She had almost refilled her chi before the next match was called. After this quarter-final match she would have fifteen minutes to replenish her chi. That way the main event wouldn’t have two depleted fighters competing. This round, however, was happening only five minutes after the first, so she didn’t have enough time to completely recover.

  When she entered the field she saw that she was facing a middle aged man. While the recruits to the sect all had to have a talent of at least Foundation to be accepted, the children of members automatically became members at birth, and therefore weren’t required to meet any particular standard. Thus, people like this man, who only had Gathering potential, would usually get stuck at Outer Disciple for his entire life. Most of them wouldn’t join a contest like this, as it was generally thought of as something for the younger members, but there weren’t any rules against it.

  This man had been a member of the city guard for over thirty years and had even won this contest several times over the years, though he was never able to maintain that position two years in a row. “Kril,” the audience began to cheer, as he was quite a popular member of the guard and had even risen to the commander of the outer city guards a few years ago.

  Once the cheers started to die down the field master made sure that both contestants were ready and started the fight. Shen raised her sword to block his strike only to be knocked back by several meters. Not only were his skills with a sword superior to hers, but he was using a mid grade Metal flying sword worth two hundred and fifty points compared to her low grade sword. If she tried to fly away he would have several times her speed, and due to his sword’s Metal attribute, his own affinity for metal chi, and his greater strength, he could do far more damage than she could with a sword. It was only the fact that both of them were at the peak of Gathering and her constant use of Release that allowed her to have a chance against him in combat.

  Seeing that she was getting close to the edge of the field she ducked and rolled, bringing the pommel of her sword up to hit his knee cap. He screamed in pain and swung downwards, hitting her on the back with his full strength. She managed to activate Dragon Scales in time but was sent rolling fifteen meters away before coming to a stop. She stood up as he walked towards her, though struggled to do so with the pain in her back. Even with the Dragon Scales she would have a nasty bruise, though thankfully he hadn’t also used Release. If he had done so, or she didn’t activate Dragon Scales in time, she likely wouldn’t still be alive.

  “You know, little lady, you’re pretty tough. Reminds me of my daughter.” He picked up the sword Shen had dropped when she was struck and noticed that it was bent in several places and severally nicked. “Your blade really wasn’t designed for this level of abuse.” He looked at his own blade and noticed that it was unharmed. “I’ll tell you what. How about we stop using weapons. After all, all you have left is that wooden sword, at it won’t do anything against me.” After making this statement he threw both of their swords out of the ring. “Should be a fairer fight that way. After all, I heard you are better at hand to hand anyway.”

  “Who told you that?” asked Shen, breathing heavily in an attempt to draw in as much chi as possible in the next few seconds.

  “My grandson over there.” He pointed to the boy she had knocked out of the ring in the first round. “He asked around about you after you beat him so easily. You know, if you want to join the guard, there’s always an opening for you, especially since you made it this far.”

  “Thanks, but I like making relics.” she responded and he nodded. After saying so she raised her hands like she was ready to fight.

  “Fair enough.” he said, and ran at her. They swung at the same time but she managed to get inside his reach at the last moment, getting hit it the side of the head by his forearm instead of his fist. Dragon Scales was able to handle that without her becoming injured. Her blow, however, landed in the middle of his stomach. While his abdominal muscles were tough enough to block a normal punch, she had used Release at the last second, causing her fist to hit harder than normal. This stunned him for a split second, allowing her to rapidly add four more punches to his stomach before he jumped backwards to avoid her.

  “Ouch. That’s gonna leave a bruise.” he said, rubbing his stomach.

  “Your sword did worse to my back.” Shen responded. He nodded and ran at her again. This time she slid sideways on her knees at the last moment and spun around, hitting the back of his knee. This caused him to trip and fall over, at which point she started beating his face in with her fists, using Release to get through his natural defenses.

  A few seconds later the field master stopped her and checked Kril’s pulse. “He’s still alive, but he’s not getting up for at least a few minutes. Winner, Shen.”

  This time the crowd cheered even louder than before, though some of them were cheering for her unconscious opponent as well. Shen didn’t mind. If he had held onto his sword, the fighting style he was better with, there’s no way she would have won. She would have to thank him later.

  After catching her breath again after the rage-fueled attack she left the stage. She would only have fifteen minutes plus however long her next opponent took, so she needed to recover her energy as quickly as possible. When she reentered the waiting area she sat down to start cultivating but Mae ran over. Apparently she had already returned from the clinic.

  “Do you mind if I check where the sword hit you?” Shen shook her head and Mae lifted the back of her shirt. “Oh, that’s going to be painful for the next few days, but it doesn’t seem you have any broken bones and it didn’t break the skin.” She reached into a bag on her waist and handed Shen a pill. “Here, Shen. I made these a few days ago. They’re only really good for bruises and pain, but thankfully that’s all you have. I was afraid Kril had caused serious damage. I’ve heard he can decapitate monsters with a swing, after all. I assume you used your secret ability?”

