by Pegaz
“You know...” Sarah frowned in contemplation. “They might classify you as a sociopath back on Earth.”
“What?” John looked over at her. “I’ve heard of psychopaths but not sociopaths. What’s the difference?”
“Psychopaths can hurt anybody and not feel guilty,” she explained. “Typically, they can act like normal people but have no emotions. They fake everything and can kill people without batting an eye. Though not all psychopaths are killers.
“A sociopath, though, is a less server version. They typically will not feel any guilt in hurting strangers, but people close to them are the exception. They can be quick to anger, though, and have a harder time faking their emotions.”
“Well…” John thought about what she said. “I don’t think I’m quick to anger. While things some people have done have angered me, I think it’s justified. I don’t care about strangers, sure, but anyone is capable of that. It’s not like I want to kill innocents if I can help it. If I do kill an innocent, I’ll probably regret it whether I knew them or not.”
The topic died out with that. The room had a curious air in it, so John tried to change the subject.
“Anyway, what did you think of the disciple’s techniques?” he asked with a smile. “You watched some of the matches, right?”
“They’re crap,” Sarah replied flatly. “If I used my poison, they would all drop dead in less than two minutes.”
John could only laugh.
“But what about the sword techniques?” he tried. “We can’t only rely on the systems for survival. It’s only an advantage, not a certainty.”
“I understand that.” Sarah tossed her head with a sour expression. “But the outer disciples are all over the place. They haven’t polished their techniques because they’re trying to break through to Rank 5 before they turn ninety so they’ve got a chance of being promoted. They’re too busy cultivating. They have no movement or weapon techniques that are certain to win a fight.”
“That’s all true.” John smiled. “I’m guessing because of my weapon test, I won’t even have to fight to get to the finals now. They will be too scared to fight me. And that reminds me, when I meet you in the finals, I’m going all out.”
Sarah’s pout turned into a playful smile.
“Bring it.”
They both went to bed afterwards.
The next morning, they both went back to the arena. Like John predicted, his opponent gave up before stepping into the ring. Sarah won her match under a minute, too.
Both John and Sarah still had to fight again later today, so they stayed at the arena and watched all the matches. It was like Sarah said: all the outer disciples had no technique. They would get slaughtered in a real fight outside the sect.
The real strength of the Sword Sect’s disciples must be their inner and elite disciples since they probably have more time to polish their techniques.
If ever the Sword Sect went to war, the outer disciples would be the cannon fodder, inner disciples would be the team leaders on the battlefield, and elite disciples would be the generals. The elders would probably wind up being the people back inside the city, coming up with strategies or commanders of the entire army.
A few hours later, John and Sarah had their second match for the day. What surprised John was that his opponent didn’t give in straight away. Instead, John had to rush him and kick him off the ring from his blind spot. He didn’t use his teleport skill, but John was still much faster than his opponent and got into his blind spot with ease.
Sarah had it even easier. Her opponent forfeited straight away.
When they met each other later, Sarah complained for five whole minutes about the disciples. She called them spineless, and John laughed at her as she continued to sling insults at them. It was a light hearted conversation, though, and Sarah was eventually laughing alongside her husband.
John’s mind eventually wandered to his armoury. He wanted to buy a sword to test his rune. He didn’t want to wait anymore. After bringing it up to Sarah, they went to a shop in the sword section where John bought five swords, all rare Rank 1 blades with one slot open for his rune experiments.
Arriving back at the house, John told Sarah about his rune experiment. Interested in what would happen, she stuck around and watched him work.
Grabbing the “shrink edges 2A molecule” rune he created, he moved it closer to the sword. When the rune touched the sword, it disappeared. Then the sword glowed red for a second and... disappeared.
John knitted his brows and looked around. Sarah walked closer and looked, too. John even used Life Vision and Immortal Eye but found nothing. He concentrated on his eyesight to see things better and stared at where the sword used to be. With his enhanced vision and full concentration, he could see what looked like a red speck of dust.
That must be the sword... The “shrink 2A molecule” worked, but not the edges part of the rune. It just shrunk the whole sword...
He explained it to Sarah, who found it hilarious.
John took out another beast blood vial, a blank rune, and a brush. He then painted the three parts that worked but was still trying to figure out how to paint “edges.” He sat there with brush in hand for a few minutes, trying to think of something.
“Occam’s razor,” Sarah muttered to John with a smile before leaving the room.
As soon as she said that, John was struck with inspiration. He drew a straight line in the top right corner of the rune. The blank rune didn’t break so John knew it was successful again.
Does a straight line mean edge? I doubt it’s that simple but worth a try.
He took out another sword and repeated the action of inserting the rune. The rune disappeared, but the sword only glowed red for a few seconds, then went back to normal. Upon inspection, the blade hadn’t changed at all. Picking it up, he placed his finger on the edge of the sword.
