Chapter 51 - Exchanging Pointers
Yang Ru stood across a sandy arena from his opponent, the arrogant young master who had since been introduced as Pan Jiang.
The first hint of fall was in the air, and the sun was straight enough above not to get in either of the boy’s eyes. It was a good day to fight.
Yang Ru once again pondered how far he’d come in such a short period of time. In less than half a year, he’d advanced more than halfway through the first major realm of cultivation. Of course, only part of that success was due to his apparently immense talent. His master had supplied both a superior cultivation technique and a pill that propelled Yang Ru from barely reaching the third minor realm to midway to the fifth in a single day.
Still, his master was obviously proud of his progress, and the upcoming exchange of pointers was his next learning opportunity.
He would not let his master down.
Yang Ru almost barked out a chuckle. If the kid he was a year ago had been told he’d be facing a fight against a cultivator and his biggest concern was not meeting expectations to win, he never would have believed it.
Yet there he was.
Pan Jiang flexed the wrist that had been broken yesterday, suffering no obvious discomfort from the movement. He sneered across the field. “There’s no one to protect you today.”
“Nor you.”
The guy snarled, and Yang Ru tried not to shake his head. So easily riled.
An unfamiliar, green-robed cultivator entered the arena. Master had said that a sect elder would oversee the duel, so Yang Ru was not surprised.
The man stepped between the two combatants. “The rules for this contest as agreed to by your respective masters are as follows. Contestants are to fight with one hundred percent of their abilities as if the stakes were death. The surrounding arrays will absorb every blow just prior to impact and transmit the feeling that you would have experienced had the blow landed. You will feel the pain associated with the strikes fully but none of the physical effects. There will be no blood, and you will not die even to a strike that would have decapitated you or went straight through your heart. The duel ends when one contestant has received an amount of force the arrays deem to be lethal. All pain inflicted by the arrays will disappear from both contestants as soon as the fight ends. The loser will present his primary weapon to the winner, who will gain ownership of it.”