The Tournament Ends

Li Zhu had an evil glint in his eyes, as he moved towards the floating stones, still in Shadow Lurk. The first step in his plan was to repeatedly destroy Wu Chen's rocks, so that the stubborn young man would keep slamming into the ground, in order to create more.

Executing his plan, Li Zhu exited Shadow Lurk with his fists extended, creating a shock wave which destroyed about half of the stone shards instantly. After all, the stone that Wu Chen conjured was not particularly tough for a cultivator to destroy, and the danger it brought was mostly due to the quantity and sharpness of the shards, which could overwhelm most opponents.

Li Zhu did his job quickly and efficiently, though, and with another two punches all the rocks had been destroyed, leaving an irritated Wu Chen.

Wu Chen immediately slammed into he ground yet again, creating more spikes, and shattering them into stone shards. He did all this extremely quickly, before speaking up, "Li Zhu, we both know that I can do this forever, but you cannot... just quit now, and save us both the trouble of having to recover energy later on!"

Wu Chen was quite annoyed, since he knew that it would take a while for Li Zhu to deplete his energy, and in that time he would need to constantly crate more stones, which was quite an effort when repeated many times.

Trying to prove his point, Wu Chen did not stop at the first batch of rocks, and kept slamming into the ground over and over, causing the whole arena to be full of stone shards, all under his control.

Now came Li Zhu's time to struggle, as he dodged and defended against the endless attacks, while also trying to destroy as many shards as possible. Fortunately, his plan was working quite well, and the slight depression under Wu Chen was getting deeper, revealing more and more water.

'It's almost time!' he thought, continuing his now familiar routine of entering and exiting Shadow Lurk, each time delivering powerful punches.

A few cuts appeared on his body, where some stone shards had reached him before he could do anything. Although at the start of the encounter the cuts were pretty trivial injuries, as more time passed Wu Chen grew more aggressive, and this was reflected in the movement of the stone shards, which became more unpredictable This, of course, meant more injuries for Li Zhu, who was struggling to destroy stones as fast as Wu Chen produced them.

Fortunately, after about a minute more of dodging rocks, Li Zhu noticed that the water under Wu Chen had finally completely reached the surface, and in fact even the big young man noticed it, as he stopped producing stones for a moment to look down at his feet.

He had an embarrassed expression, since he knew that his skill had caused damage to the arena, property of the sect. Although this was the case, he did not stop producing stones, since it was the key to pressuring Li Zhu into defeat.

'Now!' thought Li Zhu, before exiting Shadow Lurk one finally time. He then communicated with Blue, who flew down from the sky and fused with him.

The transformation was seamless, and as his body changed into his ice covered form, Li Zhu was already running towards Wu Chen at full speed.

This time around, dodging the stone shards was incredibly difficult, since he could not enter Shadow Lurk and avoid all damage. Still, reaching Wu Chen was necessary to win the fight, so Li Zhu did his best to not run in a straight line, as well as often jump around, all to avoid the incoming projectiles.

About thirty deep cuts later, Li Zhu was finally close to Wu Chen, who seemed confused, as he asked, "You're turning to punching me again? Did you not realize earlier that it won't work?!"

After all, if Li Zhu was not able to harm Wu Chen before, there was no reason why he would be able to harm him now. With these thoughts in mind, Wu Chen stayed calm, as he simply caused large spikes to rise towards Li Zhu, as well as redirect the remaining stone shards towards him.

Li Zhu dodged as many stone shards as he could, before jumping high into the air, in an attempt to land beyond the stone spikes, near Wu Chen.

Of course, Wu Chen would not allow this, as he suddenly extended his fist towards Li Zhu, who was about to land right next to him.

Li Zhu, seeing the punch directed at him, grabbed Wu Chen's fist with all his strength, using it to slam himself down on the ground, and onto the water. In his own slam, he used as much strength in his legs as he could, causing water to finally gush out from the cracks.

Wu Chen was slightly panicked by now, realizing that Li Zhu clearly had a plan in mind. Before he could do anything, though, Li Zhu pushed both his hands deep into the pool of water.

As his hands touched the water, Li Zhu activated Frost Touch, causing ice to form along the water and around Wu Chen's feet and legs.

Li Zhu would not stop here, though, since there was still no way for him to defeat Wu Chen, even when stuck to the ground. Knowing this, Li Zhu placed all of his remaining heavenly energy into Frost Touch, as the fountain of water gushing out of the ground all froze, and with it Wu Chen, who by now was desperately trying to escape.

'Just a little more!' kept repeating to himself Li Zhu, as his heavenly energy was almost completely drained using the Frost Touch. The amount of energy used was also reflected in the strength of the skill, though, and the ice was completely covering Wu Chen's body, leaving him helpless.

As the skill finished, the ice finally covered Wu Chen's face and head, as he had now become a human statue of ice. If left there for a minute or two, he would without a doubt suffocate.

'I have won!' thought Li Zhu, in disbelief. This entire fight he had been losing to Wu Chen, but he had managed to use the environment to help him win at the end. Frost Touch became much more effective when there was water present, since water froze faster than a person would. Because of this, using water reduced the chance that Wu Chen could break out of the water while Li Zhu was still casting Frost Touch.

The elders gave Wu Chen some time, to see if he could break out. After about one minute, though, they reached the conclusion that he would die if they did not save him, so the Judge Elder simply walked up to the frozen statue and touched it. With that, the ice immediately shattered, and the elder announced, "Li Zhu has won the fight, and is now in fourth place! May the next battle begin!"

And with that, Li Zhu had completed his allowed challenges for this round, and reached fourth place. As a reward he now could go the Shen Zan's spirit garden to pick a spirit plant, something which he was quite excited for.

The next few fights were uneventful, as thy were between lower ranked disciples to raise their placement by one.

A few disciples challenged Li Zhu for fourth place, since from their point of view he had only won due to luck. Of course, they found out that this was not the case in the hard way, and Li Zhu defeated them quite easily.

At the end of the final round, the rankings had changed quite a bit, and in this tournament both Li Zhu and Ti'en Hu were dark horses, who nobody expected to reach such high positions.

Unfortunately for Wu Chen, he was stuck in fifth place, and even when he challenged Song Fai for third place, it ended in defeat.

The day was now nearing an end, and most spectators were already leaving, preparing for the next day of tournament, when eighth stage cultivators would fight each other for rewards.

The top ten disciples, though, had to stay in the arena, as the elder walked up to them, before explaining, "All ten of you are now inner sect disciples! Being an inner sect disciple, and especially one who got there through the tournament, brings many advantages. Of course, to prove that you are in fact an inner sect disciple, you will need to have a token. The inner sect token will be delivered to your housing in the span of three days, and from then on you are all officially out of the outer sect. In the meantime be sure to claim your rewards in the various locations of the sect which would have them. Do not worry, the elders at those areas know who all ten of you are, and the process of claiming your items should be seamless."

With that, the judge elder gave them one final glance, before flying deeper into the sect, her destination unknown by them.

As Li Zhu was listening to this, he simply had one thought in mind, 'I can now claim a spirit plant from Shen Zan's garden, and strengthen Buddy's bloodline. With that, I should get a new skill!'