Fang Hao's second opponent was a shifty looking guy in his late teens who had used a wind-vane shaped magic treasure to summon clouds over the arena ring. He then used incantations to summon what looked like red thunderbolts to strike at Fang Hao. Fang Hao had to rely on his armadillo leather glove magic tool's membrane barrier to absorb the damaging red thunderbolts till he could close the distance between them and whack him till his Qi shield shattered and he gave up. Fang Hao estimated that he could have closed the distance without using the membrane barrier, but he didn't choose to do so.

Each of the thunderbolts rained down from the summoned storm clouds around twice in each second, making them too difficult to dodge while maintaining his charging momentum. And he estimated that each of the thunderbolts was at least twice as powerful as a regular fire snake spell. If he absorbed all that damage without his membrane barrier, he would have been in a sorry state. He could partially refill his magic tool with Qi in between fights using the shitty Qi recovery wine. And although he was confident that he could recover a significant portion of damage between fights using his Primordial marrow trait, why would he expose all his cards without any returns?

It was a shameless, cheap and effective strategy, just the way he liked it! He would use his mag tool's Membrane Barrier spell to negate almost all the damaging spells and just rush to his opponent in his Aura-infused state to beat the shit out of them with a mundane metal club. And between fights he would drink as much as he could and replenish his own Qi reserves and his armadillo leather glove magic tool too. Although he had devised a cheap strategy, which he nicknamed “charging turtle” for quick and consecutive wins for xp farming, his second opponent's tactics had got him thinking.

'His main magic tool was that storm summoning wind-vane. And his main spell was a conditional red thunderbolt. Now looking at either the tool or spell individually they don't seem that useful. Investing in a magic tool to just summon storm clouds doesn't seem that useful. Also, choosing a thunder spell that needs clouds as a primary offensive spell might seem counter-intuitive individually. But using them together has surprisingly good synergy! After some preparation he could dish out quite a bit of damage fast! So I shouldn't just disregard conditional spells. With a complimenting magic tool and/or spell, it can give rise to a powerful combo.'

'If I look at it that way, isn't body cultivation and aura fist scripture built on synergy? On top that add a decent magic tool for some more defense and you can even smash Qi Condensation cultivators with a fucking club.'

His third fight was against a pyromaniac. His third opponent only used fire spells. Even his Qi barrier was like a flaming cocoon. The fire snakes his third opponent cast were as powerful as his own and could cast them in a little under a second! That was almost as fast as when Fang Hao himself cast wind blade. The shameless “charging turtle” strategy was successful, but the flaming Qi barrier drained more of his membrane barrier than he would have liked. Every smash of his club caused small fireballs to retaliate towards him.

Unexpectedly, his forth opponent was a body cultivator! It was a muscular looking young man with shaggy hair and sparse tufts of beard. As soon as the match began, his opponent conjured a translucent barrier and performed complex looking incantation gestures chanting all the while. Fang Hao had initiated his “charging turtle” strategy having activated his membrane barrier and Aura Infusion. As he was charging towards his opponent. His opponent had finished his spell, and had morphed into hat looked like a hulking humanoid wolf with matted gray fur. His werewolf-like opponent charged towards him, and their match devolved into a close combat brawl without any elegance.

Ultimately, Fang Hao's superior stamina and membrane shield magic tool triumphed over his opponent's wolf transformation spell. It was his first match where his opponent didn't admit defeat, or the referee didn't stop them. He actually had to beat his opponent unconscious. After his opponent fainted, the morphing spell wore off and the judge declared him the winner with clear looks of disdain and disapproval in his eyes.

It was also Fang Hao's most draining fight in terms of Qi usage. While he was not at his limits, the ten minutes brawl had drained nearly half of his Qi. And that Qi usage was accounting for the fact that he wasn't using Aura infusion to the limits! The more he reinforced his stats through Aura Infusion, the more Qi it would cost! At full power, he could only maintain his Aura Infused state for around 5 minutes. He could have finished the fight in under 2-3 minutes at full power, but that would again expose his body cultivation technique to be to eye catching.

With the transformed body cultivator opponent as a benchmark, he had paced his Aura Infusion to display a little more that his opponents strength. He was then using all the close contact maneuvers of krav maga he recalled to beat his opponent into an unconscious state. All in all, it was a satisfying brawl as he could finally beat the shit out of his opponent.

His fifth opponent was a tricky one. At the onset of the match, his opponent had blown some sort of greenish powder towards Fang Hao. His opponent then sued a quick gesture and that greenish powder quickly grew into entangling vines that restrained him and started to squeeze him. Fang Hao had reacted in time and activated his membrane barrier to guard him, but his mobility was heavily restricted. He had difficulty to complete hand gestures in a reasonable amount of time to cast his fire snake spell to burn away the entangling vine field.

He settled for taking potshots at his opponent with the sect provided wooden sword, releasing a steady stream of weak Wind Blades. But his opponent similarly turtled up, conjuring a Qi barrier and floating javelins made of blue ice. He would rapidly send the ice javelins towards Fang Hao as he continued to conjure the floating blue ice javelins. Realizing that his close combat prowess was completely sealed, Fang Hao gave up instead of continuing a battle of attrition.