In the competition, Ning was in a strong position.

  So far, he had not lost a single match. His record stood at four wins and zero losses. Naturally, that meant he would now be paired against opponents with similar standings.

  After breaking through to the Sixth Stage, Ning had reached the peak of the strength he could currently exert. There were only a few participants he truly feared.

  In fact, there were two he was particularly wary of.

  The first was, obviously, Xiao Fan.

  For Ning, Xiao Fan might be the most dangerous opponent, not purely because of skill, but because of unpredictability. He was the kind of person who might suddenly power up mid-fight or produce some outrageous trump card at the last second.

  After all, he had already revealed an Earth-grade technique out of nowhere, a treasure most outer sect disciples never had a chance to acquire. Ning would not put anything past him.

  The second was Qiu Han.

  For a much simpler reason.

  He was clearly the strongest participant Ning had seen so far. His combat fundamentals were solid and his martial arts equally formidable. There were no obvious weaknesses to exploit.

  Especially since the information he gathered from various brokers had been sparse. The main thing he learned was that Qiu Han mostly relied on basic techniques to defeat his opponents. He also had a habit of allowing them to unleash their strongest moves first, only to crush those attacks head-on and prove his superiority. Even from the reports alone, the man sounded like a piece of work.

  As long as he avoided these two, Ning felt confident he could put up a good fight against anyone else.

  Unfortunately, as the saying goes, man proposes, Heaven disposes.

  For his fifth match, he was paired against Qiu Han.

  Ning had known this was inevitable to be paired with these guys eventually, but that did not mean he had to like it.

  The formation barrier rose, pale light folding over the platform like a closing eyelid.

  Across the arena, Qiu Han stood with his hands loosely at his sides.

  As in his previous matches, he was empty-handed. Or rather, like Xiao Fan, he simply preferred fighting without a weapon.

  Even at a brief glance, Ning could tell the man wasn’t nervous in the slightest.

  His posture was relaxed. His breathing steady. He carried the quiet confidence of someone accustomed to standing above others.

  Qiu Han broke the silence first.

  “I remember you,” he said evenly. “You finished your preliminary match much earlier than the others.”

  A faint pause.

  “Besides me, of course.”

  “Okay?” Ning tilted his head slightly.

  To be honest, he was genuinely puzzled. Why did everyone insist on talking before a match? It had become a strange pattern.

  Qiu Han continued, his eyes gleaming with slight interest.

  “Let’s see whether that was skill… or a fluke. I hope this match is interesting.”

  Ning didn’t answer. There was nothing to answer.

  Qiu Han was ranked first. That meant Ning was the challenger, and challengers didn’t talk; they proved.

  The elder’s sleeve fell.

  “Begin.”

  Ning moved first.

  His fingers formed a seal in one smooth motion, and cold qi spilled outward like ink poured into water.

  [Hidden Ice Mist]

  Frost-white fog erupted in an instant, swallowing the arena whole. With practiced precision, Ning had already begun using Turtle Breathing to steady his aura. In one fluid motion, he drew the bow and released.

  Thwip!

  The arrow vanished into the haze.

  Normally, that first arrow was the most lethal; most opponents were still trying to reorient in the sudden blindness when it arrived.

  But Qiu Han was different; he seemed to be unaffected as he moved slowly.

  Ning’s eyes narrowed. He fired again, then a third, staggering the timing, changing angles, shifting positions between shots with Shadow Steps. Each arrow was meant to force a reaction: a flinch, a retreat, a slip in breath.

  There was none.

  Until now, Qiu Han’s movements had been deliberate. Almost casual.

  Ning had seen many ways his mist had been countered before: wind talismans, beast perception, sound detection techniques.

  But Qiu Han used none of them. He simply walked.

  Then, without warning, he sped up.

  Ning repositioned instantly, yet Qiu Han adjusted with him as if he’d already known where he would be.

  A sharp crack split the air.

  The first arrow shattered mid-flight.

  Not deflected.

  Broken.

  Ning’s brows tightened. He fired again, then again.

  Crack. Crack.

  Both shafts snapped cleanly in the fog, as if something invisible had pinched them apart.

  Qiu Han stepped forward, still not “searching,” still walking as if he could see. And in that moment, Ning’s mind clicked; his quiver wasn’t the problem, the mist wasn’t the problem…

  It was the way Qiu Han moved.

  Ning’s hand slid across his back. The quiver was divided into compartments, standard shafts, poison-lily-coated shafts, and a few tipped with Serpent Flower extract. Under the tournament rules, he couldn’t use airborne toxins or lingering contamination. Anything poisonous had to be delivered by direct contact.

