The fights went on one after the other. The power that these young cultivators possessed was beyond that of any of the participants who had abandoned the competition, and the spectacle that their fight caused, was on a different level of entertainment. However, not many were able to shock the observing cultivators. After all, they had seen these young men and young women compete against one another more than once in the past.
After every fight, the old man was forced to repair the stage, which despite its solid construction, could not stand the impact of the competitor's blows.
Despite the destruction that each fight caused, most of them went by relatively uneventfully. The only ones that aroused some interest, were the ones in which the elite members of the factions would participate. Factions like the Spiritual faction, the mental faction, the corrupted faction, and a few more, which were considered to be at a higher level amongst the many factions within the universal government's territory.
By fighting through odd and unique methods, these participants would always garner a certain level of attention, which unfortunately, was closer to entertainment, than interest. That was until the turn of the numbers 105 and 296 came.
Number 105 was one of the feared students of one of the present members of Iewah's faction, the Teacher. Along with nineteen fellow students, and the eleven thousand nine hundred and eighty more participants, he had passed one test after the other with flying colors, to a point where, once in the plain at the feet of their tower, neither him or his nineteen companions had entered the tower with a number inferior than ten thousand.
The second participant, was a young man dressed in pure white clothes. His eyes were fierce and emanated a thick white smoke, and his hair were possibly even whiter than his clothes. He was one of the true emissaries of the Spiritual Emperor, and from his almost lean body, was emanated a thick and pure spiritual essence.
"I am destined to compete with cultivators on the league of your teacher, student. I won't be defeated by someone like you." Said the spiritual cultivator with an extremely domineering, and pretentious tone.
The number of spiritual cultivators present within the spiritual faction was immense, but due to their difference in strength, they were divided into different categories. Those whose power could compete with immortal cultivators were considered elite members, and were ranked based on their power, and talent. The weakest would be Acolytes, the mid level ones would be Emissaries, and those who could be compared with peak immortals, were true Emissaries.
Daniel had met four members of the spiritual faction in the past. The second and fourth emissaries, and their two followers, the acolyte Nia, and her great grandson Noah. However, neither of them were true emissaries. After all, while each of them were extremely powerful when Daniel had met them, they were all extremely old cultivators, and hardly the best that their faction could offer.
In comparison, a cultivator that had reached a higher level of cultivation while being under fifty years of age, was much more valuable. Only they would have a chance of breaking through the level of true emissary, and become a spiritual warrior.
The student was not bothered by the tone of the spiritual cultivator, and instead smiled politely, and said, "I am sure that there is much that we can learn from one another."
Too proud to allow an enemy he considered to be beneath him to talk to him like that, the spiritual cultivator took the initiative by letting out an impressive amount of pure spiritual essence, which immediately marked the essences that engulfed the entire area within the barriers of the stage.
Pure spiritual essence, while not as refined and dense as immortal essence, was a form of natural mana, so it was the type of power that matched the natural essences the best. No other form of power could mark the mana present in the surroundings faster that spiritual essence.
As soon as the spiritual cultivator was able to take control over the surrounding mana, the many types of essences began to separate. The wind and water essences were pulled away from around the student, just like the earth essence of which the stage was made out of, which bend downward, and away from the soles of his feet.
Around the student a spatial bubble quickly formed, and inside this bubble, an extremely hot flame was lit ablaze. This flame kept burning until no form of gas remained inside it.
The plan was simple. A cultivator with a basic comprehension of wind essence would be able to create oxygen to breath in case there was none. That was how travel through space would work. This oxygen would work like its natural version. It would travel from their lungs to their blood, and from their blood, to their cells.
Provided that the production of oxygen was almost irrelevant for the power of an immortal cultivator, once a cultivator would replace all of the oxygen in his body with its constructed counterpart, if he happened to completely run out of immortal essence, they would find themselves in trouble.
Naturally, a cultivator's body was much stronger than a normal human's, and the cells would not deteriorate as easily, but that did not mean that they would not suffer, given enough time.
The plan of the spiritual cultivator was to not give the student a chance to react.
The student, on the other hand, did nothing, and allowed himself to be trapped. Once captured, he looked around, only letting out from his back enough immortal essence to slowly propel him in a forward motion. However, as he moved, the ball of empty space followed him, keeping its surface far away from his reach, and his body in the middle.
Seemingly unable to do anything, he pointed his finger towards the spiritual cultivator, who was looking back at him while putting all of his attention into controlling the position of the spatial bubble, and let out a burst of immortal essence which, right before clashing against the barrier, turned into a powerful horizontal slash that matched the bubble's power perfectly.
