The arena floor was still warm from the morning sun, but as Zhao Chen stepped out for his second match, the air felt decidedly colder. The "accidental" victory over Wang Chao had done exactly what he intended: it had labeled him as "dangerously lucky." To the students of the Silver and Gold classes, he was no longer a non-entity, but an anomaly—a pebble that had somehow tripped a giant.
[Ding! Scanning Bracket Four...]
[Opponent Found: Chen Mo (Silver Class, Level 19)]
[Martial Spirit: Shadow-Stalking Panther (Agility Type)]
[Analysis: Target relies on high-speed bursts and visual misdirection. High threat to stationary 'Wood-type' cultivators.]
Zhao Chen looked across the sand. Chen Mo was a stark contrast to the hulking Wang Chao. He was thin, his eyes restlessly scanning Zhao Chen's posture, his fingers twitching like a cat's claws.
"I watched your match, merchant's brat," Chen Mo said, his voice a low hiss. "You have good timing, but luck only works on those who are too heavy to move. My panther doesn't trip. It shreds."
"I hope I can keep up, Senior Brother," Zhao Chen replied, his voice appropriately strained.
Deep within his spiritual sea, Zhao Chen felt the Nine-Headed Hydra stir. The 920-year Iron-Silk Spider essence he had consumed was still settling into his foundation, causing the Hydra's dormant second head to pulse with a dark, phantom weight.
[Ding! Simulation beginning...]
[Estimated Victory Path: 'The Inescapable Shadow.']
[Step 1: Deploy 'Ghost-Whistle' vibration to disrupt the Panther's sensory nodes. Step 2: Use Shadow-Binding to tether the opponent's shadow. Step 3: Conclude with a 'clumsy' collision.]
"Begin!" the Proctor shouted.
Chen Mo vanished.
To the audience, it was a blur of black ink against the sun-drenched sand. The Shadow-Stalking Panther granted its host a speed that bordered on teleportation at the Apprentice level. Zhao Chen stood in the center, his vines erupting in a defensive circle, but they looked sluggish—reacting a second too late to every flickering shadow.
Sla-sh!
A shallow cut appeared on Zhao Chen's shoulder. He winced, stumbling back.
"Too slow!" Chen Mo's voice echoed from three directions at once.
Sla-sh! Sla-sh!
More cuts appeared on Zhao Chen's arms and legs. He looked like a cornered animal, his vines lashing out in a "panicked" frenzy. In the VIP box, Senior Sister Liu's eyes narrowed until they were mere slits. She wasn't watching Zhao Chen's wounds; she was watching the sand.
He's not missing, she thought, her Moonveil Crane spirit vibrating in warning. Every time he 'misses,' his vine touches the ground.
Under the cover of his "panicked" defense, Zhao Chen was weaving the Iron-Silk Shadow-Binding. The vines weren't trying to hit Chen Mo; they were burying themselves in the sand, creating a network of high-frequency vibrations that mimicked the Iron-Silk Spider's web.
Got you, Zhao Chen thought.
[Ding! Resonance Match: 100%.]
[Activating: Shadow-Binding.]
Chen Mo prepared for his final strike, his claws glowing with a dark-purple soul power. He leaped from the shadows behind Zhao Chen, aimed at his neck. But mid-air, his body jerked to a violent halt. It looked as if he had hit an invisible wall.
In reality, the shadow cast by his body had been "tethered" to the sand by Zhao Chen's ink-marbled vines.
"What—!?" Chen Mo gasped, his momentum collapsing.
Zhao Chen didn't wait. He "tripped" backward, falling toward the suspended Chen Mo. To the audience, it looked like Zhao Chen had lost his balance under the pressure. But as he fell, his elbow "accidentally" slammed into Chen Mo's solar plexus, while a hidden vine drained a precise burst of soul power from the panther's spirit core.
Both boys crashed to the sand in a heap.
