Chapter 44: Stealing Energy
The entire room was silent. The ones who had been training and heard the unusual loud noises coming from the arena at the back all stopped their training to walk closer and see what was happening. Seeing that there was a One-Star Warrior fighting a Three-Star Warrior, everyone was perplexed as to how this youngster was capable of holding his ground against a superior opponent. Even more shocking was that the young man managed to make a breakthrough right there on the middle of the stage.
Although this young man had broken through, he was still only a Two-Star Expert. The opponent in front of him was a Three-Star Expert and still he had been incapable of defeating the Early Stage Two-Star Warrior. This proved that although this young man had shown his arrogance earlier, he was indeed capable of showing off as anyone would consider him a great genius of the younger generation.
By the side of the Arena, Yong Meilin was standing with a smile on her face and her hands clapping. Her laughter was like drops of fresh water falling into a small stream. Her joy was able to refresh anyone who listened to the sound, entrancing them as though she was a fairy. She was stealing away their lifeforce with nothing but her beautiful voice and astonishing appearance.
“Xu Min, you are as amazing as you said,” the fairy said with her beautiful voice. The moment she said this, the spell had been broken. Everyone within the training ground came back to their senses, their faces turning sour as they saw the elated expression on Yong Meilin’s face as she looked at the young man on the stage. Seeing how he only replied to her with a small smile, the many men felt so jealous inside. They were jealous that it was not them who were being looked at with such care.
Xu Min did not care about the jealousy as all he felt was the thrill when the sword in his hand started absorbing the energies from his opponent and depositing them inside himself. He was not completely certain how it worked. He knew that he had to practice it some more to truly understand what type of weapon his master had given him as a farewell gift.
“Who is next?” Xu Min’s voice rung through the incredibly silent grounds and the next in line finally realised that it was his turn. His eyes turned serious and a sneer appeared on his face.
“You might be good,” the opponent said as he climbed onto the arena, “But I am not as easy to beat as some internal expert. Let us see how well you will manage someone who is an external expert just like you!”
The expert in front of Xu Min was a Two-Star Warrior much like him. Xu Min’s physical strength was equal to a late stage Two-Star Warrior and he also noticed that the man in front of him was a warrior of the same rank. Although, his internal energy was stronger than Xu Min’s.
As an eternal expert, this man’s entire body was filled with bulging muscle. His body was clearly focused on pure strength alone, especially since his arms had astonishingly large muscles beneath the somewhat tanned skin. Looking at this man, Xu Min could understand the major difference between the two. Although they both were external experts, they had gone down two different paths of training, and now they were waiting to see which way was the better one.
Xu Min trained his entire body and ensured that every muscle within his body had been pushed to their limits. He also specialised in speed while the man in front of him who focused purely on strength would not be as nimble as Xu Min. However if this man managed to catch Xu Min, the battle would be over. There was no way that Xu Min could hope to escape such a grip or be able to protect himself against the strong arms clamping down upon him.
Even though it was like this, the certainty of victory was evident on Xu Min’s face. He even winked to Yong Meilin just as the battle was about to begin. This caused the opponent to become starling red as rage fumed within his body causing him to run towards Xu Min.
The strong arm shot out like a snake attacking, but although he was fast compared to other experts, he was nothing compared to someone like Xu Min. He had trained his entire body day in and day out. Xu Min trained in the docks at Honghe City and within the small room that belonged to Overseer Wang.
As the attack launched towards him, Xu Min took a step to the side and he gracefully avoided the punch which was coming his way. Seeing this, the older man felt his anger rise. As he was thrusting the arm forward, he swept it to the side in the hopes to catch the young man off-guard.
Seeing the arm change trajectory, Xu Min was not astonished in the least. Instead, he let go of a snort filled with disdain as he leaned backwards and once more managed to escape the double attack from the opponent. He avoided the attacks so skillfully that not even the corner of his sleeves had been touched. As he avoided the attacks so gracefully, Xu Min once again astonished the ones observing the battle. Yet, one thing was to avoid, but another was to attack. The man in front of him was filled with muscle in his upper torso. There was so much so that they managed to create an amazing defense, not allowing for any Qi to penetrate into his internals and cause him serious injury.
The man in front of Xu Min was a very well-known expert within the paid guards of the Yong family. He usually fought against the Three-Star Warriors as his body was protected by a large layer of muscle. This allowed for him to stand against the internal techniques and made it easier for him to win against the average Three-Star Warriors.
Usually, external experts were weaker than the internal ones. Once in awhile, experts would appear as opposites, the external experts which specialised against internal experts. Xu Min’s current opponent was one of these experts.