When it seemed that the two forces would clash with one another, the spatial bubble opened wide enough for the student's essence to move past it. Once out, the immortal essence that was now present into a different space than his owner, dissipated due to their cut connection.
After numerous attempts, the student started to feel that something was wrong. His state of mind was not as calm as he usually was, and his emotions appeared to be riled up beyond his control.
That, was an effect of one of the powers of the spiritual factions.
The spirit was the part of the being that, when mixed with the mind power, formed the individual. Nevertheless, even when merged with an immortal cultivator's body, a cultivator's spirit was still weak to the interference of the elite members of the spiritual plain, who were able to affect them. So instead of hoping that the student would willingly waste his immortal cultivation into vain attempts at freeing himself, he decided to affect his feelings of anger, worry, impatience, and fear.
"Why don't you surrender? You will never best me. Your spirit is weak." Said the spiritual cultivator while trying to fuel the student's anger. His hope was that the student would start to panic, and waste more and more of his power into additional useless attempts.
"Teacher, I did not expect your students to be so lacking." Said a tall man with white hair, smokeless eyes, and a white robe with golden decorations on it. He was one of the most powerful cultivators within the spiritual faction, and a spiritual warrior that matched the hundred and fiftieth phase of high immortality.
"Is it not better for him to face situations he knows nothing about? Only then he can learn." Responded the Teacher casually, showing a faint smile at he finished talking.
—–
What the spiritual cultivator on the stage was hoping for, never happened. Instead of panicking, the student smiled politely once more, and said, "I appreciate your teachings. Allow me to end this now."
As soon as he finished speaking, he let out of his body a powerful wave of immoral essence, which he quickly turned into a second spatial bubble, whose surface only stood a few millimeters separated from the barrier formed by the spiritual cultivator.
Once this internal layer was formed, he approached the internal part of the barrier, and with as much power he could muster, he threw a punch that ripped a hole into both barriers.
The spiritual cultivator immediately tried to maintain control over the second space he had created by keeping the outside to the inside of the bubble, but it was too late. The student had already disappeared from within the bubble, and had reappeared right behind him.
In the fraction of a moment, multiple spatial ripples started to form around the spatial cultivator as he tried to teleport away, but he quickly found himself unable to, as a powerful grip tightened around his neck.
The first reaction of the spiritual cultivator was to try and affect the student's spirit, hoping that he could let him go, but unfortunately for him, the student was a different person than before.
While before his spirit was like that of any other cultivator. Powerful, and yet somewhat controlled by his ability to keep his emotions at bay, his spirit was now as stable as steel. If forced to explain this, the spiritual cultivator would have sworn that the student had learned to perfectly control his emotions in the few minutes that passed since the beginning of the fight.
Seeing that there was no chance for him to affect his spirit, the spiritual cultivator tried to use his spiritual essence to attack him from up close, but as he tried, his eyes opened wide in horror.
The way spirit essence was able to be used, was thanks to an extremely weak body, which did not resist the ejection of this type of power. The more powerful the body, the more resistance the skin would make, trapping the spiritual essence inside. While not true for immortal essence, who had turned spirit and ki into one, that was the case for the members of the spiritual faction.
The easiest way to defeat a spiritual cultivator, was to stop him from ejecting spiritual essence, and the student did just that. He let out a thick layer of immortal essence, and forced it to cover the body of the spiritual cultivator.. Trapping his spiritual essence into his body, and turning him into a common human.
Something else that the student had learned, was the weak spot of spiritual cultivators. A weak body from which they did all they could to keep their enemies away from. Be it thanks to their spiritual manipulations, or the ranged attacks fed by the infinite reserves of spiritual essence supplied by their deep connection to the spiritual plain.
With the life of his enemy in his hand, the student did not allow himself to be lost in the moment, and instead said with a hint of embarrassment, "I would rather not break your neck. Would you mind?"
Utterly defeated in body and spirit, the spiritual cultivator weakly raised his right arm in a sign of defeat.
As a result of the end of this fight, the spiritual cultivator was teleported out of the stage, and into the booth of the spiritual warrior who, until just a minute ago, was boasting against the Teacher.
The remaining participants took notice of this fight, and started to pay attention to the group of similarly dressed students, who stood by the edge of the stage in silence, and waited for their turn.
Once the student left the stage, the voice of the old explorer resounded in the entire area, saying, "Number one hundred and six, and two hundred and ninety-five. Come on stage."
In response to his word, two individuals disappeared from the edge of the large stage, and reappeared on the two different sides. One of them was a three meters tall woman with striped fur on her arms, legs, and face, and voluminous hair that looked closer to a mane, than human hair. She was an evolved version of a species called God of lions, and was one of the humanoid beasts sent to participate in the event by the Tamer.
Her opponent, was Nilo.
