Crossing the bridge was harder than he had assumed, and he had assumed the worst.
On both sides of the two-foot-wide bridge, nothing except a three-hundred-meter expanse of emptiness existed. Added on top of that, the bridge wasn't even flat, but cylindrical and slippery, decorated by a layer of green grass.
The fresh state of the grass told Xuhan that these bridges weren't regularly used by the disciples of this sect. If two hundred people regularly walked on these bridges, the grass would be flattened and killed within a day.
That meant that if anyone was watching him right now, they'd find it strange that he was using the bridge to cross over to the middle ring.
Han Xuhan quickly rushed forward, eager not to be noticed. It would've been another good idea to unite with his martial siblings who were probably still on the peripheral ring, but that would make them even more easily noticeable. Especially, Mu Ran's presence in any team would make that team unable to blend in anywhere at all.
For now, he didn't want to get into a frontal confrontation.
Han Xuhan's presence was noticed almost immediately once he finally crossed the bridge and set foot on the middle ring. But his nondescript face came into the equation, and no one spared him a second look after noticing the uniform.
Nonchalantly, Xuhan squeezed his way into one of the dozen crowds observing people furiously dueling each other .
"Feng Taishang! As long as a single breath remains on my body, I'll oppose your faction!"
This yell was made by a frail looking girl who was holding a giant staff twice her height. She looked battered, bleeding from mouth, nose and several lacerations on her limbs. But her eyes shone with a determined light.
Feng Taishang, her opponent, was an unusually tall, pale, skinny youth who wielded a handleless blade. It was almost half a meter long, but with only an inch of width. Streaks of blood colored the silver body of the blade.
Frowning, Feng Taishang said, "You're being too unreasonable here. Just because we want to lead the sect doesn't mean we will kill you to get that position of power. You've already been fatally injured. Stop harming yourself further. This tournament is not the appropriate place to settle a dispute this way. We need better leaders, and we need them now."
"I said what I said," replied the girl. "The timeframe allocated to our faction has yet to end. There's no way any single member of us would step down. Brother Feng will return soon. Mark my words."
Xuhan's eyes narrowed into slits as the overall situation in the Stardust sect began to take a comprehensible shape inside his mind.
"Well, without him, you can obviously not lead us to the future rounds of the tournament which will eventually get harder and harder to reach. We're not waiting for things to go beyond saving. Just stop being stubborn and step down, Xueshi."
A chorus of shouts from the crowd assisted his momentum.
"Yeah! We've already lost one of our treasures. We don't have many of them to begin with."
"Stop making a scene and let Taishang's faction take over. They are the only ones capable of leading the sect for now."
"You've failed way too many times already, Xueshi!"
The girl completely ignored the shouts, raising her chin stubbornly to display her stance.
Feng Taishang sighed and raised his blade, pointing the narrow head in her direction.
"Don't blame me for being heavy-handed."
Han Xuhan didn't even see what happened. But a gasp ran through the crowd as a low, thin whistle cut through the air.
Crack!
The staff the girl was holding cracked in the middle as if a greatsword had struck it.
A gash appeared on her midriff, tearing through her leather armor and the flesh beneath, even denting her ribcage.
"The Seventh Stroke!" a girl in front of Xuhan whispered to the guy standing beside her.
"Looks like his Space-breaking technique has been greatly amplified by that weird weapon," someone else muttered in a low voice.
"Told y'all we should ally ourselves with Taishang's faction for now. Luck has favored him greatly in this Archipelago," another faint whisper could be heard coming from the back of the crowd.
"It's like he was prepared for the tournament!"
The comments from the peanut gallery were of great help to Xuhan in figuring out what exactly was taking place here.
As the crowd broke up while some disciples carried the unconscious girl to the infirmary, Han Xuhan nonchalantly slipped inside another crowd not too far away. He wasn't the only one to do so either. It was easy to not be noticed.
The center of attention of this crowd wasn't a duel. It was a contest of skill between three parties, two guys and one girl. With a careful examination, Xuhan realized that the bandana worn by the girl was somewhat different than the two boys. The blue star on her bandana had a white circle painted at its center.
He looked around in the crowd and noticed that only three out of the two dozen disciples there had the same marking on their bandanas. He recalled the duel he had just witnessed and realized that the girl who had lost, named Xueshi, had a similar circle drawn on her bandana too.
It seemed that these bandanas were the way to tell apart the disciples belonging to different factions. From what he had seen and heard so far, the faction with the circle drawn on their bandana had been in power until now. Due to their incompetence, the other factions in the disciple body were trying to make them step down.
