Chapter 355 - Confrontation
The current highlight of Benton’s life was watching Jin LiJuan compete in the tournament.
Well, saying that Jin LiJuan competed was something of a misnomer, but that was part of what made it so fun for him. All his other kids were the sole participants representing the Rising Tide Sect in their matches. When a hit was made, it was that person who struck. Winning was about applying their own techniques and martial abilities.
She, on the other hand, simply stood as far from her opponent as she could get and watched. When she was targeted, which was often through the first three matches, she simply let her shield handle the blow.
The contrast between the little girl who stood impassively while the world exploded around her and the rest of the participants throughout the tournament amused him to no end.
Her strategy proved to be a good one, though. None of the cultivators paired against her in the early rounds could dent even her small qi pool before being shredded by Leizhenzi and Ganzou.
In all three matches, a tiny, quiet, nearly motionless kid had come out ahead of three grown adults by literally not doing a thing. To say that her opponents and the JCSB alliance were frustrated was an understatement.
Beast tamers were rare in the tournament, but when one did appear, that cultivator could be slotted into one of two categories. The first category, the rarest, was someone who bonded with a single beast and gained benefits to their cultivation by doing so. The advantage of that type was that they could bond a beast at the same, or even higher, equivalent realm.
The second category, which was common in the sects but not in the tournament, tamed multiple beasts, sometimes in great quantities. Their weakness, though, was that the tamer couldn’t control beasts at their equivalent realm, meaning they fielded a small army of much weaker beasts.
That method was quite useful to fulfill particular sect needs. For example, earthworms enhanced soil. Earthworms with a qi core provided a huge benefit for growing many types of expensive, qi-rich crops. A tamer who controlled a half dozen or even more of the creatures contributed greatly to their sect. In fact, Benton eventually wanted that kind of tamer to assist with his own nascent spirit herb farming efforts.
That kind of tamer, however, was fairly worthless in a fight. A high Foundation Establishment realm cultivator would absolutely destroy dozens and dozens of rank three beasts in combat. A lot of tamers had tried different combinations of beasts, but none had gotten out of the early rounds of the tournament.
Jin LiJuan combined the best of both categories due to her unique circumstances. She could, apparently, form bonds with as many beasts as she liked, and she bonded them instead of taming, which meant the beasts’ equivalent realm didn’t matter since she wasn’t trying to control them. All her bondeds for the tournament were at the peak of rank six, equal to or better than the combatants.
Even worse for her opponents, all her beasts possessed strong bloodlines. Leizhenzi was strong enough that he could have defeated all their foes in the first three rounds by himself. Ganzou, though not at the thunderbird’s level, was strong, too. And Oogway had yet even to be needed, spending the entire tournament thus far in his spatial habitat.