The sword ripped through his Defence skill’s veil and drew blood after casually touching it. Looking at the table, he placed the sword edge on it but let the sword’s weight do the work. John let go of the sword and it sliced through the table like a hot knife through butter, stabbing into the floor.
Success! If it can do that with just the swords weight, I can’t even imagine how easily it will cut things when I swing it around. Wait... this could be dangerous if people find out about the rune or the sword and steal it. I’ll get an empty slotted Rank 9 sword from somewhere, place this rune inside and people will think it’s because of the sword, not the rune.
Excited, John showed the sword to Sarah. She instantly wanted one, but John destroyed the sword so it couldn’t wind up in the wrong hands. He told her to wait for the completed version.
Chapter 29
How?
The next day, there were three matches for every person. John won one and got through by default for the other two because his opponents forfeited before entering the ring. Sarah fought all three fights and won under a minute for two of them, and sixty-two seconds on her third match.
The next day, the rest of the schedule for the tournament was announced.
On the first day, there was one match, leaving five hundred twelve contestants left.
On the second day, there were two matches, leaving one hundred twenty-eight contestants left.
On the third day, there were three matches, leaving sixteen contestants left.
On the fourth day, there were four matches, leaving the champion of each block.
On the next nine days after that, five matches between ten people would take place to determine the winners of the whole tournament.
Sarah finished her fourth and final group match in the afternoon. It had taken her over three minutes to knock the man out the ring, but by winning, she became the champion of A block.
John had finished three matches but was awaiting his fourth and final match to determine the champion of J Block. When it was finally time, John stood up and walked to the ring. As he got into position about one hundred fee
t away from the edge of the ring, he looked up and saw his opponent was already standing there.
His opponent was a redheaded man much taller than him. John guessed he had to be over seven feet tall. He wasn’t as broad as John, though. The word lanky came to mind.
“Before the match starts I want to say,” the man shouted. “I saw your fire-based attack from the first day. I advise you to give up. Fire doesn’t affect me.”
John frowned, checking the man out with Immortal Eye.
???
Rank: 5
Level: 6
Sin: 0
This might be a hard fight. I’ve never fought anybody above Rank 4 while holding back my killing moves.
The Rank 5 assassin leader on the planet where I met Sarah for the third time was the highest ranked person I fought, and that was with killing techniques. Even then, I needed help from the Gibson family to get in any damage.
But that assassin was trained by the Rogue sect specifically for killing people! This guy is an outer disciple who couldn’t make it in time to become an inner disciple. He must be over one hundred years old.
Question is, has he got enough fighting experience to back up his strength or is he like the rest and has unpolished moves? Guess I’ll find out soon enough.
“Your strongest attack isn’t effective on me,” his opponent shouted once more. “Your little kicks won’t be able to even make me step backwards. You have no chance to win, so save us all some time and give up!”
John was about to speak when the redhead threw in another insult.
“And what’s with those skull masks anyway? Your face too ugly for the public?”
That was when John’s face twisted into a look of annoyance.
“You might not understand this,” he called back in an all too casual tone. “But you are literally not worth a second of my time.”
Which is true since I can’t get a second of time from his sins in the system.
John pretended to draw his sword from out of the bag, instead forming his threads to complete the illusion. He created an extra long sword with a double-edged blade of forty inches. Looking at the ref, John waited for the match to start. He was going to enjoy this.
“Fight!”
John rushed towards the man. Just as he got within a few feet, the man’s blade was drawn with a swinging motion. It was John’s first time seeing the man’s weapon; it was a great sword almost as tall as the man himself. However, he was unfazed and unimpressed.
John pushed off with his right foot and lowered his body to avoid the man’s sword and get inside the man’s reach at the same time. Landing on his left foot, John wound up behind the man. He kicked out his right foot towards the back of the man’s knee.
BANG!
The man’s right knee hit the ring as John landed his blow. With no hesitation, John then swung his sword at the man’s neck from behind. Barely able to see what was going on, the redhead panicked. He dropped his weapon and moved his head forward, diving into a somersault to get away from John. Once he was away, he ran towards his great sword and picked it up, all the while dodging John’s attacks.
Only seven seconds had elapsed from the start of the match. Their moves impressed the crowd, as did their speed. The man’s recovery and John’s creativity left them speechless. What nobody but Sarah knew was that John was only testing one new technique after another; she recognised the moves from what they read in the library.
The man was only able to dodge John’s attacks because John wasn’t using any killing techniques. For the most part, John was only toying with him.
John and his opponent rushed forward once again, their swords clashing many times per second. They each threw kicks and punches that did not connect, weaving in and out. At one point, the man slashed his great sword at an angle, aiming at John’s left shoulder. John stepped back by half a step to prepare to avoid the great sword by inches, but then countered by slashing his own sword in the opposite direction.
