehead casting much before, it really felt like an extension of herself. Which it really was. Go figure.

He didn’t have anything he could use to follow her, at least that’s what Lang thought, while channeling massive amounts of Soulforce ‘Massive by my standards.’ Lang thought.

Dale wasn’t out of the fight either. After deliberating for a couple seconds, he said “Mountain” and a piece of earth that looked like the covering of a mountain appeared.

It was hollow and was really more of just a plate of earth, but it did its job. As multiple of these plates started linking up to create a staircase for Dale to rush up towards Lang.

‘Did he just make the staircase go around where I’m currently at?’ Lang thought as he was going upwards.

When he was a bit more than halfway up, about 35 feet away from her, she canceled her sword technique and slowly started falling downwards. The amount of Lightning held up in her hair was amazing in a completely different feeling from how Lang normally fought.

As she was falling, she closed her eyes for a second and then she prepared her Qi. ‘Let’s end this with a bang and give them a show.’

Dale said “Earth” and a rock about the size of a human torso came barreling at her.

She opened her eyes, using ‘Fair Eye’ and kicking a small snake of lightning with her leg around the rock.

She managed to reduce its speed to the point where she could put her hand on it and throw herself in a somersault towards Dale.

‘That’s the end.’ Lang thought and she unleashed the power she had stored up in her hair through her forehead. A ray of electric lightning went straight towards Dale and even as he tried to block it with another rock, the lightning snaked its way around it.

Lang started adding Qi to the lightning as it hit her target. The Qi empowerment turned green and went straight past all of Dale’s defenses and as he went flying from the helix, the lightning continued knocking him backwards.

The stone Lang had ignored hit her and knocked her backwards, but she sailed only to the other side of the helix.

Dale had been blasted to the point where he turned himself into metal, to slow down his fall and reduce the distance traveled.

Lang ran around the helix and threw out two kicks, both of which hit the still-flying, metallic Dale and knocked him even faster to the edge of the arena.

Dale the-metallized himself and ropes of earth connected him to the ground as he was desperately trying not to get knocked out of the arena.

Lang would have none of that. Lightning wasn’t good at destroying earth, but earth was usually bulky to the point where you couldn't have a perfect protection and lightning would swing around it.

Lang decided to use water again. She created water with her hands around the area where the earth ropes connected to the ground of the arena. The ropes undid themselves from the ground and Dale’s fall ended up being just outside the line of the arena.

“With thaaaaat! We have a winner. Lang Bao knocks Dale Tai out of the arena.” The cheering is somewhat unenthusiastic. “After that whole ordeal, Lang ended with 16 points while Dale ends with -3. A massive disappointment to all old-school cultivators.”

‘I won.’ Lang started calming down, but she didn’t feel the satisfaction she thought would be there.

1- Bagwa sign is an octagon with a yin-yang sign in the middle, in each quadrant of the octagon it has stripes symbolising: Heaven, Wind, Water, Mountain, Earth, Thunder, Fire, Lake, in this mythology it is used in two different types of Soulcraft.