Chapter 207.2: A True Expert in Disguise; Lu Changsheng Stuns the Crowd with Three Straight Wins! (II)
"Begin."
The moment the arena host's voice fell, Zhao Feng struck. His Mind Space materialized in an instant.
Combat between Dao Foundation martial artists was, in fact, a simple affair. Essentially, it was a contest of Mind Spaces, of Principles, and of divine techniques. Those were the three main variables, and of them, it was almost always the divine technique that decided the outcome in the end.
This being his first match, Lu Changsheng was not careless one bit. He responded almost instantly with his own Mind Space, activating a divine technique, Flame Current, along with it. This technique was just below the Lesser Five Elements Annihilation and the three great divine techniques he had devised following the transformation of his Perception.
Boom!
The Mind Spaces collided, and the Principles ran wild.
The Flame Current scorched everything in its path. Even on its own, the Flame Current carried terrifying power, enough to overwhelm even supreme Dao Foundation cultivators.
"Ghaaaah!" A wretched scream rang out across the platform.
The Flame Current swallowed Zhao Feng whole after piercing right through his Mind Space. The next moment, Zhao Feng was reduced to ash, his scream cut off abruptly.
Just like that, Zhao Feng had been obliterated without even managing to withstand one attack.
"Victory goes to Lu Changsheng," announced the host.
The spectators were dumbfounded, some of them not even registering what had just occurred before their eyes.
"It's over... already?"
"That Lu Changsheng fellow really does seem strong."
"Couldn't take even one move, that Zhao Feng... What an embarrassing performance, really."
"This Lu Changsheng is interesting. I think I'm going to keep watching his matches. He might turn out to be quite something, you know?"
In short order, a fair number of people began to take notice of Lu Changsheng. It was hardly a thunderclap of fame, but he had certainly caught a few eyes.
This guy was too weak... Lu Changsheng shook his head slightly.
Perhaps Zhao Feng's divine technique possessed some unique quality, but it had clearly fallen short of the Flame Current, and its inferiority would have been even more apparent against Lu Changsheng's Lesser Five Elements Annihilation and his other three divine techniques.
"Winning several matches in a row shouldn't be a problem," he murmured under his breath.
With a few consecutive victories, his name would be firmly established. And then, Lu Changsheng would start earning spirit stones in earnest.
He left the platform and collected the spirit stones from his bout, thirty-one in total, exactly as he had calculated.
The arena staff told him, "Your second match will likewise be in three days."
Lu Changsheng nodded and returned to his arena room, where he took out the thirty-one spirit stones.
In truth, martial cultivation made few demands on spirit stones. It was immortal cultivators who consumed them in vast quantities, and there was a reason spirit stones served as the common currency of the sacred lands. Their output was not especially large, while immortal cultivators burned through them at a tremendous rate, treating them as a virtual necessity.
Many of the goods in the Sacred Earth were refined or produced by immortal cultivators, and even a teleportation formation required spirit stones to run. Their uses were so wide that they had naturally become the currency that circulated throughout the Sacred Earth. Even Heavenly Spirit Water could be bought with them.
Regardless, thirty-one spirit stones was nothing. A hundred spirit stones could be exchanged for a single spirit crystal, which was itself merely a spirit stone of very high quality.
Lu Changsheng now understood that when the super-long-distance teleportation formation had been activated back at the Vast Immortal Sect, the Ancient Region Heavenly Sect had put out a hundred-plus spirit stones to power it, and those had in fact been spirit crystals, the equivalent of more than ten thousand ordinary spirit stones.
That many spirit stones could have bought a drop of Heavenly Spirit Water. It was no wonder that activating the super-long-distance teleportation formation came at so steep a price.
Each activation consumed a single drop of Heavenly Spirit Water—a heavy cost indeed. If Lu Changsheng could not gather more than ten thousand ordinary spirit stones here in the Sacred Earth, he would not even be able to activate the formation to return to the Ancient Region.
In any case, Lu Changsheng made sure to rest for the next three days until the arena informed him about the next match.
Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. If I want to get a large number of spirit stones quickly, then besides defeating my opponents in the arena, I can also place bets!
Indeed, there was nothing stopping him from betting on himself. As long as he kept winning, the spirit stones he gathered would snowball, mounting up faster and faster.
And so, Lu Changsheng wagered all thirty-one of his spirit stones. The odds were one to one. If he won, the thirty-one stones would become sixty-two. As a rule, obscure arena fighters carried one-to-one odds.
For the second bout, Lu Changsheng learned the betting total: five hundred and sixty spirit stones in all, more than double the first match. After all, the first bout had already drawn a few people's attention, and so the wagers had naturally grown.
Soon, he stepped onto the arena platform. His second opponent was named Wu Yuekong, a young Dao Foundation martial artist with cold, grim eyes. Upon mounting the platform, Wu Yuekong simply stared at Lu Changsheng without saying a word.
"Fight!"
Wu Yuekong struck first, unleashing his divine techniques all at once, hoping to overwhelm Lu Changsheng without giving him an opening whatsoever. Clearly, he had paid attention to Lu Changsheng in his previous fight and realized his divine techniques had to be formidable, and so he had staked everything on seizing the initiative.
Boom!
Without the slightest hesitation, Lu Changsheng unleashed the Lesser Five Elements Annihilation, a supreme compound divine technique at Perfection ranking just below his three greatest techniques.
It was by this technique that he had once crushed all opposition at the Heavenly Shackle Mountain Range of the Ancient Region, cutting down more supreme Dao Lords than he could count.
With such a fearsome technique, fighting Wu Yuekong was no challenge at all.
"What?" Wu Yuekong's heart lurched, disbelief flashing across his eyes. From his earlier investigation, he had judged that while Lu Changsheng's Flame Current carried decent power, striking first would still give him a chance to slay the man.
But now, Lu Changsheng had unleashed an even stronger divine technique, one with incredible range, engulfing Wu Yuekong almost instantly.
"Shit!" Wu Yuekong shouted desperately.
He unleashed another divine technique of his own, one that was purely defensive—a rare sort. However, it failed to hold out against Lu Changsheng's Lesser Five Elements Annihilation even for a second.
Woosh!
Wu Yuekong's defensive technique was annihilated in an instant, reduced to ash, and a black torrent surged over Wu Yuekong and swallowed him whole.
The next moment, the result was announced. "Lu Changsheng wins!"
Lu Changsheng had claimed victory once again, just as cleanly as in his first match, bringing down his foe in a single move. As expected, his performance drew a great deal of attention.
"Hey, this Lu Changsheng is really something! Two matches, both opponents finished off clean and easy, as if it were nothing at all. He seems incredibly strong."
"Yeah, not bad at all. Two flawless victories. I'm definitely betting on him in his third match."
"We may have found ourselves a powerful fighter."
Many eyes lit up at the sight—Li Guang most of all, who had bet on Lu Changsheng both times. The handful of spirit stones he had gained was nothing to him, yet he felt an inexplicable fondness for the man.
The third match is no simple thing. The arena has a three-match arrangement with new martial artists, and once a fighter wins that third match, he's free to choose whether to leave. The arena won't let Lu Changsheng take that one so easily... Li Guang's eyes narrowed slightly.
He knew some of the arena's inner workings. The third match would be nothing compared to the first two in terms of difficulty. Many powerful Dao Foundation martial artists had won the first two only to die in the third.
Whether Lu Changsheng could clear his third match remained to be seen.
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