'He is after me?'

'Huo Tu still hasn't given up on beating me?'

'How did he even get to fight me?'

'Was he below me in the ranking? That can't be.'

'Did he purposefully got a lower badge number so he could challenge me?'

These and other various thoughts suddenly disappeared from Alex's head as soon as he heard the elder start the match. The man didn't seem the least bit fearful towards Alex.

'He can't see my cultivation base, so he is ignoring the danger.' He thought.

The man wielding the saber suddenly brought it to the side and made a giant slash horizontally that sent out energy towards Alex. The color of the man's sword was brown in color, so the element of the attack must've been earth aligned as well.

Alex sent out the second sword strike of Elusive Heavenly sword. He channeled his Qi into the sword and a green light was produced, which he sent flying towards the incoming brown light.

BOOM

A violent explosion of energies rang out in the middle of the stage. Alex took this opportunity to use his Fluctuating Friction Dance to get closer to the man. The man seemed to have the same idea, so he too came close to it.

However, unlike Alex, he couldn't see through the smoke. Alex managed to take him by surprise. With a swing of the sword, he hit the man right on the side of his chest, sending his entire body flying. With his current strength, the man's ribs must've been broken.

Alex fell back and waited for the elder to call off the battle. But the order to stop fighting never came. His opponent didn't falter either.

The man with the saber slowly got up from the ground and looked at Alex as he gnashed his teeth together.

"Don't think you are amazing just because you managed to hit me,

" the man started shouting.

'What is going on? I clearly hit him?' Alex thought as he sent his spiritual sense inside the man to check his ribs, but suddenly, he noticed something.

Inside the yellow Tiger Sect robe, the man was wearing something else as well. Something that was hard and brown in color.

'An armor artifact?' Alex was surprised. This was the first time he had seen someone wear one outside of that blue armor in the auction.

'Can it be as good as the one in the auction? No way right?' he started questioning himself. 'Even though he didn't get harmed, he should have still been hurt. Dammit! I could finish the fight at once if I could use Heaven's impact, or the Flickering Shadows technique. Hell, he wouldn't last a minute if I went invisible. '

Alex started preparing for his second attack. He used Smiting Blade to charge up his blade with yellow light. And then, he dashed forward.

The man showed a little fear when he saw Alex move. He had severely underestimated his opponent and his body hurt like hell. His earth armor was supposed to block attacks from anyone under the Organ Tempering realm. Even Organ tempering 1st realm cultivators found it hard to do damage to him when he had his armor on.

As soon as the man saw Alex closing in on him, he used a weird technique. Suddenly, all of his body started producing a crisscross pattern of brown lines.

Alex was surprised at the change and also the fact that the man was doing nothing to dodge the attack. This time the sword hit him right in the chest, but the man didn't move a bit. In fact, he didn't even show a single reaction to the attack.

'Damn! A defensive technique?' he thought. Not only did the man have armor, but he also had a defensive technique.

'What else does he have?' Alex sent out a relentless set of attacks that forced the man to keep his defensive technique up for as long as possible. And Alex knew that wouldn't be so long.

'Let me see how long you can last like this,' Alex thought as he kept on hitting the man for a while. However, the man's defense didn't go down.

The man too started swinging his saber at him. Alex had no problem dodging that. Soon, it became a close combat fight between a sword and a saber. The man's saber arts were good, but they weren't able to hit Alex thanks to his amazing dodging ability.

The man started to run out of Qi as he constantly used his defense arts.

"God damn you-

" he couldn't even finish his sentence as Alex's attacks started getting faster.

'Is this all he can handle? Guess I expected too much of him. It's not like he is my master of anything.'

Suddenly, the man leaped backward, creating a distance among them. He landed right at the edge of the stage.

"Damn it. I can't believe you forced me to use it,

" said the man as he started channeling his Qi.

Brown Qi flowed into the saber as he prepared one more attack. The saber slowly left the man's arm as it started to spin in midair. He made some weird gestures as he sent the saber flying towards Alex in a blink and you miss its speed.

BOOM

An explosion, louder than the first one occurred. Dust rose up, blinding everyone in and out of the stage. The elder got a little startled. He had expected the other disciple to block it with his own attack, but for some reason, he didn't.

"Hey, Are you alright,

" the elder shouted from the side with a bit of nervousness. The dust was still high, so he swiped his hands sending away the dust from the air on the stage.

"Yeah, I am alright,

" Alex's voice came from the other side. When the elder finally turned his head to where the sound came from, He saw Alex standing near the unconscious body of the other disciple.

'What happened?' he was surprised. Alex's clothes seemed a little roughed up, but overall he was okay. Alex walked up to the elder to take his badge and simply walked away, leaving the elder and the crowd in stun.