Fan Fan’s fist slammed the hardwood table. The sharp crack of wooden boards exploding under killing force echoed through the cavernous dining hall.
“The headmaster neatly gathered up all his political rivals, bound us all to unbreakable contracts, goaded the princess into doubling the yearly quotas, and has done everything he can to make sure not one damn cleansing potion actually makes it to this vile outpost in order to break us all! To destroy his enemies, and show us off as an example to anyone who would dare to cross his will. And it worked! Damn it all to hell, his plan was flawless, brilliant, and all our cultivation bases have been utterly destroyed!”
Alex blinked, stunned by the implications of what he was hearing. He quickly cut in before Xiao Shen or the still-fuming adventurers could speak.
“Wait a minute! Are you speaking of Dragon Academy? Not any cultivation school in Baidushi, but the sole remaining one in Yidushi? Are you saying the former headmaster actually traveled all the way to the capital to what, scheme away rights to this nether rift from the local temples and entice the princess into giving farming rights to a city school thousands of miles away?”
A glaring Fan Fan didn’t even bother to respond, just spat at Alex’s feet. “I challenge you, arrogant cur of a Ruidian! We will duel in the central ring. Barehanded, no weapons, bound by Arena rules alone!”
Xiao Shen gasped, looking horrified. “You will do no such thing!”
“Yes I will! I am the keeper of the books, I set the rules of all challenges! Not even the headmaster can take away that right!” Fan Fan turned his glare to Alex, eyes filled with bitter hate. “I will see you dead before I let you touch a single page of a single tome within that library, you pale-faced inbred monkey!”
He sneered at the three ruby gem masters whose flames had sputtered completely out, gazing with wide, frightened eyes when the Rank 2 Bronze finally unleashed his killing aura, his twin intact channels glowing with fiercely-cycled Qi, for the moment blazing with such vitality it hid the decrepit state of his body overall.
At that moment, Alex had no doubt the man’s fists could shatter stone.
As could his own.
An Li whimpered.
Yohan desperately gripped Alex’s forearm. “Please, Master. As strong as you are, you have no idea how fast, how deadly these cultivators are! If it weren’t for the taint, they surely wouldn’t need our help purging these rifts! Rescind your request to access the library, so Xiao Shen can put a stop to this madness!”
But Alex was already on his feet, flashing a wolf-like grin at the hot-eyed cultivator before him. “You would see me dead, then? So we fight as soldiers at war. A Dragon Academy Death Match. No rules, save those we agree upon. No physical weapons, no armor. Other than that, no limits. We fight to the death, with no penalty if we refuse submission. Is that right, Fan Fan?”
Alex heard Xiao Shen’s hiss, sensed the man’s sudden understanding, tasting the surge of Spirit Qi that could only be a flash of insight, a dispassionate part of his mind intrigued to finally sense that eighth element as a facet of thought and consciousness, not direct force.
Most of him, however, was focused intently on the hate-filled eyes of the cultivator before him, staring with hyper focus on his every movement and gesture.
Find Weakness skill check failed!
Alex was doing his best to control his own breathing, his own intense excitement, knowing how easy it should be, having glimpsed the man’s Qi flow almost effortlessly via Soul Sight, just minutes ago.
But the man before him was a trained cultivator, now fully guarded against his foe, and, Alex suspected, had danced this dance many times before. Though Alex would have an edge, thanks to being able to sense the flow of Qi before an attack was made, he now hit a wall of obfuscation that made it impossible to gain a deeper understanding, to sense the weaknesses that no doubt riddled his foe’s defenses.
“He knows of our school. He knows the rules of a death match. You know who this boy has to be.” A surge of thought on the ether Alex somehow heard perfectly. Sensing a voice far more powerful, far colder, than that of anyone he had met so far at this temple. Was his strange sporadic ability to pluck bits of conversation from the air actually his affinity with Spirit Qi flaring up? He truly had no idea. But he didn’t doubt the thought was real, and not a product of his now racing mind.
Yet what truly sent shivers down Alex’s spine were the words he heard next in his mind.
