Blood dripped from his chin as a miniature waterfall, his face was as pale as snow, and his breathing was rough as a mountain crumbling under its own weight...
"Incredible! Yang Wu managed to win again!" the female narrator shouted excitedly from a hidden place, "Is he going for another fight with that broken body of his?"
Yang Wu forced a smile, his body wasn't crumbling, it was literally broken. He could feel multiple fractured bones, both on his legs and arms, his "weapons" in the last five battles.
He fought against four enemies with higher cultivation in succession, his strength hit rock bottom.
He looked at his last enemy, it was a female disciple, she was unconscious and with a swollen bloody face.
"Can you continue?" Gu Qing walked to the side of the ring and asked, "The next opponent will be even stronger than the others."
"Stronger?" Yang Wu took a deep breath, he was in no proper state to win another fight, unless he formed his Intent again, but it was a part of his Martial Practice towards the formation of a stronger Intent.
"How much will I gain? I forgot some of the terms of the contract." Yang Wu asked.
Gu Qing laughed hard and said, "Ten times all that you already gained, is it enough?"
Yang Wu calculated in his mind and felt a bit tempted, he could use those gains to buy resources for both his cultivation and martial practice.
"Forget it," Gu Qing suddenly added, "If you win the next time, I will give you fifteen times what you already gained, is it enough!?"
Yang Wu looked at him and asked, "Do you really possess such authority? Aren't you just tricking me?"
"Do I look like such a person?" Gu Qing asked with a serious complexion, but it only made his scary-looking face more sinister, the surroundings didn't help.
"Hahah!" Yang Wu shook his head and felt his blood burning, "Why am I hesitating? Has my heart changed so much!?
"From the beginning, even when I played hero... Didn't it all start with my passion for winning hard battles?"
Gu Qing noticed he was talking to himself and didn't interrupt.
"Fine, call the next loser!" Yang Wu grinned and shouted.
"Did you all hear that? He sure is confident!" All the people in the underground were cultivators with great hearing, so they easily heard what they talked about.
"The rising fighter calls for more blood!" the narrator shouted with an excited voice, "Go forth! Lu Ying!"
Yang Wu was surprised to see the girl that received him before jumping into the ring, she was wearing another robe and carried with her a huge but graceful halberd.
"You..." Yang Wu was a bit surprised, "So that's why I sensed a bit of bloody aura in you before!"
"Heh!" Lu Ying smirked, "I'm a person of few words when battling, so please spare your talk for when you lose."
Yang Wh raised his eyebrow, he felt the girl in front had a very threatening aura, she was much stronger than a disciple in the Eighth Layer.
"Half-Step Foundation Establishment..." Yang Wu calmly judged her strength and sneered, "That Gu Qing fellow, so that's why he increased my potential gains, tricky bastard."
"I'm still here!" Gu Qing snorted at the side of the ring, "Didn't you hear the girl? Spare your talk for when you lose!
Moreover, you know you will lose all your gains if you lose, right? The greater the potential gains, the greater the potential losses!"
"Oh, I seem to have read something like that in that scammy contract," Yang Wu grinned and took his stance, he fitted his eyes on the girl he was going to battle, "So that's another reason why you increased the multiplication to fifteen, you have a talent for scamming people."
"And you have the talent to get scammed!" Gu Qing sneered, not caring about his reputation as much as the money he would gain.
"Yin Ming, Seventh Layer, with a recent streak of five consecutive victories!" the female narrator began to give the final 'battle drums,' "And on the other side, Lu Ying, ou dear Qi Refining Champion!
"Who will win!? Place your bets, you only have one minute until the beginning of the fight!"
Yang Wu, despite having his eyes open, was focusing entirely on his inner self, from the depths of his soul... a shining moon appeared again as if it existed there since immemorial.
Yang Wu felt a surge of an overwhelming feeling, the feeling of controlling everything, it was an illusion brought by the Intent.
Opposite to him, Lu Yin narrowed her eyes, she already sensed a change in her opponent's aura, but it was so vague she couldn't grasp what it was, but she knew what she had to do... Win!
"Five!" the female narrator began the countdown.
"Four!"
"Three!"
"Two!"
At that instant, Yang Wu and Lu Ying entered an ultimate state of battle concentration.
"One!"
Contrary to what the spectators imagined, they didn't attack each other immediately but stood there observing the opponent's every gesture.
Yang Wu observed Lu Ying's eyes, and she observed his. Both of them already mastered something essential when fighting a person, trying to read the opponent's next move without even seeing him move.
It was mysterious, it was completely inside the realm of "intuition," rather than in the Realm of "Superficial Reason." It wasn't something that could be learned without many, many... many fights.
'It's not like me to wait for the opponent to move first,' Yang Wh thought in his heart and smiled, stunning Lu Ying for an extremely brief moment.
Yang Wu used that extremely brief moment she was stunned to make the first move, completely turning her previous effort into waste.
He attacked with a punch, this time using a martial technique, which caused a vortex of air to form around his arm and boost his power.
Lu Ying was pissed off by what happened and blocked the attack with ease with her bare hand.
'Provoking me?' Yang Wu almost laughed, 'You are too tender!'
Yang Wu squatted, narrowingly avoiding the blade of her halberd, which slashed an afterimage of his.
He kicked towards her legs but hit nothing. She had already jumped in the air and was slashing again towards him with her halberd.
