I made sure to watch every match that occurred to learn how others might fight. Some were fierce and decisive in attacking while others waited until the moment was right for them to attack. At the same time that was happening I also checked to see if I could inject some qi into my weapon as well. It went in surprisingly easily and my weapon glowed a similar color as that 'young master.'
"270 and 168 please step up on stage!"
Liang Jia went up along with a female participant. Seeing that someone I knew went up I got a little excited. He was was someone from my world and as that was so I wanted to see how he's been doing, compared to watching people who already knew what kind of world they were in I want to know how his perspective has changed, as he came into a new one.
They stood on either end of the platform like all the others did. Liang Jia chose a spear, but that female contestant opposite of him chose a fairly.. unique weapon. It was a pair of hook swords, weapons I never even thought existed in these worlds; since not once had I even heard them be mentioned in the cultivation novels I read.
As the name implies the swords were made to hook and latch onto the enemy or their weapons. As she asked for those weapons Liang Jia made a slightly surprised, confused, and a little fearful face; he might have not even heard of hook swords before and considering the appearance of the weapon he might not know what to expect.
"Begin!"
As the match began the woman ran straight at him as he just took some kind of stance with the spear below his center mass pointing out towards her. Once they were around five meters of each other he gave out a simple thrust. She nimbly dodged to her left while hooking onto the head of his spear from above. She tried pulling it back to disarm him, but he must of had a good grip and strength as well as he countered with his own pull and actually took her weapon with it.
Noticing what he'd just done he tried to toss her weapon off the platform so she couldn't retrieve it. When she lost one of her weapons she immediately went to hook his ankle and knock him off balance or even trip him.
Her hook managed to get a grip around his left ankle, lifting up the sword she managed to change his center of gravity which she quickly took advantage of by jabbing him with the curved head of the sword pushing him down.
When he fell down so did his spear which still had the hook sword on near the head. The weapon flung off the spear sliding towards the edge of the arena. She watched as her weapon was about to lose one of them and ran over to it as quickly as she could trying to save the weapon before it fell off.
The hook sword kept sliding and sliding slowing down along the way, but just as she was about to reach and grab onto it fell off. I was in the perfect seat to see her face as well, it went slightly pale and she seemed shocked and fearful looking over the edge where her weapon had landed. Finally getting it together after a second and a half, she switched the hand her sword was in and gripped onto her final sword tightly turning around to face him. He had just gotten up and started closing the distance between them.
Like she had just remembered Qi was a thing her sword was covered in an aura, but hers wasn't entirely gray like the ones before. The aura around her sword had a tinge of green to it. He had seen the aura on his opponent's weapon and activated his own. The aura he had on it wasn't gray either, but a light red covered it.
Colors like this usually indicated some kind of element right? Do they already know elemental stuff?
They rushed toward each other and he thrusted forward with his spear. This time the thrust wasn't so simple as the head of the spear was spontaneously engulfed in fire headed directly for the her center mass. It missed though as she had also suddenly just gotten faster. Once she dodged that strike she stepped towards him. He couldn't use the head of the spear any more since she was so close. Once her first strike came in and was blocked by his spear shaft, another one came, and another quickly speeding up her pace of attacks and pushing him back while making sure she didn't hook onto the spear shaft incase she might also lose this weapon as well.
After taking enough hits he finally did something to get her off him. At the edge of the arena and one of the last moments before he would have been pushed off. Shoving the shaft toward her just when her blade had made contact with it during one of the attacks. She seems to of been thrown of balance a little and had to reorientate herself.
But he had already been behind her by the time she did, before she could do anything he yelled something as he did a front kick towards her.
"THIS IS SPANTA!"
It felt like slow motion for absolutely no reason as she was sent flying a meter outwards she only landed around 60cm down though so it was kinda anti-climatic. That saying doesn't feel quite right for some reason though, it's like somethings off about it. Some of the people around me were discussing what he had just said though.
"Did you hear what he just said?"
"Yeah! He said something about 'sparta' right?"
"No no he said, 'This is spanta' but what does that even mean? Was that supposed to be a threat or something like that?"
…
"272 and 273!"
After quite some more matches I finally saw another familiar face and two at that. It was Qiu Tu and Hu Daquan. Well that sucks a little that we would have to go against each other; I was kinda hoping that we'd all make it into the inner disciples together.
While bowing "I'm sorry Qiu Tu, but I can't be the one that's left behind down here."
"Hoh, you're sorry? Don't be, I've been waiting for this day for so long! Give me a sword!" Extending her hand out
"I'll take an axe!"
After they both received their respective weapons and stood at their designated spots as the elder began the match.
"Begin!"
They both charged in towards each other as they readied a swing. When they finally did clash a loud *ting* could be heard as their weapons clashed against each other each struggling to to gain an upper hand. After a few seconds Hu Daquan was starting to be pushed back as he couldn't with stand the force applied anymore. After losing a little more than 10cms of ground his weapon aura appeared while clashing against her. It was the standard gray color most others had, while on the other side once his weapon aura erupted she couldn't maintain her advantage over him anymore.
She flashed a smile on her face as if that was what she wanted. Showing her own weapon aura a light red just like the one Liang Jia had. Unlike his weapon aura though when she slashed down at him a small line of fire the size of her sword extruded from the blade toward the direction she slashed in.
He stared at the fire coming towards him for a moment before panicking and trying to hastily dodged to the side. It seems he miscalculated how quickly it would appear before him, but it was only natural when he could only see the front of the object. It clipped him on his waist as it passed by leaving aa visible burn mark on the area as his clothes on that part also burnt away.
He lied on the ground rubbing his burn mark he received "Ahh, Fuck! Okay, okay I'm sorry alright!? D-Don't hurt me anymore! Shit fucking fuck!"
"Sorry doesn't cut it." Stepping closer
"H-Hey, w-why aren't you stopping? It's over isn't it?"
Now within a meter she raises her sword about to chop down.
"H-H-Hey!"
Swinging down another *ting* was heard as he pulled out his axe to block the attack.
"Damn it, You weren't supposed to do that!" being forced down by her strength
"I know you too well to fall for such a trick!"
The blade inches closer and closer to his neck with barely a few centimeters between it.
"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT I GIVE UP, NOW STOP IT!"
Releasing her force upon him she gets up to walk off stage placing the sword down of the side of the stairway to the platform.
He still just lied there on the platform until an elder yelled at him to get off to which he quickly complied.
…