36 Shi Clan Tournament 3 - Surprising Skill (1/2)

”Bring a training weapon rack up on stage,” Shi Xingtai said to a nearby clan member through voice transmission. The clan member nodded and went to get a training weapon rack, bringing it up on stage minutes later.

The rack was filled with wooden weapons that had a similar weight and shape to weapons usually used in real life combat. Swords, sabers, axes, maces, zithers, hammers, you name it, that weapon is probably there.

After making sure that the weapons were not tampered with, Shi Xingtai nodded his head and looked at the remaining participants.

”How many participants are left again?” Shi Xingtai mumbled as he counted with his fingers. ”In the first round, we had around 150 participants. Over 60 participants left, so that leaves us with more or less 90 participants remaining.”

Taking a deep breath, he said, ”Since all of you are old-timers, I'd assume that most of you haven't increase your comprehension at all. Some of you are at the adept level while most of you are at the beginner level.”

”This would mean that most of you are instantly disqualified for this round...unless you prove that your comprehension level is at the adept level...” Shi Xingtai pointed his finger to the white pillar. ”Using the white pillar.”

...

Shi Li was utterly dumbfounded as to what was happening. He was already cultivating for over three months but he didn't know things that are common sense for the majority.

Steeling himself, he went to where Shi Shisi was and whispered a question to his ear. ”Could you explain how the second round works?”

Shi Shisi raised his eyebrow and looked at Shi Li with slight shock. ”Do you not know how the tournament works? Did the patriarch tell you anything?”

Shi Li sighed and shook his head. ”Father — I mean the patriarch didn't tell me anything at all. He just told me to cultivate to the Second Stage of Skin Tempering so I can enter this tournament.”

He skipped over the fact that he and his father made a deal as to how far Shi Li would be able to go.

Shi Shisi frowned a bit as he looked at Shi Li. He didn't sense any hint of mockery whatsoever, it was truly a sincere question.

Since it was like that, Shi Shisi wracked his brain as he recalled how the second round worked. ”Well the second round is like the first round, but with the usage of your first martial technique. The martial technique increases the potency of your strength, allowing your attacks to be stronger than if they were used without techniques.”

He then continued, ”A normal Low Human martial technique, when practiced to the level of perfection, would allow a cultivator to unleash twice the cultivator's body strength. So if you had a body strength of 30 ren, your attack would easily reach 60 ren.”

He then noticed Shi Li's dazed look after he finished explaining. He snapped his fingers to jolt back Shi Li to reality as he asked, ”Do you understand?”

Shi Li took a while for him to absorb the information given by Shi Shisi, yet he still nodded. After a while, he had a somewhat thorough understanding of how the second round worked and looked at the stage.

...

A young boy at the age of 13 went up on stage and bowed respectfully to Shi Xingtai.

”Oh? Shi Lüzhang? I didn't expect that the first person to come up would be you,” Shi Xingtai couldn't help but say.

Shi Lüzhang chuckled a bit before replying, ”Elder jokes. I've trained a lot in my [Spiralling Pierce] technique and I feel like I have reached the adept level in it.” He then went to the training weapon rack and grabbed a wooden spear before standing beside the pillar.

”Well...go ahead. No one's hindering you from doing so. Just make sure that you don't die from embarassment,” Shi Xingtai laughed. The other participants laughed as well.

Shi Lüzheng stabilized his footing before positioning his spear perpendicular to his body, the tip tens of centimeters away from the group.

Gradually, the laughter died down as they saw Lüzheng concentrating on this one attack.

Once it was silent enough, Shi Lüzheng rotated the spear with his full body strength as he stabbed at the pillar in one swift motion.

”[Spiralling Pierce]!”

Bang!

A small dent was made on the pillar, making the participants applaud for Shi Lüzheng. Shi Lüzheng wanted to look at the audience and smile, but he wanted to see if he had truly reached the adept level.

Within seconds, the number on the pillar reached 30 ren, the strength of a Second Stage cultivator.

After that, it slowly increased, making Shi Lüzheng grip the wooden spear tightly.

31...

33...

35...

36 ren.

The pillar stopped at 36 ren, making Shi Lüzheng kneel to the floor as he sighed in disappointment.

Shi Xingtai went closer to him and placed his hand on Lüzheng's shoulder. ”You may not have reached the adept level of comprehension, but you're getting there. Increasing the potency of your strength by 20% is already halfway there to reaching adept level, just polish your techniques even more and I'm sure you'll reach it.”

Shi Lüzheng looked at Shi Xingtai and lightly smiled before nodding multiple times. ”Un! I'm sure I can. I just have to exert more effort into cultivating the technique!”

He stood up and bowed once more to Shi Xingtai before looking at the audience and bowing to them as well, gaining a loud applause from the audience.

Shi Xingtai urged Shi Lüzheng to get off the stage before continuing to ask the other participants, ”Would anyone want to check if their strength would allow them to proceed to the third round?”

All of a sudden, a silhouette appeared on stage within seconds, making multiple people exclaim.

”It's Lightning Feet, Shi Kuai!”

”Shi Kuai is on stage, does that mean he improved his level of comprehension? Isn't he already at the adept level?”

”He's already 15 this year, he's bound to improve as time passes.”

Shi Kuai bowed respectfully in front of Shi Xingtai before saying, ”I would like to check if I have improved my comprehension of the [Lightning Stab] technique.”

Shi Xingtai's eyes gleamed as he looked at Shi Kuai. Shi Kuai was quite similar to Shi Shisi, not in the sense of pursuing an extremely stable foundation, but rather in the pursuit of higher strength. The strength he pursued was that of speed, because as they say, as long as an attack is fast enough, then it makes someone unparalleled.