  Meaning: if he couldn’t touch Qiu Han, poison was useless.

  So Ning stopped trying to “snipe” a blind man and instead tried to force an answer.

  Without repositioning, he unleashed a barrage. Arrow after arrow hissed into the fog, rapid enough to create a net rather than a single threat, meant to compress Qiu Han’s options and disrupt his rhythm.

  At the same time, Ning activated Pure Eyes.

  At his level, while Pure Eyes could not directly see through the mist, he could still perceive faint disturbances within it and deduce his opponent’s movements.

  What he observed only confirmed his suspicions.

  Qiu Han was dodging everything as if the fog did not exist.

  Of course, while doing such an aura farming movement, he did not forget to give out one-liners.

  “Mist obscures sight,” he said. “Not certainty. Your loss is inevitable.”

  Ning normally didn’t speak in a fight. But the answer was already pressing at the back of his mind, and he needed it confirmed.

  “Have you reached the Seventh Stage of Qi Condensation?”

  A brief pause.

  Then Qiu Han answered plainly. “Oh? It seems your perception isn’t bad. Yes. I have.”

  He did not attempt to conceal it. He didn’t need to.

  The moment he admitted it, the crowd erupted.

  “What?! Seventh Stage already?”

  “No wonder he’s so calm, he’s awakened spiritual sense!”

  “It’s decided. Once spiritual sense is unlocked, concealment techniques lose their edge!”

  “The winner is decided. He’s too strong!”

  The reaction was understandable.

  The Seventh Stage was a true threshold, the only genuine bottleneck within Qi Condensation that every cultivator had to face.

  Although Ning’s cultivation appeared comparable to that of someone with a high-grade spiritual root, the truth was different.

  Ning had only reached the Sixth Stage, while those with high-grade roots were already at its peak. The gap between them was measured in years.

  For Ning to reach the peak would take more than a year, perhaps even two. And now, with Qiu Han having stepped into the Seventh Stage, an even more difficult realm, the disparity in cultivation was undeniable.

  Spiritual sense was the dividing line.

  Once awakened, techniques that relied on obscuring vision lost much of their effectiveness.

  Of course, that was precisely why reaching the Seventh Stage was so difficult. There was a solution, but it was rare. Many young masters studied Earth-grade martial arts not merely for power, but to comprehend the intent within them. By grasping that intent, they increased their chances of awakening spiritual sense and breaking through the bottleneck.

  That explained Qiu Han’s leisurely movements as if walking. His newly awakened spiritual sense likely could not yet cover the entire arena, but within two or three meters, it was more than sufficient. Any arrow entering that range would be detected instantly. So all, he had to do was move slowly and he would eventually come across Ning.

  This is troublesome, Ning thought.

  Qiu Han continued advancing without hurry. “I’ve seen your previous match,” he said evenly.

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  Another arrow snapped in the fog with a clean, contemptuous crack.

  “But as long as you cannot touch me, which you won’t, it won’t matter.”

  Ning didn’t respond. He already knew: revealing poison in public only made future opponents cautious, and the elders’ restrictions had boxed him in. Poison was decisive, but only if he could deliver it.

  Qiu Han stepped forward again.

  Then, he vanished.

  It was as if the distance between them had been folded and thrown away. The world skipped a heartbeat, and Qiu Han was suddenly inside Ning’s space.

  Ning dropped the bow and switched weapons in a single motion, spear flashing into his grip.

  Clang!

  Spear met palm.

  The impact rang like struck iron. Stone cracked beneath Ning’s heels as he redirected force through Four-Sided Stability, spine aligned, feet rooted, taking the strike through the ground rather than his arms.

  Even so, his arms screamed.

  Qiu Han didn’t disengage. He pressed in close, palm, elbow, knee, short, efficient, brutal strikes aimed at joints, tendons, structural weaknesses. Ning blocked one, deflected another,

  The third slipped through and slammed into his ribs.

  Pain flashed white across his vision as he slid backward across the frost-slick stone.

  Qiu Han followed at a measured pace, as if Ning’s retreat was nothing more than a suggestion.

  "It seems you have also trained your body, and your body training level is not that low. My blow would have overwhelmed you otherwise," Qiu Han commented leisurely.

  Ning’s jaw tightened. A thin thread of blood slipped from his lips; he spat it aside and forced his stance steady, not responding to Qiu Han's provocative words.

  His fingers shifted.

  [Small Cloud Rain Technique]

  The spell formed instantly. A dense, heavy rain poured down, no gentle drizzle, but a controlled fall tuned to the limit of Ning’s precision.

