12 Making an enemy out of everybody

The first trial ended when 2000 contestants handed in their flags. At this time all of the remaining flags turned blue, signifying that they couldn't be turned in anymore. With this, the fighting in front of the judges and the frenzied running of contestants back from the mountain, stopped. Some only arrived at the base of the mountain at this time, clearly presenting them their lack of proficiency with speed increasing techniques.

The main topic that the whole outer sect talked about was me, of course. Most of the disciples were in disbelief when they heard of my one second flag retrieval. They were apparently looking forward to seeing my abilities first hand in the following trials. The elder spoke up at this time.

-We let you keep your flags in preparation for the second trial. Please activate the formation engraved on the flag, if it is still red.

I activated it along with everybody else, and got teleported to a nearby gigantic arena. The elder also appeared above the arena, hovering mid-air. His sound was transmitted to us.

-The second trial begins after the ring of the bell. Your goal this time is to take the other contestants' flags while protecting your own. You can also destroy others' flags, although that nets you less points. The first three with the most points will receive an award at the end. If your flag gets stolen or destroyed, you automatically get teleported out of the arena. The trial ends, when out of the 2000 people present only 1024 remain. Anything goes, except killing your fellow disciples, which will be punishable by death. The bell will ring in one minute, until then you're free to move around, but you cannot harm other disciples until you hear the bell's ring.

This was a simple knockout deathmatch, with half of the contestants getting knocked out. Since I had a minute to prepare, I sent up a glowing sword qi into the air, then used a powerful sound transmission technique:

-This is Xiao Xia, the winner of the previous trial. If you want to experience my might, you weaklings only need to follow the sword qi high above my head. I'll be moving to the middle of the arena, and once the bell rings, you can find me there if you have the balls.

I started running toward the center of the grand arena using a mediocre footwork technique, since I had time to spare. I arrived just a couple of seconds before the bell rang, and I was instantly surrounded by hundreds of disciples.

-You really stirred the hornet's nest this time.

-Well, the really strong ones aren't stupid enough to come, since they realise that I can probably survive this trial just by randomly streaking around as fast as lightning. So the ones around me right now are the stupidest of them. I didn't expect for over 300 to show up though, this is... like taking candy from a bunch of really stupid babies.

-To be fair, they only know of your lightning speed, and only from hearsay, so they probably think you're fast, but can't escape an encirclement.

-Well, I'll prove them wrong in a couple of seconds.

As the bell rung, some people already launched some skills against me, carefully aiming to only incapacitate me. Unfortunately for them, this was nowhere near enough to make me flustered. I locked down the area around me with a spatial lock, then used my 'Time Shield'. Everything around me froze, both people and their launched skills. I then locked on to all their flags and teleported them to me. I was suddenly surrounded by a small hill of red flags. As I released the 'Time Shield' they were all suddenly teleported out of the arena.

I had 341 stolen flags in my posession at this time. I sat down on top of them and started cultivating, inconspicuously, like before. In reality, I was analyzing the 'Soul Severing realm' and 'upgrading my temporal powers' with Eve's help. Since this uses up a considerable amount of energy, I periodically teleport some medium grade spirit stones in my pockets, that I immediately absorb. Some late arrivals saw this scene, and hesitated about what to do. In a few minutes twelve of them banded together to attack me, however as soon as they decided to make a move, their flags disappeared and reappeared in the pile below me. They were of course teleported out in an instant. When the rest of the people saw this scene, they all retreated, with some even running away at their top speed, afraid that I would attack them.

A short while later the elder announced that there are only 1500 people remaining. I didn't care about that though, since I was confident about clearing this trial fairly quickly. I could even take all the flags for myself, if I wanted to, to speed up things, but that kind of show of ability would draw too much suspicion and trouble. My current situation could be explained away by having a rare space-type secret treasure, that lets me lock on to a certain kind of target and teleport it to my location. Even if it looks like an absurd coincidence, that this would be the exact tool needed to flawlessly complete this trial, it's still easier to believe than me having all sorts of spatial and temporal abilities at my age.

I silently sat there, while gathering the flags of all people who came within 100 meters. Some tried ambushing me with high-speed movement techniques or concealment techniques, but before 'Spatial Manipulation's 'Spatial Detection', it was of no use, the moment they crossed the 100 meter boundary, their flag would end up in my pile, while they would get teleported out. Some tried because they thought I was an easy target, some were greedy because of my big pile of stolen flags, and some simply had the confidence to face anybody, either because of their strength or some special treasure they had. Well, they all learned a valuable lesson today, so they can't have any complaints.

In about half an hour the competition drew to an end, with only 1024 contestants still standing. All the flags disappeared, and the arena was covered in a faint green mist, to heal any injury that the contestants might have suffered, while the elder announced the results. It was no surprise that I was in the first place with 471 flags, having 942 points. The one in the second place only had 103 flags stolen and 7 destroyed, having 213 points. The gap was as wide as the one between the sky and the ground. That's how you say it in a xianxia world, right? The gap between the heavens and earth? The gap between an elephant and an ant? Meh, I simply can't care enough.