13 - Back to the arena

At this moment, Xu Xin had successfully broken through to the second stage of the martial arts path.

However, before he did anything, instead of familiarizing himself with his power, he chose to stabilize his inner energy.

He had noticed that, during his breakthrough, his inner energy got much more chaotic than it used to, and he figured that it might cause some issues if he didn't stabilize it

Even now, the inner energy within his body was roiling and boiling like a churning sea, and it was extremely chaotic and hard to control, and to someone used to extremely precise control like Xu Xin, this was completely unacceptable.

The way he wanted to stabilize his power was to exert it as much as he could, and he could only do so by going to the arena.

So back to the arena he went, and he gathered quite a crowd as he went, as the story had been heard by everyone here by now, and many people were curious as to how skilled he truly was since he had only fought three fights previously.

His traits were known to everyone, and by now, the aquamarine roots in his hair were much more obvious, and his eyes were slightly brighter, seeming to slightly glow in the aquamarine color.

By now, even the slightest bit of his nails had turned aquamarine, which nobody had noticed.

As he went into the arena, he found that Xia Yue was actually there, fighting another fight, seemingly to blow off steam.

He asked why she was here, and someone had said that she had been here all day, just fighting all the spirit realm cultivators in the area.

Despite so few people being able to break through to be at the spirit realm, it wasn't as uncommon as one might think, and this was due to the sheer number of people who lived in a certain area. For example, in just this area of the city, there were about ten people at the spirit realm, and they were still at the outskirts of the city.

But just because one reached the spirit realm didn't mean that they were able to get stronger.

Most people who reached the spirit realm never reached past the first stage, and even kings within the nine kingdoms were only at the seventh to eighth stage of the spirit realm.

The only person who had reached the peak of the spirit realm in this continent was the ancient man who Xu Xin had learned from, and this was the only reason why he was able to live for as long as he had.

Aside from him, there was only the Blood Order Patriarch.

Xia Yue was at the third stage, and she was a captain of this kingdom's army, not because she was super strong, but because she was an assassin and strategist.

The captains of the army were typically at about the fifth rank of the spirit realm, meaning that Xia Yue was one of the lowest ranked captains in the army.

This meant that she was the most frequently challenged captain, so she was probably here to vent her annoyance at her constantly being challenged.

Once she saw Xu Xin enter, however, she quickly finished her fight and went back to the stands to watch.

Most people didn't notice that Xu Xin entered right before she went back, but a few did, even further increasing their interest towards him.

Before Xu Xin had the chance to go up, however, another person went out, but he wasn't bothered by it. After all, all these people were here before him, and he only went first last time because he was the first to react to the end of the fight.

However, just as he reached the area where the fighters gathered, he heard the boy who just went up yell out, "Come up here, Xu Xin! I want to see what makes you worthy of the attention of spirit realms!"

It was obvious that he felt jealous of the attention that Xu Xin got from the strongest people here, so he intended to defeat Xu Xin and take the fame for himself.

The reason that he knew Xu Xin's name was because Xia Yue had told people his name after they asked why she was interested in him, and those people had told others, and his name quickly spread everywhere in this area.

Xu Xin instantly shot a warning glance towards Xia Yue, telling her that he was annoyed at her actions.

His eyes seemed to pierce through her heart as she involuntarily shivered. She could very clearly sense that extremely terrifying killing intent once again, though it was only for a fraction of a second, and only she had sensed it.

Such astounding control of killing intent was something that even she could only look up to, making her once again raise her opinion of him, though she hadn't realized at the time that she had done something wrong when she told his name to others.

But still, it seemed that Xu Xin was only warning her not to say anything more about him, and that he didn't blame her for not knowing that he didn't want anyone to know anything about him.

He quickly went up to the arena, and he realized that his opponent was at the second stage of the martial arts path, the same as him.

It was clear that this person hadn't known that he had already broken through, though he didn't seem to be too bothered by it.

Xu Xin didn't waste a single breath speaking since it was just an arrogant kid searching for fame.

All this time, he had been immensely uncomfortable with the pure amount of inner energy within his dantian, and he felt that if he didn't use it soon, it might start to actually cause damage to his dantian.

This was something he had never experienced before, but he didn't care since he was about to fight anyways, and he would just use his inner energy in the fight until he felt better.

The boy, seeing Xu Xin too disdainful to even speak to him, instantly got annoyed and charged towards Xu Xin, raising his fist as he prepared to strike.

It seemed that this fight was going to be one of pure, unrestrained strength, and the result would likely be determined after only the first or second strikes. After all, pure power would decide the outcome of a battle of pure strength.

As they approached each other, their inner energy gathered into their hands and arms, seeming to become sleeves of translucent power.

Xu Xin's inner energy was a bone-chilling icy aquamarine color, while the boy's inner energy was a bright green color, bursting with vitality.

Just half a second before the two fists collided, Xu Xin suddenly opened his hand, and the next moment, his palm caught the boy's fist.

The second they clashed, both of them stopped dead in their tracks, seemingly as strong as each other.

