22 Chapter 21

As the fight ended many people looked at it in shock. The result was surprising to say the least since Enkidu was more than a full Realm lower than his opponent and his opponent was well known and a genius able to fight with people up to the third level of the Sky Realm when using his armor. His sect could only stare in shock, they would never expect their most talented youth would lose so quickly and it only taking this long because of his armor protecting him!

Enkidu didn't even use a weapon or a profound art anyone could understand, it was like he was directly controlling two elements during this fight, Earth and Metal.

That, however, gave hope for some of the participants as both these elements were knows for their defensive and offensive properties but not by their speed. If anything both were known for slowing down their user instead, making them steady and slow.

Enkidu was a tank, that was the general perception.

After Enkidu left the stage he went directly back to where he was positioned before as he would have to wait for a good while before he could fight again. So, he directly contended himself with recovering his energy and with looking deeper into the one power that could help him the best in this. The Wood Profound Energy.

While Earth had a powerful oppressive strength and defense and Metal had the sharpest offensive power and was the root of all weapon arts Wood was different. It was forever growing, having the highest recovery speed and regeneration speed amongst all elements, something that when added to what little Enkidu knew of the Light Profound Energy made him have extremely quick recovery speed and near limitless stamina.

It was truly like a cheat, in a short while he was already recovered like if he had eaten pills for it. Not that this was enough for him, he continued trying to see if he could use these powers in tandem and how it would be possible.

Each Law has a set number of Profound Truths to them, that was simply a fact. These Profound Truths are the most fundamental and primordial forms of the Laws, using what level of understanding of these Profound Truths one has allows a person to create a technique that uses their insights to the greatest effect possible. Only techniques created by yourself will truly be the most suitable and perfect for the person, otherwise, you are just copying the techniques another made previously. What the Heaven's Path books regarding elements had were the perfect explanations of the Profound Truths regarding the Laws used in the profound arts, they were still low level as the level of knowledge of the books he obtained were relatively low, but the Profound Truths gleamed in them are perfect for their level.

He could not tell exactly how many Profound Truths there were to the laws he had, but he realized a flaw of his during his previous match. He lacked an actual Profound Art that he could use to match his understandings. Yes, he had the knowledge of the Profound Truths regarding the Laws, but the actual application of them was up to him in the end. Thus he would start to create at least one Profound Art to use before his next match, his focus on that as he began the process that most would need decades to do.

'I guess half an hour to create as perfect a Profound Art as possible should be acceptable.' He would write down a Profound Art and continuously fix it whenever the Library of Heaven's Path finds a mistake on it. He now only had to decide what type of Profound Art it should even be.

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After Enkidu more matches happened, most took quite a while but of them a few were worth mention. The fight involving two of the 1 star Master Teacher led to a long fight that shown many flashy attacks and impressed many by the fact they both were Sky Realm experts. The accumulations and inheritances of the Master Teacher Association helping them immensely.

The second was the fight between Sheng Cai'er and the disciple of the Great Elder of the Heaven Thwarting Sect, one of the three main sects, he was a favorite for winning this whole competition. The battle took barely 20 seconds with Sheng Cai'er crushing him and making him lose consciousness and getting multiple fractures across his entire body and many cuts all across it. An act repeated on the fight between Wangquian Fugui and one of the sons of the Sword Master of the Soaring Celestial Sword Sect, where Fugui not only won but using his own sword that was weaker than his opponent he still cut the son of the Sword Master's sword in pieces.

That meant his understanding of the Sword Laws are much above his opponent, shocking others even more than his victory since it was a widely believed understanding that the Soaring Celestial Sword Sect had the deepest inheritance of the Sword Laws in the continent. That means that it was not an inheritance of Sword Laws he got but his own understandings of it without the help of predecessors, truly shocking.

Other people brought attention to themselves, with one who directly killed his opponent while laughing maniacally, red veins pulsing in his body and looking more like a beast than a person. In his hand, a sword emanating great killing intent and drinking the blood of the enemy it had slain.

Another was a young man with wavy black hair and a small mark in his cheek, two spears in hand as he overwhelmed his enemy using spearsmanship that shocked many. It was not yet of the level of Fugui, but it was not far and when people found out of his family and that they were the guardians of the Fairy Forest and the ones who had the favor of the Fairy Godking spirit, many considered him a new favorite.

Amongst the Master Teachers the one who garnered the most attention was Bibi Dong but even so it was not a match with the attention the others managed to attract.

In the loser's bracket, the fights were even more desperate and, despite it all, some of the youths ended up with grievous injuries or death as no one wanted to lose this chance.

In the second round, Enkidu was the first to be brought forward, his opponent moved forward as well.

Said opponent took the form of a young man, he looked to be around 16 years olf, with fair skin and long black hair, as well as featureless white eyes. For an outfit, he wore a beige-colored shirt, a dull blue shirt beneath that, and mesh armor beneath that. He wore dark brown shorts, blue sandals, and wrapped bandages around his right arm, chest, and right leg. He tied his hair back in a loose ponytail tied a few inches above the end.

"Second Stage, Winner's Bracket, First Match, Enkidu VS Neji Hyuga. Match, START!"

Despite being said that the match started neither Enkidu not Neji moved forward. Enkidu was calm and collected, keeping his aura under control and preparing himself to reach his peak.

Neji, however, was not so.

