Chapter 109: Better Than Expected
The crowd watching murmured in shock. Paike couldn't tell if it was the outcome of the fight or Father's reaction. Probably the latter.
He hoped that Taka's quick thinking had saved the observers from realizing his real combat level for at least one more moment, but he wasn't about to count on that.
Father jumped down from where he had been watching in the stands. He passed his hand over the young woman's back, and she was able to heave a breath and fell to her knees as she gasped for air. It was likely an instinctual reaction. Even though her physical cultivation wasn't at their realm, she shouldn't have needed to breathe that hard after only so long without air.
"Why don't you come watch the rest of the fights with me?" Father said as he helped her up. He turned to the twins. "And you two, quit slacking, kiddos. We don't have all day."
If that was condemnation for them taking a small break as he interrupted, or telling them to stop holding back, Paike couldn't tell. It didn't matter. He wasn't going to change their plan to let Father get out of here faster.
The next challenger approached. They had to take him a little more seriously, but he still thought that Paike was just clever and tricky rather than strong. Paike couldn't tell if he was just stupid or if Taka's performance had been enough to sell it. The boy went down much faster than the cultivator before. She had actually done something that wasn't within their expectations. Which was probably why Father had shown interest.
As they tore through the next ten cultivators, they had to reveal a bit more of Paike's strength; he was still far from draining a significant amount of qi. His dantian was far deeper than any cultivator had any right to expect. All the internal circulation had forced it to be larger, and he only used a minuscule amount for each of his techniques. That wasn't by choice, but because he had trouble pushing qi into his techniques because of its nature. Even with internal circulation, he couldn't use so much at a time. His drain was even negligible when he was trying to be subtle.
Beyond not using much qi, Paike was rapidly losing respect for the inner sect. Many of them he could have beaten by himself, and with Taka's assistance it was laughable.
It had been obvious that he had some advantages as a member of the Kong family, but he didn't understand how much they mattered until now. Li Feng and Guan Li had warped his view of how competent non-family members were.