  Shen nodded. “Yeah. I thought it would block more, but…”

  “It might protect up to your level, but even it can be overpowered with enough chi or brute strength. If you’re going to make a habit out of fighting you should get some armor too.”

  Shen nodded. “I will. I’ve just never needed it before.”

  Mae nodded and stood up so that Shen could meditate, heading over to where they had loaded Kril onto a stretcher. He was the second guy she had put through a concussion test today. Hopefully both would be okay.

  She heard the crowd cheering outside and knew that the last match had ended quickly, leaving her with only fifteen minutes. Without delay she started bringing in chi as fast as she could, not caring about its elements or purity. Normally one wouldn’t do this, as the imbalance could cause health problems, but due to elemental relic creation depleting her of every element she was better than most at handling such imbalances. Hopefully she wouldn’t regret this.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  She managed to refill all of her chi with low quality chi of all five elements, but only had a minute to purify it before the field master called the two fighters onto the field. She would have to fight with only the elemental energy she could make on the fly, or stick to non-elemental abilities. She opened her eyes and walked out onto the field, seeing that her opponent was already there. “Danka?” she asked and he smiled.

  “Surprised I made it to the final round?” he asked.

  “Kind of. I knew you were good with a sword, but…” She then remembered that her sword was laying broken beside the field. She might be able to use her wooden sword to parry a few blows, but if it took a direct hit it would be cut in half.

  “Yeah, it’s a shame what happened to your sword, but we can’t really change that now.”

  Shen nodded and drew the wooden sword. It was better than going into a sword fight unarmed, at least.

  Seeing that they were both ready the field master started the final match. They ran at each other and met in the middle, Danka swinging a few wild blows her to test her abilities. She parried most of them, but as he started to actually try she was force to start dodging, as her blade couldn’t properly parry one made of steel.

  Eventually she had to start retreating to avoid getting hit. She had to avoid falling out of the ring by rolling sideways multiple times. No matter what she did she couldn’t seem to get an attack in. His skill with a sword was just that much greater than hers. After a few minutes of backpedaling she raised her sword to block a blow and he angled it so that his sword would dig into hers, pulling the blade out of her hand and throwing it across the field. She had no choice but to fall back onto her hand to hand skills.

  She lunged at him and managed to land a blow to his face. He stumbled backwards and drew his sword close to him, using the flat of the blade to parry her punches and kicks, even jumping occasionally to avoid getting kicked in the legs. This only kept him busy for a few minutes though, as eventually she started to run out of chi. Every one of her blows had been enhanced by Release and, while she had been pushing him back with every blow, sometimes by several meters, he had managed to endure it simply because his medium quality non-relic sword was durable enough.

  Upon noticing that her knuckles were starting to bleed Danka counterattacked with the strongest blow he could manage. Though she parried the blow with her arms, when she stopped sliding fifteen meters away, one of them hung uslessly at her side at an odd angle. He was certain that he had broken it. “You lost, Shen.” he said. “Surrender and I won’t have to use my trump card.” While he was almost full of chi his arms were hurting from swing the sword so much and so rapidly. He had not trained to block in that manner before, and his arms were angry at him because of that.

  Shen shook her head. “Knock me out of the ring if you think you can.”

  Danka sighed and, seeing that no one was behind her, closed his eyes. Shen wondered what he was doing for about a second before realizing that she had seen him do this before. Strange chi gathered around his blade, but this time it was far stronger and far more intact.

  Shen looked around desperately for some way to stop it and found her wooden sword a few meters away. She ran over to grab it, then held it in front of her, flat side towards him to block as much of the attack as possible.

  “Distant Slash!” Danka called out and swung his sword. A wave of yellow energy left the blade and flew at Shen, looking like a larger version of the blue ice blades Ponma had used.

  Shen caught the slash on the flat of the blade and, for a few seconds, it looked like the attack would be blocked. Then she saw that wooden sword start to be cut in half and put all of here energy into Dragon Scales on her chest. A second later the sword broke in half and the wave slammed into her, throwing her twenty meters backwards before it dissipated. She hit the ground hard and the medical team ran over to quickly check on her. There was a bloody but shallow cut across her chest that had torn her shirt open, but where the wooden sword had been it had only managed to bruise her.

  Danka was declared the winner and the crowd started to cheer as Mae loaded her onto a stretcher to be rushed to the nearby clinic.

  ---

  Shen woke up the next day. Apparently she had hit her head when she was thrown from the ring and been knocked out, but they had managed to heal her. They were even certain that the scar on her chest would go away once it healed, though that would take a few days, unlike the bruise on her back which was already healed.