"Hmph, so you're the so-called upstart from no clan, then?" Neji commented as he looked the green-haired male up and down, all before shaking his head in disappointment. "I had thought you might be more imposing, but I guess fate decrees my victory if this is the level of power you possess. Fate is all absolute after all and with my natural advantage as a member of the Hyuga Family, the ones with the All Seeing Eyes, Byakugan, there is no way I'd lose to someone even weaker than myself."

As this was said Enkidu reminded himself of the information he knew of the Byakugan.

It was a set of special eyes that let one see through anything, find the weaknesses of others and their techniques, and strike at them. It can also be used to see the insides of one's enemies to help direct the user's energy in combat to create the highest amount possible of damage to one's opponent. It meant they were especially powerful when it comes to close combat and great at piercing through defensive techniques.

Neji remembered the previous match of Enkidu, if he were to do the same then Neji was confident he would win for sure.

Not that it would work as he was thinking, Enkidu took a single step forward and the moment his foot hit the ground a wave-like effect could be seen across the battlefield. Neji quickly entered in a position to defend himself when he felt something grow near where he was standing. He jumped back just as he sensed grave danger where he was standing before, however, nothing happened.

"Good reflexes." Enkidu said before frowning. "Or is it that I still need to practice more with this before I can fully use this in battle? Well, either way it should work well enough."

Neji was confused by this until he noticed what was different, where he previously stood the ground had a few cracks in it.

'A technique to control the ground?' Neji wondered, he looked down but could not see anything wrong with the ground.

In the stands the Deputy Clan Master of the Hyuga Family looked in shock, his eyes were more developed than Neji's own so he understood what was going on and how much of a monster Enkidu was right now.

Enkidu just stood there, he had little choice as he was still trying to acclimate himself to what this profound Art he created based on one of the Great Truths could do.

The profound truth Enkidu had the most knowledge about as it was the most simple of them, the Essence of the Earth. Earth is everywhere, it gives substance and is present no matter where one looks and has many facets to it. Thus, when Enkidu put his mind into it he identified and created one Profound Arts using this principle.

It was an all-rounder profound art, he named it Ars Magna: World Embrace profound art, it was actually ironic that Enkidu was using this against someone like Neji who prided himself on being able to see all as he would need that. After all-

With this technique, he controls all earth around him.

It was still new for him to actually put such a technique to use, thus he did not catch Neji in time, but it was just a question of this in the end. It would only be a matter of time, not that Neji knew that.

For him that just meant that he had to get close, and so he did.

He moved swiftly his movement with decisiveness as he moved to reach Enkidu.

Enkidu moved his hand up and shoved two fingers upward, that was enough as a wall of earth appeared before Neji. Not wanting to stop Neji shoved his hand forward, his palms released concentrated profound energy as he broke that wall. Neji smirked, thinking himself the winner, only for a piece of the ground to come up and hitting him in the stomach, throwing him back and making a bruise.

Neji stopped when a separated rock stood in the direction he was moving to and he hit his back on it. He felt his bones creaking a bit at the impact, he solidified the rocks further by pressuring many rocks together as tightly as possible before making it stand on the path where Neji flew towards.

Neji coughed some blood and looked up in time to see Enkidu move a hand forward and multiple spikes of Earth appear from the ground, he was currently trying to replicate what he remembers being the attack the original Enkidu used when fighting, a barrage of blades but instead of being made of metal they were being made of earth.

'Perhaps later I can try and look up on uniting it with my chains and really execute something like Age of Babylonia,' Enkidu mused before pointing it at Neji. 'Especially since for some reason I don't really have this skill despite the fact I should have it with this body. Something to think about later I guess.'

"Please don't worry, none of these are aimed to kill and regardless of the wound I will heal you afterwards." Enkidu said as he pushed forward.

Hundreds upon hundreds of spikes of concentrated earth flew at Neji.

"Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven." Neji said as he began to spin rapidly, repelling the attack (and anything else in the vicinity) away and creating a protective shield for as long as he continued to spin. The greater the force of an attack, the greater the force with which it's repelled which explains how some of the attacks are turned to other directions and hitting some of the other spikes or even approaching Enkidu (not that he much minded since he simply created earth walls in front of him to stop any such attack).

This is a clan's profound art named Revolving Heaven, it is meant to compensate for the blindspot of the Hyūga's Byakugan as they are not that great at mid or long distances.

Enkidu could sense that Neji thought of waiting until Enkidu finished tiring out, but that was a mistake in the eyes of those that could see well.

Enkidu may be spending some energy, but thanks to the power of one of the Wood's Profound Mysteries he knew a decent amount about, the Profound Mystery of Regeneration, he could recover his energy as fast as he was spending right now.

There was a saying amongst cultivators, you can beat a user of Thunder in speed, you can beat a Fire user in attack, you can even have more defense than a Earth user, but you will never have more stamina than a Wood user.

Thus, from the moment this stalemate started, the fight had effectively ended.

A few minutes in and Neji finally tired out and passed out cold, unable to do any more. It was Enkidu's victory.

After this the audience came to an understanding, against Enkidu you must be fast enough to catch him BEFORE he begins this profound art, otherwise, you would be at a disadvantage no matter what. Speed and a lack of a finisher, those were the only two weaknesses they could see in Enkidu right now.

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AN: Should I add Hinata as a potential love interest? I am asking since I quite like Naruto and I think honestly that she deserves better than a workaholic husband who likely is screwing around others while she sits at home for him.

And in case anyone is wondering, while Enkidu can control the earth around him with this profound art it is still not that developed, the area he can influence is not that big and how much he can influence the earth he controls can only really grow with increase in cultivation and comprehension of the Profound Mystery of Earth Essense.