Jue Zhu nodded. "I actually first met the Head Instructor back when I won the first piece. He told me about the Zodiac Legacies, and about one of the races of Sacred Beast in particular—the Iron Oxen.
Remember from the lesson, how it was said that over time, human cultivators started to think worse and worse of the Sacred Beasts? Well apparently, some of the Sacred Beasts took it in stride, and some...didn't. The Iron Oxen were once great friends to human cultivators, and they took the shift in attitudes as a betrayal of that friendship. Only those who bear a Jade Ox Medal—of which there are very few in all the Mortal Heaven—can approach where they seclude themselves and live.
The medals were entrusted to a small number of cultivator lines who the Oxen trusted to pass to those who are capable and willing to rise to the challenge of the Zodiac Ox Temple. The Headmaster of the Academy was one, and he set a series of tests in the Academy's summer hunting grounds, one for each year, to find someone capable enough.
I'm apparently the first one who's gotten this far. After I got the second piece, the Head Instructor told me that to get the third, and the last, I'll need 'at least some of my year-mates backing me up' in his words. So it really was important that I tell you this.
I'm not going to out-and-out ask anyone to help right now, of course—we have a whole school year ahead of us. But I'm sure at least some of us are already planning to look deeper into the Zodiac Legacies, so at least this is information I can give right now."
I decided now was the time to put my own two cents in. "More information is exactly what we need. Possibly there will be more classes on the subject, or maybe there are research materials available to Inner Court students. Heck, we could really use info on the destination this summer to make a decision like that."
"Yeah, let's come back to this some other time," said Jong, "though you definitely deserve congratulations for being the first of us to get such a solid lead, Jue Zhu."
"Agreed," said Mei, "if you'll all excuse me, I have business at the Inner Court Treasury."
"I, ah, have my own practice to get back to too..." said Wang Jing.
As I joined the others heading out of the dorm hall, Quan called out to me. "Hey, Zuhui!"
I turned to face him. "You want something with me?"
Senyu Quan nodded. "We've both come a long way, in two years. I've finally started to get a real handle on this cultivation stuff and caught up to your base level, while you've refined your skill a lot, and your anticipation even more. The question of which of us is stronger still hasn't been answered."
"Oh?" I did my best not to seem nervous. "Are you getting at what I think you're getting at?"
"Probably. I think it's time we had an official challenge match. Now that we're in the 3rd year, we can do that. I'll set it for a week from today when I go make it official."
Apparently, Quan had been doing his own kind of research. I went to the staff building to ask, and got told that official challenge matches for the "junior" and "senior" years was indeed a thing. Such challenges were mandatory to answer, but a student had to be within 5 ranks of the one they challenged. If a student challenged a higher-ranked one and lost, they couldn't challenge them again for at least 100 days. No challenges could be made over the summer, so a higher-ranked student would only have to fend off the same challenger about twice a year at most.
I figured Quan didn't care about raising his actual rank too much anyway—he just wanted to see if he could beat me now that we were on a more even footing in stats.
Not to mention all our training matches had been exciting to watch, and admittedly by now I enjoyed having him as my opponent. As the date approached it looked like most of the year-mates and even some of the seniors were going to turn out to watch.
As we both expected, Quan was indeed a lot harder to deal with now that we were equal in strength and speed. However, he hadn't refined his technique very much, making it more of the same brutality. Just because his style was brutal didn't make it any less difficult than before, but I had anticipated this day coming and so had trained specifically to counter brutal styles to the point that Shokoya was probably gaining ground on me with his more deceptive one, though now he was the one slightly behind in cultivation base.
As Quan had alluded to when he told me about the challenge, the past two years had done wonders for my overall skill. Even when I'd gained a temporary slot in Impact Comet, a top-level gaming studio guild, having been scouted for my wilderness survival expertise due to a new game heavily emphasizing spending entire days or weeks away from towns, I'd made more money each month with them than in a year with my usual studio, but they'd never given me even close to such quality comprehensive combat instruction as the Academy had.
From the start, I didn't even bother trying to get distance to use my bow. By now, Quan was probably even better than Jong at keeping his opponent from escaping from melee range. Instead, I focused on redirecting the larger amount of force Quan's weapon brought with each swing, trying to create an opening. For quite a while, we fought totally evenly, neither of us giving ground—well, that wasn't quite true. Very, very slowly, I was being pushed back, simply as a consequence of Quan's greater size and weight. However, it was Quan with a frustrated look on his face. He knew that the longer a fight with me went on, the more likely I would be able to analyze his fighting style enough to adapt and counter it.
He was right. In a flash, I parried the latest swing of his mace at a very precise angle and timing that shoved his arm aside, and struck him in the throat. He staggered back for two steps.
Since this was an official Inner Court ranking match, it wasn't ended at a "lethal touch", and wasn't fought with training weapons either—hence why Quan's mace was so dang heavy. This fight wasn't going to end until one of us was on the ground. We were both strong enough now as cultivators that even under such circumstances, what I'd done would only leave a bruise. Of course, that reckoned without my follow-through. As he staggered, I advanced, landing another hit to his chest, then, as he desperately began to force his guard back up, one more just above the elbow of his right arm as I began to back off. I nearly paid for that one, getting out of his reach once again with less than an inch to spare.
Even if he didn't actually have a Resilience talent, Quan had a large capacity for taking punishment. After my "first blood," chances to strike at him again came more frequently, but he still lasted long enough for me to start to get tired. By then, though, he was hurting enough that he had slowed down a lot more than me. A little longer, and I managed to put a lot more force in a strike to his gut than I'd yet managed. He doubled over, and fell to his knees.
"Will you still attempt to fight?" The instructor overseeing us approached Quan, checking on him.
"Nah...I'm done."
He turned to the onlookers. "Xu Zuhui is the victor. The Inner Court ranks will remain unchanged."