“You despise our master, but still you will obey. You know what you must to do.”
Fan Fan shook his head like a snarling dog, glaring at Alex. “Yes, Ruidian, that’s exactly what I mean! We embrace the war your people first started a thousand years ago, and this time I will finish what should have been ended centuries ago! Your people do not belong in this world, and I will take great pleasure in wringing your life from your mangled corpse!”
Alex’s grin was all teeth, heart roaring so fiercely he barely heard himself speak. “And if I defeat you? I have free access to all the tomes within this sanctuary for as long as we like. Are we agreed?”
“Never!” roared the cultivator. “I will see you dead, first!”
Alex then pulled out his trump card, the entire academy falling silent when he revealed his greater beast core shimmering with secrets and power. “Should you die by my hand, or I accept your surrender, I have free access to all the tomes within this sanctuary for as long as I like. Should I die by your hand, or you accept my surrender, this greater beast core is yours. Are we agreed?”
This alone stopped the furious-looking cultivator cold. He said not a word as Alex heard the furtive whispers floating around the temple.
“He has a greater beast core. He could buy himself the grandest building in the Noble’s Quarter of any city with that!”
“He’s a fool to show it. One of the adventurers will kill him for it for sure.”
“We could all be cured of this cursed affliction if we have that to bargain with, no matter how much the headmaster hates us!”
Alex’s fierce smile only grew. He knew he was being a fool, showing such a prize, but he no longer cared. He was tired of being waylaid, hindered, and sabotaged at every turn. And here, like a bone left before a loyal dog, as if by the kind hand of providence, was an academy in the middle of nowhere, with a library supposedly filled with Silver ranked tomes.
And he’d be damned if he’d let anything get between him and the key to his salvation, no matter who he had to fight, bribe, or kill, to get there.
Fan Fan swallowed, at last jerking a nod. “Agreed. For that prize alone, I will entertain the slightest sliver of a possibility that you might win.” Hot eyes glared at Xiao Shen. “If this fool actually manages to kill me… then I deserved to die.”
Xiao Shen nodded. “Should he actually best you, I will make sure our oath is kept.” He flashed a bitter smile. “Our foundations are too damaged to dare risk pricking Fate’s ire in addition to Headmaster Bingwen’s.”
Fan Fan chuckled coldly. “All the tomes, Xiao Shen. Even the forbidden ones. I’ll keep Fate’s oath tightly to my chest, and I can only hope he chokes on the knowledge within.”
Xiao Shen paled, gaze hardening, no doubt catching the fervent whispers of the pair of adventuring cultivators with no direct ties to this monastery, and less than pleased with secrets revealed. Not that Alex had kept his own secrets any better, blaring before the world the priceless prize he held.
But he no longer cared.
He had been teased and tormented with prizes just out of reach long enough.
And when by some unspoken signal the monks began leaving the dining hall to enter the grand central courtyard and Xiao Shen urged Alex to flee while he still could. Alex just smiled and shook his head, solemnly removing his armaments, keeping them in Xiao Shen’s care, ‘til he was dressed in no more than the fine attire Silver Fox had left him when first he awoke from his millennium-long slumber, before proceeding out to the grand courtyard.
Realizing only then the centermost area, with its stone benches and dip in the ground, served perfectly as an arena, albeit with a magnificent view of the crater-like chasm shrouded in arboreal mist in the distance, along with the sounds of crashing water and the cries of strange creatures below.
Alex then turned all his focus on the cultivator radiating such prickly hate who was slowly approaching him, his formerly hunched frame now glowing with potency and remembered vitality as Fan Fan’s two intact Bronze cords thrummed for battle.
“You know the rules,” Xiao Shen declared aloud. “A greater beast core is being wagered for the right to unlimited library access! The contestants may fight to the death or surrender as they choose, no limitations on attacks or technique, save they fight unarmed and unarmored!”
