Alex placed his badge on the wooden block next to his door to open it. A simple light flashed from inside the block that illuminated the number 13 on the badge.

That was the rank he had reached in the last 4 days Of fighting.

He didn't increase his rank very quickly as he was afraid the elders would retaliate in some ways. Unfortunately for him, they did.

Ever since he reached rank 20, the elders made their lower-ranked disciples target him consistently. During the entire 5 hours he had yesterday, he could only increase his rank by 7, and that was after directly challenging the person at rank 13.

He walked out of his house with his badge vibrating nonstop. He was already challenged by someone just to waste his. However, that was not going to stop him.

He made a commitment to get rank 3 to learn Sword Intent from Du Yuhan and he would see to it.

There was one benefit to all of this constant fighting, however. Thanks to it, he was now one realm higher in his cultivation base and was one realm away from entering the Mind Tempering realm.

He reached the sect crater at around 4 pm and spent the next hour defeating the low-rank disciples sent at him by the elders.

Once that was done, he walked over to the Fighting Hall and recorded a fight with the person at Rank 10. The elder recording the fights was used to Alex challenging high-ranked disciples by now, so he registered it without a peep.

Now that he was done challenging, Alex went to the production hall to make some formations. Since the elders wanted to minimize the 'casualties', their disciples were made to go to the fighting stage as late as possible.

There was also the chance of Alex not being there when the disciples came to fight, but if that happened, he would simply challenge someone else.

For the next 3 hours, he made as well of a formation as he could. Even when making True Rank formation plates, he was used to consistently making ones above 50% Efficiency.

"The real test is when I carve the formation onto the metal rod. That's what really matters in the formation,

" Alex thought to himself.

Once he was done, he walked outside. He left the building and walked towards the fighting stage. The sky was fully dark by now and the stars were already out.

The moon wasn't full, but the light still shined brightly. However, it couldn't hope to outshine the lanterns that were hung around the sect.

Alex was reminded of the festive atmosphere for a second before he saw all the fighting happening on the different stages and immediately lost all feelings. It was a good reminder of where he was at.

He walked over to the first stage and waited for his name to be called out. It was nearly 9 pm, and he got no message about himself losing the match, so his opponent had to come here any moment now.

"Number 10 and Number 13,

" the referee elder on the stage called.

Alex raised his hands and walked up. At the same time, another disciple raised their hands and walked up to the stage.

Alex saw a girl with blonde hair walk up to the stage. 'Oh, a player?' Alex wondered. While hairs with color weren't impossible to come across, they were still quite rare.

So, when he saw the blonde hair, his first instinct was to assume that the girl was a player. Alex remembered back to the list of names for the board and tried to remember the person at the 10th rank on the board.

'Shan Ling? That sounds… normal. Is she not a player, but a normal person from here?' Alex wondered. He could see that she had a cultivation base of Mind Tempering 1st realm, 1 realm above him, and wondered how easily he could win against her.

Still, it was quite surprising that the top 10 were already in the Mind Tempering realm. 'The sect seriously didn't bother taking any other disciples than the top 3 for the combat-related competition huh?' Alex thought.

"I see… so you are the new kid that's going up in ranks quite quickly. Unfortunately, you met me, kid,

" Shan Ling said.

"Aren't you like 23? Why are you calling me a kid?

" Alex asked curiously.

"Well, you are not completely wrong… but I am quite old mentally,

" the girl said.

"I see,

" Alex said. 'Yep, that's a player. I wonder if she got a young corpse to be her clone, or if she was able to hide her age somehow,' Alex thought.

He walked over to the edge of the stage and got ready for the referee. He brought out a common sword and watched the girl see if she would bring out something.

Surprisingly, he saw nothing being brought out. However, since the girl's sleeves were quite long, they were already hiding her hands, so Alex didn't know if she was holding a weapon, to begin with.

'Should I check?' he wondered but decided not to. He was trying to temper himself through the fighting, so it would be better if he learned to survive against an unknown fighting style.

'She's probably an Elemental attack user,' he thought.

"Begin!

" the elder shouted.

Immediately, Alex dashed forward to close the gap between them. That was the best way to fight against an Elemental fighter. Invade their space and take away their freedom of using skills by sending a barrage of physical attacks.

However, just as he started to dash forward, Shan Ling did the same thing and dashed forward too. She suddenly brought out her hands from inside the sleeves and revealed something long in her hands.

'Weapon?' Alex wondered. However, he soon realized what it was. 'Long nails!' he thought in surprise. He wasn't in the correct stance when he reached her, but he still chose to swing the sword.

His strike wasn't as strong as it should have been, but it still had a considerable force behind it.