But why were all the members of the faction in power girls? Was it an all-woman faction?
A bit confused, Xuhan decided to watch the contest for now.
All three of them were hunched over a low desk, on top of which sat large books and charts full of numbers and diagrams. Every few seconds, they would shift their focus from one book to another, all the while muttering incessantly under their breaths.
Suddenly, one of the two boys let out an excited hoot and began to run his finger through the air randomly, as if he was trying to inscribe an invisible pattern.
A gasp ran through the crowd.
"He did it! He completed the calculation!"
"Sister Mi won't be able to catch up, heh!"
Unfortunately, no one explained what technique they were performing. Even though he was burning with curiosity, Han Xuhan wasn't foolish enough to ask someone. This appeared to be a common technique of their sect. Enquiring about it would make him the focus of everyone's suspicion.
He watched, enraptured, as the air around the finger of the boy began to brighten up. The tip of his index finger left a bright blue, smokey trail behind as he moved it in every direction constantly, shaping the smoke into something more meaningful. Only, Xuhan had no idea what the pattern formed by the smoke meant.
It certainly had to have a meaning, because every disciple watching it had an excited glow in their eyes.
The electric blue pattern consisted of numerous 3-dimensional geometric shapes, taking up almost one cubic meter of space. Its components were moving around, some rotating seamlessly on their individual axis, some shifting right and left, some breaking apart and getting reattached.
It reminds Xuhan strongly of the Seal of Myriad Laws he had been suppressed by in the Holy Land of Laws. That seal let its controller manipulate many elements of that world fragment.
What was the function of this thing?
With a stylish stroke, the boy stopped moving his finger and began to spew gaseous qi through his mouth, as if he was trying to put out a candle.
The three-dimensional spinning pattern received the flux of the gaseous qi...and absorbed it!
Where was the qi going?
Han Xuhan's eyes got wider.
The moment the boy finished blowing out the last bit of qi in his meridians, his eyes began to glow with the same electric blue light.
The pattern began to break apart, each of its components hurling itself in different directions one by one until nothing was left behind.
The glow in his eyes faded away, replaced by a sharp look of clarity. He bent down over the books and charts in front of him and took out a blank page from there. Looking around with a shifty expression, he wrote something on it and placed it on the desk.
"The result of my reading...I submit it!" He shouted confidently.
Crossing the bridge was harder than he had assumed, and he had assumed the worst.
On both sides of the two-foot-wide bridge, nothing except a three-hundred-meter expanse of emptiness existed. Added on top of that, the bridge wasn't even flat, but cylindrical and slippery, decorated by a layer of green grass.
The fresh state of the grass told Xuhan that these bridges weren't regularly used by the disciples of this sect. If two hundred people regularly walked on these bridges, the grass would be flattened and killed within a day.
That meant that if anyone was watching him right now, they'd find it strange that he was using the bridge to cross over to the middle ring.
Han Xuhan quickly rushed forward, eager not to be noticed. It would've been another good idea to unite with his martial siblings who were probably still on the peripheral ring, but that would make them even more easily noticeable. Especially, Mu Ran's presence in any team would make that team unable to blend in anywhere at all.
For now, he didn't want to get into a frontal confrontation.
Han Xuhan's presence was noticed almost immediately once he finally crossed the bridge and set foot on the middle ring. But his nondescript face came into the equation, and no one spared him a second look after noticing the uniform.
Nonchalantly, Xuhan squeezed his way into one of the dozen crowds observing people furiously dueling each other .
"Feng Taishang! As long as a single breath remains on my body, I'll oppose your faction!"
This yell was made by a frail looking girl who was holding a giant staff twice her height. She looked battered, bleeding from mouth, nose and several lacerations on her limbs. But her eyes shone with a determined light.
Feng Taishang, her opponent, was an unusually tall, pale, skinny youth who wielded a handleless blade. It was almost half a meter long, but with only an inch of width. Streaks of blood colored the silver body of the blade.
Frowning, Feng Taishang said, "You're being too unreasonable here. Just because we want to lead the sect doesn't mean we will kill you to get that position of power. You've already been fatally injured. Stop harming yourself further. This tournament is not the appropriate place to settle a dispute this way. We need better leaders, and we need them now."
"I said what I said," replied the girl. "The timeframe allocated to our faction has yet to end. There's no way any single member of us would step down. Brother Feng will return soon. Mark my words."
Xuhan's eyes narrowed into slits as the overall situation in the Stardust sect began to take a comprehensible shape inside his mind.
