Chapter 142: Chapter 142: The Sect Tournament [5]
The tournament pressed on.
Match after match, disciples stepped onto the stage, summoned their techniques, and clashed in bursts of light and sound that sent the crowd roaring each time.
Damon watched each one through his Incubus Celestial Eyes.
The match after Lark’s victory featured a heavyset Earth Spirit Realm disciple with a boulder-type body.
His technique was a simple Earth Grade defensive art that turned his skin to stone.
His opponent, a wiry woman with wind affinity, spent three minutes trying to pierce through it before exhausting her spiritual energy and conceding.
Damon’s eyes tracked the technique from start to finish.
[Incubus Celestial Eyes has recorded an Earth Grade Defensive Technique: Granite Shell.]
[Recording complete.]
[Technique available for purchase in the Lust Store: 500 Lust Points.]
He dismissed the notification.
Five hundred points.
He could earn that much by brushing against a woman’s hand in a crowded hallway.
The next match was worse.
A middle-aged outer disciple who had somehow scraped into the tournament used a Mortal Grade flame palm technique that barely singed his opponent’s robe.
The opponent, a young man with a water blade art, ended the fight in ten seconds with a single horizontal slash.
Damon recorded the water blade anyway.
[Incubus Celestial Eyes has recorded a Mortal Grade Water Technique: Crescent Cutter.]
[Recording complete.]
[Technique available for purchase in the Lust Store: 80 Lust Points.]
Eighty.
He could buy that with the change he found between sofa cushions.
Match after match, Damon watched, recorded, and dismissed.
An Earth Grade wind step technique. A Mortal Grade iron fist art. An Earth Grade shadow cloak that was barely functional.
Each one appeared in his system notifications, priced in the hundreds or low thousands, and each one he ignored.
The crowd around him cheered and gasped and groaned with every exchange, but Damon’s attention began to drift.
His golden eyes swept across the arena, counting the remaining contestants, calculating the bracket, wondering when the next interesting fight would come.
Ariel stood beside him, her hand resting on his arm, her eyes fixed on the stage with genuine interest as a female disciple executed a decent water whip technique.
"That’s pretty good," Ariel said.
Damon glanced at the technique.
[Incubus Celestial Eyes has recorded an Earth Grade Water Technique: Serpent Coil.]
[Recording complete.]
[Technique available for purchase in the Lust Store: 1,200 Lust Points.]
He hummed noncommittally.
"It’s alright."
Ariel elbowed him lightly.
"You’re impossible."
He didn’t deny it.
The matches continued.
Match six ended with a knockout. Match seven ended with a submission after a brutal ground-and-pound exchange that left both disciples bleeding.
And then the announcer called match eight.
"Match eight! Marcus Vane!"
A young man in grey robes stepped onto the stage.
He carried a standard issue steel sword and wore the nervous expression of someone who knew he was outmatched.
"And from the Alchemist Pavilion, direct disciple of Pavilion Elder, Alena Terra!"
The crowd shifted.
Damon felt the change before he saw it, a ripple of attention that ran through the stands like wind through wheat.
He looked up.
She walked onto the stage from the opposite tunnel, and the afternoon sun seemed to find her the moment she stepped into the light.
Sun-kissed tan skin that glowed warm gold under the sun. Rich brown hair that fell past her shoulders in loose waves, catching the light and holding it.
She moved with a grace that spoke of hours spent over cauldrons and cultivation furnaces, a body conditioned by the heat of alchemy room rather than the cold of training grounds.
Her robes were different from the standard sect core disciples uniform. black trimmed with azure, the symbol of the Alchemist Pavilion embroidered over her chest.
She was beautiful.
Not in the sharp, dangerous way of Mio and Mia. Not in the soft, innocent way Ariel sometimes looked.
She was beautiful in the way of someone who spent her days surrounded by herbs and flames and bubbling elixirs, someone who had grown comfortable in her own skin the way alchemists did, patient and precise and unhurried.
Damon’s eyes traced the curve of her jaw, the line of her shoulders, the way she held herself with the quiet confidence of someone who knew exactly what she was worth.
She was at the same level as the twins.
He turned to Mio.
"Who is that?"
Mio followed his gaze and smiled. "That’s Alena Terra. She’s from the Alchemist Pavilion."
"The Alchemist Pavilion?"
"Yeah. They handle all the pill making for the sect. Every pill that give to disciples, every recovery pill, every cultivation aid, it all came from them."
Damon studied Alena as she drew a simple wooden staff from her storage ring.
"She’s a direct disciple of the pavilion elder," Mio continued.
"Pavilion Elder’s personal student. She’s been making pills since she was twelve. Rumor says she can refine Earth Grade pills in her sleep."
"A talented alchemist."
"One of the best in the sect," Mio said. "She doesn’t fight much. Usually stays in her pavilion working on recipes. But when she does step into the arena..."
Damon’s golden eyes flickered.
He activated Incubus Celestial Eyes.
The world sharpened.
Alena Terra’s form appeared in his vision, overlaid with lines of data that materialized from the system’s depths.
[Name: Alena Terra]
[Age: 24]
[Cultivation: Earth Spirit Realm - Eight Level]
[Relationship: Stanger]
[Interest: 0/100]
[Chastity: Intact]
[Lust: 0/100]
[Affinities: Earth: 80, Nature: 85, Staff: 60]
[Spiritual Roots: Verdant Spiritual Roots] [Earth Grade - Peak]
[Bloodline: Blood of Verdant Alchemist] [Mortal Grade - Peak]
[Physique: Body of Verdant Alchemist] [Mortal Grade - Peak]
[Traits: Dedicated, Patient, Perfectionist, Obsessive over Recipes, Surprisingly Fierce, Herb Detector]
Damon read through the status window twice.
A Spiritual Roots that already at Earth Grade Peak.
Nature and earth affinity.
And a bloodline and physique specifically tailored for alchemy.
Damon had never seen someone with a bloodline dedicated to pill making before.
He watched as Alena raised her staff, her brown hair shifting in a breeze that seemed to come from nowhere, her green eyes fixed on her opponent with the calm focus of someone measuring ingredients rather than measuring a threat.
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