  The mist provided cold qi. Rain provided mass. Ning manipulated the droplets in mid-air, thickening and partially freezing them until the rain became fine, hardened particles, micro ice shards, not lethal, but sharp enough to bite.

  Another combination that Ning had figured out.

  Ning didn’t expect it to defeat Qiu Han. He needed space, half a breath, a single opening.

  The icy rain hammered down, filling the air around Qiu Han and cluttering the area within his spiritual sense radius with countless impacts and disturbances.

  For a moment, it seemed this would work.

  But Ning miscalculated.

  Qiu Han’s voice came through the rain, calm as ever.

  “You are not the only one who can cast quickly.”

  [Quick]

  His hands blurred into seals at a speed that would normally require two breaths, finished in one. Even if Qiu Han had not reached great accomplishment allowing for instantaneous casting, with his supernatural power he was not much far behind.

  [Blazing Surge]

  Fire erupted outward, not as a wild explosion, but as a tightly controlled wave. Heat burst through the rain, melting ice shards mid-air, flashing water into steam. The mist thickened for a heartbeat, then churned violently under thermal expansion, turning Ning’s carefully built field unstable.

  Steam swallowed sight for the smallest fraction of time.

  And in that fraction, Qiu Han was already inside Ning’s guard again.

  Palm struck.

  Ning raised the spear, too slow. The impact detonated against his shoulder and drove him sideways. He rolled, barely regaining footing before the next strike came.

  Ning tapped his foot.

  [Soil Refining Technique]

  The ground beneath Qiu Han’s next step softened subtly, the structure weakened just enough to disrupt footing.

  Qiu Han’s heel sank a fraction deeper than intended.

  For most cultivators, that fraction meant imbalance.

  But Qiu Han was moving at double speed, and that meant he had more momentum to use.

  He adjusted mid-step, turning the sink into a pivot. His knee drove forward and caught Ning in the abdomen.

  Air left Ning’s lungs violently.

  The rain continued to fall. The steam thinned. And Qiu Han remained within two meters, right where spiritual sense dominated.

  Ning understood then: against someone who could perceive within that radius, he wouldn’t win through concealment.

  He would have to win through contact.

  And to win through contact, he would first have to survive Quick.

  Pure Eyes flared again as Ning poured spiritual energy into his vision. The world sharpened. Qi currents became threads. Muscle tension revealed intention before motion was fully formed.

  Qiu Han moved.

  This time, Ning saw it, not clearly enough to dominate, but clearly enough to respond. The spear thrust forward, angled not at flesh, but at trajectory.

  The tip grazed Qiu Han’s sleeve.

  Fabric tore with a thin whisper.

  Qiu Han glanced down briefly, then back at Ning.

  “You’re clever,” he admitted. “That is rare.”

  He stepped again. The softened ground hardened instantly under a controlled pulse of qi, forced stability imposed by sheer refinement.

  “But cleverness does not replace depth.”

  Ning answered with fire.

  [Scorching Purge]

  A thin lance of crimson flame snapped from the spearhead toward Qiu Han’s forearm, precisely where qi gathered before the next strike.

  Qiu Han’s response was immediate. A metallic sheen condensed around his arm. The flame hit, hissed, and, along with scorched fabric, dispersed just as quickly.

  But it cost Qiu Han a fraction of attention.

  Ning chained the disruption without hesitation.

  [Golden Finger]

  A compressed burst of qi snapped toward Qiu Han’s wrist meridian, timed to intercept the next motion.

  Qiu Han tilted his hand by the slightest margin. The strike grazed, close, but not clean enough to interrupt circulation.

  He stepped forward again, inside Ning’s reach.

  Ning retreated, Shadow Steps shifting him twice in quick succession to regain range and tempo.

  Qiu Han removed it with a single word.

  “Quick.”

  His speed doubled, this time not as a sudden burst of aggression, but as perfect execution. No wasted movement. No extra breath. Everything cut down to the essential.

  Ning’s Pure Eyes flared, qi threads sharpening.

  But seeing didn’t mean stopping.

  The first accelerated palm slipped past the spear guard and struck Ning’s shoulder.

  A sharp crack. Pain exploded down his arm.

  The second strike came before recoil ended. He barely blocked it.

  The third slammed into his side. His lungs buckled, and he staggered, Pure Eyes devouring spiritual energy far too fast for the return it gave him.

  Qiu Han’s voice remained calm, even as he dismantled Ning’s defense piece by piece.

  “You refine your body,” he said, stepping in.

  Palm.

  “You study counters.”

  Elbow.

  “You research techniques.”

  Knee.

