After Qing Shan entered and defeated everyone on the second floor of the Open Hall, things quieted down for him. He kept working at the Smith's Respite, and improved his forging skills even more. He spent most of his time focusing on improving his skills with the spear. Unfortunately, even after a month passed, he still was unable to enter the third floor of the Open Hall. Of the seven steps upward, Qing Shan could not even manage to go up three. Two was his limit.
However, this setback only made Qing Shan desire to grow stronger even faster. There were no people on the second floor that were in the Origin Soul Realm. In that case, all of them had made it up to the third floor. This meant that the physical capabilities of a First level Origin Soul cultivator were much higher than Qing Shan had thought.
Qing Shan had tried going to the Skills Library, but he had been disappointed. He felt that none of the skills open to the Outer Ring were worth learning. He was not saying that the skills were useless, it was just that his flexible fighting style focused primarily on speed could not really have much improvement from other types of Martial Skills.
Martial Skills are different from martial Techniques. Martial Skills are only preformed with the physical body, and do not need the cultivator to be able to externally control Qi. However, Martial Techniques do require the external control of Qi.
Seeing the library did not make Qing Shan think any less of Martial Skills. Even though they were limited to close range and did not need Qi, they could definitely help him. There are many types of Martial Skills that enable a cultivator to beat someone's Martial Technique. Qing Shan just did not have access to those stronger Martial Skills, and he knew it. The Skill Library also did not have any Outer Ring Martial Techniques, because there were no Origin Soul level cultivators in the Outer Ring.
Because of the restraints, Qing Shan decided that it was time to move up in the sect's rankings. This could only be done by officially challenging someone to a duel. Unfortunately, people could only challenge people a certain number of rankings higher than them. For instance, Qing Shan, who possessed the lowest ranking in Three, could not challenge someone in the Inner Ring. The only person in the Outer Ring who could challenge someone in the Inner Ring was the first ranking person in two, or the highest ranker in the Outer Ring.
One month after his domination of the second floor of the Open Hall, Qing Shan walked up to the highest ranker in Three, Long Wan.
At breakfast that morning, Qing Shan spoke up. This was a surprise to the members of Three because he had been fully immersed in his training and had become separated from the tight knit group of Three.
"Long Wan, I challenge you for your Ranking Position."
The table fell silent, although no one seemed to be surprised. Even though none of them had seen it, they had all heard about Qing Shan beating everyone on the second floor.
*Sigh*
Zhong Wang muttered under his breath.
"So it begins…"
Long Wan stood.
"You may be stronger than me, and probably better in many ways, but I don't intend to lose."
Qing Shan did not say anything, and turned and walked out of Three with Zhong Wang and Long Wan behind him. They entered the arena, and Zhong Wang officiated the fight. Unfortunately, the match was not even close. Before Long Wan could even move, Qing Shan used Spring Motion and Flowing Breeze to appear behind him. Qing Shan then knocked the man unconscious by hitting him in the back of the neck with the side of his spear.
Zhong Wang did not look surprised by this development. He had heard about Qing Shan's amazing growth from the Overseeing Elder of Three.
"Qing Shan wins!"
Qing Shan then challenged the weakest, then the strongest person of Two. From there, he went on to challenge the weakest in the Inner Ring.
The Inner Ring was formatted a bit differently than the Outer Ring. On one hand, it was much larger. There were twenty four sections, each of them with two buildings. Like in the Outer Ring, 1-A was the strongest, while 24-B would be the weakest. There was a much larger arena in the center as well. It was large enough to have twenty four buildings around it, which was quite large. However, it was still a bit smaller than the arena. Actually, the size of the stage is relatively similar, but there are no viewing areas. Because of its size, the Inner Ring is actually further away from the main part of the sect.
There were many benefits to being in the Inner ring. For one, your accommodations are better. Inner Ring sect members get access to most of the Martial Skills and techniques of the sect, and they have better training facilities. On top of that, everyone in much stronger, so there would be no lack of good training partners.
The day after he rose to the position of the highest Outer Ring ranker, Qing Shan publicly challenged the lowest ranked cultivator in 24-B. Because it was a fight to see who if someone would move out of the Outer Ring, the arena was to be used.
Qing Shan was surprised to see the number people that showed up. In the arena, which could hold at least five thousand spectators there was a good four hundred people attending. Qing Shan could tell that more than half of them were in the Origin Soul Realm.
"Wow, I didn't expect this many people to show up for this."
Qing Shan noticed something. His opponent seemed to be a bit pale. Surprisingly, Qing Shan was able to recognize the man's face. It was one of the people he had beat up on the second floor of the Open Hall!
'No wonder he looks sick. He already knows he can't beat me.'
Qing Shan shook his head. Thoughts like that would only cause him harm.
The two bowed, introducing themselves, as was custom.
The official raised his hand, and the arena quieted down. He then swung his arm toward the ground.
"Fight!"
Qing Shan used his best motion technique, Flowing Breeze, and brushed up to his opponent like he was a gust of wind. He swirled around the man, his spear moving with his body. When he turned one way, his staff moved the other way. Like this, Qing Shan was amplifying his attack power. Qing Shan darted from the man's back past his left side, and used his spear to cut the inside of the opponent's right thigh. In one fluid motion, The man's thigh was slashed, and Qing Shan turned his body one-hundred and eighty degrees so that his spear tip was now resting at the man's neck.
"…I yield."
The man tried to steady himself, but he could not put any weight on his right leg without it letting out a torrent of blood. Qing Shan let the man lean on him and brought him over to the official.
"He needs to go to the infirmary."