Zhao Chen was the first to scramble up, coughing and clutching his side, looking battered and bloody. Chen Mo remained down, gasping for air, his martial spirit completely shattered by the impact and the sudden drain.
"Winner... Zhao Chen!" the Proctor announced, his voice tinged with genuine confusion.
The crowd began to murmur. "Twice? He won twice by falling over?"
"The luck of the Zhao family must be monstrous," a student grumbled.
[Ding! Objective Progress: 2/5 Wins.]
[Current Status: Level 14 (99.8% to Level 15).]
[Reward: 100 System Points for 'Acting Excellence.']
Zhao Chen walked out of the arena, leaning heavily on a wall once he reached the shadows of the tunnel. The cuts on his arms—mere surface wounds he had allowed to happen—began to itch as the Hydra's regenerative properties, boosted by the Life-Seizing Bloom, began to close them.
"System," he whispered, his eyes cold as the fake exhaustion drained from his face. "Process the remaining Iron-Silk essence. I want to reach Level 15 before the third match."
[Ding! Processing...]
[Level 14... Level 15!]
[Second Head Awakening: 20%.]
[New Skill Unlocked for Nine-Headed Hydra: 'Gaze of the Abyssal Eye' (Passive).]
Zhao Chen felt a sudden, sharp clarity in his vision. The world didn't just look sharper; he could see the 'weight' of spiritual energy in the air. He looked toward the Gold Class seating area. There, Lu Tian was watching him.
Through the Gaze of the Abyssal Eye, Zhao Chen didn't see a Level 20 genius. He saw a pulsating sun of solar energy, unstable and arrogant.
"The bigger they are," Zhao Chen murmured, his Level 15 foundation solidifying beneath the mask of a battered underdog, "the more energy they leave behind when they fall."
The hunt was accelerating. He was no longer just winning; he was feeding. And the Academy was his banquet.
****
The "underdog" of the Yellow Class had done the impossible: he had secured a spot in the final rounds of the bracket. As Zhao Chen walked through the Academy hallways toward the recovery wards—keeping his shoulders hunched and his breathing shallow—he could feel the shift in the spiritual atmosphere. The condescending whispers had turned into sharp, analytical silence.
[Ding! Mission Update: 'The Tournament of Tides.']
[Current Standing: Bracket Semi-Finalist.]
[Public Perception: 'The Lucky Survivor' (Reliability: 74%).]
[Warning: Senior Sister Liu has increased her observation frequency. She is currently following at a distance of 40 meters.]
Zhao Chen entered his room and collapsed onto the bed, waiting until he heard the faint, nearly silent click of the door's spiritual seal. He didn't drop the act immediately. He knew the Academy's surveillance wasn't just physical; it was resonance-based.
"System," he thought, his eyes staring at the ceiling. "How long until the next match?"
[Ding! Your next opponent is Seed #4: Mu Rong (Silver Class, Level 19). Her martial spirit is the 'Frost-Petal Lily'. Combat begins in three hours.]
Zhao Chen sat up, his face instantly losing its "battered" look. "A control-type spirit. If I use the same 'clumsy' tripping tactic, it won't work. Control-types don't charge; they root their opponents. If I get frozen, my 'stability' won't mean anything."
[Ding! Analysis: The 'Shadow-Binding' property acquired from the Iron-Silk Spider is the optimal counter. However, using it overtly will reveal the dark mutation of your vine.]
"Then I need to mask the color," Zhao Chen murmured. He reached into his storage ring and pulled out a small vial of Corrosive Sludge, a low-grade alchemical waste product he had purchased under the guise of "researching fertilizers."
He poured the dark, foul-smelling liquid over his hands. It stung his skin, but he didn't flinch. As he summoned the Thorny Crawling Vine, the plant reacted to the toxicity, its dark-green surface turning a sickly, mottled gray. To an observer, the vine would now look like it was dying—a "weak" spirit struggling against a self-inflicted poison.
"Now, the shadow will look like rot," Zhao Chen noted.