However, not even a second later, the boy's arm began to freeze over, and he fell back in immense pain as his entire hand turned blue, while Xu Xin actually seemed to be somewhat unaffected.

Then, Xu Xin bit his index finger, causing blood to drip out, and suddenly, his arm became covered in a watery blue inner energy, and suddenly, vile green pus began to be squeezed out of his index finger.

As this green pus dripped onto the ground, it made a slight sizzling sound before absorbing into the ground.

Soon, all of the green inner energy was pushed out of Xu Xin's body, and he was completely unaffected by the boy's attack, while the boy was currently on his knees gripping his hand, which was frozen almost solid.

At this point, the boy didn't even care about the fight anymore, and he was worried about if he might lose his arm over this.

However, suddenly Xu Xin walked over and grabbed his hand, sending his inner energy into it, instantly converting it to the watery inner energy, which then traveled out of the boy's body.

Xu Xin couldn't reabsorb this inner energy since he already currently had too much within his body, hence why he used as much as he could in this strike.

The boy's arm was still a frozen shade of blue, but it quickly started to thaw out, and it seemed that there would likely not be any permanent damage, though he wouldn't be able to use his arm for a while.

The boy then looked at Xu Xin in terror before standing up and walking off the arena in shame. The only reason he hadn't instantly lost his arm permanently was because he cultivated the element of nature, which could either heal you or poison others.

After that, another person quickly walked up, this time another boy, but he was obviously much stronger than the person just now. He also looked at Xu Xin warily, knowing that although he had just broken through, he was still extremely dangerous.

However, this boy just did the same thing as the one from before, just charging at Xu Xin with his fist raised, gathering all his inner energy onto his arm, making it seem like it was covered in a translucent black barrier.

At the same time, Xu Xin also charged at him as well, seeming to do the same thing as before, but he was absolutely positive that the same thing wouldn't happen this time, and this boy was going to do something different to a contest of pure strength.

As such, Xu Xin also prepared himself, secretly gathering the watery form of his inner energy in his other fist and both his legs, while gathering more icy inner energy over his chest. After all, he had far too much in his dantian right now, so he didn't have to worry about the amount he was using.

Sure enough, right as they were about to clash, the boy suddenly ducked down, seeking to go under Xu Xin's fist, but Xu Xin was far too fast, and he instantly reacted by not only kicking out his leg, but also directing his fist downwards.

Unfortunately, his fist missed the boy, but his leg struck true, and the boy was thrown to the side, though he also managed to get a hit on Xu Xin.

Xu Xin felt pain in the left side of his chest as he realized that the defense of his icy inner energy wasn't enough to block all the damage.

This was because this boy cultivated the element of metal, and his attacks and defense were both extremely sturdy, with more weight going behind his attacks while his physical defense was extremely strong.

However, despite the strong hit, Xu Xin looked like he didn't care in the slightest. His tolerance for pain was like no other in this continent, and if he was prepared for it, he wouldn't even so much as grunt even if he was being burned to death.

But it took mental fortitude to do this, and that was why he wasn't able to ignore the pain and passed out when he previously stopped the bleeding of his wound under the tree. At the time, his mind was still in utter chaos from the betrayal of his family.

Now, his mind had calmed down, and he was once again seemingly completely immune to pain.

Seeing that Xu Xin was seemingly unhurt by his attack, the boy was surprised, but he once again charged at Xu Xin, not realizing that the watery inner energy was already in his body spreading throughout it, not yet doing anything.

As he got close to Xu Xin, he leaped in the air, but Xu Xin did the same thing, and they flew towards each other like they were trying to kill each other.

At this moment, they both punched out, incapable of twisting in the air to use their legs, and the moment they clashed, they were both thrown back about ten feet, but only Xu Xin was capable of landing, because the boy's body was already starting to seize up, and he lost part of his mobility.

As he landed on the ground, he quickly rolled over, trying to get back up, but his movements were stiff and slow. It was clear that Xu Xin's inner energy wasn't capable of totally freezing him like it was with the boy before him.

As Xu Xin stared at him, the boy suddenly realized that Xu Xin's eyes seemed to be a deep abyss, and he felt a deep fear set into his soul when he looked into them, as if he was falling in an endless void, forever alone and scared.

However, he suddenly realized that it was stupid of him to be afraid of someone at the same stage as him. What honor would he have left if he didn't even finish the fight?

As such, he instantly circulated his metal elemental inner energy through his body, seeking to push out all the now icy inner energy, but he found that it wasn't very effective, as the icy inner energy had attached itself to his body, binding to him almost permanently, and it would take longer than this fight to get rid of it.

But he quickly ignored this and simply sent his metal inner energy across his entire body, making his skin get darker, and his fists became black, like blackened steel.

He then slowly charged at Xu Xin, and it was clear to the audience that he was badly injured, though they didn't know why.

Xu Xin also charged over at him, and though he would show him no mercy whatsoever, he was surprised that the boy hadn't given up yet.

Then, he kicked out, sending the boy flying as a layer of aquamarine ice covered his chest as he instantly fell unconscious, flying back about ten feet before hitting the ground again.