019 First Fight

"Hey Liam!" Ralph called out to him.

"Yea?"

"I am going to try and breakthrough to the fourth human realm tonight. Took me longer than I expected but I think I have it. Can you watch out for me while I breakthrough so no one interrupts my breakthrough." Ralph asked Liam.

"Yea of course." Liam responded. They didn't have school today. Only their job from 8 to 4.

"After your breakthrough, let's challenge someone in the ten thousand. I need some better qi density. The training valley is not enough." Liam said to Ralph.

After work, Riley and somebody else came to collect their protection payment. Liam and Ralph finally got paid and it was time for them to pay as well. Ralph's whole salary was taken and Liam had 15 credits left.

"I see you are about to breakthrough and you are already at the fourth human realm. Challenge someone bellow 8000. they won't have a single fourth human realm and you two should probably win. I don't expect that useless girl from your flat to help. Come find me after you've entered the top 10 000." Riley said to them. It was giving Liam bossy vibes. He did not like to be bossed around.

"I can't wait until I can beat up that guy." Liam said to Ralph as he was fuming with anger.

"It might not be your best bet. Riley is the son of the Silva family. The right hand of the royal family. You'd be getting yourself in a lot more trouble than it's worth." Ralph said to Liam.

"Come now. I can't wait to breakthrough. I have been suppressing it for so long." Ralph continued.

Liam followed Ralph to his usual place, where he cultivated. A cave on the outside of the volcano, but it was still pretty hidden. It begged the question, how did The Cursed find them. Are they being constantly followed or somehow observed?

There wasn't anything for Liam to do. He was only there so no one from the outside interrupted Ralph and the fiery qi there was no use to his cultivation. He tried talking to the hooded man again but he had no success.

Eventually Liam gave into boredom and just sat there organizing his thoughts and everything that had happened to him since he left Coralopolis.

"I wonder how Hayley's doing. I heard from people talking that Grand elder Grant has found a new personal disciple. They must be talking about Hayley.

A few hours later, the whole cave trembled for a split second. Liam turned to look at Ralph, who was opening his eyes.

"Did you succeed?" Liam asked Ralph, even though he already knew the answer.

"Let's go beat up some third human realm weaklings." Ralph said with a smile.

Sadly, it wasn't so simple. The two boys first went to the general valley where they found an inner disciple working there. They gave him their house number and the one to the house they wanted to challenge. Then the disciple needed to send the information to an elder and tomorrow they will know if it was approved. If it was, the fight would take place after the student's usual job at 6 o'clock.

They chose house number 7 563. It was the top ranked house with all of the cultivators being still at the third human realm.

Liam was very surprised when he saw the giant score boards that had every student's name, cultivation and ranking in the sect. Liam could see that every few minutes some names would disappear and appear im different places. or some students who broke through. It was all automatic.

"How does this work?" Liam asked Ralph. Who was reading the rankings?

"It's a rune. Spread over the whole sect and it constantly tracts every disciple's cultivation level and ranking and makes changes accordingly." Ralph explained and Liam was fully amazed.

Next day after school Liam and Ralph received news that the fight was approved and that it would take place at 6. Aria was quite panicked about what the two boys had done but they assured her.

"You don't have to fight. We can take care of them. You just need to show up or we'll be disqualified, Okay?" Liam said to Aria.

The girl looked at Liam and puffed her cheeks. She didn't say anything, she just nodded her head.

Liam was currently sitting at around 26 drops of deep-sea qi. Preferably, he did not want to have to use them. He was hoping Ralph knew how to fight, as he could only use his brute strength to overpower them. He did not have any Martial technique or any knowledge of martial arts.

The two hours of free time after their job and before their fight. Ralph taught Liam some basic kick boxing moves and combos. Just getting him into that fighting mode.

When it was time, the three of them entered the arena. There was a surprising amount of crowd, as a 2v5 fight was very interesting.

On one side, the challengers are, Liam Wright, Ralph Green and Aria Turner. The defenders are Timothy Baker, Andrea…

"I can't believe I am in my first fight ever. I have learnt and improved so much since I left Coralopolis. This is a new journey for me and I will dominate it." Liam thought to himself before he rushed in.

Because he rushed, he was surrounded by three people. two guys and a girl. The girl threw a water blade at Liam, and the two guys, that looked very similar both sent a wave made of rocks that traveled the ground towards him.

Liam was most comfortable with water. He jumped towards the water blade, avoiding the earth waves. then he moved his hands in a delicate manner and the waters blade followed their every movement. It looked so beautiful, like a ballet dancer with a ribbon. The water almost seemed tied to Liam's hands. After dancing around with it a bit, he threw it back towards the girl with and increased speed and ferocity.

The girl was not fast enough, the water pierced her shoulder and she was out of the fight.

The two brothers when they saw this, got close to one another and they started attacking together. With them having incredible synergy, the power and speed of their attacks increased.

"It's almost like they're twins." Liam said.

"They are twins. Didn't you hear, they have the same surname. " Ralph said to Liam from the other side of the arena. He was fighting against a boy and a girl, the girl had attunement with the metal element while the boy had fire just as him.

Sadly, Liam had no time to focus on Ralph's fight. The two twins continued to send attacks after attacks at him. Liam did not have any problem dodging them, but he did not have the required power to hurt them from a distance. Earth element just had too good of a defense. Even though he was a fourth human realm cultivator. He was at the early stages, while they were two people at the late stages of the third realm.

If Liam wanted to deal with them, he had to get close. Once he realized that, he started rushing towards them. They through attack after attack but they lacked speed. Liam had no problem dodging them, until he was right in front of them, and he sent a punch to each of their faces.

After he knocked out those two, he looked to see how Ralph's fight was going.

The boy with the fire element shot a fireball towards Ralph and Ralph sent a fireball as well. Just his fireball was bigger and its flames looked a lot, lot hotter. When they made contact, there wasn't even a contest. Ralphs fireball continued straight towards the disciple and the elder overseeing the match had to step in to block the attack. If possible, it was better to minimalize injuries.

The girl saw her whole team was out of the game and she just surrendered. Their team would be sent to the bottom of the ranks.

"Congratulations. You are now ranks 7 561, 7 562, 7563. Any team bellow you, can challenge you. If you have had a fight the same week, you have the right to refuse the fight, otherwise you have to fight. Do you understand?" The elder said to them.

The whole system was pretty interesting. So, they don't have to fight every day, they can refuse the challenge if they had had a fight the same week.

Liam looked at the crowd, but there wasn't much cheering. It was mostly a beating. The crowd hoped for the 5 disciples to put up more of a fight, but they were disappointed.

"Did you hear, next week the leader of the flaming faction is challenging the leader of The Cursed faction for first place." Someone from the crowd said.

"It looks like he got a lot stronger after being accepted as a personal disciple of elder Mo. Isn't he just so lucky?" Another person said.

"If he's lucky, imagine how lucky that girl that got accepted by the Grand elder. Oh, what I would give to be her."

"Hayley." Liam was reminded about the whole reason he was even here.