“So you think that just because you can defeat Three-Star Warriors that I am an easy target?” Xu Min mumbled to himself, his brown eyes turning slightly chilled. Absorbing energy from an external expert seemed to be impossible for the sword as all the Qi was only floating around within his body and not outside it. The sword in his hands only seemed capable of absorbing the energy which was floating around within the air. This removed any chance of Xu Min draining the opponent’s energy.
“It is a pretty cute weapon you got there,” the tall bulky man said, standing on the other side of the arena. He reached his arm down from the arena and he too grabbed his weapon of choice.
Xu Min raised an eyebrow in surprise as he saw a massive axe within the arms of this external expert in front of him. It seemed as though things had just gotten much more complicated.
The two men were standing on the arena, neither of them took the initiative to attack first. Both were wielding their weapons in a posture so that they could both block and attack at any moment. The atmosphere was so tense that one could almost cut through it. The axe seemed dominant, as though it was capable of chopping through the young man in front of him. Although he was not as bulky as the man in front of him, Xu Min had a strong body and the sword in his arms was humming slightly. Energy ripples left the sword one after another much like waves crashing against the beach, rolling over land, and slowly vanishing into the sand. These energy ripples did just that. They left the sword and rolled into the air until it vanished into the air, dissipating to never be seen again. Feeling this much energy within the sword, Xu Min understood that he had most likely only gained half of the energy absorbed. The sword was simply filled with energy which did not belong to Xu Min himself.
“Prepare yourself!” The other man finally lost patience, having been affected by rage for too long. He was incapable of holding back for any longer and with a strong and outstretched arm, he swiped across the entire half of the arena. The sound of the air being split into two was sounding out. Although Xu Min had managed to avoid the first few attacks, many of the audience were looking at the arena with held breaths as they wondered whether or not he would be capable of avoiding this swift axe that only left a blur behind. The strength of the man’s arm was even stronger than what Xu Min had expected. As he once more got ready to dodge, he was surprised to see how skillfully the axe was being moved.
At first, he had planned on running to the side, making a narrow escape. Now, this was not an option as the large axe was swiping past its range being half a circle. Xu Min retreated a few steps instead. He looked at the ground and saw that some black hair had been cut off, landing on the floor of the arena ground.
Seeing how close it had been, Xu Min raised an eyebrow on his forehead. The young man was suddenly unable to contain a grin which appeared on his eyes.
“My turn!” he said and with a kick on the ground he used the force to set off against the opponent. The sword in his hand was ready to strike. This was the first time that Xu Min was using his real speed. Speeding towards the man in front of him, a grin was evident on his face as he wielded the large sword as though it weighed nothing. Seeing this, the opponent’s eyes widened in surprise.
Although he had planned to attack, he quickly got in a defensive stance. The muscle in his body swelled, and he grinned just as much as Xu Min was. Both men were Late Stage Two-Star Warriors, and both of them were capable of posing a threat to the other. Neither dared to be complacent as still both were completely certain that they would win.
This was an attack of pure strength. Looking at the two from outside, it would seem that Xu Min had no chance of winning. However, he gathered all the strength throughout his entire body, and poured it all into the already humming sword in his hands. As he brought down the sword, it collided with the opponent’s great axe.
A massive boom sounded out and the entire ground shook. The arena was completely filled with a cloud of dust. From the arena, there was a large scar stretching through the entire training ground, disturbing anyone who tried to train.
The dust took forever to settle and as it did, everyone stared in astonishment when they saw an unconscious large man and an axe which had been cleaved into two parts in front of them. Xu Min was standing in the middle of the arena with a massive gash between his legs while holding a grin on his face that hadn’t disappeared. The only change was that a fine layer of dust had settled upon his clothes, and he was now resting against the sword.
As the dust had settled completely, he shrugged his shoulders and looked at the long gash. It had spread beneath his legs, towards the edge of the arena, and even further away through the ground. His eyes widened in surprise.
“Sorry,” Xu Min said as he sheathed his sword and went towards Yong Meilin, “I did not expect the last attack to be this damaging,” he grinned and Yong Meiling could not help but giggle in return. It was none of her concern that the arena had been destroyed, someone ranked lower than her in the family would deal with getting it replaced.
“Well. Since you destroyed the arena, there is no real reason for us to keep hanging around here,” Yong Meilin said with pursed lips as she reached out a hand towards Xu Min. Understanding what she wanted, the young man could not help but chuckle on the inside at the obviously cute behavior of the young woman. Jumping from the stage, Xu Min took her hand. With a shrug of his shoulders, the two of them together departed the training grounds, leaving behind one stunned expert after another.