While Sun Xiaoyan stunned the crowd, Lin Zhengli, awake from his coma, muttered resentfully behind his elder brother.
"Why did you concede for me? If you'd woken me in time, I might still have fought!"
"And then?" Lin Zhengren didn't turn around.
"If not for my carelessness, that savage would never have had a chance. And that boy from Maple City hasn't even founded his foundation! Him taking the title, I won't accept it!"
"Even if you beat him, by points he'd still be first-year champion. Meaningless. Besides..." Lin Zhengren's mouth curved faintly. "What if you lost again?"
"Impossible!" Lin Zhengli glanced around, lowered his voice, indignant: "You don't believe me? I'd lose to him?"
"Who knows?" Lin Zhengren smiled lightly.
Lin Zhengli felt the sting of contempt — especially after being pinned down and beaten in front of everyone.
He was about to speak when Lin Zhengren whirled, grabbing his collar.
"Remember! Your stupidity has already made enemies."
His voice dropped. "If you don't have absolute certainty, don't give your enemy the chance to become complete. He hasn't beaten any of you. His championship is far from perfect."
He released his brother, turned back to the match. His cultured face showed not a trace of gloom.
"Don't complete him."
* * *
The rotation for Maple City was kind; no internal match in the first round. Li Yun drew the bye; Wang Hao fought Sun Xiaoyan first.
Neither man changed his style.
Sun Xiaoyan charged blindly forward. Wang Hao opened with fog.
"What the hell! Fog again!"
"Right! Can't see anything!"
But the crowd's opinion was clearly not on Wang Hao's mind.
Sun Xiaoyan crashed around the fog, catching nothing. When the seals finished, wind rose and fog scattered.
A soft breath passed through the gap in Wang Hao's fingers, and in an instant it was a roaring cyclone, howling through the dispersing mist at Sun Xiaoyan!
"Ahh!" The fat boy bellowed, about as fearsome as a nursing piglet.
But his strength was real. Inside the roaring cyclone, he still tried to charge forward!
His clothes shredded on the wind. His face flushed red.
His feet gripped the ground hard, but the flagstones cracked beneath them, and he was pushed back step by step.
Cross the line, and he lost.
Sun Xiaoyan began sealing — almost impossible in that wind, but he managed. A stone wall rose before him; a breath shredded it.
The stones slammed into his body, and that was the end of control. He was lifted into the air and thrown off the field.
The Kun Drum's defense was indeed monstrous; in that savage cyclone, his body showed not a wound. The stones left no bruise.
But he had still lost.
Against almost anyone at this stage, Sun Xiaoyan's defense was unsolvable. In a true fight, Wang Hao might have had no answer either. But this was a match. Thrown from the ring, you lose.
Jiang Chen sighed inwardly. He had suddenly realized that against either Wang Hao or Sun Xiaoyan, he had no good answer. The Four-Spirit Art's defense was clearly weaker than the Kun Drum. The Violet Dawn Sword Art was sharp — but likely couldn't break through. With a good weapon, maybe. Right now, he couldn't beat the fat boy.
As for Wang Hao: once the Bone-Breath Whirlwind came out, Jiang Chen could only run.
A Jia-rank art! How many people in all of Maple City Academy, instructors included, could cast one?
A freak.
"Wind Sparrow." It was the hunched old man again. "His Dao meridian's true spirit should be a Wind Sparrow — born affinity with wind essence. That's how he can cast a Jia-rank art beyond his rank."
Jiang Chen had never heard of a Wind Sparrow true spirit. In the academy's lessons on Dao meridians, the instructors only ever described the Earthworm true spirit. He had once believed all true spirits were earthworms.
Knowledge spoke to strength.
Jiang Chen and the others exchanged a look, and treated the lewd-faced old man with markedly more respect.
"May we ask your name, elder?" Huang Azhan coughed, suddenly courteous and polished.
The old man, still holding a grudge over Huang Azhan's earlier mouth, snorted coldly and said nothing.
"Grandpa, what's your surname?" An'an suddenly turned, eyes wide with curiosity. "I see you everywhere, but I never know what to call you."
"Gui—" Qingzhi next to her opened her mouth, but the old man had already answered with a beaming smile: "Gui. Grandpa Gui. Call me Grandpa Gui."
