Either the Heavens had provided the most worthless Chosen that has ever existed, or the demon Wang Yutian had summoned was far more powerful and dangerous than he had anticipated. Having seen the immense change in the air cultivator’s strength since he left the sect, Wang Yutian was forced to conclude that it was in fact the second option. Shi Yuheng was outmatched in every regard when he challenged the Chosen, which he really should have expected. It doesn’t matter if you’re a genius of the demonic path when you’re challenging someone who has powers beyond that of every other person in the world. At best, you become a stepping stone for their growth, and at worst you end up as an example.

Wang Yutian had gotten quite the boost in strength from his interaction with the demon, so he may as well use this as an opportunity to provide himself an alibi. If Shi Yuheng had been utterly crushed by the Chosen, challenging him and being an even match would establish that he was well within tolerances for the tournament’s power level. Usually Shi Yuheng had far too many odd techniques for Wang Yutian to have a real power-defining fight, but with his pride injured and his strength put on display, it was more likely than usual that he would provide a decent match.

Flying up to the gate between the outer and inner actions of the sect, Wang Yutain calls out to everyone in earshot, “Shi Yuheng! You lost to an outer sect disciple, how can you still have the face to claim you are the best choice to represent the Chaotic Demon Sect in the inter sect tournament?”

“Even if I wasn’t you’re not the one to challenge me, Wang Yutain,” he responds, correctly. Since Wang Yutain was already going to the tournament, showing that one could beat the other would accomplish absolutely nothing. That served Wang Yutain perfectly well, but Shi Yuheng had no reason to accept the challenge.

“If it isn’t me, it’ll be everyone. Take this as an opportunity, if you manage to defeat me you aren’t the weakest of the Chaotic Demon Sect with a chance to face the Continental and Grandmists in single combat. The one who would have to deal with the last minute challenges for the spot would be me instead of you.”

“You, you’re really sure that you can beat me aren’t you,” Shi Yuheng said, coming out from behind a pillar across the way from where his voice was originating. “Smashing you down is going to be therapeutic.”

Pulling out a handful of knives, Shi Yuheng fans out the knives to reveal the netting between them. Swiping across the gatehouse, wind blasts out and into Wang Yutian, who falls to the side with gravity.

Shi Yuheng follows the wind, flying along the wind’s trail over to the air above the gate. The two of them would be having an aerial battle in front of the entire sect, it appeared. That was exactly what Wang Yutian was hoping for, and a quick loss against Shi Yuheng would be perfect for making sure it was clear he wasn’t too powerful. Hiding one’s strength was important, and feeding false information was even better.

Going on the offensive, Shi Yuheng flies toward Wang Yutian. Wang Yutian increases the gravity around himself, reasoning that flying with air power was highly reliant on having a constant weight, but Shi Yuheng flashes forward his fan, converting all his momentum into forward wind force. A ball of wind crashes into Wang Yutian, which doesn’t do much at all. Wang Yutian isn’t sure whether it was supposed to be an actual attack, and he had just grown powerful enough to simply ignore it, or if this was just a probing technique. Just to be safe, the gravity cultivator pulls himself backward as though the wind was doing so. If it was actually a weak attack, that would be explainable as a dodge to reduce the strength of the potential blow.

Pressing his apparent advantage, Shi Yuheng throws his fan toward Wang Yutian. Not entirely sure what he was getting at, Wang Yutian moved slightly to the side. A string attached to the back of the fan pulls apart the fabric, freeing all the knives. They split off and fly in all directions, including toward Wang Yutian’s throat. Dropping all his Heavenly Energy, Wang Yutian lets regular gravity pull him down toward the ground as the knife slides very close to his face.

That was enough letting Shi Yuheng show off. Pulling himself up toward his opponent, Wang Yutian accelerates his leg up to hit Shi Yuheng below the belt. Shi Yuheng moves his leg up to deflect the kick diagonally, but Wang Yutian’s attack was a ruse to begin with. He had moved his center of gravity down to that leg, so upon being blocked he rotated up toward Shi Yuheng’s face with a haymaker punch. Ducking down and pushing the incoming arm to the side with both hands, Shi Yuheng flips backward and fires himself even higher with a blast of wind.

With the rank disparity between them, Shi Yuheng wouldn’t be able to even scratch Wang Yutian, which made avoiding the wind blades he fired down from above all the more important. If he were hit by one of those and it did nothing, it would show to anyone watching that Wang Yutian had made it at least to rank four, the Soul Core Realm where one’s defences were massively improved. It wouldn’t show that he’d made it all the way to the Master Core Realm, and in fact it would be almost impossible to show that secret by accident since it was the realm at which one could begin blending techniques with affinity, and he hadn’t actually done that yet. Having power wasn’t enough if one didn’t know how to use it.

