Two youths, a 14-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl, stood on opposite sides of the arena. One wore combat gauntlets, and one was standing there with empty hands.
Ying thought he was going to win with her effortlessly. His current enemy had to use her ability in her previous fight unlike himself.
The fight started soon and progressed quickly. Everone felt it was the most exciting match today. In a brief moment, they exchanged tens of attacks. Punches and kicks were flying everywhere.
To Ying's surprise, he had no advantage, even while using his gauntlets. After noticing it, he decided to be more aggressive and close distance to her. The moment he got close to her, a sudden change happened in their momentum. As he was ready to unleash one of his skills, his enemy bursted with never-before-seen swiftness. Before he could do anything, she was already holding a small dagger that she took out of nowhere near his neck.
Everything was silent for a few seconds before the crowd erupted in cheers while some even stood up. Ying was standing there stunned, still ready to unleash his ability, but his head was empty except for the innocent smile of a girl who potentially could take his life at any moment.
After that, the elder standing nearby came to the stage and announced Charlotte as the winner. Soon, every participant was invited on stage, and rewards were distributed to the top three.
The third place took the tall girl who lost to Ying, her reward was first-tier breakthrough pill.
The second place was taken by Ying, and because of his unique situation with cultivation, his reward was postponed. After awarding ceremony he would need to go to the secretary's office to get it.
The first place holder was Charlotte, who got a remarkable reward, which was a shock to everyone there, including Aaran. The prize she got was an invitation from the Royal Family for the banquet. No one really knew how to react to such a prize. Getting one pill or weapon might be helpful in the short term, but the possible connection with the royal family will last as long as the human kingdom is intact.
During that whole situation, Ying stood with his head down, full of shame, sometimes just glancing in the direction of his friend.
When Aaran saw that, he only shook his head.
'There is no shame in losing to someone trained from the young. She's one of the rare noble seeds that went above and beyond in her practice.'
After everything ended and everyone slowly dispersed, Aaran caught up to the still ashamed Ying and told him to come to the clearing after getting his reward from school.
...
Around half an hour later, Ying finally showed up at their usual place when he found Aaran doing his daily tasks.
"How are you feeling about your today's matches?" Asked Aaran
Ying contemplated his matches for a few minutes in silence before answering.
"In the first two fights, my enemies didn't use their abilities and lacked experience, so it was rather easy."
Aaran nodded approvingly.
'And they didn't have your combat talent.'
"So tell me, why did you strike the throat of your first opponent?"
Ying awkwardly scratched as he said.
"Well, it was my first fight, and you were watching, and the position was right, so it just happened."
Aaran shaked his head
'So you just wanted to show off,' but he didn't point it out.
"Yes, as you know, you almost killed one of your schoolmates, and because of that, you are going to train under me so you won't almost kill anyone by mistake again."
Ying was ashamed but couldn't hide the excitement and hope in his eyes.
"So what happened in the last round then?"
Ying answered without hesitation.
"She was beautiful."
Aaran was totally caught off guard.
'How it changed from having a blade at your throat to having a crush in a few minutes. Are you a masochist or something? Wait, he wouldn't be so insistent on our spars because he likes to be beaten up, right?'
"I was asking about the fight." Clarified Aaran
A little embarrassed, Ying continued his answer.
"I already knew one of her abilities. It makes her hands as strong as stone so I had only been careful about it. After getting close enough, I wanted to use my own ability to surprise her."
"Look at you. You just found your crush and already want to beat her?" Aaran teased playfully.
But Ying instantly answered in complete seriousness, "There is no place for beauty on the battlefield."
"That's the Correct answer, but your first thought about that fight was her look, wasn't it?" Aaran berated.
"But in all seriousness, it wasn't her skill. It's one of the Royal family's martial arts that they found in ruins, but is not popular because of its specific training requirements."
"As expected from noble family hier. You know so much!" Nodded Ying
'I don't think most nobles would recognize it, but whatever.' Aaran decided not to drown his not-so-bright friend with too much information.
"But how did she get that martial art?"
Aaran shrugged. "Did you already forget about the reward for first place?"
Realization dawned on Ying.
"So it was set up!"
Aaran flicked his friend's forehead.
"What setup? They had a promising seed and gave a fair reward in the tournament. If you were better, it would be yours to take. Right, what did you get as a reward then?"
Seeing Aaran finally asking for his reward, Ying proudly took fifteen slightly glittering pearl-sized crystals out of his pocket.
"Fifteen Essence crystals!"
Even for someone in the Gate opening realm, it would be a small fortune.
"They are really generous this year."
One tempering stage pill costs ground four essence crystals, so this year's second place was worth more than three times the previous year's first-place reward!
'I just hope our economy becomes this good' thought Aaran with a frown.
"Anyway, we digress. Let's get back to today's performance. Your battle talent is amazing, but you lack experience, which results in a lack of battle awareness. That is what we are going to focus on next. There are smaller problems, but that's our main concern for now. Do you have any questions?"
Ying hesitated briefly before asking a question that had bothered him since they met today.
"Why are you so good at teaching? Even teachers couldn't teach me that much in such a short period compared to what our spars did."
"I'm just talented at teaching, probably. Also, I will be busy the last two days before school starts again, so rest well. "
...
Two days later, Aaran came again to the indoor school gym. He quickly found a free room with the help of the same lazy instructor.
'Ah, today is finally the day I can breakthrough. It was still a day sooner than expected. What a nice surprise, ' Thought Aaran happily, fully satisfied with his recent progress.
After filling oneself with Essence in the saturation realm, one must sufficiently condense all that Essence at one point so it can explode and thus evolve into an abode, essentially making one the Abode tempering cultivator. It was straightforward but could take a long time if one's senses weren't tempered enough in the first minor realm.
Soon, Aaran was already cultivating with his technique, fully focusing on comprising Essence.
boom
Fifteen minutes later, a barely audible sound could be heard from within Aaran. At this point, he had already succeeded. But before he could do anything else, Sanskrit's senses were triggered, and in the next moment, he was standing in a void. Before him was a massive humanoid shadow that levitated and moved mystical symbols through the void as though reading them.
In the next instant, the gigantic entity turned its head toward Aaran. Even without a face, one could feel the smile on the shadow's face. After that, the shadow moved its limb, summoning Aaran closer to its head and in front of symbols as if inviting him to read together.
'That's almost like a library, right? Just a little bit high-end,' although Aaran joked in his mind, his face already turned towards symbols and absorbing knowledge from them. Instinctively, he knew he wasn't in any danger, so there weren't any distractions.
Unlike the knowledge he was acquiring on a daily basis, these "books" involved pure historical events. The more he "read," the more astonished he was. They were records of his previous lives!
'If it's my history, then there should be a reason why I'm impacted so heavily by my past, right?'
And so, one massive shadow and one tiny human read together through mystical symbols somewhere in a void without any care about anything else.
...
Huff
After exhaling heavily, Aaran opened his eyes slowly.
'I found who the nine people kneeling were in my previous dream, so I can assume I was the one who was preaching. I basically preached for myself in the future, which is kinda funny. I couldn't find out who or what that shadow was which is such a shame. It was such an excellent reading companion. But the real problem is I didn't find any information about what went wrong with my Last Rebirth. Nothing, not even a clue.'
Aaran could feel the anger building in him with every thought about this failure—the anger of a researcher so close to finding a solution but still just a step away!
"Ugh, it's so frustrating."
Huff
After exhaling deeply Aaran decided to clear his mind.
'Let's just go on a walk and think slowly about everything I learned. It's not like the world is ending anyway.'