Elias stepped out of his cultivation chamber, his new clothes still faintly humming with residual Qi resonance. His skin was clean, his movements sharp, his body a vortex of quiet power. Internally, the new core—his tokamak—spun with tranquil violence, feeding thirty trillion cellular cyclones with compressed spiritual energy.
He stretched his arms. His bones made no sound. No creak, no resistance. Everything inside him simply worked—like a well-oiled god.
A chime echoed in the distance. Then a voice.
"All outer sect disciples, prepare for the annual tournament. Sign-up period ends at dusk. Top 20 entrants will be promoted to Inner Sect."
Elias blinked.
Then blinked again.
Then turned toward the the area the announce came from. "Well that's convenient."
"Lets go see how this world fight."
A knock came at the door. "Junior Brother Shen Yu! Did you hear the announcement?" a muffled voice asked. "You joining the tournament?"
Elias was about to go to the door, but paused for a moment and looked at himself again.
He was far too handsome.
The transformation from the Cyclonic Core Formation had not only increased his strength but rendered him offensively attractive. Sharp jaw, smooth skin, an ethereal glow like someone who moisturized with lightning and optimism. He was a walking recruitment poster.
Elias narrowed his eyes at his reflection on a polished metallic surface. "That's not suspicious at all."
To avoid unnecessary attention, he quickly activated a light-manipulation technique he'd been refining—a Qi refraction field. "Chameleon Veil," he whispered.
Light warped around him. His skin tone dulled. His features blurred into average disciple mush. He reshaped the bone structure slightly using divine sense, adjusted his gait to be marginally less arrogant, and added a scowl for good measure. He was back to his old look.
Now he looked like a grumpy, unimportant sect loser with chronic Qi constipation.
Elias then went ahead to the door and opened it to see the disciples behind the door. It was an average looking Joe. His name was Fu Yu. He was the only one who interacted with him regularly.
He cleared his throat. He hadn't interacted with many disciples since reincarnating, and his voice needed fine-tuning. "I'll... watch, you know am weak, why would I go embarrass myself" he said finally. "But I'll be cheering you guys from the shadows."
Fu Yu laughed. "Suit yourself. You've been too quiet lately! Come hang out after?"
"Sure. I need to know what has been going on in the sect anyways."
"A lot has happened, i will gist you later, I need to go register for the tournament." Fu Yu retreated at left in a hurry. "OK see you later." Elias nodded and shut the door, turned to face his chamber, and exhaled slowly.
He had no intention of fighting. Not yet.
"Perfect."
The next day at the battle grounds.
Elias stepped towards the crowd, blending into the streams of excited outer sect disciples running toward the tournament arena. No one paid him any mind. His internal power was masked, his appearance plain, and his aura non-existent.
He even stopped to bet a few low-grade spirit stones at the wagering booth.
He had already scanned all the disciples who were going to participate and found the obvious winner through their realms, spiritual qi, spiritual root etc.
The booth elder gave him a glance. "You sure you want to bet on Senior Brother Lu Bei?"
"He has strong arms," Elias said flatly.
"…He's all arms."
"I'm confident in my arms-based investment strategy."
The elder rolled his eyes and took the bet. Elias wandered off, already running simulations in his mind for mid-tier spirit stone synthesis using different elemental blends. He'd need better materials soon.
He reached a quiet corner in the viewing stands and sat cross-legged. From here, he had a full view of the arena.
Then he activated his divine sense.
It swept out silently, invisibly—threading through the minds, bodies, and Qi flows of hundreds of participants like a scalpel made of curiosity.
And then the battles began.
—
Match 1: Flying Fist vs. Screaming Sword
Two disciples squared off. One shouted before every punch. The other kept swinging a sword that wasn't sharp.
Elias raised an eyebrow. "Is he trying to intimidate the wind?"
He mapped the first contestant's muscle contractions, heart rate, and Qi routing. "Inefficient. He's burning Qi through his spleen. That's not how livers work."
The sword user's stance made Elias pause. "He's leaning too far forward. His balance point is misaligned by six centimeters. One push—"
The sword user tripped. On himself.
Elias rubbed his face. "I need aspirin."
—
Match 4: Twin Blade Sisters vs. Bald Guy With A Brick
"Are weapons optional in this sect?" Elias muttered.
One sister spun like a top. The other charged forward with all the subtlety of a warthog. Brick Guy blocked every strike with one arm and countered with deliberate, sluggish swings.
The brick, to be fair, glowed faintly with spiritual engraving.
"Qi-imbued construction material," Elias whispered. "Reinforced with minor Earth attribute. Still not regulation."
He recorded the twin sisters' coordination—timing, breath synchronization, micro-gestures—and noted that they could be formidable… if they stopped trying to choreograph every attack like a martial arts stage play.
"I could turn this into a ten-minute dance simulator with real-world feedback and haptic upgrades," he mumbled. "Might sell it as a training app."
—
Match 7: Guy With Fire vs. Guy Who Forgot He Had Legs
Flames roared across the platform. The other contestant parried with his arms.
Just his arms.
Elias leaned in. "That man has not moved his legs once in two minutes."
He ran divine sense deeper and confirmed it: the leg muscles were tensed in a locked posture, refusing to flex. "He's rooted to the ground with Qi. That's either confidence or extreme lower-body trauma."
The flame cultivator, on the other hand, was over-channeling heat through uninsulated pathways. "He'll rupture his wrist meridians in thirty seconds," Elias predicted.
Twenty-eight seconds later, the man screamed and clutched his wrist.
"Called it."
—
Elias continued this way for hours.
He mapped every match. Recorded spiritual frequencies, identified talent signatures, memorized battle habits. His mind constructed a VR-style martial simulation chamber where every style could be replayed, adjusted, tested, and broken apart.
He could simulate each match with changes: "What if this idiot hadn't spun mid-air?" "What if the opponent knew what a feint was?" "What if I injected a neural-redirect pulse and rebuilt the Qi path around the pancreas?"
More than mockery, this was data. It was raw martial knowledge.
And every second made Elias more dangerous.
Not because he was learning to fight—
But because he was designing how to fight better than anyone else in the sect.
And no one even knew he was there.
—
By the end of the day, twenty matches had finished. Elias had mapped them all.
His conclusion?
"The average cultivation battle is just expensive flailing."
He stood, cracked his neck, and made a note to wash the dumb off his clothes later. He walked back to his chamber, eyes half-lidded in boredom.
The final matches were tomorrow.
He had much more to record.
And after that?
It would be time to show these fools what real techniques looked like.