Battle Aftermath

I would have to check my new ability later. The shield outlining the arena was flickering. I had actually done enough damage to it to make it unstable. The referee had even escaped the ring for his own safety. He was giving me a gobsmacked look like I wasn't in his job description. Ultimately he decided that chastising me wasn't worth it and settled with, "Nice job."

The referee did come to check me for qi exhaustion. "You really shouldn't have used that much qi in this exam you know, there are more exams to come," He said.

"How much time do you estimate before the next exam?" I asked.

"About four hours. It takes a long time for these matches to wind down after the first half are eliminated, your ring being an exception obviously," He said.

"Then what's the problem? My qi won't be full by then unless I meditate, but it will at least be over half full. Far more than anyone else will have." I replied.

By now the referee had grabbed my wrist and was measuring my qi, he was shocked to find it was over twenty percent of my total capacity and rapidly refilling. What's more, is that just the qi I had remaining was still more qi than he'd expect any participant to have. "How is it even possible to have qi left after that kind of ability? I was sure you had used every last bit of your qi in that attack."

"Don't know, never used that attack before. I was angry. In my anger, I used my frostfire in a manner I'd never tried before. Pretty sure it isn't as expensive as you think though. I probably used just as much qi blasting people on my way to that jerk. In a way that makes it a very efficient crowd-control ability. I should experiment more with it." I said.

"That's not a crowd control ability!" The referee nearly screamed.

"If the crowd is no more, they've been controlled right? Besides, if they somehow survive, they'll be frozen and in severe pain from frostbite and burns. Freezing is crowd control right?" I said, assured my logic was sound.

"Well I suppose that makes sense ... No, wait, that makes no sense at all. Your ability is nasty! In any event, be careful with that ability in the future. We can only produce sigils like these for low-level battles. If you want to be competitive and not known as a bloodthirsty lunatic, you'll want to learn some abilities with more control." The referee said sagely.

"In my defense, you did say no-holds-barred, how was I to know these sigils were so flimsy that they can't stand up to a little fire?" I inquired.

"FlIMSY! If you weren't the only participant left in this ring, I'd disqualify you for that insult." He said indignantly.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware you were so attached to them."

"Tsk."

We sat in silence for a bit, I looked at the other rings to see how they were doing. Most of them had gotten under fifty participants and everyone was being much more careful now. Hannah was still fighting in her ring. She surprised me. I expected her low cultivation to betray her, but she seemed to be sturdier than other cultivators of her level.

Zach's ring was too far to see how he was doing, but I'd be disappointed if he wasn't still in the ring.

"So Mister Referee sir, you promised you wouldn't share our abilities with others right?" I asked while we watched the other matches.

"Yes, I've sworn oaths of secrecy, a requirement to be a referee in this sect and most other sects. I take it you don't want your divine sight or the details of that stupid explosive ability to be known to the elders?" He asked

"You'd be correct. Still sore about that ability eh?"

"Sore?! Look at the board. Look how it registered the eliminations! Not firewave, immolation, or anything sensical like that. No, it registered their eliminations as cataclysm, CATACLYSM!!! That means the sigils could not read the damage output of your spell. We're just lucky the sigils detected the danger in advance and teleported everyone out. I'm also lucky I didn't underestimate you and ran out of the ring myself. The sigils are one thing, but you also damaged the shield array around the ring. Sure that's because we underestimated the damage it would sustain and didn't feed it enough spirit stones, but that's still a lot of damage. I would've for sure been hurt if I let that fire touch me and I'm the referee! We usually outclass the participants of battles by so much such that there shouldn't be a chance of you hurting us."

"How much do you think the elders learned from watching the technique?" I asked

"The only things discernible from outside were a blinding flash of light and a cacophonous sound akin to thunder except louder. Also, the ground shook, but I'm pretty sure that's only because the explosion was contained. They wouldn't even be able to pinpoint it as caused by you if it weren't for the scoreboard. It isn't unheard of for cultivators to destroy themselves with their own technique and it's always possible for someone to have a defensive measure strong enough to resist such a stupid ability." He explained.

I took another look at the board and saw an impressive sixty-five ring-outs to my name, the best behind me was only three. In the other rings, I could see the most was around nine, they'd probably reach into the teens before their matches were over. I could also see two timers one was the time the battle concluded which was fourteen minutes and 36 seconds. The other timer was the time spent in the ring and that was still counting. I pointed at it and asked, "Does that mean I need to stay in the ring until the other matches are concluded."