Three hours later, the arena was standing-room only. The VIP box now held not just Proctor Meng, but a stern-faced woman in deep blue robes—the Head of the Silver Class.
Mu Rong stood at the opposite end of the stage. She was elegant, her silver hair tied back in a high ponytail. As she summoned her spirit, a beautiful, crystalline lily appeared in the air before her, its petals shedding a fine, glittering frost that turned the sand into a skating rink.
"I won't be as careless as Wang Chao or Chen Mo," Mu Rong said, her voice like ice breaking. "You win by using your opponent's momentum. But I have no momentum. I am the frost that stops all motion."
"I... I'll try my best, Senior Sister," Zhao Chen stammered, his "leaky" Level 15 aura making his "dying" gray vines look pathetic.
"Begin!"
Mu Rong didn't move. She pointed a finger, and a wave of frost-petals surged across the arena. Each petal was a razor-sharp blade of ice.
Zhao Chen "panicked," lashing out with his gray, mottled vines. The vines were frozen instantly, shattering into shards of ice. He scrambled back, looking like a man whose only weapon was being dismantled.
"It's over, merchant's son," Mu Rong declared. She activated her second skill: Glacial Prison.
The air around Zhao Chen crystallized. Columns of ice erupted from the ground, sealing him in a tomb of blue frost. The audience began to turn away, assuming the "luck" had finally run out.
But beneath the ice, Zhao Chen's eyes were glowing with a predatory amber light.
Gaze of the Abyssal Eye.
He saw the flow of Mu Rong's soul power. It was anchored to the Frost-Petal Lily. Because she was a stationary control-type, she had a single, massive blind spot: her own shadow.
Using the Shadow-Binding property, Zhao Chen didn't send his vines through the air. He sent the "ink" of his soul power through the darkness inside the ice. The shadow of his frozen vines traveled across the arena floor, invisible against the glare of the frost, until it reached Mu Rong's feet.
Pull.
Mu Rong suddenly gasped. She felt a weight—not on her body, but on her soul. Her connection to the Lily flickered.
"What...?"
In that moment of hesitation, the "frozen" Zhao Chen threw his weight against the ice prison. Because the Hydra's essence had already siphoned the "cold" energy from the shadow-bind, the ice was actually brittle.
CRACK.
The prison shattered. Zhao Chen lunged forward, his "dying" gray vines looking like a frantic mess as they tangled around Mu Rong's ankles.
"I've got you!" Zhao Chen yelled, sounding surprised by his own success.
As he "clumsily" tackled her to the ground, a single ink-black thorn pricked her wrist. It didn't draw blood, but it delivered a concentrated burst of the Iron-Silk Spider's neural-dampener.
Mu Rong's eyes went wide as her entire body went numb. Her martial spirit vanished. She fell back, and Zhao Chen landed on top of her, looking like a tangled heap of limbs.
"Winner... Zhao Chen!"
The Proctor's voice was almost a whisper. The silence in the arena was deafening.
In the Gold Class section, Lu Tian stood up, his face no longer bored. His solar-gold aura flared, scorching the stone railing in front of him.
[Ding! Progress toward Level 16: 40%.]
[Hydra's Second Head: 25% Awakened.]
[Note: The 'Gaze of the Abyssal Eye' has identified Lu Tian's psychological state: Aggressive Insecurity. He will likely attempt to 'execute' the host in the final match to restore the Academy's prestige.]
Zhao Chen stood up, helping the paralyzed Mu Rong to her feet with a "guilty" expression.
"I'm so sorry, Senior Sister! I think... I think the ice just made me slip at the right time!"
He walked out of the arena, his heart rate perfectly steady despite his "heaving" chest. He had reached the Top 5. Only two matches remained.
He could already feel the 1,000-year-grade soul power of Lu Tian's Solar Flare Hawk calling to the Hydra. He didn't just want to win the tournament anymore.
He wanted to see if a Solar Hawk tasted as good as it looked.
