Chapter 381: Advancement in the Pureflower Sect
Fortunately, Omilaena was in the middle of a vicious battle.
When she'd first arrived in the Pureflower sect, she'd been honestly worried that they were going to spend all their time pouring tea, picking flowers, and simpering around. Fortunately, the cultivators of the Pureflower sect also took the time to beat the crap out of each other. Elegantly.
Omilaena stood on the far side of a marble court, hurling needles at her opponent and deflecting those cutting toward her - at least the cumbersome sleeves of these outfits were useful for sweeping projectiles out of the air. Her opponent was another young and beautiful Cloudspire cultivator: she was an Earth Soul and reasonably strong, but she was so generic. All of Zin Nim's jade-white skin and none of her bite.
The rules of the competition required them to stay at a distance and use projectiles alone, with victory being decided by the first blood drawn. It wasn't very similar to a real battle, but the limitations prevented Omilaena from powering through the competition with her strength. In fact, as needle after needle was deflected, she was getting downright annoyed.
Summoning large numbers of needles at once was useless, because the Pureflower cultivators had an immense number of spinning maneuvers that were actually quite effective at deflecting projectiles. No matter what combination Omilaena tried, there seemed to be a counter. If she couldn't leap in and pin her opponent, perhaps some lateral thinking...
After weaving aside from her opponent's counterattack, Omilaena hurled an entire fistful of needles in one hand, and a single needle from the other. The first attack was deflected by a beautiful twirl, of course, and the second struck the floor.
And rebounded into her opponent's calf.
"Aah!" The cultivator cried out, more in surprise than pain, and fell to treat the injury. Omilaena was declared the victor and servants immediately rushed to cover the injury with a qi-based cream.
That cream was actually amazing, soothing pain and preventing scarring. Omilaena had grabbed a bunch and shoved it into her spatial satchel, plus she hoped to figure out the composition eventually. Right now, there were too many other priorities.