”Is he hiding his cultivation base?” Song Shing couldn’t understand.

”Can’t be, he was checked before the registration,” Liang Qiu said with shock filling her eyes.

”It can’t be that he can really jump 6 minor realms to fight his opponent, can he?” Fu Tao asked with an awkward expression on his face.

”7 minor realms, if you count He Liwei’s own ability to skip realms,” Liang Qiu.

”There’s only one explanation here really,” Zhou Ren said from the side and everyone understood what he meant.

”He’s cheating.”

* * * * * *

Alex stared at the scared He Liwei and a small smile crept up on his face.

”You cheater! Tell me you didn’t eat a pill,” He Liwei shouted.

Alex’s face turned to a frown. “Why would I cheat so blatantly?” he asked. “I’m not stupid.”

”Senior, he’s cheating,” He Liwei complained.

The referee looked at Alex for a bit and turned to He Liwei. “The fight will continue as it is. The punishment will come afterward depending on the severity of the offense.”

Alex turned towards He Liwei. “I hope you have plenty of Saint Qi in you,” he said.

”What does that have to do with you?” He Liwei frowned.

”I just hope you can make me fighting with no restraint be worthwhile.”

”Continue!” the referee said.

Alex dashed with his sword again while constantly remaining aware of the things that were happening in front of him.

A normal True Emperor realm cultivator would start to form Saint Qi around the 5th realm. By the 6th realm, they would have about 5% of their entire Qi turned to Saint Qi.

Since He Liwei could jump a realm, he would have denser Qi than normal. Given that, it was a good guess when Alex thought that about 15% to 20% of his Qi would have already turned to Saint Qi.

That meant, Alex would have to be extremely careful of any attacks that He Liwei sent his way.

As expected, when he saw Alex move, He Liwei reacted as well. He slammed his foot onto the ground which broke apart and turned to lava instantly.

A tentacle-like arm emerged from the lava that started waving at Alex.

Alex slashed at the lava arm and cut it in two, but that would only make the lava fall back into the pool and rejoin the arm.

Alex cut it off a few times, but the lava arm kept regrowing and wouldn’t let Alex go around it either. The lava also didn’t create any shadows for Alex to teleport to.

’I need to destroy the lava,’ he thought.

Alex reached out with his left hand towards the lava and willed the world to come to his aid.

A single tongue of fire flickered in the lava, and Alex used his authority over it.

’Explode!’

BANG!

A massive explosion rang out on the stage that sent shock waves all around.

Alex hadn’t made the explosion strong enough to hurt him, but it was strong enough to destroy the arm and make the lava lose its connection to He Liwei.

Alex flipped through the air and landed with no harm, while He Liwei was only alive thanks to a barrier that appeared around him at the last moment.

Even as He Liwei tried to get rid of the barrier Alex dashed back at him.

Ignoring the barrier, He Liwei retaliated. Vines and roots grew out from the ground and tried to constrict Alex.

However, all they met were his sword as Alex cut through each one of them while continuing his way toward He Liwei.

”Arrgh!” He Liwei shouted and used a technique. Spikes of the earth grew out of the ground as they launched towards Alex.

There were over a thousand of them and each one was sharper than the other. Alex tried to look for a way to dodge but there was nowhere he could teleport to that would help him escape this attack.

So, he instead used his defense technique and crashed into flying earth spikes.

A long strip of dust cloud rose to the air after the crash. He Liwei smiled as it soon turned maniacal. He turned to look at the referee, waiting for her to announce her victory, but all he could see was a shocked expression on her face.

’Is… is he dead?’ He Liwei wondered as he looked towards the cloud of dust on the stage that was starting to settle. However, it didn’t take even a moment for him to realize that if Alex was ever in trouble, the referee would have already moved to save him.

Which meant—

Alex dashed out of the dust, completely unharmed. His robes were in tatters as they showed in well-defined muscles that were always hidden beneath his robes.

He Liwei was ready and retaliated as well. He brought out his sword as he realized he couldn’t keep half-assing this fight or he would definitely lose.

His sword glowed red as he swung it directly at Alex. The slash moved a little forward before suddenly turning into a fire tornado that stood like a pillar in the middle of the stage.

The pillar appeared right in front of Alex.

Alex put his empty arm out and yin Qi started flowing into his meridians. He didn’t know how helpful this would be, but he would do it anyway.

He felt the fire in front of him and willed the world to follow his command. When the world agreed, he lowered the temperature of the fire until it wasn’t dangerous at all.

Then, Alex plunged into the fire tornado and came out on the other side.

”HOW!” He Liwei shouted, but he didn’t get any answer.

Alex slashed his sword at him, and He Liwei swung back with a hint of Saint Qi poured into his sword.

Even then, Alex only felt a slight pain in his arm from the rebound. He jumped back and slashed again.

He Liwei fought back, but Alex was too strong. To contend with him, he had to continuously deplete the Saint Qi in his body.

Alex himself was glad that using his physical body alone was enough for him to fight against He Liwei.

When He Liwei did use Saint Qi, adding his own Qi to fight was in fact better than He Liwei’s own.

Not to mention, if Alex had used his mental attacks or Sword Qi, the fight wouldn’t have lasted for long.

Alex had planned to hide nothing in this battle. However, just because he was willing to show everything he had, didn’t mean he needed to.

If the battle didn’t call for anything aside from his physical and cultivation base, he wouldn’t use anything else.

After going through the ordeal of the yin orb where his body was wrecked in a fight between the yin and yang, his body cultivation had improved a lot.

In fact, he had reached True Emperor 7th realm after surviving the clash between the two.

In addition to that, after the yin and yang had found harmony and his Qi was now pure, instead of being affected by the yang, the thicker mixture of the two now made his effective cultivation base to be around True Emperor 9th realm while remaining in True King 9th realm.

If Saint Qi was out of the equation, Alex would be able to go toe to toe with every single fighter in this tournament without using his physical, Sword, or mental strengths.

He Liwei kept hitting Alex’s sword back as hard as he could but slowly it was getting harder and harder as Alex started using his Sword Intent to corner He Liwei into the boundary.

Any further and he would lose the match.

Anger flared in He Liwei and flame spears appeared around him.

Alex could tell that he had used Saint Qi into those spears, so he needed to be careful.

The spears shot at Alex, but they only hit empty air. Realizing the problem, Alex had already teleported to one of the shadows that belonged to the ruins on top of the stage.

He Liwei finally breathed in relief as he got some time to rest. However, he knew that wouldn’t last long, and he knew he himself wouldn’t last long.

He needed to use this break he had gotten to win. So, without hesitation, he decided to use his strongest skill.