  “You stack small advantages.” Ning deflected, twisted, and redirected force through Four-Sided Stability, but each defense cost him more than it cost Qiu Han.

  “And yet,” Qiu Han continued evenly, “you are still compensating.”

  Another palm strike came. Ning met it with Golden Finger. Light flared and shattered. The impact drove him back several steps.

  “You can't dominate the field. True strength is innate."

  Ning forced distance, the only way he could.

  [Fireball]

  A crimson sphere detonated between them. Ning deliberately shortened the incantation, less power, less cost, using it not to injure but to interrupt. Heat and smoke churned, obscuring sight for half a heartbeat.

  Ning spent that heartbeat ruthlessly.

  Shadow Steps, two shifts.

  Soil Refining, soften the pursuit path.

  Scorching Purge, aim low, for the ankle the moment it touches unstable ground.

  Another combo spell launched consecutively.

  Qiu Han landed exactly where Ning predicted. His foot sank a fraction. The flame grazed his boot.

  For a breath, the trap looked perfect.

  Then spiritual sense swept outward, and Qiu Han adjusted mid-sink with absurd precision. The softened ground solidified beneath his sole with a pulse of qi, and he stepped through as if the trap had never existed.

  He appeared directly in front of Ning.

  Palm to chest.

  The strike landed with a dull thud, like a hammer hitting wet cloth.

  Ning flew backward and skidded across the stone, breath gone, vision flickering. Blood rose bitter in his throat.

  Qiu Han walked forward again, not hurrying in the slightest.

  “People think strength is assembled,” Qiu Han said, voice carrying now, not shouted, but resonant with conviction. “Learn a spell here. Borrow a technique there. Refine the body. Polish the mind.”

  He tilted his head slightly, as if genuinely puzzled.

  “That creates a craftsman.”

  A metallic sheen condensed in his arm.

  “True strength is not crafted. It is forged.”

  Ning forced himself upright. His ribs screamed; his meridians burned; Pure Eyes flickered weakly.

  Across from him, Qiu Han regarded him condescendingly.

  “I’m already tired of this farce,” he said calmly. “Use your strongest move.”

  “…Okay.”

  Ning exhaled slowly. He knew the match was already unwinnable. His spiritual energy was nearly empty, his body battered, his options narrowed to nothing.

  But looking at Qiu Han’s composed superiority, one simple urge remained. He didn’t want to leave without landing one clean hit.

  "If I adjust the goal to just that, it seems I can land one?" Ning's eyes narrowed. After all, for the entire match, he had been getting clobbered, so if given a chance, he would certainly return the favour.

  Shadow Steps activated.

  Ning surged forward in a sudden burst, closing distance as if he meant to stake everything on one final spear.

  Then he shouted, loud enough for the entire arena to hear:

  “Magical Spear!”

  It was the first time he’d announced a technique name in the entire tournament. With the way he poured his remaining qi into the spear tip, it looked like a desperate ultimate.

  Qiu Han’s spiritual sense flared. He detected the concentration at the spearhead immediately.

  So that’s the attack.

  He didn’t retreat. He charged too, meeting it head-on to crush Ning’s will completely.

  The spear thrusted forward.

  At the last instant, Qiu Han activated Quick again, half a step to the side, a clean deflection. The blade sliced through empty air.

  Victory was already calculated.

  And then-

  Thud.

  A fist slammed into Qiu Han’s left ribs.

  Qiu Han staggered back three steps, caught completely off guard. The punch wasn’t devastating, but it was solid enough to rattle breath and cause pain.

  His eyes widened as he stared at Ning.

  “…Why are you punching me even when you called out magical spear?”

  For the first time, something had truly broken his composure.

  After the declaration, after the gathered qi, after the spear feint, it had clearly been a spear technique.

  Ning stood barely upright, breathing hard. He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth and looked at Qiu Han through the thinning mist.

  “That’s what makes it magical.”

  For a moment, the arena was silent.

  Qiu Han’s expression froze, then darkened.

  “You… even at the end, you resort to tricks,” he said, and his voice had finally lost its earlier calm. “But you dare to hit me.”

  A red aura seemed to suddenly come alive around Qiu Han, the pre cursor of his earth grade martial art.

  “Quick-”

  “I surrender.”

  Ning raised his hand immediately. The words rang cleanly.

  Hmm?!

  Qiu Han stopped mid-step. A heartbeat later, the elder’s voice followed.

  “Ji Ning concedes. Winner, Qiu Han.”

  Qiu Han stared at Ning for a long moment. Then he exhaled slowly.

  “…You are infuriating. I was going to use my strongest move to teach you a lesson, but it seems you ran away.”

