Early tournament battles continued just fine, but they weren’t that engaging given the lower cultivations involved. There were so many battles that needed to happen just to give everyone an opportunity to fight. Some people were unlucky with their matchups and got knocked out of the tournament. The perils of one big tournament, though if they expanded their arenas they could solve that problem at the expense of fewer people watching each event.

  No doubt they would continue to refine the tournament time after time. Perhaps John should form a group of elders dedicated to that, as well as including voices from outside the Six Elements Crossroads. If he was going for something like the olympic games, he didn’t want things to be too biased. Though with humans, there would always be some.

  The more interesting events were outside of battles, because John really had no idea what to expect. Certainly, those with higher cultivation generally performed better, but launching a rock across a field was still significantly tied to technique- and even if people were a bit slower, they could still be effective. Some treated it like a battle, which John thought was very practical of them, rapidly launching an attack. Others took full advantage of the format, using their generous time limit to prepare an assault that maximized their ability.

  John was glad he had good control over himself, because laughing out loud at people who exploded their rocks would have been highly inappropriate. Unless they were particularly lucky and every shard moved in the same direction, that was practically minimum points. Wherever the closest bit of a boulder landed was the distance that was measured.

  Earth cultivators excelled at the boulder toss- it was their own element, after all. Air cultivators were pretty much the worst, because the requirements kept them from sustaining a whirlwind to carry it. The exception was if they could automate their spiritual energy to do so, but that only sustained so far.

  Water cultivators could build up some power. One of them was smart enough to build a cannon with ice and water pressure. The ultimate result was limited by the woman’s low cultivation, so not as many people as John thought copied her. Those who were smart, however, took note of as many of their opponent’s techniques as possible.

  Fire was known for bursts of power, so it did alright as long as people didn’t damage the boulders too much. Light and darkness were often similarly bad to air, since creating physical force was far from their forte.

  John was pleased to see the free-for-all of techniques. Nobody had developed a ‘correct’ method yet, and he really hoped they didn’t. If they could keep the rules open enough to be reasonable but flexible, he would be quite happy. Though perhaps they should have very narrowly tailored events as well, but that might force things to stick to a single element.

  Aside from tossing heavy boulders, people also tossed lighter javelins and many other things, including themselves. Generously, it might have been called ‘jumping’.

  There were a number of experiments, including obstacle courses of various sorts. The participants generally weren’t high enough cultivation to fly, so air cultivators didn’t get a sudden advantage- and with tunnels and different elements imbued in the area, attempts to fly could be disrupted easily enough that it might not be the preferred method of travel.

  A few single element trials were being tested as well. Creating the brightest light or darkest dark was difficult to measure, though John was confident they’d eventually figure it out. For the moment, it had to come down to how well people could navigate it. Air cultivators got flying challenges, including a sustained flying challenge where pressure was gradually increased to drag people to the ground.

  Earth based construction tasks were fun to see, and John wished more than a few dozen people had participated. It was a shame that some of them would be dismantled, and he kind of wanted to figure out a way for people to carry away some of their artistic huts.

  Burning things to ash was not that entertaining on the surface, but controlling the burning of a wood pile so that nothing fell outside a designated area as the structure collapsed was an interesting one.

  Swimming competitions were kind of lame without a proper ocean. Cultivators needed more than an olympic sized swimming pool to really show any good technique. However, he did include a challenge with a miniature version of the Lone Spire. The frozen spire had been quite interesting, though turning a semi-cooperative long term project into a tournament event wasn’t really doable. So it mostly became a race up and down the side of an icy spire.

  Impacts from a fall that went beyond a cultivator’s own ability were counted against the time. At least the protective formations of the arena were easily modified to account for such situations- falls weren’t usually the biggest danger but they could always be a concern.

  John was pretty sure he could have won every single individual category, but that wasn’t really fair because barely even any Consolidated Soul Phase cultivators participated. He hoped that such events would be more popular in the future, and that people of greater cultivation would participate. But he couldn’t really force it if people didn’t enjoy the ideas, so coming up with things that seemed both fun and able to demonstrate power in a way that people liked would take some further refinement.

  -----

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  More time had been reserved for Ascending Soul Phase battles, with cultivators participating in up to five different matches across six elemental battlefields. Three wins were required to advance, and thus three matches that were all losses were the minimum time people could participate. There was some level of strategy to be had on how hard people should fight on particular battlefields against certain opponents- even if matches were spaced at least several hours apart for individuals, that wasn’t sufficient time to fully recover spiritual energy.

  It might not be worth it to win a battle if you were more likely to lose the next two. Or worse, to barely fail to overcome your opponent and be exhausted for following matches with nothing to show for it.