"Well, without him, you can obviously not lead us to the future rounds of the tournament which will eventually get harder and harder to reach. We're not waiting for things to go beyond saving. Just stop being stubborn and step down, Xueshi."
A chorus of shouts from the crowd assisted his momentum.
"Yeah! We've already lost one of our treasures. We don't have many of them to begin with."
"Stop making a scene and let Taishang's faction take over. They are the only ones capable of leading the sect for now."
"You've failed way too many times already, Xueshi!"
The girl completely ignored the shouts, raising her chin stubbornly to display her stance.
Feng Taishang sighed and raised his blade, pointing the narrow head in her direction.
"Don't blame me for being heavy-handed."
Han Xuhan didn't even see what happened. But a gasp ran through the crowd as a low, thin whistle cut through the air.
Crack!
The staff the girl was holding cracked in the middle as if a greatsword had struck it.
A gash appeared on her midriff, tearing through her leather armor and the flesh beneath, even denting her ribcage.
"The Seventh Stroke!" a girl in front of Xuhan whispered to the guy standing beside her.
"Looks like his Space-breaking technique has been greatly amplified by that weird weapon," someone else muttered in a low voice.
"Told y'all we should ally ourselves with Taishang's faction for now. Luck has favored him greatly in this Archipelago," another faint whisper could be heard coming from the back of the crowd.
"It's like he was prepared for the tournament!"
The comments from the peanut gallery were of great help to Xuhan in figuring out what exactly was taking place here.
As the crowd broke up while some disciples carried the unconscious girl to the infirmary, Han Xuhan nonchalantly slipped inside another crowd not too far away. He wasn't the only one to do so either. It was easy to not be noticed.
The center of attention of this crowd wasn't a duel. It was a contest of skill between three parties, two guys and one girl. With a careful examination, Xuhan realized that the bandana worn by the girl was somewhat different than the two boys. The blue star on her bandana had a white circle painted at its center.
He looked around in the crowd and noticed that only three out of the two dozen disciples there had the same marking on their bandanas. He recalled the duel he had just witnessed and realized that the girl who had lost, named Xueshi, had a similar circle drawn on her bandana too.
It seemed that these bandanas were the way to tell apart the disciples belonging to different factions. From what he had seen and heard so far, the faction with the circle drawn on their bandana had been in power until now. Due to their incompetence, the other factions in the disciple body were trying to make them step down.
But why were all the members of the faction in power girls? Was it an all-woman faction?
A bit confused, Xuhan decided to watch the contest for now.
All three of them were hunched over a low desk, on top of which sat large books and charts full of numbers and diagrams. Every few seconds, they would shift their focus from one book to another, all the while muttering incessantly under their breaths.
Suddenly, one of the two boys let out an excited hoot and began to run his finger through the air randomly, as if he was trying to inscribe an invisible pattern.
A gasp ran through the crowd.
"He did it! He completed the calculation!"
"Sister Mi won't be able to catch up, heh!"
Unfortunately, no one explained what technique they were performing. Even though he was burning with curiosity, Han Xuhan wasn't foolish enough to ask someone. This appeared to be a common technique of their sect. Enquiring about it would make him the focus of everyone's suspicion.
He watched, enraptured, as the air around the finger of the boy began to brighten up. The tip of his index finger left a bright blue, smokey trail behind as he moved it in every direction constantly, shaping the smoke into something more meaningful. Only, Xuhan had no idea what the pattern formed by the smoke meant.
It certainly had to have a meaning, because every disciple watching it had an excited glow in their eyes.
The electric blue pattern consisted of numerous 3-dimensional geometric shapes, taking up almost one cubic meter of space. Its components were moving around, some rotating seamlessly on their individual axis, some shifting right and left, some breaking apart and getting reattached.
It reminds Xuhan strongly of the Seal of Myriad Laws he had been suppressed by in the Holy Land of Laws. That seal let its controller manipulate many elements of that world fragment.
What was the function of this thing?
With a stylish stroke, the boy stopped moving his finger and began to spew gaseous qi through his mouth, as if he was trying to put out a candle.
The three-dimensional spinning pattern received the flux of the gaseous qi...and absorbed it!
Where was the qi going?
Han Xuhan's eyes got wider.
The moment the boy finished blowing out the last bit of qi in his meridians, his eyes began to glow with the same electric blue light.
The pattern began to break apart, each of its components hurling itself in different directions one by one until nothing was left behind.
The glow in his eyes faded away, replaced by a sharp look of clarity. He bent down over the books and charts in front of him and took out a blank page from there. Looking around with a shifty expression, he wrote something on it and placed it on the desk.
"The result of my reading...I submit it!" He shouted confidently.
