Win and Losses (1)

The next day, early in the morning, a crowd of people entered a huge building. As they entered this building, they noticed a huge arena in the center of the place, and around this arena was a kind of staircase where many people were already sitting.

That day, and precisely in that building, was where the long-awaited city championship would take place, where the city's cultivators would fight for rewards and prestige.

After a few minutes, a man walked up to the arena and looked with interest at all these people. His gaze stopped for a moment on some of the rooms at the top of the building, where the main members of the city's cultivator families were, then he looked down at the crowd again and announced:

"Ladies and gentlemen!

Today, all the citizens of our beloved city have gathered in this building for a collective purpose. To witness the annual Jianshang competition, where all our top talents battle it out to prove their worth!" his voice rang out throughout the place, easily reaching the ears of everyone, even those who seemed to be hundreds of meters away from him.

Everyone applauded and shouted in unison when they heard this man. Their mutual excitement was obvious.

"And today will be an even more special day, because several young masters, the future of our city, will be taking part!" the man said passionately, as he continued his monologue.

"(...) With all this said, I will call the first ten participants who will start this competition!" After a few minutes, he finally finished his monologue, as well as explaining the rules of the competition, and called the first fighters.

In short, the competitors were separated into divisions according to their age. In other words, those between 16 and 20 would fight in one division, and those 21 and over would fight in other division.

As for the fights, they would take place in two forms. At first there will be battles (preliminary fights) with ten competitors simultaneously, with the aim of quickly eliminating the weakest. After that, there will be two-person elimination fights, until someone becomes the champion of their division.

Those who reach the round of 16 onwards will receive cumulative prizes for their victories. In other words, those who reach the quarter-finals will receive the prizes for the round of 16 and the quarter-finals, and those who reach the semi-finals will also receive the prizes for the semi-finals.

As soon as the presenter's speech ended, ten people took to the stage. Among them was Long Ming.

For the occasion, Long Ming was wearing a pair of clothes with a gradient from navy blue to light blue, and in his clothes he kept some runes (five in all, three for defense and two for attack). In his hand, he held his twinblade firmly and stared intently at his opponents.

Looking at their weapons and postures, Long Ming deduced that most of them were unaffiliated cultivators, who had obtained some cultivation method by chance, and through luck and struggle had become stronger. But he also noticed a young man wearing clearly expensive clothes, holding a bow in his hands, and at his waist was a quiver full of arrows.

In all, there were four swordsmen, three spearmen, an archer and a man with bare fists.

Next to Long Ming, there was a swordsman on his left and a spearman on his right. In front of him was that archer.

"Start!" In the next tenth of a second, Long Ming ran to the swordsman, who was going to another swordsman.

As he ran, Long Ming suddenly twisted his body, narrowly dodging an arrow.

'Is he from the Jianshú family?' Long Ming thought as he returned his gaze to that archer. This was a prestigious family, very famous for its archery, and one of the most traditional families in the region.

Long Ming wondered if he should focus on him first, but changed his mind when he noticed other swordsmen and spearmen running towards the archer. It was obvious that everyone thought of him as the most dangerous.

Therefore, Long Ming took advantage of this to continue running towards that swordsman, intending to defeat him quickly.

In an instant, he came close to the swordsman and attacked him with his twinblade. The swordsman realized Long Ming's attack prematurely, but still managed to dodge while turning around and preparing for a counterattack.

However, Long Ming cunningly mobilized his twinblade, redirecting it at the swordsman's neck. The swordsman hurriedly ducked, but Long Ming changed the direction of his attack again and hit him on the head.

Just as the twinblade seemed about to cut his opponent, a strange membrane appeared around the swordsman, protecting him. But then he seemed to faint and fell to the ground.

"The first competitor has been eliminated!" the presenter then announced, prompting a celebration at the way Long Ming had won.

When they entered the building, all the contestants were given a talisman and ordered to drip a drop of blood on it. From what they were told, this talisman would protect them from a deadly attack, but it would also knock them out. Long Ming didn't know the principles behind this talisman, but he strongly doubted that it was a technology from that world.

Shortly after the presenter's words, Long Ming hurriedly twisted around, just in time to dodge a spear attack coming from behind him.

Looking back, he realized it was the spearman who had been on his right earlier.

Quickly, Long Ming spun his weapon around, making a diagonal slash with both blades of his twinblade. The spearman stepped back, avoiding the two cuts, and began to deliver a series of thrusts.

Long Ming used his footwork to avoid the thrusts, then found a gap and instantly advanced towards the spearman's blind spot. Thanks to his footwork, Long Ming advanced extremely quickly, and the spearman was barely able to turn around before he had to dodge a horizontal slash.

However, before the spearman could react, Long Ming spun around and redirected the direction of his twinblade, delivering a vertical slash that grazed his chest.

Long Ming looked as if he was about to deliver another blow, but he hurriedly stepped back, just in time to avoid an arrow that was flying in his direction.

'Has he already defeated all those opponents?' Long Ming thought as he hurriedly looked at where the arrow had come from.

However, he could see several opponents fighting, and among them was the archer who was trying to get enough distance to shoot his arrows.

'Was it a coincidence?' Long Ming theorized, but decided to ignore this for the moment, as the spearman had taken advantage of his pause to attack him. At the same time, another swordsman, the one being chased by the man Long Ming had defeated earlier, also approached, preparing to attack him.

Noticing the two attacks coming from opposite sides, and aware of the possibility of that archer launching an arrow in his direction, Long Ming hurriedly retreated, then instantly advanced, using his IQ, towards the spearman.

