Alex walked around the crater's side and then down the road until he reached the fighting hall.
He walked up to the stage he was called to and waited. Even as he waited, he could see his opponent on the other side who was looking at him too.
Alex send back a polite smile, implying that he was looking forward to the fight. His opponent scoffed and made a snicker.
The battle on top of the stage was starting to end and before they knew it, the battle ended. The winner took their badge and walked off the stage. However, no one was looking at him.
The surprisingly few people in the crowd around the stage were currently looking at just two different people. One of them was Alex since he was the 3rd Ranked disciple of the sect, and the other person was Yang Ma, who had come back after his one-sided defeat to make some of his names back.
Unfortunately for him, Alex wasn't going to let him.
"Number 45 and Number 3," the elder on top of the stage called out. Alex looked to the side at Yang Ma and walked up the stage while staring at him the whole time.
He had a little smug smile on his face, but it was barely noticeable to anyone who was looking for it.
"I'm sorry you had your fun as a 3rd rank for just 2 days before I came back to attack you," Yang Ma said with an ingenuine smile.
Alex copied the same smile and said," Don't be, I'm going to stay as one for a while now."
Yang Ma scoffed. "We will see about that," he said.
The two of them separated and moved back to either side of the stage and waited for the referee to give them the go.
Alex shook his head and took out the Steel sword. This was most definitely overkill, but since Du Yuhan had made him see the ways of the sword, he was going to only use this one from now on.
At least until he could finally weird that heavy sword that no one else seemed to be able to pick. It was a wonder how the person who wielded it could even pick it up in the first place.
Yang Ma took his sword red-colored sword out and got ready to fight. Alex could see red light shine from the sword even though the sun hadn't gone down yet.
"BEGIN!"
The moment the referee said that, Alex immediately started his Jade Skin technique. A bunch of marble-like patterns appeared in his skin, increasing his overall defense by a realm or two.
At the same time, he waved his hands and a five-colored barrier appeared in front of him.
A fire-red slash struck the barrier and tried to go past it. Alex was ready to block the remainder of the attack with his own body, but…
BOOM
A massive explosion rang out from the barrier that pushed both Alex and Yang Ma backward. Alex was barely moved a foot backward, and the same was true for Yang Ma.
However, given how far they were from the explosion, it was easy to see who had the upper hand here.
"What happened?" Alex was surprised. He truly hadn't expected an explosion to occur like that. What he had expected was the fire element to significantly reduce and thus make the attack no longer a threat for him.
However, what happened was different.
'Heaven's Five Barrier is focused on controlling the element and lowering it, then why di—'
Just as Alex was thinking about it, he finally remembered. 'Ah right. My metal root. It's now way too strong for his fire, and is thus Ruining it when it comes into contact,' Alex thought.
'Does that mean… I'm invincible against him since my Supreme root is a direct competitor against his?' he wondered.
Yang Ma didn't know what had happened, but he was more than happy to send out another shot at Alex.
This time, Alex didn't use Heaven's Five barriers. Instead, he simply freely controlled the Qi in his body to form a metal Qi and brought it out forward to form a barrier on its own.
The slash struck the metal barrier and once more exploded the same way it did just before.
"What's happening?" Yang Ma couldn't help but shout. "What are you doing to my attacks?"
"Hey! You can't blame me just because you're weak," Alex said and readied his sword.
Yang Ma sent out another slash, and Alex did the same. Only his was golden, compared to Yang Ma's red slash.
BOOM
Another massive explosion rang on the stage. Only, this time, there wasn't just one slash to disappear.
A remaining golden slash flew towards Yang Ma who barely dodged it by using his movement technique.
"Damn you!" he shouted and immediately took a deep breath before blowing it all out from his mouth.
Along with his break came out a bird of red and blue. The reds slowly disappeared and soon it was only left with blue, a fire that was much, much hotter.
Alex had never seen this technique or this bird. However, even as clueless as he was, he knew what a phoenix was.
'That's quite extra,' he thought. He couldn't imagine how strong this technique was, but seeing flames of a different color, he got cautious.
"DIE!" Yang Ma shouted and made the flames fly down on him. Alex wanted to send out a slash, but then he remembered his master telling him to beat him with all he got.