He then turned, glaring at the adventurers, including Alex’s friends. “And the pair of you, fellow Bronze cultivators, will give your word never to reveal the prizes wagered, or you may leave this instant, pariah to this academy. And you Ruidians… lest you’d blacken the names of your clans forever more in our books, you too will keep silent council, never discussing the events of this day with anyone not present before you now!”
One of the Bronze cultivators scowled, glittering eyes locking on Alex, but gave a grudging nod, as did his companion, the one who had flashed Alex a welcoming smile, seeming genuinely interested in the fight more than anything else. “I’ve always wondered if Ruidians had any body cultivation techniques,” he said aloud. “I guess now we’ll finally see.”
“Enough! The match begins now! Prepare to taste death, Ruidian!” roared Fan Fan, charging forward, gazing at Alex with contempt, charging right into him at full speed, happy to smash right through his guard with a knee bomb and mid-air elbow strike aimed to shatter his temple.
But the furious Fan Fan hit only air as Alex spun to his side, pivoting off his back foot and whipping his leg around to smash into the back of Fan Fan’s knee.
Fan Fan snarled, stumbling for just a heartbeat before turning it into a roll, revealing surprising speed and grace before lurching to his feet once more, now circling Alex a good ten feet away.
“Did you see how fast that Ruidian moved? That should have been a deathblow!” said one voice in the crowd.
“That looked like Golden Realms… or maybe something else,” murmured another. “Faster than any Ruidian I ever saw.”
“Faster than any cultivator who hasn’t broken through to Bronze,” opined another.
“Impossible!”
“Alex, be careful!” An Li’s anxious voice washed over him, which he instantly tuned out, knowing just how deadly distractions could be when his opponent flashed a cold smile.
“Is that your whore, Ruidian? Will she mourn your death when I snap your throat?”
Alex just smiled, letting his opponent’s attempts to goad wash over him, focused only on analyzing the flow of his opponent’s Qi.
When the man abruptly roared and lunged forward, fist crackling with mountainous Earth Qi, Alex was ready.
+3 Rank modifier for sensing your opponent’s Qi Flow! You have successfully redirected Granite Fist! Sweeping Hip Throw sends your opponent off his feet! Your opponent has saved versus Body Slam. Your opponent has successfully twisted free of your grip!
And suddenly the entire crowd was silent save for Fan Fan’s ragged breathing, glaring at Alex as he paced around him once more.
“That Ruidian countered a Qi blow. That’s impossible!”
“More than that, he swept the monk off his feet, slammed him right to the ground! Had that been you or me, we’d be writhing on our backs right now.”
“No. Impossible. No Ruidian can learn to cultivate. I refuse to believe it!” Fan Fan roared, charging forward once more, lashing out with fists and feet in a furious assault unlike Golden Realms or Silver Swan.
And Alex countered every fist with his forearms or by weaving under the blows, shin checking a dozen furious kicks that, much to Alex’s fierce satisfaction, had his foe snarling with pain, not himself, so fiercely had he toughened the strike points of his body with his incessant training reinforced by Eternal Fox technique.
But he did not advance, instead slowly giving ground as his opponent worked himself into a lather, Alex focused only countering his opponent’s every strike, learning all he could.
Until finally his foe landed a telling blow.
Piercing Strike (Spear Hand) has successfully slipped past your guard and struck your trachea! Save versus asphyxiation!
Flashing a bitter dark smile as Alex was jolted out of his confident rhythm, desperately backpedaling for all he was worth, struck by a potentially fatal blow.
Fan Fan chuckled coldly. “Cocky fool. Just because you can fight, you thought you could outfox me? You didn’t think I’d catch on to your rhythm? The way you shift your balance when you try to feint with your parries, the way you slide to your weak side whenever you think to slip past my blows? It was easy setting you up, Ruidian mongrel. And now I will delight in seeing you suffocate before all our eyes!”
Pause in combat detected. You have accessed Power Healing! 0.0125 pounds of flesh healed per second!
But Alex hadn’t been idle in the handful of seconds his opponent had gloated, feeling a rush of healing roaring through his body faster than it ever had before, damaged larynx instantly healing, swelling fading to nothing.