  For everything to be fair, John participated in matches properly. Without Abritt participating, there wasn’t really anyone that needed to be defeated. Maybe that was what made him sloppy. Maybe he was experimenting with too many new techniques. Or it could have been that more people came with specific preparations to battle him than he did against others. He knew every Ascending Soul Phase cultivator, but that didn’t mean he was equally prepared against all of them.

  It was bad luck that he ended up in three light arenas in a row. That was literally the only weakness available to him. He won his first match against Damian of the Shadow Wolf Clan. The clan head had reached the mid Ascending Soul Phase, but as a pure darkness cultivator was more disadvantaged than John.

  After that, John lost to a cultivator from the Kauhane clan- though he told himself he was trying to conserve his energy for future battles. Then there was the Sect Head of the Rising Storm Palace, recently advanced to the Ascending Soul Phase- in the grand scheme of things, at least. Ronan’s first match was against John’s third, and John didn’t want to tire himself out chasing the man through the air.

  Then John came up against Renato. Fortunately, his string of bad luck with arenas ended there. They ended up in an air element battlefield which didn’t particularly favor either of them.

  John was a little bit strained from previous matches, but that was mostly an excuse for why he lost. Both he and Renato knew each other very well… and often went back and forth on wins. This one happened to fall to Renato.

  The man was far too agile for the force behind his blows, a difficulty John had encountered many times before. Locking him down was nearly impossible, and he didn’t fall for John’s Ethereal Flames which would have slowly worn him down. Instead, Renato took advantage of the flow of the winds to launch a continuous barrage of attacks against John, never giving him a moment to prepare any tricks.

  It was unfortunate that it showed people watching that he could be defeated in that manner, being constantly pressed. On the other hand, that meant John didn’t display any particularly useful tricks… and most people wouldn’t be able to overpower him. It required Renato’s strength and strong familiarity with John to not open himself up to devastating counterattacks.

  John would have liked to win more, but ultimately… he didn’t care. The reason was simple- he was getting stronger, and that was all that mattered. Besides, losing to a friend wasn’t nearly as bad as losing to an enemy. There was a significant difference between how he fought when it actually mattered and anything that would happen in a tournament, no matter how seriously he tried to take it.

  -----

  The final winner of the tournament was Dobrila, of the Aesthetic Blaze. They came from the western Green Sands, and had been growing rapidly in the past years. She might have been able to claim a position as the strongest fire cultivator except that neither Steve nor Yustina had participated. Neither had the most impressive participant from the last round… Ursel.

  John really wanted to chastise his friends and family, but he couldn’t blame them for lacking enthusiasm when there wasn’t a threat like Abritt. Plus, they had their own training to consider. Sometimes, the timing wasn’t right. Still, he would have preferred if they had participated. If people just sat out like Abritt, it undermined some of the legitimacy of the institution. Then again, as long as it brought people together from all over the continent, maybe it didn’t really matter. It might still be better with them, though.

  -----

  There hadn’t even been time for every sect to depart from Lunson when a messenger reached John.

  “Urgent news from the north,” the messenger said, holding out to John a scroll. It was sealed with spiritual energy, just so that he could know it hadn’t been tampered with. Secret, then, at least to some extent.

  John recognized the energy of Arkaitz of the Silver Haze Sect. John had been hoping to see the man at the tournament, but while some of the Silver Haze Sect had participated the sect head himself had not, citing sect matters. Perhaps he had anticipated something without a clear basis… but the letter indicated that there were now known threats.

  Attackers had landed on the northern coasts of the Muted Crags. In some places, they had established footholds, even breaking through defenses to go further inland. More than simple raids- which did happen occasionally- this seemed more like a determined invasion. The actual goal was unclear… but some sort of response needed to be provided.

  For the Shadowed Union, of course. The Black Peaks and their allies could deal with the consequences of their own rejection. Even if they asked to join the alliance now, it was far too late. Even if they hadn’t formally agreed to anything, if they’d at least been willing to receive him or anyone else the situation might be different. However, their blatant rejection had been clear.

  The Shadowed Union was asking for reinforcements, just in case. John wondered if the fighting might spread eastward towards the Frozen Heights. If things passed through the Black Peaks, then it would still be the problem of the rest of the continent. The Rolling Dunes would need to be monitored as well.

  John considered what forces he could easily bring to bear. Theoretically, the Phoenix Forest and Rolling Dunes should be the most proper. The Boiling Springs were a bit weaker. Of course, John was contacted in particular because he had the most connections. Which was why he wouldn’t be going to the front lines himself until they understood the situation better. Did it require armies from across the continent, or just a few squads to bolster their allies? That was the initial request from Arkaitz, but the described scale of attacks on the rest of the Black Peaks certainly raised some concerns.