"You noticed that did you? Technically you can go at any time you want. However, that is part of your score. Do what you will with that information." He said plainly. "I better go meet those vultures, I mean, elders. Might as well get the pointless questioning out of the way. Is there any information you're willing to part with to save me? I'm willing to give you contribution points depending on how valuable it is."

I pondered for a minute, "The divine sight and nova ability are off the table. They probably already know about my frostfire from the previous exam. I'd rather not teach them how to obtain it. So that leaves the sutra itself, I think I can part with that information. Tell the elders that all of my fire techniques were part of one sutra that I learned after combining a large number of fire techniques. The combined technique is more powerful, efficient, and versatile than the individual techniques. I have a special situation that made their combination easy, but I'm confident that after learning a variety of aura and burst techniques they should be able to combine them after carefully contemplating the abilities."

"Is that so? Mind if I give it a try myself? I've got quite a few fire abilities as well." He asked.

I nodded my affirmation and he sat down to meditate. A few minutes later, "You're right, they all have a common thread. It seems to require only a little more work to create a single technique out of all of them." An hour later I could detect a change in the referee's qi, he seemed to have mastered it. As if to prove it, he soon manifested fire in his palm and moved it about with no effort. "Well I'll be, and I've been using the techniques separately all this time, this is so much easier. It definitely requires talent though. The average outer sect disciple wouldn't be able to figure this out, but they may be able to comprehend the comprehensive technique if we write it down." The referee contemplated.

"I doubt it," I replied, "The comprehensive technique should be at least one grade higher than what you combined. Mine ended up being supreme grade, I doubt anyone in the outer sect would be able to comprehend that."

"You're probably right, only so much help we can provide, ultimately it is up to their own talent and effort. Well, it is time for me to go, the vultures have waited long enough. I'll add 500 contribution points to your badge before you receive it. That's the maximum I'm allowed to award. The sect may award you more later depending on how useful this proves to be."

I watched the referee leave the ring, and exactly like he described, several elders swooped in like vultures. I could hear them from inside the ring.

"That girl, how did she do that explosion thing?"

"Ref, were there any secrets you saw that the girl is hiding?"

"Is she really just a late-stage qi-gatherer? her attacks seemed too powerful for that"

Several questions were launched at the referee as soon as he left the arena. To his credit, he did as he said and told the vultures, I mean elders, off.

"You know very well I can't divulge any secrets I discover during a fight. This is so the juniors can grow unfettered and actually practice their secret arts. I've sworn oaths."

"And you know there are ways around the oaths. Name your price."

"None of them are worth the efforts of revealing the secrets of a junior. As such my price is too high for you to afford."

The referee stood his ground against the elders valiantly.

"You picked a day to grow a backbone, didn't you? Don't tell me you got scared because you nearly got burned back there. I remember just a fortnight ago buying a few secrets from you."

The valiant image of my referee immediately crumbled. Perhaps I had too much faith in the oaths. I'd have to pick what I revealed in battle in the future. Fortunately, other than the divine sight, these were all techniques I was fine with others seeing. I had deeper secrets. As far as divine sight went, it was merely odd for one as young as me to have it. I doubted the referee had an interest in selling such a low-value secret.

"Come now gentlemen let's be civilized about this, I have an image to maintain."

"Whatever image you had was ruined that night at the tavern."

Several of the elders laughed while the referee looked embarrassed.

"Okay, okay you've had your fun. The junior has authorized me to give one detail about the foundation of her abilities. It should be helpful in training juniors in the future and even beneficial to esteemed elders such as yourselves. But I understand, if you'd rather jeer at me, Elder Swan is always interested in buying my information."

That seemed to get them in line and they walked away to discuss business elsewhere.

I now had several hours free. I decided to meditate to recover my qi while watching Hannah's match. Hannah managed to be among the top ten participants left in her ring. She wasn't a match to any of them, however, and as soon as she realized this she left the ring on her own rather than be tossed out. I hoped the scoring looked favorably on her for that. I imagined far too many disciples didn't recognize their own limits.

The battles wrapped up a little after four hours as expected and the attendants directed those of us who passed to an area under the arena.