Before the fifth-year matches, Wei Lin, the busy city lord, and Dean Dong both arrived.
To them, matches between academy students were hardly worth watching. But the fifth-year battles mattered to all three cities.
For one thing, fifth-years represented an academy's upper limit. For another, the Three-City Trial carried a single slot: a direct path to the national academy! No county exam next month, no trip to the county seat — straight to the capital, to Xin'an.
That slot could only belong to the fifth-year champion.
The stands quieted noticeably as Wei Lin and Dean Dong took their seats.
It had to be said: a strongman like Dean Dong was a massive boost to an academy's overall power. This Trial, the first-year champion was Maple City's Jiang Chen; the third-year had nearly become an internal Maple City affair. With a fifth-rank Inner Palace realm powerhouse anchoring Maple City Academy, the whole city could count itself lucky.
Now, take the fifth-year title as well, and Maple City would sweep both rivals — winning the lion's share of this year's resources from the Zhuang court.
Which was why Zhang Yuan was nearly rubbing a hole in his forehead.
"Pressure..." he muttered.
Of the three matches, the one that drew every eye was Lin Zhengren against... Sun Xiaoman.
One: the calm, first-ranked Dao Merit List cultivator of Riverview. The other: a tiny, adorable girl who looked too frail to stand in a breeze.
"Is that girl... even ten?" Zhao Yan marveled.
Not far away, Sun Xiaoyan, who had somehow wrapped himself in a hooded black robe again, whirled around furiously: "Woe am thwee! That'th my thithter!"
Zhao Yan leaned closer, not quite catching it — then jerked back with a gasp.
Under the hood was a fat, bruised face. The invincible little tank had, in the short time off the field, swollen beyond recognition — eyes lost, speech slurred.
A side effect of the Kun Drum? Zhao Yan wondered.
Sun Xiaoyan, seeing his face could scare people now, shrank back aggrieved and tugged the hood lower. His sister had found a corner to beat him up before the match. Where was he supposed to seek justice?
Jiang Chen's face showed nothing, but his heart was uneasy.
The fat boy was thirteen. Jiang Chen was seventeen. The girl on the field was the boy's sister, representing Three Mountain City at fifth-year level. She would only be stronger.
At the very start of the cultivation road, had he already fallen too far behind?
* * *
The barefoot girl hopped lightly onto the field, the silver hammer trinket swinging at her wrist. She had a face too harmless and cute for her own good; by comparison, Lin Zhengren's handsome features bought him little support.
Nearly half the crowd wanted Sun Xiaoman to win. The other half wanted her to win without tiring herself.
"Word is Chu Ping died at Xiong Wen's hands, his heart carved out. I grieve for him." Lin Zhengren spoke leisurely before the match began.
"Life and death are fate." Sun Xiaoman's face was blank.
Jiang Chen felt the air around the Three Mountain cultivators turn sharply cold.
Xiong Wen had appeared in Three Mountain City, been cornered by the academy's students — and escaped, killing ten cultivators including Chu Ping, the academy's senior disciple. Each corpse had been opened and the heart taken, with wine. The whole county had been shaken.
That was why the Punishment Bureau had mobilized every force in Clear River County to hunt him.
Lin Zhengren raising this now was not grief.
Looking at the little girl, he smiled. "Last year he lost to me by one move. I wonder if you can win it back this year?"
Chu Ping was dead. He couldn't win it back.
But did the living have that chance?
Sun Xiaoman stepped forward, bare feet crossing the ground, those pale, lustrous little feet striding steadily.
The match began.
Lin Zhengren drew his right hand back, and from his left sleeve pulled a long jade-green whip. It flowed like water — and its tip stretched in a flash, cracking toward Sun Xiaoman like a striking viper!
His left hand thrust out; waves erupted from the flat ground, surging around her. A lightning-fast Raging Waves!
At the same moment, sharp eyes could see something pushing up through the bricks in front of Lin Zhengren.
To open a match against a little girl with psychological warfare — many might find it shameful. But it also showed Lin Zhengren's steadiness. The steadiness that wasted no advantage, gave no opening.
In battle, that steadiness was fully on display.
Lin Zhengli's fighting style might imitate his, but the gap in strength was vast.
Sun Xiaoman launched herself skyward. Her toes tapped once, easily clearing the lashing whip tip — and then she was walking on the incoming wave itself, riding the tide!
Zhao Yan's brows lifted. Surprise in his eyes.
That was a damaging Dao art. Her bare feet showed not a scratch. And he sensed no trace of art being cast.
Either she carried a permanent Kun Drum like Sun Xiaoyan, or her body refinement had reached a certain level.
At this stage, it seemed only those reckless martial warriors could block Dao art harm with pure flesh.
The barefoot girl rode the wave, climbing on Lin Zhengren's own art a few steps into the air before him.
Lin Zhengren's hand relaxed. The jade-green whip snapped its tail through the air — and in mid-air, it became a giant python, jaws gaping, lunging at Sun Xiaoman.
The whip was made from a living beast: a monstrous serpent, heirloom of the Lin family of Riverview. Its name was the Emerald Python.
At the same time, the ground before Lin Zhengren burst open, and a swarm of vines shot out like snakes! This art was instant-cast — the art he had carved into his Celestial Palace after first completing his Lesser Cycle.
Such arts were rarely shown. Low-rank cultivators could carve only two instant-cast arts into the Celestial Palace: one after the first Lesser Cycle, one after the first full Cycle of Heaven, Earth, and Man. They were trump cards, hidden from all.
Sometimes cultivators cast instant arts while faking hand seals, precisely to hide them.
And Lin Zhengren, sensing pressure, had flipped out his trump without hesitation.
The vines wove through the air, in a blink twisting into an unbreakable wall before him.
Wood-element art: Vine Serpent Wall!
Sun Xiaoman hung in the air before Lin Zhengren — python chasing behind, vine wall blocking ahead. She simply raised one small hand.
The tiny silver trinket at her wrist grew with the wind.
Everyone saw it: the small barefoot girl, suspended in the air, gripping two silver hammers as tall as herself. She spun — one hammer!
The hammer howled a full circle and smashed into the Emerald Python behind her, carrying the great snake along with its spin.
Sun Xiaoman turned a full rotation in the air, the giant hammer dragging the jade-green python, and came down on the Vine Serpent Wall with a momentum that admitted no doubt.
The instant they touched, the wall — a whole mid-grade Yi-rank art — shattered.
One hammer. The mountain falls!