The blades were about to clash when, suddenly, John’s sword slowed down. The man saw half of John’s sword disappear but his greatsword carried on in its swing. When it passed where John’s sword was supposed to be, John’s blade reappeared.
John thrust the sword towards the man’s neck.
BOOM!
The man’s greatsword hit the ring.
Looking down, he saw John’s sword was millimetres away from his neck.
“Winner and champion of Block J!”
The man saw the silver skull looking at him with those yellow pupils and he felt a cold sweat running down his back. Had this been a real fight, he would be dead.
John turned around and walked away, pretending to put the sword back into his bag. The crowd was alive with murmurs. People were discussing his final move with fervour.
As he got close to the edge of the ring, John heard his opponent call out to him.
“Wait!”
Turning around, he saw the man was running towards him.
“What is it?”
The man stood ten to fifteen feet away from John and grinned a hungry smile.
“I’ve got to know. How did your sword stop in the middle of the motion?!” The look in his eye was that of excitement as if he’d witnessed a god. “How did you make the blade disappear?!”
Chapter 30
Skimming
“I can’t tell you how the sword disappeared,” John replied. “That’s my own personal technique. But the thrust and stopping mid-swing is from the sword throttle technique inside the library. I pushed Life Power at the bottom of the sword’s pommel for the thrust. Though if I didn’t have enough strength, I would not have stopped the thrust and you would be dead. That’s the only drawback on that technique. You can lose control of the sword, which can be fatal in a fight.”
With that, John turned around and walked off the ring.
Sarah was the only one besides John who knew what happened. John had stopped the thread’s Shapeshift skill on half the sword, turning the top half of the sword back to threads. That allowed his opponent’s sword to carry on with its swing instead of colliding with John’s sword. Once his opponent’s sword had travelled far enough in the swing, John reused the Shapeshift skill to transform the threads back into the top half of his sword. In the man’s eyes, John’s sword had disappeared and reappeared. John had a smile on his face because he was surprised he made it work.
After the match, a judge stood up and walked onto the ring. He announced the first matches of the following day. The matches were listed in ascending order, so Sarah would fight the champion of Block B, since she was the champion of Block A. John, being the champion of Block J, would fight the champion of Block I.
Out of the ten seeded people, nine made it to the finals. Of these, John was particularly on edge about the champion of Block C. The man had definitely been in more than one life-or-death fight. He was just like John and Sarah in fights—ruthless. They would have to be careful.
As John stood at the edge of the ring, an idea popped into his mind. Waiting for the judge to leave the ring, he walked to the side of it and pretended to be nauseous, placing his head and hands on the ring looking down to the floor. Ten minutes later, he stood up and walked away.
Turning around to head to the teleport leading home, he met up with Sarah. They chatted casually on the way home together, but as soon as they walked through the doors, Sarah couldn’t hold back anymore. She asked John what the sick act had been about.
“If I told you, it would ruin the surprise, right? “ John smiled. “Wait ‘til tomorrow.”
He playfully escaped her by running downstairs into the cultivation rooms and locking the door.
Inside the room, John opened his Storage Space and took out three pieces of metal that were three feet high, a foot-and-a-half in width, and half a foot in depth. Then, he took out a piece that was five feet high with the same width and depth as the other three. He had another block of metal left in the Storage Space that was muc
h bigger and wouldn’t fit inside this small room.
These pieces of metal were the nano metal he skimmed off the ring.
While acting sick, he placed his head on the ring and activated his metal elemental. While he took one millimetre off the top of the ring, it had cost him hundreds of thousands of Toxin Power units.
There were runes protecting the ring, but only for theft of the whole thing. Nothing got in his way while skimming and nobody even knew he had the metal elemental, either.
With the nano metal going into his Storage Space, he combined it into the four different pieces of metal blocks and another big block of the metal.
One millimetre off the top of a five-hundred-foot diameter ring was more than enough to create one long sword and three short swords for him and Sarah. The spare block of nano metal was enough to create armour, too.
If the judge hadn’t gotten up and announced the matches, John wouldn’t have had enough time to think of the skimming idea. He found humour in this irony.
Inside the small room, the four pieces of metal took up more space than he planned, but he still had enough room to work with. Grabbing one of the smaller pieces of nano metal, he touched it with his forehead. The metal wriggled while moving.
The first thing he made was the pommel. He only made it a basic circle with the top and bottom end getting narrower. At the top of the pommel, he made the handle seven inches long, twisting on itself like the string on baseball bats. He connected both parts to make it a solid piece.
The sword guard came next. He made it a simple straight edge facing the handle. It was two inches thick and curved on the top. At the middle of the curve, it was only an inch thick.
The blade came next. He made it fifteen inches long, double-edged, and two inches thick in the middle of the blade. The end of the sword flattened out to a normal sword point.
When he finished, he turned Immortal Eye on and looked at it.
Mythical Grade Nanocomposite Short Sword.
The whole sword was a light grey colour—nothing fancy or shiny.