In an instant, Long Ming was facing the spearman and made a slash towards his neck. The spearman hurriedly retreated and, at that moment, Long Ming stepped back just in time to avoid a blow from the swordsman.

The three of them then stood some distance apart and stared at each other intently, paying extreme attention to any possible attack.

After long seconds, the swordsman and the spearman stared at each other for a few moments before running towards Long Ming. They had both realized that Long Ming was the most dangerous of the three.

Long Ming kept his cool, and began to dodge and retreat, avoiding the duo's joint attacks.

Long Ming decided to stay on the defensive and began to observe the other competitors.

At that moment, he realized that the other six competitors also seemed to have formed some groups, with the archer joining the other two spearmen and the man with the bare fists joining the swordsmen.

After a few minutes, Long Ming saw an opportunity after the spearman made a thrust and the swordsman made a vertical cut.

Long Ming avoided the vertical slash then advanced towards the spearman, grabbed the shaft of his spear, and made a horizontal slash towards his neck. At this point, the swordsman was too far away to try to attack Long Ming, so he was able to get close enough to the spearman to eliminate him in relative safety.

As soon as he realized that his twinblade had collided with the spearman's neck, he turned his twinblade, while also turning around, and made a series of attacks towards the swordsman.

The swordsman avoided about two blows, but the third hit him square in the stomach. The swordsman's eyes widened, as if he felt immense physical pain, before he collapsed.

"Five competitors have been eliminated!" the presenter said shortly afterwards. At this point, Long Ming let out a small sigh and turned towards where the other competitors were.

At that moment, the archer seemed to have defeated the man with the bare fists and one of the swordsmen, but in return, another spearman was defeated.

Long Ming then ran quickly towards the competitors. In a few seconds, he had covered more than thirty meters and attacked the last spearman by surprise.

The spearman tried to defend himself, but Long Ming spun his twinblade, cunningly avoiding his defense and attacking the opposite side. The spearman fainted instantly, which attracted the attention of the other three competitors.

The archer looked at Long Ming nervously, and the other two swordsmen seemed very grateful. Long Ming, however, didn't care and started running quickly towards the archer.

The archer shot an arrow in his direction and started to move away from them, but Long Ming avoided his arrow and continued running towards him. A second later, they were extremely close, and Long Ming began to attack him.

The archer, however, was very agile and managed to keep a considerable distance from Long Ming. Soon, he shot another arrow, but at that moment, Long Ming ducked, avoiding the arrow, and quickly propelled himself towards the archer.

In an instant, Long Ming reduced all the distance between them and performed a spinning slash with his twinblade, while jumping. The archer was unable to avoid the cuts, but fortunately, the talisman was able to protect him.

Soon after, Long Ming landed on the ground and looked at where his last opponents were. The two swordsmen stared at him anxiously, but seemed to have plucked up some courage and ran towards him.

The two swordsmen began to attack Long Ming together, and with considerable synchronicity, but Long Ming had no trouble avoiding their joint attacks and soon found a gap to defeat one of them.

And without the support of the other swordsman, it became easy for Long Ming to defeat the last opponent.

"What an incredible fight! And after an extremely close battle, the winner was Long Ming!" The presenter spoke excitedly. Long Ming nodded slightly in thanks and then left the arena.

When he left the arena, he walked straight to where the spectators were and looked for somewhere to sit down.

Long Ming thought about returning to the Wu residence, or strolling around the city during this time, but he changed his mind and decided to watch the other competitors fight. Unfortunately, neither Wu Yuying nor Xie Mei were going to take part in this competition.

In the early hours of the morning, Wu Yuying felt that she was about to reach the initial stage of the IQ Collection realm, so she decided to go into secluded cultivation. As for Xie Mei, Long Ming didn't know why she was taking part, but he assumed that she had more important matters than this competition.

Besides, not even Lin Wan would be taking part in this competition. So this competition didn't seem that interesting to him. But he changed his mind when he faced that archer.

Even though it was a relatively simple fight, that was only because Long Ming was quite close to him, and also because of his excellent senses. Even so, that swordsman's skills made him view the martial arts of these cultivator families with greater esteem, so he was interested to see how skilled they were too.

Especially the older ones, over twenty, as they would theoretically have the greatest mastery of these techniques.

As soon as he sat down, the other competitors climbed into the arena and began to fight.

As the hours passed, and after many preliminary battles, Long Ming began to have a better understanding of the cultivators in that region.

He noticed that the average for people in his age group (15 to 20) was between the intermediate and advanced stages of the Body Tempering realm, while the young masters were mainly at the peak stage, with a few possibly at the half-step stage.

In addition, he also noticed that many of them mainly used the sword or spear as their weapon, with a few using other weapons, either long swords or halberds.

But what caught his attention most was the way they fought, especially when they used movements that resembled the techniques of their families. Even though Long Ming had read many techniques and manuals, he had never been able to practice any of them to a satisfactory level (in his opinion), so watching these young masters fight was like using a whetstone to sharpen his skills.

Of course, there was a limit to how beneficial just watching would be, even for him, but he was quite satisfied with his good decision.

When it was getting dark, the last battle finally took place. This time, one of the competitors was Fei Lu.

Fei Lu seemed to have quickly attracted the attention of all his opponents who decided to attack him simultaneously, but he managed to dodge and defend himself effectively against his opponents and always attacked when he had the chance. Then, after almost six minutes, he finally defeated the last of his opponents and left the arena proudly.

Long Ming watched his fight closely, still sensing something different about this young man.

Thus, the day's fights came to an end and Long Ming returned to the Wu residence.