"That's a noble surname." Huang Azhan began savoring it, shaking his head. The flattery would now flow without end.
Even An'an and Qingzhi quickly turned away, eyes back on the field.
The second round had begun.
Wang Hao against Li Yun.
By ranking on the Dao Merit List, and by everything shown in this trial, Wang Hao held crushing dominance. But Jiang Chen felt, somehow, that Li Yun was more than he showed.
"Senior Brother Wang, could we not use that shameless Bone-Breath Whirlwind?" Li Yun tried to negotiate before the match.
Wang Hao, his Dao essence restored, full and fresh, smiled gently. "The junior brother jokes."
As always, mild.
His seals completed; fog spread.
At that exact moment, Li Yun threw both arms wide, and a gale rose.
Calling Wind — a low-grade Bing-rank art.
This was not the ghost mist of Little Grove Town; ordinary wind could scatter it.
After all, fog was no unsolvable art. The unsolvable thing was the Whirlwind itself. In the two previous matches, opponents hadn't lacked ways to break the fog — they'd simply chosen defense first, and paid for it with one blow.
In the clearing field, Wang Hao sealed without pause, voice gentle: "Junior Brother Li was never interested in wind arts before."
The world of arts was vast; breadth lost to depth, miscellany to mastery.
Li Yun's seals finished. He flung out two blades of fire, tapped his foot, and rose like an eagle striking the sky.
"I learned them for you, Senior Brother!"
Wang Hao's expression didn't change. He brought his hands to his lips — forefinger and middle finger joined, thumb, ring finger, and little finger pressed together — and breathed into the triangle they formed.
Bone-Breath Whirlwind!
The breath became a cyclone in an instant. Li Yun had already closed in, and with no footing to speak of, he flipped backward through the air, once, twice, thrice.
"Beautiful!" Huang Azhan slapped his thigh.
Except in rare cases, before opening the Gate of Heaven and Earth, humans could hardly fly. Li Yun's mid-air acrobatics were astonishing.
But everyone stared at Huang Azhan like he was the fool. He clapped a few times, then shrank away, embarrassed.
Because Li Yun's aerial flips, spectacular as they were, had carried him out of the ring. That was nearly a surrender.
Li Yun landed, dismissing his twin flame blades, face full of shock. "Your Whirlwind... you can complete it that fast?"
No wonder he was stunned. Any sharp-eyed cultivator could see it: the only chance to beat Wang Hao was before the Whirlwind finished. But no one knew he commanded a Jia-rank art with such mastery, such speed, that he had shortened the seal time itself!
Which meant he had never needed that long preparation in earlier matches. The fog was a flimsy veil — for eyes like Li Yun's.
"Any slower, and I'd feel something going wrong," Wang Hao said, smiling gently.
Li Yun was silent for a long moment. Then he smiled, let it go.
"I lose."
The third-year championship was decided. Wang Hao, two wins, went home in glory.
And from this battle, Wang Hao earned a new nickname: One-Blow Wang.
Whatever the opponent, one blow settles it. Though it also meant he only had one blow in him.
As Huang Azhan put it: short, but mighty.
The match between Li Yun and Sun Xiaoyan could change nothing now; both went through the motions.
To the townsfolk it still looked fierce: Li Yun displayed the fury of fire arts to perfection, seals flying. Sun Xiaoyan crashed about on the Kun Drum. But before close combat could begin, Li Yun drifted across the line and conceded again.
In Jiang Chen's eyes, Li Yun hadn't fought at full strength. The plain old sword at his waist never left its sheath.
The contestants cleared the field for the fifth-year matches.
As a familiar junior, Jiang Chen went to console Li Yun.
But Li Yun spoke first. "I'd prepared a surprise. Didn't get to perform it."
Jiang Chen knew he meant Wang Hao's terrifying Whirlwind speed.
"Why didn't you try it against the Three Mountain boy?"
The earlier match had looked dazzling, but anyone with eyes saw that Li Yun never meant to win.
Li Yun smiled, wry. "One: I might not break that defense art of his. Two: second and third are meaningless."
He turned and walked out.
"The match is starting!" Jiang Chen called after him.
Li Yun, hand on his sword, walked away. "Not watching."