A yellow palm strike flew towards Yao Bai which he stopped with his own palm strike that shone with golden light.
When the two palm strikes destroyed each other, with his strike barely stronger than Alex's, he started to understand why he was made to take the oath.
The fighting style was already unorthodox, to add on such a massive strength that didn't match his cultivation base— if information about him got out, any and every sect and faction would try their best to get him.
Yao Bai frowned as he thought of this. 'How is a kid so strong? How do I beat him?' he wondered.
He was sure he could beat him, given that he was a bit stronger than Alex, but his weapon was turning out to be of no use against him as the shield stopped everything.
'Best choice for me is to draw out this battle, or take advantage of when he slips,' Yao Bai thought.
Alex sent out an Iron Fist Punch as a golden fist flew through the air towards his opponent.
Yao Bai once again sent back a metal palm that stopped his attack and even pushed back a little.
'So my strength is only around True King 1st realm, huh?' Alex thought to himself.
Yao Bai threw the tied dagger towards Alex, who dodged slightly and caught onto it to pull himself closer.
When he got close, Yao Bai suddenly got uncomfortable and his eyes changed.
It wasn't just him, however. Even Qin Shan's eyes changed a little when he noticed the aura in the air move slightly.
'What's that?' he wondered. He could see it, but did not understand it. After all, Qin Shan had yet to find a Dao of his own, so he didn't know what it looked like.
"Argh!" Yao Bai shouted and let go of his rope as it was burning hot at the moment. At the same time, Alex got close to him and tongue of fire appeared between the two.
'Explode!'
BOOM!~
The explosion rung the area in between them. Alex hadn't put much energy into the explosion and wanted to only use a weaker version as this was a friendly battle.
However, he was still surprised how strong it had become.
'Explosion is fire suddenly heating up to create destruction. Did my Dao of Heat help in the heating process to make it stronger?' Alex thought.
The explosion was certainly faster than it should have been normally and just a bit stronger. But that tiny bit would go a long way in the future.
Alex stopped using his Dao after that fight as it was too strong to use without doing some tests first. So, he went back to fighting normally.
The two of them fought for a while, and slowly but surely, Yao Bai was getting the upperhand. Each conflict between them ended in his victory.
However, he was still unable to win against Alex even after the fight was drawn out.
Yao Bai huffed a little and his face grew worried. 'How is he still so full of energy?' he thought.
After fighting each other for 10 more minutes, both in close combat and ranged attacks, neither of them were on the verge of winning.
Alex was now getting more and more used to his fake hand. He was starting to understand the strength and weaknesses for his arm.
Physically, his fake arm was stronger than his real arm. That was something he couldn't deny at all as his fake arm was a Saint Earth artifact.
However, when it came to using techniques, his fake arm was unable to match his real arm.
Perhaps it was because his fake arm was modeled after a normal human, the channels through which his Qi moved wasn't wide enough to best fast and overwhelming like his real hand.
Alex looked at the tired Yao Bai and asked, "Are you okay? We can take a break if you want to."
Yao Bai felt his heart prick a bit when he heard that. "No, I can keep going," he said as he prepared his whip to fight again.
"Very well, then let us fight seriously," Alex said as he brought out a sword.
"What?" Yao Bai looked surprised. "You're a swordsman?"
"Ah, yes," Alex said. "I was testing out my new arm so I didn't use it, but now I will."
The sword he took out was the poison sword. Since he was intending to stay away from his opponent, he wouldn't have to worry about poisoning him.
Alex put the sword on his fake hand to test it too. To start with, he sent out a wind slash towards his opponent.
The mental whip moved and the dagger at the end of it struck the wind slash, destroying it in mid air.
Alex moved around his fake arm as it felt a little stiff when he used his sword. No, it wasn't the arm that was the problem. It was the fact that he hadn't used his left hand to fight in a long time.
Using it randomly to attack someone, versus using it in a sophisticated manner to send out an accurate strike, it was obvious which one would show him his shortcoming.
The sword moved once again, sending out a water strike this time. Then a fire strike, then an earth strike.
Yao Bai easily stopped all of those attacks as the techniques Alex used were common grade ones that he simply learned to be able to use specific Qi.
'Oh, the last two felt a little stronger than others,' he thought to himself.
Right now, his Fire and Earth Spiritual roots were much better than the other non-evolved spiritual roots of his.
Of course, the strongest one amongst the common elements was still his metal one.
So, when Alex sent out his Penta Sword Strike, Yao Bai had to fight harder to stop it.
Qin Shan looked from the side, his shock never leaving his face. 'Does he actually have all 5 spiritual roots? How is he able to throw out such strong attacks if he had Lesser Spiritual roots?'
Qin Shan simply couldn't understand what was happening.
As the fight between the two raged on. As time went by, Alex slowly added Sword Intent into his attack, and fortunately for him it worked even with his fake arm.
Yao Bai had it harder and harder as the attacks got stronger than ever. 'How?' he wondered.
He wanted to end it, but the battle kept on going. In the end, it was him that was starting to slowly run out of Qi.
Once Alex became aware that Yao Bai was starting to struggle, he decided to end it.
"Careful," he said and suddenly his sword which barely hand a white outline suddenly came to life with the whiteness covering it completely.
White sparks flew out of his sword catching both Yao Bai and Qin Shan off guard.
"Sword Qi!" Qin Shan shouted, confirming Yao Bai's deepest fear.
Alex viewed his own sword Qi. Only when he focused did the spark that flew out of the sword take the shape of an actual sword. Otherwise, they were just white sparks.
That made him a little happy. That meant he still had more to learn. He still had room to grow.
Without using any techniques or whatsoever, Alex simply sent out the Sword Qi.
Yao Bai quickly attacked with his own Dagger whip, but it couldn't stop Alex's attack at all.
In the end, Qin Shan had to step in and block the attack.
A water barrier appeared around him and Yao Bai, stopping Alex's attack. The attack landed with a bang, but could do nothing else against the powers of a Saint realm individual.
Qin Shan was about to stop his barrier when he noticed that the attack in front of him hadn't disappeared at all.
Instead, the cluster of sword Qi kept on attacking one after another, attempting to go past the barrier.
They got weaker the longer they clashed, but the fact that they could even do that in the first place was enough to shock Qin Shan once again.
When the bright, white light finally stopped, Qin Shan let go of the barrier and looked at Alex, who did not even break a sweat.
"Junior Yu, how are you so strong?" Qin Shan asked, completely disregarding the existence of a disciple behind him.
"I trained," Alex said, not explaining any more.
"I see," Qin Shan said, not asking for more information. He finally turned around to look at Yao Bai and asked, "Are you okay?"
"Huh? Oh yes… thank you for protecting me, sect master," he said.
"Good work, disciple Yao. You can leave if you want now, but remember your oath. Nothing that happened today is to escape this room," Qin Shan said.
"Yes, sect master," Yao Bai said. He turned to Alex and bowed a little. "Thank you for the opportunity to learn, elder Yu," he said and left.
"I can finally understand why you would want to keep this a secret," Qin Shan said. "You can easily win against anyone in the early True King realm if you were to use your sword."
"I could win even without it if I were to use my other skills," Alex said as he suddenly lost all aura and went invisible.
Qin Shan could barely sense him and even had to use his spiritual sense to find him.
"You just keep on surprising me, young man," Qin Shan said with a sigh. "Alright, I will help you find other disciples to fight against. If those don't work. I will get you elders to fight against. Of course, they will all be swearing an Oath, just like young Yao did."
And that began Alex's year long training as he made his way through his cultivation.