"Very well," Alex thought and let go of his sword.
Immediately, he brought both of his hands in front of him and started releasing Qi from it. It was the same Qi that he usually used when he had to control fire for alchemy, except with a key difference.
He was using True Qi.
The bluebird stopped right in front of him as he immediately gained control of it. Yang Ma tried to move the bird, but it was no longer under his control. He had lost connection with it.
His eyes went wide in surprise as he looked at Alex in horror.
"Do you want it back?" Alex asked with a sly smile. Without waiting for Yang Ma's answer, he sent the bird flying back towards him.
The bird flew at a speed that was impossible to Yang Ma's eyes. Yang Ma tried to dodge, but that wasn't going to happen at all.
Even the elder felt like he was going to be a step late to protecting Yang Ma.
However, right before the bird struck him, it stopped. It flew, and moved around in an obviously fake manner, going around Yang Ma's head, horrifying at the thought of it hitting him at any time.
"Give up," Alex said.
"N- NO!" Yang Ma shouted.
"If you say so," Alex said and dropped the bird on him. The bird wasn't as fast anymore when it dropped towards Yang Ma.
Yang Ma immediately tried to form an attack to block the bird, but he had lost sight of his main threat right now.
Suddenly, he felt a fist land on his stomach. Even as his mind realized what was happening, his body couldn't react. So, despite not wanting it to happen, his body flew out of the stage and into the crowd.
The few members in the crowd that was looking, looked in silence at another one-sided victory that lead to Yang Ma's defeat.
The dropping bird immediately stopped and perched upon Alex's shoulders in a manner Pearl never could.
"I wouldn't mind having a bonded bird beast sometimes," he thought.
The elder announced his victory and Alex smiled and took back his badge.
'Still, using True Qi in battle is not as efficient, huh?' he thought. He hadn't even used much True Qi to handle the bird, but he already lost 5% of it.
'It will only to truly viable to use True Qi when I can start getting it passively. And that would only be in the True realms,' he thought. Finally, he looked back at the bird and wondered, "how strong are you?"
He ordered the bird to attack the ground in the middle, and it left his shoulder to go attack.
The bird was incredibly fast and it struck the ground at the perfect angle.
BOOM
A massive sound rang out, followed by a bunch of small rocks falling on top of him. When the dust settled, Alex's jaw dropped to make a similarly large hole as he had at the center of the stage.
The stage for stronger disciples was made with very strong stones that wouldn't break easily even under intense battles. However, seeing the massive hole on the ground made him understand the strength of the True Qi.
However, True Qi alone couldn't possibly make this much of a mess. That was when he realized how terribly strong the attack Yang Ma was using on him.
'Where the hell did he get such a strong technique?' Alex wondered.
The elder came to scold him, and Alex made a small lie saying his bird was starting to go unstable, which was why he had to throw it out.
The elder was convinced after seeing the disaster, so Alex was able to get out without getting into trouble.
He walked down the stairs and heard someone shout "Junior brother" towards him.
"Huh?" he thought and looked aside to see someone in there that he would have never thought to see in this place before.
"Brother Xiao?" he called in surprise.
Xiao Huang was in the crowd, below the stage right now.
"Hey, junior brother, Good job on the fight just now. You did amazing," Xiao Huang said with a massive smile.
Alex looked to the side, expecting to see Luo Xing, but she wasn't there.
"What are you doing here, brother Xiao? I thought you would still be in Rubyroad city," he said.
"Oh, no. We came back today," he said.
"We?" Alex asked with a gasp. "Does that mean sister is back too?"
"Yeah, both of them are," Xiao Huang said while pointing towards a crowd in the distance with his head. The crowd on that side was infinitely larger than what it was for him and Yang Ma.
Alex looked towards there and saw a red-robed woman, standing out in the midst of many yellow-robed disciples. She wasn't looking in Alex's direction at all and was instead staring at the stage in front of her.
Alex turned his head towards the stage and saw a massive Iceball floating in the air, with a person inside flapping about, trying to breathe.
Beneath the ice ball, was a single woman with both of her arms up, controlling the ice.
Luo Mei was back.
