Chapter 296 Inner Disciple Tournament
Alex was clueless again. He just absorbed the Spiritual Energy inside the room.
In just three hours, Alex felt that he would be able to breakthrough. But suddenly, he felt the energy had been sucked dry. He opened his eyes in surprise.
"..." He was speechless. Usually, there would be Sherry who did that, but he didn't bring anyone to this place.
He sighed. Bringing someone was wrong, but not bringing someone was frustrating. Alex shook his head as he walked toward the door.
But, just when he was about to open the door, he suddenly remembered the last time he opened this door when he got a perfect score. Alex froze.
If he opened this door, the problem might come again to him. He remembered when Abram tried to make a problem for him.
Alex unconsciously retreated a few steps. He took a deep breath and made a pink array. It was the fastest and safest escape route for him.
"Teleportation Array."
He immediately teleported a few hundred meters away from the battle tower. After that, he just flew toward his house. Alex didn't care about Sect Points anymore as it had no use to him.
The people in front of the battle tower were waiting for him, including those who were curious about him. But they were not able to spot him as he already left that place.
After coming back, Alex just cultivated as usual. He also trained his Sword and Spear as he was curious about the thing that happened inside the battle tower. Alex wanted to recreate that but to no avail. He was wondering what thing he had missed.
He was a peak 7-Star Martial Grandmaster, and he felt he could have a breakthrough in the tournament.
…
A few days later, the tournament finally arrived. Song Yu visited his house with Evelyn and Putri. He looked at Putri, who seemed to be ready to fight even him. He felt her wind element became far stronger than previously.
But, he saw something wrong when he saw her with his Spirit Eyes. Alex could see a tiny black spot on her heart. It was never there before, so this sudden appearance for this small black spot confused him.
He tried to focus his eye on the black spot, but the other suddenly got shocked by it. In their eyes, Alex was observing Putri's b.r.e.a.s.t. Putri immediately covered her chest with her hand and called him.
"Alex."
Song Yu waved her hand in front of his eyes, and finally, Alex snapped back.
"Alex, what do you see?" Song Yu narrowed her eyes.
"Ah…" Alex finally realized what he did before. It was rude of him to stare at Putri's like that.
"Big Brother Alex has been corrupted?" Evelyn said with an expression that looked like she wanted to cry.
Alex shook his head. "I am sorry for that. But, Senior Sister, have you done anything weird recently?"
Seeing Alex's serious face, she decided not to say anything about that. Putri then thought for a bit and shook her head. She only used her time to practice these days.
"Is there something wrong? I only practiced these days."
"Hmm… I am not sure." Alex shook his head. It was the first time he saw something like that. But after he remembered about Zwaka's, he thought Putri must have this after she practiced a Martial Art or consume that wind whatever gem.
He didn't have any doubt about Zwaka, so he thought this black spot must be something good.
"Let's go."
They flew toward the arena.
The arena was truly bustling with people. Even the core disciple seemed going to watch them. Well, it was truly different from the outer disciple ranking competition. After all, the winner of this tournament might become their rival sooner or later.
Song Yu led them to a fancy room. When they came inside, they could only see one chair and a person that seemed to have been sitting for quite a while. They couldn't see this person's face, but they suddenly heard the familiar laughing sound.
"Gahaha! All of you finally arrived."
Alex, Putri, and even Evelyn immediately recognized that voice. It was Charya.
Charya rose from her seat and looked at Putri and Alex. "The tournament will be held for four days. Since there are many interesting disciples, the sect master gives another twenty-four bonus spots for others.
"Well, the purpose is just to make the bracket for this tournament easier. You can see the bracket over there." Charya pointed out her finger to the wall on their right.
Alex and the others walked to see the brackets. Alex was shocked to see his first opponent's name.
'Himura Minami.'
He was dumbfounded. He almost forgot about this person. He was wondering how Simon was doing. Although they had not met for almost two years, asking his condition was not a big deal, he thought.
Alex then moved to the second round. It was also another familiar name to him.
'Nakagawa Ryuu.'
He forgot about the Ryuu part, but if he talked about Nakagawa. He must come from Limewatch's town. The city lord family, Nakagawa Family. And from his memory, he only knew one person that could enter this tournament. It was Nakagawa Hikotaka's cousin.
His third opponent was 'Elise.' He had seen this name in the ranking. If he was not wrong, this person should be the rank 10th of Inner Disciple Ranking. Of course, before he took the 1st.
As for the rest, he wouldn't be able to speculate it anymore. But Alex could see Putri's name in his group. If Putri continued to win, Alex would face her in the sixth battle.
He turned his head to Putri as he wanted to say this. However, Putri's eyes glued on the bracket, specifically on a particular name.
Alex looked at the name that she looked at and found a name that he had seen in the top ten rankings too.
'Intan Wulan Makmur.'