  They gave her a new uniform shirt and she got out of bed. “Unfortunately, I was ordered to give you something when you woke up.” the healer said, and handed her a letter. According to it, she was being summoned to speak with one of the elders.

  Why would she need to speak with an elder?, she wondered as she made her way to the inner city. Was she being punished? Surely not. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Was her business with the Water Blossoms against some rule? She didn’t think so. Or did they find out that she had been visiting the dragons? She was certain that it wasn’t a rule violation, and that it was merely taboo because the dragons didn’t like dealing with humans. But what if there was a rule?

  Ten minutes later she found herself at the Elder’s office. She went inside and showed the letter to his assistant, and the woman asked her to wait there as she notified the elder. Shen sat there nervously, trying to meditate but being unable to do so for several minutes, until the assistant came back to the front and informed Shen that he was ready to see her.

  She followed the assistant to the back office where the Elder was waiting. Once she was in the office the man motioned for her to take a seat and the assistant offered her a glass of tea. After accepting the tea they both thanked the assistant and she left.

  “Now, down to business. I am the Elder that is in charge of diplomacy for the sect. Do you know what diplomacy is?”

  “You are in charge of making sure the other sects and kingdoms in the area like us?” she asked.

  The man nodded. “Close enough. And unfortunately yesterday I got a rather unusual request from a powerful nearby city-state. Lord Caliasara Nematari of the Water Dragon Village has asked for your hand in marriage. Now, this isn’t unheard of, but it is usually the children of elders that are requested for political marriages, and usually for the children of foreign dignitaries. So not only is a recent recruit being requested, which is strange, but a much older and more powerful man is making the marriage request, so it can’t even be that he is interested in your strength. Can you explain any of this to me?”

  Shen was in shock. “Why would Mr. Cal want to marry me?” she asked. “Besides the fact that I’m too young, he’s like eight hundred years old.”

  The elder shook his head. “I don’t know. We can start with the fact that you called him Mr. Cal instead of by his name. Do you know him?”

  Shen considered lying for a few seconds before nodding her head. “I’m friends with his daughter. Of course she’s like seventy three or something, but she’s more like a seventeen year old.”

  The elder nodded. “I see, and I take it that you’ve met him before. Maybe several times.”

  Shen nodded again, and decided to tell him the whole story. “I’ve been going to the Water Dragon Village for the last three years to receive training. I’ve even spared with them hundreds of times. Well, his second nephew or something like that. His name is Do, and he’s thirty five, but is basically a twelve year old boy. I also trade with them some. I’ve been paying the kids in Fisher to pickle Water Blossoms for me, and sell them to the villagers.”

  “Yes, we’ve heard about your business. Impressive that you managed to make a successful business out of something we thought was worthless, though we only knew you were selling them to the Caravan, not the Dragons. Though I suppose Water Dragons would have a sweet tooth for those flowers.”

  “They are basically candy to them.” Shen agreed. “Still, nothing in that makes me think that he would be interested in me. At least not like that.”

  The Elder nodded. “Well, because you are so young, we have one option. Within the sect we don’t allow anyone under the age of fifteen to get married. I hear your fourteenth birthday is in two and a half months, so you have a bit over one year before we have to send you away.”

  Shen was shocked by how they had already agreed. “Don’t I get a say in this?”

  “Not while you are a member of the sect. Especially as an outer disciple. We might be able to try to negotiate for an inner disciple, and would almost certainly refuse for an elder under normal circumstances, but you have to understand that this is a dragon we are talking about. A Nascent Soul level dragon. Only Master Xing would have any chance against him in battle, and that’s if he comes alone. If he brings anyone else, we’ll only be able to hide behind the city’s shield for so long before he breaks it and either takes you away or destroys us all. As much as I hate forcing young people into marriage like this, I don’t really have a choice.”

  Shen nodded her head and sat there for a few minutes. Then she realized something. “If I can reach Foundation before my fifteenth birthday, I’ll become an inner disciple, right?”

  “Yes, anyone that reaches Foundation is promoted to inner disciple, and anyone that reaches Nascent Soul is promoted to Elder. Though there are other ways to earn such a promotion. Unfortunately, with the threat we are facing, the other elders and I won’t be willing to do much more than buy you more time. If he insists, we will have to hand you over.”

  Shen nodded. “Then I’ll have to break through soon, then convince him to call this off.”

  The elder sighed. “Unfortunately, that is the only option I could think of as well.”

  With that, Shen thanked the elder and left. If the three of them were still here at the festival, she would have to find them and try to straighten this whole thing out. If not, then she had one year and two and a half months to fix the situation or she would be stuck with someone she didn’t like for at least the next two hundred years.