"Who would have thought the Mountain-Toppling Hammers, Three Mountain City's town treasure, had passed to this little girl." On the viewing stand, Wei Lin narrowed his eyes.
Lin Zhengren's fighting system ran on water and wood arts — water fed wood, and together they worked far beyond the sum of their parts.
Against Sun Xiaoman's twin hammers, they collapsed on contact.
The Vine Serpent Wall dissolved. The whip called the Emerald Python was beaten back into its artifact form, flung far away.
Waves rose under Lin Zhengren's feet, carrying him clear of the hammer's arc.
This was his second instant-cast art: Three-Fold Rising Tide.
With his trump cards spent, even his family heirloom knocked out of his hand — Lin Zhengren stayed calm.
"Isn't this the Three-City Trial? Why does Miss Sun of Three Mountain Academy fight like a martial warrior?" He smiled. "Or is it that, with Chu Ping dead, Three Mountain City has lost its Dao tradition?"
Light and easy, he attacked her very right to compete.
From the stands, Dean Dong said flatly: "The State of Zhuang honors the Dao, but does not belittle other paths. On the field, let skill decide."
A sudden crack of thunder answered him.
Zhang Yuan had felled his Three Mountain opponent with lightning arts, casual as a footnote.
Nearby, the other fifth-year pair, Riverview against Maple City, were locked in a savage duel.
Once a battle begins, only victory and defeat matter.
Lin Zhengren of course didn't expect a martial identity to make Sun Xiaoman forfeit — otherwise the match needn't have started. He was only testing whether this little girl's spirit was truly as unbreakable as it looked.
Did the death of Three Mountain Academy's senior disciple truly bring no grief?
Sun Xiaoman's hammers came.
She swung the hammers that matched her own height, light and nimble as dancing lantern flames.
Chu Ping's death had affected her after all.
Her hammer strikes came down too hard.
The detail was small — but Lin Zhengren could not miss it.
A wave carried his feet, and he rose easily. Three-Fold Tide lifted him again and again, until he stood above the falling hammer.
He tapped it. Once. Lightly.
To Sun Xiaoman, that tap meant nothing — she was a martial expert who wielded giant hammers, a thousand jin of strength in each arm.
But at that instant, centered on Lin Zhengren, all essence in the world went wild.
Behind him in the void, a gate seemed to congeal — the shadow of his own body.
There is a gate between heaven and earth, and man is that gate.
A great sound, and yet silence.
The gate swung open!
Essence submitted. Heaven and earth connected.
He could have opened this gate long ago — but he had chosen, with total confidence, to do it now.
Meaning he had controlled this battle completely. The gate was never an obstacle to him. He had merely grown used to hiding his strength.
He had connected heaven and earth, bound himself to the world. Power needed no borrowing; the might was his own.
He was already a sixth-rank cultivator — Soaring Dragon realm, a mid-rank powerhouse!
One tap of the foot, and the Mountain-Toppling Hammer fell with no hope of recovery, smashing through the bricks and burying itself in the earth.
Sun Xiaoman didn't let go. Dragged down by the buried hammer, her whole body tilted — but she used the momentum to spin, her other hammer whipping around in a follow-up, howling at Lin Zhengren to drive him back.
The gap between a mid-rank powerhouse and a low-rank cultivator was vast.
Lin Zhengren's fingers shifted slightly, and a water-dragon, formed of pure water essence, roared from his palm.
It grew as it absorbed essence, crashed into the hammer — and through the hammer into Sun Xiaoman, hurling her, hammer and all, through the air.
Water Dragon Wave, a low-grade Jia-rank art.
One hammer lay abandoned, buried in the ground. The other pinned Sun Xiaoman down, the blow leaving her senseless.
A moment later, the giant hammer on the barefoot girl shifted. She took a breath, shoved it off, and lurched to her feet.
Jiang Chen began, dimly, to understand why Yang Xiong and Zhao Tiehe had fought so desperately.
Their third-years and fifth-years were weak, even by Trial standards. The fat boy's defense was nearly unsolvable at his rank — but he was too young, his accumulation far too thin.
The first-year match had been their only real chance at a title. The only chance to show Three Mountain City's future. The academy had lost ten experts including senior disciple Chu Ping — a generation gaping with holes. That was why Sun Xiaoman, a girl who trained only the martial path, had to lead. Why Sun Xiaoyan, a thirteen-year-old fat boy, had been coaxed and wheedled into coming, with his mother's silent blessing.
Nothing more: Three Mountain City desperately needed resources. The Trial, tied to the Zhuang court's resource allocation, mattered to them enormously.
And now Three Mountain City's other fifth-year had fallen to Zhang Yuan. All the pressure rested on this barefoot girl.
So she stood.
With her breastbone visibly caved in. Against an opponent who had revealed sixth-rank power.
Her small figure swayed. But it did not fall.
Lin Zhengren beckoned, and the Emerald Python, knocked away at the match's start, flew back to his hand.
The whip amplified his wood arts.
He did not hesitate, nor waver. Calmly, methodically, at terrifying speed, he sealed again.
A jade-green python burst from the ground and coiled around Sun Xiaoman, tighter and tighter.
One loop, and the barefoot girl vanished from sight. Hammer and all, swallowed in the python's coils.
Emerald Python Crush, a low-grade Jia-rank art.
He was this strong!
This strong, and still this steady. Steady to the point of ruthlessness. Cultivators like Lin Zhengren were the most terrifying opponents — they never gave an enemy an opening.
"Sis!"
Off-field, Sun Xiaoyan was nearly in tears.
A hand closed around the jade python's throat. Small against the serpent's bulk.
But strong.
It was Dean Dong's hand.
He gave a light shake, and the entire python dissolved into nothing, revealing the bound Sun Xiaoman.
She crumpled.
Long unconscious — but her hand still gripped the one remaining Mountain-Toppling Hammer.
"You win," Dean Dong said to Lin Zhengren.
Lin Zhengren bowed, flawless in courtesy. "Hard work, Dean Dong."
Only then did the judge move, carrying Sun Xiaoman off the field. The judge, a man of the county academy, had barely opened his own Gate of Heaven and Earth — he had been too slow to intervene.
Dean Dong waved a hand, signaling the next match could begin.
Watching the dean drift back to his seat, Wei Lin's lips didn't move, but his voice carried: "The Mountain-Toppling Hammers have recognized their master. That girl will be something in years to come. Why not let Lin Zhengren kill her?"
"Her father died not long ago. If the daughter died too — that tigress of Three Mountain City would go mad."
"A fierce tigress, but the grudge would fall on Riverview, not on Maple City. What does that have to do with us? This girl lives, and no one her age can beat her. She'll only block our juniors' path."
Dean Dong didn't look at him. His quiet voice came back: "The children of Three Mountain City, the children of Maple City — they are all children of the State of Zhuang."
Wei Lin said nothing more. Neither agreeing nor disagreeing.