He thought this person might be related to Putri. And after seeing Putri become like this while staring at this name, he knew they were truly related. Alex didn't know what kind of relationship they had, though.
The tournament would be held for four days, according to Charya. From the bracket, they would need to fight three times for the first day. The second day would be the same as the first day. And the third and the fourth day, they would only fight twice.
Putri would meet this Intan Wulan Makmur in the third battle, in other words, the first day. He was wondering who would win. This Intan was supposed to be the third rank if he didn't mess with the ranking. But Putri was only twenty-three.
But Putri had the Low Heaven Tier Wind Martial Arts from Zwaka. She should be able to win this match.
"How is it, Mr. 1st place?" Charya asked Alex with a teasing tone.
Alex shook his head while smiling. "Well, I don't know about it. But from the look of it, I would fight with this 'Elise.' So, I can only say I will do my best."
"Haha… Do you know that after your appearance in the outer disciple ranking tournament, our ninth peak got an influx of disciple. It seems that all of them are your fans. You are happy to hear that, right?" Song Yu suddenly came to him and said cheekily.
"Haha… To be honest, they should not come with that kind of mentality. They should choose their own suited peak because of their fighting style." Alex said.
After staying in Heavenly Sword Sect for a long time, Alex learned that the elder some time needed to go down and taught the disciple. So if the disciples had a fighting style that was not suited, they should not come to the ninth peak with just that reason alone.
"..." Of course, Alex's statement made them speechless. But considering Alex's personality, they should expect something like this.
"As expected of you, never betray our expectations. Even this flock of female disciples came to you. You will treat them the same." Song Yu chuckled.
Alex shrugged his shoulder.
Not long after, the match finally started. Alex wanted to see the match, but he noticed there were another twenty rooms like this one. It seemed the other elders, as well as the sect master, wanted to watch the match.
But maybe because the contestants in this tournament had a higher cultivation than outer disciple tournament. One of the elders was not in this special room. Instead, he came to the arena as the referee to prevent anything bad from happening.
As expected, it was the third elder, Elder Dolf Kold that once again became the referee.
After a while, Putri's name came up.
Her opponent was a young man, slightly older than her. Sadly, his cultivation was only 6-Star Martial Grandmaster. So Putri beat him in a few moves.
After an hour, Alex's turn also came up.
Himura Minami had been waiting for him in the arena. Alex looked at her without expression. When he came to the arena, everybody started whispering. They doubted Alex's credibility.
Even though Alex's name was in the ranking, they never saw Alex go out of the room. They thought Alex must be cheating, or he bribed someone to place his name up there with a perfect score.
Alex's name surely echoed through the entire sect last year. But because he never met other people or anything. His name had been forgotten by many people. But it was different for Himura Minami.
She never forgot about this person, Alex, as he was the one who changed Simon. Simon had been crazily practicing by himself this entire time. It was good to get stronger, but he somehow also neglected her. It was unbearable for a bro-con like her.
"..." Alex pondered if he should ask her or not. Ultimately, he asked her. "How is he?"
"He is good. Thanks to you, he reached 9-Star Martial Master last month. So this year, he should be able to become a Martial Grandmaster." She nodded to him with a casual expression.
"But the one I never expected is your progress. When you come to this place, your cultivation is even lower than my brother. But look at you now, you are already a 7-Star Martial Grandmaster.
"I don't know if that 'score' is real or not, but there is something I must say. Although Simon was indebted to you, I am still planning to win this fight."
Alex looked at her serious expression and nodded. It was not an empty bluff. Alex could see that Himura Minami had 8-Star Martial Grandmaster cultivation.
Both of them looked at Elder Dolf and nodded. Finally, the third elder announced,
"Match Starts!"
They immediately released their Spiritual Energy. But surprisingly, Himura Minami took out five swords from her Space Ring. Looking at the swords on the ground, Alex didn't know what she wanted to do.
Alex activated his Spirit Eyes and saw a connection between her and the swords.
The swords suddenly floated and flew toward Alex.
"Running Sword."
Alex could see it with his Spirit Eyes. Himura Minami was using her Spiritual Energy through this Martial Art to control the swords.
This was the move that made Himura Minami famous. She could control these five swords perfectly.
Alex dodged the swords one by one.
When the swords got behind him, they suddenly turned back and flew back to him. When he turned back, he immediately covered his sword with Sword Intent and used it to parry these swords.
"Clang!" a series of clashing filled the arena as the swords kept coming back even though Alex had deflected them.
Alex suddenly got an idea.
When a sword came toward him, he deflected it again. But this time, he deflected it toward the ground so the sword will pierce the arena's floor.
He then raised his foot and kicked this sword so it would deeply pierce the ground.
His kick managed to bury the sword, leaving only the handle on the surface. Himura Minami tried to pull it up with her Martial Art, but she couldn't.
She didn't panic in this situation as she had expected something like this. As soon as she confirmed that she couldn't pull the sword out. She immediately took out another sword from her space ring.