Ning was in his room cultivating. Ever since returning from the arena, he had been continuously cultivating. Tomorrow was going to be a long day of fighting. Worst of all, it was probably going to be a boring one.
He kept on moving the same Qi he had in his body around to breakthrough. He cultivated for the entire night and at around 4 am in the morning, he finally managed to push through that invisible barrier and crossed it.
He finally entered the 2nd Foundation Establishment realm.
"Sigh, that's good enough," he thought and slumped onto the bed. Even if it was for only 4 hours, he decided to just sleep.
******
"Doctor Ning, can you… um… please rethink about leaving? Where will you even go?" Dion asked. He really didn't want to see Ning leave the island. He was strong and could also take part in the next 3 years in the tournament once more.
"I've already thought of it for a long time. My mind is made, I am leaving today," Ning said.
"Sigh, I guess we can't change your mind then. Well, let's just go to the arena," Yelca said and the group started moving from the hotel.
Along the way, there were a few people that turned around to look at him. He had effectively gotten more than double the points of the 2nd place holder in the last competition, so everyone was expecting him to do great.
Ning didn't show any reactions to these people, however. His mind was focused on where to go next. 'That place Hijaka said, I should go there,' he thought.
It wasn't that far away for him and he could easily see himself having fun there. 'Sigh, I also need to find myself a way to leave this planet as well. I wonder what other ways there might be aside from just teleportation.'
Ning looked up to the sky and thought, 'Can't I just… fly away?' he thought.
'That's probably going to take a lot of energy as well,' he thought and stopped thinking about it any further.
"Huh? What is he doing here?" Dion's comment brought Ning out of his mind. He looked forward and saw the sect leader of the dazzling sect standing near the arena's gate, waiting for the arena to open.
'Why is someone who can simply fly inside waiting outside in a line?' Ning wondered.
Mallus was with his 15 disciples and as soon as they saw Ning, they whispered something into his ear. Mallus's face showed no emotions as he heard the things and walked up to Ning.
"Are you the junior named Ning?" Mallus asked.
Ning was a little surprised that he was here for him. "Yes, that is me. What does sect leader Mallus want with someone like me?" Ning asked.
Mallus gave a smile and said, "I heard junior was the reason my disciples did so much poorer this time around in the competition. I was just wondering what you had to say about that."
'The hell does he want? An apology?' Ning wondered.
"I guess… I am a little sad I missed one of them," Ning said as he looked at Mallus dead in the eye.
Golden Core aura flared for a split second before dying down, however that was enough to scare everyone in the vicinity.
"It seems you have a rather sharp tongue on yourself. Make sure it doesn't cut you by accident," Mallus said and left them.
"Dear God, that guy scares me," Dion said. "He could probably hurt me even though my body cultivation is so high."
"He's not the strongest for no reason," Yelca said. "I just hope Doctor Ning's words don't leave an impression on him. If he decides to target Deepskull island for some reason, we will be in trouble."
"I'm sure that won't come to be. I will make sure of that," Ning said.
Finally, they were allowed entry and the entire group went to their seating areas to view the remaining matches today.
"Welcome to the final day of the Triennial Tournament. I hope you are all having a fantastic day. Today's battle will be the continuation of yesterday's, so we will have the remaining 16 matches today."
"I shall now choose our next contestants," the host said and picked up two papers from the lot.
"Number 33, and Number 1"
"Ah, Doctor Ning is first. Please go ahead," the disciples let Ning walk down to the stage. Similar to yesterday, Ning was given the talisman to wear.
He walked onto the stage and saw that his opponent was a girl wearing violet robes. He didn't immediately finish the match like yesterday.
He let the girl attack first. He was so bored now that he would do anything to make the tournament a little more fun for himself. And that meant seeing what the others could do.
The girl suddenly summoned 3 earth golems that seemed like puppets. 'Oh,' Ning said with slight amusement. 'This looks like the ice puppets that Freya made. Only this one is made of earth,' he thought.
The puppets were very rigid with not much flexibility to their limb movements. But since Ning wanted to have some fun, he let the puppets attack.
The girl sent them to punch him down, but Ning just took it. With his body cultivation, there was no way he would ever feel this pain.
It was a little fun at first, but the constant pounding soon got boring. He lifted his arms and caught one of the falling fists. He used the arm to swing the earth puppet and slam it into the other one.
He then took the last one and threw it directly at the girl.
"Arghh!" she shouted, but there was no yellow light. 'She's not lethally damaged huh?' he thought and went to help her if she was injured but not enough to disappear.
He threw the puppet behind him on the empty stage and looked at the girl. She was unconscious.
'Well, seeing a giant earth puppet falling on top of you would be quite shocking.' He looked towards the referee for some help, and only then did the referee realize that she had fainted.
"You win," he said and asked someone to take the girl away.