'Fast, I can't avoid it!' Yang Wu couldn't help it, he had a lower cultivation, but...
The world suddenly seemed to stop in his eyes, Yang Wu felt his body tearing apart but he supported it and used his Intent beyond his body's limit regardless, he only needed a moment.
His Qi Blood, infused with his Intent, broke free from its suppression and gave him the strength he needed to move in that "paralyzed world," but his movements seemed to carry enormous weight as they were slower than the movements of a snail.
He gently slapped the side of the halberd's blade with one hand and with the other aimed his palm toward Lu Ying.
The "paralyzed world" then returned to its normal flow in his eyes.
All the others could see was how, somehow, Lu Ying's halberd was sent flying away, piercing the barrier and getting stuck into it, and Yang Wu's palm fiercely hitting Lu Ying's solar plexus, but she wasn't sent flying, she stayed still as a statue, absorbing all shock.
Blood began to flow from the corners of her mouth, he eyes lost their luster and she weakly fell on the ground.
'Did I overdo it and kill her?' Yang Wu asked himself while somehow managing to stay straight, his body was feeling like a split mess.
"Well, well..." Yang Wu muttered high enough for everyone in the silent arena to hear, "I guess I was expecting too much from her, but it's my win."
"You.." Gu Qing climbed to the ring and examined Lu Ying, "She is still alive, what a relief."
He then looked at Yang Wu and asked, "How?"
Yang Wu sneered and simply extended his hand and made a gesture clear enough, he wanted his money.
Gu Qing twitched the corners of his mouth and announced, "Yang Wu won the fight, he is the new Qi Refining Champion!"
"Did you hear that!?" the female narrator seemed to have gone crazy with her sharp and high voice, "Yang Wu won! Who is the one to make a fortune this time!?
"Wait! No one else bet on him! So I guess... I am, hahahhahahaha!"
"Damn!" the spectators cursed, but all were somewhat excited with what they watched, they never even heard of something like that happening before!
"Damn, fuck, shit!" Gu Qing spewed three consecutive curses and spat on the ground in rage.
Yang Wu quit the Arena with a broken body and a happy and money-lover expression, his storage ring was full of Qi Stones.
He went back to his master's cave and found no one there. He sat on his cushion and took a few healing pills from his storage ring. He began to shew them as candies.
His Qi Blood was running at full might, using its five elements' energy to dissolve the energy in the pills and turn it into pure healing energy, which was easily absorbed by his body.
His own Qi Blood could speed up healing as well, so it wouldn't be long before his body returned to normal.
He sighed with a complex smile and again dissolved the Moon Intent in his Soul, he slightly repented reshaping it, and felt guilty for not containing his excitement during the fights.
As a Martial Artist, he knew the difficulty of finding the inspiration and enlightenment to form an Intent, each time he reshaped his Moon Intent would waste all his previous efforts.
He concentrated on healing himself and spent a whole day in that state, he exhausted all the healing pills he got from his master in recent days.
When he opened his eyes again, he felt his Martial Practice advanced considerably, his Qi Blood was much denser than before, it was the advantage of going through hard battles... and surviving.
He got up from his place and quit the cave, he had to go to work. Although he wasn't completely healed, he could move without hindrance.
Althought he already went to the orphanage once in the week, it was just him observing, rather than working. That would be his first day truly working there.
At the orphanage, he was greeted by cheerful kids.
"Hey, new uncle, do you have any good thing?" a little girl asked him, with a face full of expectancy.
"Ha," Yang Wu gave a short laugh and gave her a head pat, "I have none, next time I will remember to bring some with me."
The little girl was unhappy but said nothing.
"Are you the new caretaker?" a young woman approached him and asked, "Do you know what has to be done?"
"Yes," Yang Wu nodded, he read the whole book of rules and instructions, he only lacked practice.
"Great, follow me!" she nodded and explained, "The tall kids did a great job destroying a part of the third floor of the main building, we need to clean up their mess.
"We already have some people fixing things, so can you keep the tall kids in check?"
"I will do my best," Yang Wu nodded and asked, "Is it frequent? Kids destroying things..."
"No," the woman shook her head, "But this time they were somewhat excited since many of them will be quitting the orphanage in the next few days."
"I see..." Yang Wu understood, "They sure were eager to compete against each other, I presume."
"Hehehe," the woman laughed and said, "By the way, my name is Du Xing, I'm an inner disciple as you can see, and have been working here for a few years."
"My name is Yang Wu, I just recently became an Inner Disciple, so please pardon me for my clumsiness," Yang Wu smiled and got caught in a conversation while they walked towards the "scene of the crime."
"These were the culprits," Du Xing pointed at four kids, all of whom were male and had swollen faces, "This is their doing."
The wall of the building in that part partially collapsed, giving a view to the outside, many kids pointed at them from there as if seeing a great wonder.
Yang Wu analyzed the four kid's wounds and was sure their swollen faces were done by a cultivator, probably an angry caretaker.
He looked at Du Xing's hands and saw a few bloodstains in the corners of her sleeves.
He laughed in his heart and said, "You four, I'm Yang Wu, I will be leading you to the punishment cave, be prepared!"
"What!?" the four panicked, "I thought we already got punished enough!"
Du Xing coughed and said, "Stop the nonsense and obey him, otherwise..."
The four kids gulped and nodded their heads repeatedly, full of fear.