  Ning grinned faintly despite the blood on his lips.

  “And then spend a month or two bedridden? No way in hell.”

  He wasn’t lying. He was already on his last legs, and Qiu Han had clearly been preparing his ultimate move.

  If Ning could revive like in a game after watching an ad, he might have taken the chance, but in real life, that was just courting death.

  A faint twitch crossed Qiu Han’s expression, then he turned to leave.

  After two steps, he paused.

  Just long enough for the silence to stretch.

  “People romanticize struggle,” he said quietly, his voice carrying across the arena without effort. His gaze swept over the watching disciples. “They believe iron can become gold if it suffers long enough.”

  His eyes returned to Ning.

  “But iron remains iron.”

  “And gold remains gold. And you, despite your amusing performance, still surrendered. So remember my words: true strength is innate.”

  As he spoke those final words, Qiu Han’s gaze shifted past Ning, fixing on someone in the distance.

  Ning followed his line of sight and saw Xiao Fan.

  Hearing Qiu Han’s words, Xiao Fan’s fists slowly clenched, as his eyes seemed to spit fire.

  Seeing this, Ning’s eyes narrowed as well.

  ...

  “Ouch, that hurts,” Ning hissed through his teeth as he lay on the lacquered wooden couch of Moon Dew Pavilion.

  “It’s supposed to,” Si Sihua replied calmly, not even glancing up as she pressed the cool, silver-blue paste into the bruised flesh along his ribs. “If I used the mild formula, you’d still be limping during your next match. This one works faster.”

  She pushed harder.

  Ning sucked in a sharp breath.

  “…And it’s more expensive, isn’t it?”

  Si Sihua’s lips curved faintly. “Guess.”

  Ning closed his eyes in quiet despair. He already knew the answer.

  Still, compared to mortals, cultivators were blessed. What would have taken months to heal on Earth would close in days here. Bones mended. Meridians stabilized. Bruises dissolved beneath spiritual medicine.

  Provided, of course, one could afford the good stuff.

  Si Sihua finished applying the moonlight gel, her movements practiced and efficient.

  “I heard about your match,” she said casually while sealing the ointment jar. “You did well.”

  Ning gave a small snort. “I practiced for years. It would be embarrassing if I didn’t at least manage that much.”

  “That’s true.” She straightened. “Rest. The medicine needs time to circulate. I have to return to the counter.”

  “Mm.”

  When she left, silence settled over the room.

  Ning lay back against the soft cushions, staring at the wooden beams above. His body was sore, but his mind was wide awake.

  It seems… I’ve become a stepping stone.

  Getting paired with Qiu Han wasn’t strange. With four wins and no losses, facing the strongest contender was inevitable.

  What made it strange was everything else.

  Qiu Han’s philosophy.

  The timing.

  The way he had spoken, not just to Ning, but past him.

  Iron remains iron. Gold remains gold.

  And who had Qiu Han looked at when he said that?

  Xiao Fan.

  Ning exhaled slowly.

  If this were a novel, and he knew plenty about those, this was textbook structure.

  The protagonist’s “friend” enters the competition. Performs well. Shows flashes of brilliance. The audience starts to believe he might even challenge the top.

  Then he faces the arc’s mini-boss.

  He fights bravely. Shows everything he has. Displays cleverness. Nearly surprises the boss.

  And then loses. Hard.

  If Ning didn't have common sense and gave up decisively, he would have surely gotten severely injured, which would have further demonstrated the boss’s overwhelming strength.

  It was an obvious buildup. Especially with the real protagonist watching. The tension for the finale was practically writing itself.

  Ning blinked at the ceiling.

  If someone replaced “friend” with “Ji Ning,” the pattern fit disturbingly well.

  He had revealed Qiu Han’s spiritual sense.

  Demonstrated the gap of the Seventh Stage.

  Allowed Qiu Han to deliver that speech about innate strength.

  And conveniently, Xiao Fan had been right there to hear it.

  Similarly, if Ning had stayed stubborn and gotten very injured, this would have served as a boost for motivation for the protagonist as well.

  From this perspective, Ning had played the stepping-stone cannon fodder almost perfectly.

  Normally, he wouldn’t indulge in such thoughts. But hearing Qiu Han’s philosophy made the pattern harder to ignore.

  If Qiu Han represented “born gold,” and Xiao Fan represented “tempered iron becoming steel,” then their next fight wouldn’t just be about ranking.

  It would be about dao heart. About ideology.

  The finale is going to be interesting, Ning thought as he turned onto his side.

  Which left only one question.

  Despite the overwhelming difference between the two, should he bet on Xiao Fan?

  ...

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