The big Immortal Elder got a certain gleam in his eye once the arena was ready, so Cain gestured him forward to request a sparring partner from the Arena.
"Can I use all my might and my weapons?" He asked.
"Go ahead. Unless you think you can shatter a Divine Realm Seraphim's barrier, you can do what you like." Cain agreed.
"Thank you, Sect Master."
"Referee, could you make me a sparring partner at my current level of progression through the Immortal Realm, please? No, make that one small achievement higher." The Elder requested.
"Of course. Please enjoy your training." The referee agreed, and a Human General of the Holy Legions appeared in the ring, holding a halberd and wearing shining golden armor over a simple white Toga.
The contestants saluted each other and took a ready stance for a split second before they both charged. The halberd flashed forward and deflected the mighty axe, sending the ground sundering effect off to the side, splitting the ground all the way to the arena wall, only for it to instantly self-repair.
Multiple smaller attacks whistled through the air as they fought to get the upper hand on each other, fighting to a momentary stalemate. The Elder looked incredibly pleased with this outcome for almost an entire second before the General attacked with a flurry of Holy Light Blades, forcing him onto the defensive, and then crushed his shield with an overhand swing of the Halberd, sending him directly to the recovery room.
"Oh, right to the face. You know that one hurt." Cain chuckled with a wince of sympathy on his face.
Only a few seconds passed before the Elder was back out with his customary smile back on his face.
"Best two of three."
The General didn't hold back this time, going straight for the weak spot in his defenses that had been found during the first fight, forcing him to adapt or die only seconds into the fight.
The battle was predictably short and bloody, but this time the Elder landed a hit before being eliminated, leaving a deep wound in the General's side, which bled Golden blood onto the sands of the arena.
"Not bad. You actually landed a hit on me that time." The General informed the Elder politely when he returned, but the look on his face said that the polite words were a pure and open taunt.
"Again."
Ten times they clashed, and ten times, the Elder was sent to the recovery room in a different way.
"Fine, I admit it. I can't beat you, General." The big Elder sighed, but all of the other Elders could feel that he had made a breakthrough and was currently on the same level as his opponent.
"Did we forget something when we made the sparring partner?" Mariel asked.
"Nope. If you ask for a training lesson, they will show you how to fight them, but if you want a sparring match, they don't hold back. It works very well. Only one match of ten rounds, and he made a breakthrough." Cain replied with a smile that reminded Mariel a lot of the one on the face of the General in the ring.
"If we are done testing the new Arena, perhaps we should call in some of the Disciples to have them spar with each other? They need the practice more than anyone else since there really aren't many places where they can go all out to test their new skills." The Crushing Mountain Sect Master suggested.
"I will grab the Ale and snacks." The Brewmaster agreed, marching out of the arena toward his brewery.
The Sect Master took out a golden slip of paper from his robes and focused energy for a second, after which the whole Sect started to move as they roused themselves from meditation and training to come up the hill and see the new arena.
"Look at that. It's not just an arena. It's a whole new training area. Can you feel the energy in the cavern? It's so dense, better than the Core Disciple section of the compound." One of the Disciples gasped as he entered the chamber.
"If I count right, there should be almost a hundred training spaces here. I don't know what we will have to do to earn time, but it will be totally worth it." The Disciple beside him agreed.
[Come up the hill with the other Disciples and see the new toy we made for the Crushing Mountain Sect. It will be pretty busy, though, so you might not get to train in it today.] Cain informed all his Disciples at once.
Soon, the entire Sect Compound was at the new arena, taking in the aura of power and the pure grandeur of the new facility, while a few of the Core Disciples took the opportunity to settle grudges with each other in a setting where they wouldn't get in trouble for fighting each other.
That might actually be the biggest gain of having a full-time Seraphim Arena available. With the ability to heal the Disciples before death, they could go all out to settle disputes and grudges between each other, and the referee would enforce any wagers that they made on the match, at least for the time that they were in the arena.
The Crushing Mountain Sect was enthusiastically waiting for their turns to get in the arena and go all out, so the Referee adjusted the spatial magic and expanded the arena to hold a full twenty rings, then called more contestants to the floor.
"This is the greatest thing ever. Look, that's the skill I picked to learn." One of the new applicants was telling the disciple beside her without taking her eyes off the match.
Few ways were more effective to learn a skill than to actually see it in use. As long as you understood the basics, you could rapidly improve your understanding if you saw it over and over, and the Disciple had picked a relatively common skill used to block energy attacks.
The Brewmaster came back with the snacks, and the Elders all settled in on the upper level in the VIP boxes so that they wouldn't be in the way of the students. Their presence always came with a respectful bubble around themselves, so having all of them on the main bleachers took up a lot of seating that could be better used for the Disciples to spread out and work on what they were learning from the matches on the sands below.
Three hours later, the first of the applicants came to speak to the Elders, confident that he had understood his chosen skill well enough to make the cut.
"You say you can do it? Prove it." The Elder laughed, then unceremoniously tossed him into the arena, landing on an empty floor where a match had just ended.
"Someone go down and have the applicant prove that he really does know the skill he has been learning." The Elder called, and a pair of Core Disciples hopped down onto his section of the sand.
"Go ahead, junior. If you can actually perform the skill, I'll put you back in the bleachers. If you can't, I'll put you in the recovery room to rethink your standards." The Disciple told him with a smile.
A number of the Disciples chuckled at the obvious bullying, but it would only be a moment's pain and some indignity if the kid failed. That was a big improvement on the beating the applicants usually got when the Disciples decided to mess with them.
The boy let out a vicious shout and swung the training ax in his hands toward the senior Disciple, who caught it in one hand and took a good look at the coating of Earth Energy on the head of the weapon.
"Well, your combat skills are absolutely atrocious, but you did manage to activate the skill to a standard I would call complete, if weaker than the average wild dog." The Senior Disciple informed him.
"So I passed?" The boy asked.
"You did, and I will inform the Elders of your accomplishment. Now, you can take the shortcut to the bleachers. Through the recovery room."
The Disciple flicked him in the head, and the boy vanished, stepping out onto the steps from the Recovery room only seconds later with a sheepish look on his face. He had dropped his weapon on the sand when the Core Disciple flicked his forehead.
"That's one passed. Well, two, if we count the prodigy that gained so many skills from the first test. This batch is looking particularly promising." The Sect Master laughed while sipping Ale on the couch in the VIP box.
"I've never seen them so happy. We should make a grand tournament part of the monthly schedule." An Elder suggested.
"Why not make it every other month and call it a ranking fight? You know they keep track of each other's progress anyhow." Mariel offered.
"Oh, that's not bad, and it gives them more time to prepare for the next one. Cultivation is a long process, and we can make the gap even longer at the higher levels. Once a year is still pretty often for Immortals, but annually is good for the Mythic Realm." The lead blacksmith agreed.
"Why do I get the feeling that I'm being stuck with the planning?" The big Immortal sighed, looking around for someone who wasn't silently volunteering him for all things tournament related.
"Fine, I will set it up as well as the trips to the City of Knowledge for the matches there. Next time around we just might win the whole thing."
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