Deciding that the wind blades were far too annoying to deal with, Wang Yutian lets himself drop all the way to the ground. In the air, he was nowhere near as mobile as a wind cultivator, and there was very little he could use to his advantage with gravity affinity. On the ground, he could dodge the blades easily, and tire the speed based cultivator out.

Recognizing he lacked tactical advantage from so far away, given that his Heavenly Energy supply was not infinite, Shi Yuheng shoots down toward the gate, the wind blowing back a few onlookers before the gust changes direction to blast toward Wang Yutian on his ground based position. Sensing a trap of some sort, Wang Yutian throws a fire based potion onto the ground ahead of him and dodges backward. Heedless of the flame, the giant wind spiral flows toward its target, drawing dirt and fire into the twisting flow of air. That was a proper fight ending attack, but Shi Yuheng wasn’t the type to ever actually use those.

That had to be fake.

Flying backward around the courtyard, Wang Yutian makes a show of dodging the charging Shi Yuheng until he is close enough to the gatehouse that the audience can see what he does. As he passes a particular patch of ground, he focuses his affinity on the earth to pull harder than gravity ever does. An explosion of rock and grit blast up directly in front of the flaming wind, choking the fire and arresting the air’s momentum. A cloud of dust floats around the source point, shrouding the area from view. Wang Yutian doesn’t see anything moving inside it, but, wary of the trick, increases the force of gravity on the area many times over. Crushing into the ground instantly, the dust evenly coats the ground, but evenly shouldn’t be right.

“You didn’t really think that was me, did you?”

A voice from right behind Wang Yutian makes him jerk back, but that’s one of Shi Yuheng’s usual tricks. He would speak from odd places, and strike while the victim’s attention was diverted. Since he spoke behind him, that meant that was the safest place.

“As though I’d charge straight toward you like some fool with no technique whatsoever.”

That one came from directly in front of his face. So either the attack was coming from the left or the right.

“This is why I’m the best choice for one on one fights!”

And from the right. That meant he was coming from the left. Wang Yutian spun to kick the cultivator in the stomach as he attacked, but hit empty air. That wasn’t right. This was a clear pattern, and Shi Yuheng was a predictable snake. He always attacked from the place that was least expected.

Shi Yuheng landed on Wang Yutian’s head, having hidden in the audience when the sneak had passed by on the way down. All the dust and fire had kept Wang Yutian from seeing the change…

Whatever, this was probably a good enough excuse to call the fight.

“Yes, you are definitely a snake amongst dragons. A veritable serpent in the grass. When you face a single person and they aren’t trying to kill you, you are a nigh unbeatable duelist. I’m certainly not powerful enough to destroy you with a thought, and this was an even match the whole time.”

“Was that sarcasm? I’m the one on top of you with a knife to your throat.”

“Oh I couldn’t tell. It just felt like a bit of cloth fell on my head,” Wang Yutian taunted, increasing gravity on the knife. The blade stabbed itself into the ground, and Shi Yuheng’s grip around his neck loosened for just a moment. Pulling himself back down through Shi Yuheng’s legs, the gravity cultivator slid across the ground and out from under the wind cultivator. Now it was time for a technical bout. His face wasn’t strong enough to accept being defeated through a trick, only having competed with affinity.

Jumping into the air, Wang Yutian rained a flurry of kicks down toward Shi Yuheng’s head, holding himself up with gravity. Shi Yuheng was forced to block with a cross guard in front of his face, waiting for his opponent to reveal an opening. In this case, the opening was kicking with one leg at a time, and the wind cultivator blew himself around as the leg changed to get behind Wang Yutian and punch him in the kidney.

Pretending the blow had an effect, Wang Yutian stumbles forward, then bends forward to dodge the kick that sails into the space his head had just vacated. Pressing an arm into the ground, he kicks out himself to knock the one leg of Shi Yuheng’s out from under him.

Shi Yuheng flips over in the air, not having anything left to support himself, but blows himself over the rest of the way, landing back on both legs. The two fighters reset their positions, and-

Yue Feihua falls from the sky onto both of them.

“Quit fighting, we need to save our strength for the tournament.”

“You dunce,” spits out Shi Yuheng, face crushed into the dirt, voice actually coming out of his mouth for once, “strength is only a part of tournament placing. We have to have the best technique to win against the geniuses of the other sects.”

“Technique is worthless against raw power,” the muscular youth retorts, “all that time you spend sneaking around and eavesdropping and trying to keep secrets could be better spent getting stronger. One level of a rank is enough to edge out a battle. Cultivate another rank, have a whole field of possibilities over the weaker party. Just get stronger, and you don’t need all this ‘stronger in the same level’ garbage.”

‘Well,’ thinks Wang Yutian, his face similarly pressed into the ground by the bulk of the heavy stone cultivator, ‘even a broken clock is correct twice a day.’