The Attack of the Wastrel

There were almost no Martial Students who were below Level Six that would sign up for a battle in the Town of the Brave, so there was no differentiation in grades here. Regardless of your Martial Student level, all the numbers would be put in a box and randomly picked.

As a result, most of the people who participated had the cultivation of a Level Six Martial Student. To them, Gu Lingzhi was giving away her points by signing up to battle.

“So there really are Martial Students below Level Six that come to the Town of the Brave to battle,” someone laughed, convinced that Gu Lingzhi would not win.

“No wonder she is wearing such an ugly mask, she’s probably scared that she would lose too badly.”

On the other hand, there were some people that pitied Gu Lingzhi and tried to tell her to improve her cultivation before coming back to the Town of the Brave. One of them was the arena’s caretaker.

“Thank you for your concern, but I know what I’m doing,” Gu Lingzhi replied as she went up the stage of Arena Seven.

Her opponent was a skinny and tall young man. From his stance, he seemed like a Level Seven Martial Student, which was a difference of two grades compared to Gu Lingzhi’s rank.

As Gu Lingzhi stepped forward, he said, “You should admit defeat before you get hurt because I will not go easy on you.”

“It has not been decided who’s the winner and who’s the loser yet, why should I admit defeat?” Gu Lingzhi asked. She thought that the opponent’s confidence was rather amusing. “Even a lion has to try its hardest to catch a rabbit, don’t you know that? It would be a mistake if you dared go easy on me.”

The young man did not expect that he would be taught a lesson when he tried to advise Gu Lingzhi to admit defeat.

“Fine, you asked for it. Don’t blame me for not giving in later.”

He whipped out his Tungsten Mace and charged towards Gu Lingzhi.

Gu Lingzhi then used an Earth-Level movement technique called ‘Moon Stride’. Her steps light and nimble as if she was leaping on clouds, she easily dodged the young man’s weapon.

She summoned the Spiritual Sword that she had made yesterday. She had decided to call it “Qingfeng”. It was so hastily made that the sheath of the greenish-grey sword was absent, which attracted the mockery of the crowd.

“Oh my, where did this girl come from? Not only is her mask extremely ugly, even her weapon is of such a low quality. Who would be so shameless to sell something like that?”

“You never know, maybe she made this sword herself. It matches her ugly mask.”

“It only costs a few spirit stones to get a low-level Spiritual Sword, why would she use such an ugly one? Is she so poor that she cannot afford one?”

The guesses and gossip rang very loudly below the arena, but Gu Lingzhi was on the stage and could not hear anything the audience was saying. Even if she could, she was too focused on the battle to care.

Battling a person was different from battling a beast that did not have much intelligence. Small actions that could easily distract a beast would not work on a person.

Gu Lingzhi kept using the Moon Stride movement technique to dodge attacks and at the same time, she used a Heaven-Level technique called ‘Song of the Dreaming Butterfly’ that she had read about in her Inheritance Space.

It was as if her opponent had become a butterfly, and she transformed the Qingfeng Sword in her hands into an embroidered fan that could kill it.

Gradually, the discussion in the arena softened. They had realized that even under the young man’s continuous attacks, Gu Lingzhi did not buckle and did not look like she would lose. In fact, her counterattacks dealt a significant amount of damage on the young man.

They started looking at her in a different light. No wonder she would come forward to battle, it was because she had the capabilities to do so.

Suddenly, there was a resounding noise that sounded like two bells clashing together.

The young man’s mace and Gu Lingzhi’s Qingfeng Sword had collided ferociously, emitting a few sparks.

Gu Lingzhi seized this opportunity and shot a blaze of fire through her sword that went straight towards the young man.

Upon witnessing this scene, many people were shocked. “Only Martial Practitioners are able to externalize their spiritual energy and condense it into an attacking force!”

Her opponent did not think that Gu Lingzhi was able to use techniques that only Martial Practitioners were capable of. Having the mace in one hand, he could only manage to try blocking the blow with the other.

The young man howled in pain as the sound of skin being scorched accompanied it. He threw his mace to one side and tried to pull Gu Lingzhi off the stage.

It was embarrassing enough that he got injured by a Martial Artist that was two levels lower than him. No matter what, he would not lose the match entirely.

He tried to end the match in one blow, but Gu Lingzhi did not give him the chance to. As she tried to attack him with a blaze of fire, she also performed the Moon Stride movement technique to dodge a possible counterattack.

When the young man was reaching out to retrieve his mace, Gu Lingzhi seized the opportunity to strike again. This time, the Qingfeng Sword shot out a few golden streaks. The Qingfeng Sword was actually a weapon that was made from golden spiritual energy!

“Ah!” the young man got caught off-guard and once again tried to dodge the attacks. However, he tripped over a stone and fell to the ground.

Gu Lingzhi lunged forward with a sword and aimed it at her opponent’s throat.

“You’ve lost,” Gu Lingzhi stated calmly, as if beating him in a battle was something that was normal and expected.

“The victory goes to participant 62!” When Gu Lingzhi looked over, the administrator standing outside the Arena was smiling at her.

He did not think that a Level Five Martial Student would win the battle.

Furthermore, her opponent was someone that had a reputation in this arena.

This meant that Gu Lingzhi was stronger than most people present here. The administrator was not the only person who had thought that, so did the people who were watching the battle.

However, they were more interested in how Gu Lingzhi, who was just a Martial Student, could externalize her spiritual energy when only Martial Practitioners were capable of that technique.

Unless she had tried to cheat with a special kind of artifact?

“This is not fair!” the opponent shouted. “How is it possible that you used a technique that only Martial Practitioners are capable of?”

Technically, Martial Students were able to do this technique as long as they were above Level Four. However, usually, Martial Students were only able to externalize their spiritual energy but unable to condense it.

Even if someone was able to condense their spiritual energy and use it as an attacking force, it was usually at most the size of a water droplet or a fireball, unlike how Gu Lingzhi had just summoned an entire streak of fire. Supposedly, only Martial Practitioners could do what she just did.

“Are you talking about this?” Gu Lingzhi said, as she fused some of her fire spiritual energy into the Qingfeng Sword before swiftly cutting the connection between the energy and the sword. The flames hit the ground as it lost connection from its user and separated from the sword.

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