He flashed a cold smile at the cultivator’s stunned gaze. Only then did he realize what his opponent had been doing, when Alex had been busy countering and learning from what he thought were a frenzied cultivator’s blows.
His opponent had been studying him, just as Alex had been studying his opponent. Fan Fan might not have Soul Sight, but battle savvy and experience had allowed him to predict Alex well enough to know just when to unleash his Spear Hand to deadly effect.
“Piercing Strike is an elite military killing technique. You pierced my defenses and I didn’t even see it coming. Your master taught you well.”
His smile grew as the man blanched.
“What, you didn’t realize what you were doing until after the fact?”
Fan Fan jerked a furious headshake. “No. There’s no way you could know what you know! You’re a Ruidian! You’re not one of us. You’re not one of the true people. You’re thieves and backstabbing murderers. All of you!”
His gaze widened with horror as Alex took a deep breath, ignoring the excited murmurs of the crowd gazing at him with such surprise, focused only on the target before him.
Fan Fan’s eyes bulged with disbelief. “I know I struck true. I know I did! You should be on the ground, writhing, suffocating before our eyes!”
Alex coldly bowed at the gloating cultivator. “You’re right. I made the mistake of underestimating you. I was more interested in understanding your technique than I was in killing you. Now I’ll take you seriously.” With those words, Alex truly began to fight.
He darted and dodged forward, lashing out with fists and shins in a blitzkrieg assault, embracing the swirling storm of Light Qi he felt all around him with each roundhouse kick he slammed against his opponent’s ribs and thighs, hardly feeling his foe’s desperate counterstrikes that seemed to touch him not at all.
Alex kept up his merciless pace, fueled by rage and the howling storm of spiritual energy all around him. He happily exchanged blow for savage blow until he finally sensed the moment to finish his furious assault, slamming forward with the same knee bomb and elbow slash his foe had so favored minutes before, only Fan Fan’s battered thighs were now so badly bruised he was unable to dodge aside, crying out when ribs creaked and his left eye socket shattered under the force of Alex’s elbow pounding into the weakest part of the man’s skull.
Remarkably, the roaring cultivator did not stay down, but lurched back to his feet, spitting blood and flailing about with desperate blows as Alex spun to his opponent’s blind side in the blink of an eye.
So dazed and disoriented Fan Fan was that he didn’t even
see the deadly kick now whipping through the air with the force and fury of the roaring sea, shattering the cultivator’s jaw in an explosion of bone and blood as the man spun through the air like a rag doll before crashing to the ground in a pool of his own gore.
Shin kick has successfully struck lower thigh. Crippling blow successful! Your opponent stumbles forward!
Knee bomb has cracked two ribs. Elbow Strike has shattered Zygomatic bone.
Your opponent is stunned!
Spinning Hook Kick shatters opponent’s jaw! Your opponent has fallen!
Your opponent has suffered critical injuries. Your foe has been defeated. His life and endless potential are now your own. Experience earned!
16
“Alex, you have won! The library is open to you! Please, stay your blow!”
Xiao Shen’s oddly powerful words rang through the courtyard. Alex frowned, surprised by the sudden flash of potency he sensed from the man.
The entire audience, now seemingly comprised of all the monks in the entire compound, was frozen with breathless awe at the sight of the Ruidian with his leg raised high over the shattered cultivator now groaning and wheezing for air as he writhed upon the ground in a pool of his own bloody excrement, bladder and bowels voiding in the extremis of his agony.
For one furious hot moment, Alex wanted nothing more than to lash out with his deadliest strike and send this vile, hateful foe to the deepest pits of purgatory.
But that, of course, would be stupid.
He knew it, intellectually. His whole purpose had been to gain access to that which he had desperately needed, not kill the man before him, no matter how much he deserved it. Especially if killing him would antagonize the very monks whose help and guidance Alex would need, perhaps to the point they would hunger for his death as well.
And nothing would reinforce the hateful Ruidian prejudice he was so grateful to have escaped, or thought he had, if he butchered the broken man now so clearly in his power.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior's Oath: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 4 Page 25