****
The corridor leading out of the arena felt narrower than before. Zhao Chen's "heaving" chest was a masterclass in biological deception—his heart rate was a steady sixty beats per minute, even as he leaned his weight against the cold stone wall to simulate a "spent" cultivator.
[Ding! Processing Mu Rong's extracted essence...]
[Conversion successful. Level 15 progress: 62%.]
[System Note: The 'Gaze of the Abyssal Eye' has successfully recorded the spiritual frequency of the 'Frost-Petal Lily'. Temporary 'Frost Resistance' attribute added to the Thorny Crawling Vine.]
Zhao Chen closed his eyes for a brief second, feeling the Hydra's first head gnaw on the remnants of the cold energy. It was a strange sensation, like drinking ice water on a winter day, but it solidified his foundation.
"You're quite the actor, Junior Brother."
The voice was soft, like the rustle of silk against a blade. Zhao Chen didn't need the System to identify the speaker. He straightened up slowly, rubbing his side and putting on a look of startled exhaustion.
"Senior Sister Liu," he panted, his voice raspy. "I... I think I need to go to the infirmary. That ice was... it was too much."
Liu stood a few paces away, her Moonveil Crane spirit retracted, but her eyes were sharper than any spirit. She walked toward him, her movements silent. "Mu Rong is the top control-type in the Silver Class. Her 'Glacial Prison' is a Level 19 technique. For a Level 15 vine to survive it, let alone shatter it from the inside..." She paused, stopping just inches from him. "...that's not luck, Zhao Chen. That's an impossibility."
"The ice was brittle," Zhao Chen lied, his gaze dropping to the floor in feigned humility. "I think her soul power was flickering. I just... I threw everything I had into that one shoulder check."
Liu reached out, her fingers brushing the "gray" rot on his mottled vines. Zhao Chen forced himself not to flinch.
"This 'rot'," she murmured. "It smells of alchemical waste. You're intentionally poisoning your own spirit to increase its combat volatility? A merchant's gamble, indeed."
She pulled her hand back, a strange look in her eyes—half-contempt, half-admiration. "Proctor Meng is convinced you're a 'Hard-Worker' who found a high-capacity ring. But I see a boy who is willing to mutilate his own foundation just to win a tournament. Be careful, Zhao Chen. If you use that 'rot' against Lu Tian, he won't just freeze you. He'll burn you until there's nothing left to bury."
She turned and walked away, her warning hanging in the air like a cold mist.
[Ding! Detection avoidance maintained. Senior Sister Liu has categorized your 'abnormality' as 'Self-Destructive Alchemical Enhancement'. Suspicion of the Hydra remains at 0%.]
"Good," Zhao Chen whispered, his face instantly smoothing into a mask of cold indifference. "Let her believe I'm a desperate gambler. It's a better story than the truth."
The final match was set for sunset. The entire Academy had gathered, the atmosphere electric with the anticipation of a "slaughter." Lu Tian, the scion of the Lu family and the undisputed #1 seed, stood on the arena floor long before the signal was given.
He was bathed in the golden light of the setting sun, which seemed to feed his Solar Flare Hawk spirit. His Level 20 aura was no longer contained; it radiated outward in waves of heat that made the air shimmer.
Zhao Chen stepped onto the sand, his "dying" gray vines trailing behind him like funeral shrouds. He looked small, battered, and utterly outmatched.
"I've seen enough of your 'accidents'," Lu Tian said, his voice booming across the arena. He didn't even look at Zhao Chen; he looked at the VIP box, as if the match was already over. "My Solar Flare is the bane of all wood-types. There is no shadow to hide in when the sun is directly overhead. I will burn your luck until only ash remains."
"I... I just want to finish the match, Senior Brother," Zhao Chen said, his voice trembling.
[Ding! Final Match Logic: 'The Sun-Eater'.]
[Task: Defeat Lu Tian and consume the Solar Flare essence.]