The official, who was still numb to his surroundings after witnessing Qing Shan's overwhelming victory, nodded. After he took hold of the injured man, he shook himself out of his daze and raised his arm.
"Qing Shan wins!"
The audience, which had been silent, broke into loud cheers. No one had expected Qing Shan's victory to fast and overwhelming.
After the official handed the man off to someone that would bring him to the infirmary, Qing Shan suddenly yelled something that stunned a lot of people.
"I challenge the top ranker of 24-A to a duel!"
That was one more thing that was different than in the Outer Ring. Once in the Inner Ring, you do not have to go building-by-building up the ranks. You just have to go by number. In this case, the top ranker of section 24 could challenge the top ranker of section 23.
The crowd, which had been cheering, slowly began to quiet down. However, this did not last. The audience then broke out into an intelligible mixture of voices. Normally, battles of ranking would take place in the Ring that a person belongs to, unless it is a promotion battle. However, Qing Shan was already in the arena, so he thought this would be faster.
Unfortunately, the audience misunderstood him. They thought that he was just trying to cause a commotion.
'He already had this many people watching him, why would he fight in an area with less spectators.'
'Maybe he wants everyone to witness how he will rocket through the rankings in just one day.'
This was what people were thinking.
Suddenly, a voice flew out from the stands.
"I yield."
Everyone looked toward the source of the voice, but Qing Shan was unfazed.
"I challenge the top ranker of section 23!"
"I yield."
This went on all the way until Qing Shan challenged the top ranker of section 18.
"I, Qian Zhen, accept your challenge."
A man jumped down onto the stage. He was build tall and sturdy, and his black hair was quite long and pulled back into a ponytail.
'That hair may look cool, but it definitely a hinderance in combat. Haha.'
"Everyone ranked lower than me has proven to be complete wimps. We can all tell that you are strong, probably near the top of Peak Formation Soul. But, who cares. Most of us here have sparred with those at the Origin Soul level. Are you better than them? Absolutely not."
After Qian Zhen finished his spiel, the official began the match.
Qing Shan used his Flowing Breeze to close in on the opponent.
"Ha, I knew you'd do that. You may be fast, but that seems to be it. Your attacks aren't all that strong either."
Qing Shan repeated the same thing as earlier. However, when he tried to cut the man's thigh, a disk blocked his spear. It was only now that Qing Shan noticed Qian Zhen's weapons. There were two disks attached to his wrists. They were about a third of a meter in diameter, and had sharp edges. They seemed to be small shields that doubled as melee weapons.
Qing Shan shifted his attack to the side, and aimed towards Qian Zhen's left thigh. However, before he could execute the attack the man lifted his foot and stepped down on the tip of the spear, holding it against the ground with his foot. Qing Shan had seen this happening, so he was unfazed.
Once his spear was on the ground, he twisted it, cutting through Qian Zhen's wooden sandal. Fortunately for him, he managed to jump away to avoid getting the arch of his foot cut.
"Hoho! That's a good spear! I was aiming to break off the tip, but it was unfazed by my weight."
This time, Qian Zen was the one who darted forward. Qing Shan was ready, and raised his spear. Qian Zhen did not go around Qing Shan, or anything like that. He had already noticed that Qing Shan could follow his every move. Although he did not know how, Qing Shan's eyes never left him no matter how fast he went.
Qian Zhen rushed straight at Qing Shan, and held his arms up with his disks angled toward each other and at Qing Shan, while the other end of them was pointing toward the sides of his body. This placement of the disks managed to perfectly deflect Qing Shan's thrust to the side of his body.
Qing Shan stopped his spear from slipping to the side and brought it back in a slash past Qian Zhen's guard. Unfortunately, this attack was blocked by Qian Zhen's disks.
The fight kept continuing on like this. Although Qing Shan was the only one attacking, all of his attacks were being defended against.
"You see, it is easy for me to block your attacks, as you only use the same basic moves. If you had more variety, you would probably beat me easily."
For the first time during the fight, Qing Shan spoke.
"Variety, huh."
Qing Shan continued fighting like he had been for the whole time. He stayed with the same basic moves that gave Qian Zhen no chance for any alternate movements other than defending. Every time an attack was blocked, a resounding sound rang out.
"Clang, Clang, Clang."
"Clang."
"Clang."
The noises started to resonate with Qing Shan. The sound of metal hitting metal over and over, at a steady beat and tempo, had a sort of rhythm, and Qing Shan was connecting to that rhythm. He had not even felt this rhythm when he was fighting in the second floor of the Open Hall. Back then, he had just used brute strength to bulldoze over his enemies.
Qing Shan began moving a bit differently. Every single one of his muscle movements were following that rhythm, and his body started moving accordingly. As he sank into the rhythm of battle, his motions began changing. Because his entire body, all of his muscles and bones, where moving at the exact same time repeatedly, his attacks became more unified. With the rhythm of battle, Qing Shan's attacks became more powerful.
Qing Shan's next thrust broke open Qian Zhen's guard, and set him off balance. Qing Shan let go of his spear with one hand and used his other to grab Qian Zhen's arm. From this position, Qing Shan would have no problem making his attacks land. Qing Shan stuck his foot on the ground where Qian Zhen was trying to place his foot. He then lifted up his foot, keeping the man off balance. Qing Shan flipped the spear in his grip and hit Qian Zhen with its blunt end, knocking him to the ground. Qing Shan Then placed the blunt end of his spear on one of the man's writs while he stepped on the other. Qing Shan used his other foot and lightly placed his foot on Qian Zhen's neck.
The man's body tensed, then relaxed.
"I yield."