Chapter 90: Movie Bean (2/2)

After the Avalon of Five Elements had gradually stabilized, a protracted period of expansion had begun. Talented individuals from the Old Territory were brought into the Avalon of Five Elements as new residents to fill the space created by the continued expansion.

Most of the commoners of the Avalon of Five Elements could trace their roots back to the migrants from the Old Territory.

Despite the declining influence of these families and the rise of several outstanding commoners, the allocation of resources was still vastly skewed in favor of the aristocratic families. They controlled almost eighty percent of high-grade resources.

Conflicts between the commoners and aristocratic families were everywhere but were especially prevalent on the front line, where such clashes were almost an everyday occurrence.

“I’ve heard of this before,” Li Wei said, nodding. He suddenly felt curious. “How did he lose so badly if he could execute an absolute art?”

“Yeah, I’d like to see this ferocious earth elementalist for myself.”

Zhou Xiaoxi took out the movie bean, tossing it into the light-swallowing, shadow-spitting nepenthes[3] set on the table. This particular type of bonsai had a broad range of uses and was compatible with many media products made by wood elementalists.

In the dark brown-colored pot stood a twenty-centimeter tall nepenthes with a large pitcher. The pitcher was decorated with a wood elementalist’s signature, and a red ring encircled its opening.

After being tossed into the nepenthes, the movie bean was quickly dissolved by digestive fluids. Within moments, a beam of light sprang out of the pitcher’s opening.

The faint light converged into a rather blurry image.

“Why is it so unclear?” Zhou Xiaoxi said, visibly upset. “Unscrupulous businessmen! How dare they sell such low-quality beans at such exorbitant prices! This is crazy!”

“Don’t expect too much from this small region,” Li Wei said in an understanding manner. He was familiar with how things were like in the area. Watching the projection, he continued, “Observe carefully, or you’ll lose out even more.”

Upon hearing Li Wei’s advice, Zhou Xiaoxi ceased his complaints and watched every detail attentively.

It was evident that the mirage bean pod was focused on Zu Yan from the get-go; he was simply too eye-catching. His heavy legs were like hatchets, and his attacks were cleanly executed. His moves were not the least bit sloppy.

“He’s pretty powerful,” Zhou Xiaoxi muttered to himself. “That’s a rather well executed [Hellfire Spider Web].” His condescending manner from before had disappeared.

He had initially thought that Zu Yan’s defeat was the result of insufficient combat experience. Judging from the footage, however, Zu Yan appeared to be highly seasoned and had not made any mistakes. Besides having a higher base level, Zhou Xiaoxi himself probably couldn’t have done any better.

Li Wei did not utter a single word; he just stared at the footage.

There wasn’t a single opponent on the ground who could match Zu Yan. He took down a handful of contestants without breaking a sweat.

Everything changed when he attacked a participant that had a mask on.

That seemingly innocuous contestant suddenly made a move, punching Zu Yan’s heavy leg.

Zhou Xiaoxi subconsciously shook his head. Considering that legs were much more powerful than fists, the most viable options against the heavy leg were to either dodge and find an opening, or to fight fire with fire and return with a kick.

What happened next gave him a shock. Zu Yan was knocked back a good couple of steps while his opponent only needed two to stabilize himself.

“Impressive strength,” Li Wei commented objectively.

“Zu Yan seemed a little stirred up—he must have recognized the other party,” Zhou Xiaoxi observed. His vast experience with actual combat allowed him to deduce this fairly quickly.

However, the sight of the mysterious earth elementalist suddenly changing direction in mid-air as he rushed towards Zu Yan made them both stand up spontaneously in shock.