[Condition: Victory must appear to be the result of Lu Tian's own 'unstable' breakthrough.]
"Begin!"
Lu Tian didn't hesitate. He didn't use a probing strike. He raised a hand, and the Solar Flare Hawk let out a piercing cry.
"First Skill: Blazing Descent!"
A miniature sun formed in the palm of Lu Tian's hand and was hurled toward Zhao Chen. The heat was so intense that the sand beneath the projectile turned to glass instantly.
Zhao Chen didn't dodge. He sent his gray vines forward, but instead of binding, they began to weave into a thick, tangled shield.
Sizzle.
The vines burned. The smell of scorched wood filled the arena. Zhao Chen screamed—a perfect, practiced sound of agony—as he was pushed back toward the edge of the arena.
But behind the wall of smoke and fire, Zhao Chen's eyes were wide open, glowing with the Gaze of the Abyssal Eye. He wasn't watching the fire; he was watching the "strings" of soul power connecting Lu Tian to the hawk.
Lu Tian was pushing too hard. He was trying to end the match in one strike to prove a point, drawing deep from his Level 20 foundation.
"Now," Zhao Chen whispered.
He didn't use the Vine. He used the Hydra's first head to "inhale."
Under the cover of the smoke, the Life-Seizing Bloom didn't reach for Lu Tian's body. It reached for the Blazing Descent itself. Using the 'Shadow-Binding' logic he had practiced, Zhao Chen created a "void" within the center of the fire.
To the audience, it looked like the sun had simply exploded prematurely.
BOOM.
The shockwave threw both boys back. Lu Tian, stunned that his ultimate move had failed, felt a sudden, sharp drain on his soul power. It felt like a leak—as if his "sun" had developed a hole.
"My... my spirit?" Lu Tian gasped, his golden aura flickering.
Zhao Chen scrambled out of the smoke, his robes charred, looking like a survivor of a shipwreck. He "lunged" forward, a single, blackened vine striking Lu Tian's chest. It was a weak, pathetic-looking strike.
But the moment it touched Lu Tian, the Hydra's second head—the Shadow Head—opened its eyes for the first time.
[Ding! Second Head Awakening: 30%... 50%... 80%!]
[Activating: 'Gaze of the Abyssal Eye' — Full Resonance.]
The audience saw Zhao Chen and Lu Tian collide. They saw a flash of blinding white light as Lu Tian's solar power "overloaded."
Crrr-ack.
Lu Tian's Solar Flare Hawk shattered. The "genius" fell to his knees, blood trickling from his mouth, his cultivation temporarily crippled by the "recoil" of his own attack.
Zhao Chen fell beside him, seemingly unconscious, his gray vines crumbling into dust.
The Proctor rushed into the arena, checking Lu Tian first. "His foundation is shaken... it was an energy backlash! He pushed the Level 20 limit too far!"
Then he checked Zhao Chen.
"He's alive... but his spirit is completely drained. He... he won by sheer resilience."
The arena was silent for a heartbeat, then erupted into a roar that shook the spires of the Academy. The merchant's son had done it. The lucky "Hard-Worker" had stood his ground against the sun and survived.
[Ding! Objective 'The Tournament of Tides' — COMPLETED.]
[Evaluation: EX-Rank (Hidden Victory).]
[Rewards: 1,000 System Points, 'Spiritual Masking' Upgrade to Level 3.]
[Note: The Hydra has successfully consumed the 'Solar Flare' essence. Level 16 reached. Level 17 reached!]
Inside his mind, Zhao Chen watched the Ninth Head flicker with a new, golden light. He was no longer just a student in the Yellow Class. He was the owner of the Academy's most precious "miracle."
And as he was carried away on a stretcher, Zhao Chen let out a single, silent breath of satisfaction. The mask was now perfect. Level 3 Masking was active. Even a Soul Emperor would now look at him and see nothing but a lucky, broken boy.
The Capital was finally his to consume.