CLANG

The sword was stuck in its place.

"Urgh!

" Shan Ling grunted a bit under the sword's force but was able to stop it.

"Damn, you're strong kid. But you won't beat my nails,

" she said and suddenly pushed his sword back. Then, she lunged forward and tried to claw him with her incredibly durable nails.

'It can't be, right?' Alex thought as he blocked attacks.

CLANG CLANG CLANG

He was slowly getting pushed back due to her attack, and he needed to use one of his own. However, since he was forcing himself to stick with the sword, it was quite hard to find an opening.

'What will happen to her hands if I use Sword Intent? Will I cut through it?' Alex worried. That was one of the reasons he was getting pushed back so hard. Since the lady didn't seem to have any armors from what he could see, any attack could be fatal, and from what he could see, the referee wasn't close by at all.

'Screw it,' he thought and decided to attack. He immediately focused on his own will to cut and created Sword Intent out of it.

He brought the sword up above his head and slashed down. An almost visible white line appeared around the sword as it flew downwards.

The woman brought her fingers up to block it, but this time she was going against the force of both Alex and his Sword Intent.

Without a single mistake, Alex cut through 8 of her nails in one clean sweep. Shan Ling was surprised and immediately ran backward, but Alex wasn't going to let her.

He followed her and started attacking. He swung his sword left and right at her, but somehow she was dodging it way too well. 'Damn, did she get lucky and get a fantastic movement technique?' Alex wondered.

Suddenly, Shan Ling blew out air in the middle of him chasing and brought out something from her storage bag. Alex tried to see what it was, but suddenly, he started getting a little dizzy.

'What?' he thought as he saw Shan Ling put something in her mouth through his double vision.

'Am I drunk?' he thought for a second before realizing. 'No, I'm poisoned.'

The moment he thought that, Shan Ling jumped towards him again. However, at the same time, he also got a set of notifications.

The poison in his system was destroyed and he immediately got his vision back.

Shan Ling was just upon him with her broken fingernails and slashed towards him once again. Alex was too late to block with his sword and was forced to protect himself with his elbow.

Just then, the broken fingernails of Shan Ling immediately grew out until it was the same length as before and sliced at him. The fingernails were strong enough to put a scratch on even him, although they weren't enough to make his elbow bleed.

"What?

" Shan Ling said with surprise. But it didn't look like she cared about actually cutting him.

Alex felt himself get dizzy again and started to lose his vision. He got the set of notifications that said his poison was removed, but just then, Shan Ling scratched him again.

And it all started all over again.

Poisoned, Cured. Poisoned, Cured. That was what continued for nearly a minute as Alex refused to step back or stumble onto the ground. Now that he knew her nails couldn't truly harm him, he was standing his ground.

Shan Ling frowned too. Even though her nails were strong, they were somehow losing to Alex's body, which she couldn't understand. As she scratched more and more, her nails started to wear down and ground down to about half the length of what they originally were.

'Do I need to eat it once more?' she thought. She remembered the auctioneer saying that eating twice only gave half the effect for the second pill, so it would be a waste for her to eat it right now.

'Damn it, how is his body healing so fast from these scratches?' she wondered. 'Also, how the hell is he not unconscious yet? Is my poison not entering his body?'

Finally, her nails were ground up so much that she definitely needed another pill. She reached into her bag to get it out, but that was when she realized she had made a mistake.

She had given Alex an opening.

Alex immediately flew backward and kept his distance. Then, he readied his sword. He put his sword sideways as it started to glow green. He was about to use the 2nd strike of the Elusive Heavenly Sword, but it looked a little different from all the other times he had used it.

Other than the light green glow in his sword, there was a bright white outline that appeared but then dimmed. It was bright for another moment and dim one again.

The referee realized what was happening immediately. But Shan Ling didn't seem to know anything.

Alex breathed out and cut the air in front of him with a sole intent in his mind.

'CUT'

A green slash with a moderately white outline flew through the air towards Shan Ling. She who was bringing out a pill tried to dodge, but the slash was way too fast for her.

"Argh!

" she shouted in fear, but nothing hit her. The referee had come in time to stop the attack.

The referee's eyes were quite open when he felt the true damage of Alex's attack. 'He's halfway there already,' he thought.

Being the referee of the First stage, he was used to seeing Du Yuhan use Sword Intent from time to time, and the attack he blocked was starting to get there too.

"You Win,

" the referee said to Alex.

Alex bowed to the elder and took his new badge before leaving behind a stunning stage and audience. He looked at the new badge in his hand and smiled when he saw the number on it.

He was now ranked Top 10 in the sect.