Clarence had shot the needle in such a way that it punctured through the majority of the blood vessels and nerves, numbing the boy's whole leg.
Clarence had a whole new understanding of the various races' bodies after studying puppetry with his mom. Only now did he feel truly thankful for the time he had spent the entire month studying with his mother.
The very instant the effect of incapicitate was over, the boy swung his sword. Thankfully, Clarence had already rolled away by that time. Turning around, Clarence could guess that the boy had some kind of technique which cut off the pain transmitting to the brain for a period of time.
It was probably one of his hidden cards as he'd never seen him use it in any of the battle simulations. Clarence once again charged in his direction and dodged to the left by predicting where the boy would swing his sword.
Once could be a coincidence, but twice definitely couldn't be. The boy knew that Clarence had discovered the way he positioned his hand determined where he would swing. That alone diminished quite a lot of his battle spirit.
Sensing that split moment of daze, Clarence threw one of his daggers at his shoulder. By the time the boy had snapped out of his not-even-a-second of thought, the dagger had already hit his shoulder and begun to cut through it.
Before Clarence could follow up with an attack. The boy put both his hands up and yelled,
"I surrender!"
Clarence dropped his dagger and stood still while looking up. He was still fully in a defensive position as he didn't know if the opponent might pull up some tricks.
High up in the air, Marvin looked at their particular dome and said,
"Participant 4528 lost, participant 9 won."
Getting the confirmation he needed, Clarence looked towards the limping boy who was approaching him while holding his dagger in the injured hand.
For a moment there, Clarence felt pity for the boy and felt that he had unnecessarily injured him so much, but soon shook his head to clear his thoughts.
Sacrifices are inevitable, innocence is the last thing he can keep in his journey to the peak of power. It might also be that the boy was using some weird powers.
The boy came up to him and presented his dagger, which he took without thanking him. He might've attacked the boy without thinking of any consequences if he even so much as took a step towards the exit while holding his dagger.
He most likely wouldn't have had to face any repercussions if this happened at all, as taking an opponent's weapons came in the grey area of rules.
It wouldn't have mattered if he had lost as he wouldn't even have strength to take it back, but since he won, he could rightfully injure him even more and take back the dagger.
After Clarence took the dagger, the boy presented his hand forward for a handshake and said,
"Clark defry. Lone cultivator."
Clarence shook his extended hand and replied,
"Clarence Verity. Heir to the Royal Family of demons."
The boy's eyes went wide for a second before he smiled at him and limped away.
Clarence stared at the boy's back the entire time till he was out of his sights. He then sat down in a meditative position and called out to the system,
"I need information about his race and the spell, if any, he used on me. How much?"
[Computing… ]
[1000 amethyst tier mana crystal]
"Fuck!!! So much?"
Clarence almost screamed out when he saw the number. He definitely didn't think it would be so much.
1 amethyst tier mana crystal is equal to 100 high tier mana crystals.
1 high tier mana crystal is equal to 100 mid tier mana crystals.
1 mid tier mana crystal is equal to 100 low tier mana crystals.
1 amethyst coin is equal to 100 gold coins.
1 gold coin is equal to 100 silver coins.
1 silver coin is equal to 100 bronze coins.
Mana crystals and coins weren't exchangeable/tradable although some black markets did so anyway. Mana crystals were used for transactions concerning cultivators' resources and for cultivating. While coins were used for transactions concerning mortal things.
1000 amethyst was a big amount even for someone with an identity as formidable as his. He actually wasn't allowed to even possess that much amount as his parents were afraid he would waste it all.
They weren't wrong, he had always spent all his allowance on food. The mana crystals he used in the mountains and those he had right now persisted in his spatial ring because he didn't have time to enjoy the delicacies due to his busy schedule.
Getting back to the topic, Clarence knew that there was some immense secret behind his identity, else it wouldn't be this expensive for him to buy it.
He opened the system shop/exchange list and went to the spell section, he then filtered it to show only soul/mental type spells.
He kept scrolling for about two minutes when he heard the sound to get ready for his next match. He wasn't ready to let go of the boy, but he couldn't ignore the tournament.
He got up and looked around to see that his opponent this time was a short lady with short red hair.
While waiting for the force to move him towards the designated area to fight, he looked towards the leaderboard and found that he was still dominating the top rank.
He guessed that it was taking into account all the tests up until now — because the tournament was a one-loss elimination type, which meant that those who had survived until now all had the same number of wins as him rather than some bouncing back up again after losing because that simply wasn't possible.
He also guessed that he was at the top due to how fast he was finishing the battles, as Everett and Bernard had both climbed up a few ranks. Clara had also been knocked down from her position. In her place there was someone named Noir krenkton.
He sensed someone looking his way and turned around to find his opponent looking at him. He held up his daggers in front of him as the dome materialized around them and a barrier appeared between them.