Maxillan's eye just slightly widened expressing his small surprise, he then smirked and asked,
"Well, well, aren't you too sensitive? Hmm, not like I was deliberately hiding it anyway. I just didn't use rank three prowess, so everyone just assumed I am a rank two.
But that aside, how did you guess I awakened a bloodline? All the others either thought it was a healing technique or a skill."
Clarence ignored his question and tightened his hold on the daggers. The dart which Maxillan had refused to dodge earlier had stuck his chest but the wound healed so fast that the dart fell off.
The reason he could confirm it that was a bloodline was because he couldn't sense any mana being used anywhere even remotely near the wound.
And for him to sense that, he would have needed to be in a close proximity, so he attacked Maxillan as soon as he started healing himself so that he could confirm the mana fluctuations and his rank.
He could now confirm that the bloodline was a regenerative one or at least one which had regeneration as one of its properties but seeing by how quick he was healing, Clarence guessed that regeneration must be the main property if the bloodline even had more than one in first place.
'This just got a lot tougher, someone even reached rank three fuck fuck fuck.'
He initiated the assault again by closing down the distance and attacking him with his daggers.
For a short period of time there, the two exchanged hundreds of moves, no techniques no spells just pure skills, surprising many who were spectating the battle.
The two disengaged and put on some distance between themselves. Now that the situation had become clearer to see, one could see that Clarence was more tired than Maxillan was.
'Fuck, I am running low on mana. And I haven't reached the stage in meditation scripture where one can naturally take in mana without having to consciously circulate the scripture.'
Maxillan initiated the attack this time in order to not give Clarence much time to rest. He understood that although Clarence was a rank below him, the young man was after all the one who had been immovable from the top rank. He had to take him seriously in order for him to win.
Upon seeing that Maxillan was closing in, Clarence took on a defensive stance. But as soon as Maxillan entered a suitable range to attack Clarence, he felt a restriction on his legs.
It was Clarence using incapacitate on his legs, but since Maxillan was a rank three and a strong one at that, he was able to overcome by putting a little stronger mana pressure at his legs.
He basically overpowered the technique with his sheer power of mana. The brief amount of time Maxillan took to get rid of the technique was all Clarence needed as he lunged forward with his daggers but Maxillan wasn't called the underdog for nothing as he reacted quickly and deflected the attack.
The two began another bout of exchanging moves, this time with techniques and skills, but this time it was obvious to even a commoner that Clarence was having a hard time.
In Clarence's mindspace, the golden blue orb which had been still slowly started spinning until it stopped its acceleration after reaching an average spinning pace.
In the outside world, Clarence began feeling changes in his surroundings as his situation began getting unfavorable every passing second.
All his plans had failed. Maxillan's regenerative bloodline was proving to be a nuisance in the battle. He had underestimated his regenerative ability.
Actually, it was not that he had underestimated the opponent, Maxillan had simply never shown that his bloodline held such incredible prowess. It was a blow to Clarence who was relying on the system for information.
The changes he felt began with his body feeling rejuvenated, less tired and filled with vitality. The hidden wounds in his body were healing up quickly too.
Mana started gathering around Clarence, who felt it starting to seep into his bones. His previously almost empty mana core greedily began absorbing the mana which was coming its way.
The previously overused, tired and damaged muscles which were now healed started hungrily sucking the mana.
Maxillan who was fighting with Clarence gradually began noticing the change too, along with Marvin who was spectating the battle.
"Hmm interesting, second stage of meditation scriptures already? Now that is a real talent"
This time, Sienna, who stood beside Marvin didn't reply to him but just kept watching Clarence who was battling Maxillan while thinking,
'This quick? There were no signs of it when he studied with me the whole month. A person's cultivation speed goes up a notch higher before he breaks through to the second stage.
Weird, could it be an epiphany? Knowing how he surprised me throughout the month, it definitely wouldn't be out of place. I should stop doubting everything. Especially about my son.'
Down below the battle had a little turn of tables as although Maxillan was a rank three, it was after all just one rank above rank two. Now that Clarence had his mana refilled and was battling with renewed vigor, it was obvious that Maxillan was put into a tough spot.
His mana reserves were falling below what he believed to be a desperate point. His moves were getting more and more hurried as well.
He was after all just a teen who had just stepped into the world of cultivation. But if it were a lone cultivator at his place, it was more likely that he or she would have fared better in this situation.
Clarence took advantage of holes in Maxillan's battle style to inflict several injuries on him and the surprising part was that the injuries don't seem to be healing anymore.
As if the injuries had snapped him out of the craze, Maxillan soon regained calm and responded naturally to the barrage of attacks.
Clarence suddenly jumped using momentary push, and he was indeed right, Maxillan had used the same spell he had used at the start of the battle. He had most likely used it to disrupt Clarence's momentum as his attacks were getting more and more ferocious.
Taking out the shurikens and dart from his hidden pockets, Clarence kept throwing them at Maxillan to keep him occupied for the time he was in air. He really didn't want Maxillan to take back the hold of the momentum this instance.
Maxillan used the spell once again to make the spikes appear where Clarence could land. By doing so he also lowered his mana reserves to an extremely low point, but he was willing to take a gamble as he wanted to win the tournament no matter what.
If he were to lose here to a rank two despite being a rank three and having a lord rank bloodline, he wouldn't be able to lift his head in front of his peers.
Clarence quickly took out two shurikens and placed them at the bottom of sole at an area where he thought the spike would hit his legs.
As soon as he landed, his balance faltered as the shuriken and spikes were obviously weren't equally angled, but he quickly leaped off to prevent Maxillan from doing anything.
When he landed on ground, Maxillan was already upon him with his spiked gloves way too close to him.
*BLURGH*
Clarence spurted out a mouthful of blood as he couldn't block the attack in time nor did he have time to cast incapacitate.
His stomach pained a hell lot as blood kept rushing to his throat making his appearance look like a bloody mess just from that one attack.
Although it was true that Clarence had a top ranked physique even among demons, by now it was apparent that the teen in front of him from the dragon race held a similar position.
Adding onto the fact that dragons had a talent in physique as well just like demons just made the situation worse for Clarence.
Sensing an attack coming his way, he quickly chanted incapacitate on his outstretched hands and chanted momentary push to quickly get out of the way as Maxillan's hand had already broken through his spell to regain its speed the very next moment.
Clarence couldn't feel the changes which had happened to him earlier. He didn't know if he should curse his luck or not, in the first place, he didn't even know what had caused that change when he was in a desperate situation earlier.
He had a hunch that it might be related to the orb filled with golden blue energy in his mindspace. And if his guess was true, he had a further speculation that the earlier incident where his mana core was refilled and hidden injuries were healed to a certain extent had used up all the golden blue energy available in the orb.
Surprisingly, just as Clarence had guessed, in his mindspace, the orb which used to be filled with golden blue energy was now empty, and the surroundings looked desolate.
In the distance, another orb was floating while being completely still. It was half filled with mana but if one were to look at it closely, you could see a certain point where mana was dyed with an extremely faint purple color.