Liang stood across from Li Zhi on the arena stone. The other young master looked different—older, harder. The softness Gen used to mock had been carved away by a year of relentless cultivation. This was no longer a boy to be teased, but the heir of the Li family, and his gaze held the cold confidence of one who had clawed his way up from the shadow of a fallen idol.
Liang summoned his **Jingdao**. A steady, deep bronze light sheathed his body, solid and reliable. Across from him, Li Zhi did the same, his own reinforcement flaring with a sharper, more aggressive golden hue.
They moved at the same instant. No feints, no ceremony. Two figures became blurs of reinforced motion that met in the center of the arena.
***BOOM.***
The clash was a concussion of pure force. A visible shockwave rippled out from the point of impact, making the air itself shudder. A year ago, Liang would have been hurled back by such a blow. Now, with his Root Acupoint fully opened and his foundation in **Jingdao** solidified through hardship, he held his ground. His feet ground into the stone, but he did not yield.
Li Zhi's face twisted with arrogant surprise that quickly hardened into greater contempt. He did not just want to win. He wanted to shatter Liang so completely that Gen would be compelled to step into the arena next, burning with a need for vengeance.
Li Zhi's fist, sheathed in intensifying golden light, hammered forward again. Liang did not meet it head-on. He slapped the blow aside with a flowing parry and drove his own knee upward into Li Zhi's raised guard. The impact sent Li Zhi skidding back three steps.
As Li Zhi recovered his balance, Liang's hands were already moving, summoning the **Kalash of Elements**. But Li Zhi was keen. He didn't charge. He flicked his fingers.
A tiny, pea-sized sphere of condensed, shimmering energy shot from his fingertip. It wasn't an attack; it was a distraction. It struck the ground before Liang, and with a sharp *crack*, it detonated. The force was small but perfectly placed, jerking Liang's focus and interrupting his summoning.
In that split second of distraction, Li Zhi closed the gap. He spun, a whirlwind of motion, and planted his palm flat against Liang's chest.
There was no gathered energy, no visible spell. From the empty space between his palm and Liang's robe, a ball of violent white light *manifested*.
It exploded.
***WHUMP.***
The force was contained, localized, but immense. Liang was blasted off his feet and thrown backwards. He twisted in the air, managing to land on one leg and skid to a stop, his robes smoking, a deep frown on his face.
"What was that?" Liang demanded, his voice tight.
Li Zhi smirked, flexing his hand. "**Jingdao** was my first opened Acupoint. Did you truly believe it was the only Wheel I learned?" His tone was dripping with scorn.
Liang's frown deepened. Something was wrong with the attack. It had looked like a **Zhidow** creation spell, born from nothing. But through the heightened perception granted by his diligent study—his 'mastery eyes' born of effort, not innate talent—Liang could see the truth. Li Zhi wasn't creating. He was *compressing*. He gathered the ambient energy in a specific point and forced it inward with terrifying control until the pressure had to release in a localized detonation.
*No matter what,* Liang swore to himself, the taste of burnt cloth in his mouth. *I have to win.*
He raised his hands again. The **Kalash of Elements** materialized before him with a solid *thump*. From its dark mouth, a torrent of **white lightning** erupted. It did not lash out in a single bolt. It coiled around Liang like a living serpent, dancing and crackling around his form, making him the calm center of an electrical storm. With a sweep of his arm, he sent forks of sizzling energy arcing toward Li Zhi from three different angles.
Li Zhi sneered, not retreating. "You were the Immortal's weakest disciple. You will always be the one in the shadow."
He raised his hands, fingers dancing. As each bolt of lightning streaked toward him, he did not block. He *pinched* the air around its path. At each point, a tiny, brilliant sphere of compressed energy flared into being and detonated with a sharp *pop*, intercepting the lightning in mid-air. The arena became a fireworks display of colliding white light and crackling energy—beautiful, chaotic, and utterly controlled by Li Zhi.
On the sidelines, Gen watched, his earlier amusement gone. His brow was furrowed. He hadn't expected Li Zhi to have grown this formidable.
Dou Yi adjusted her glasses, her analytical voice cutting through the noise. "Li Zhi's technique. I have seen its principle before. It is called **The Fallen Glory**."
Juxian, listening intently, nodded. "A most apt and arrogant name."
"The user focuses and compresses ambient qi into a point," Dou Yi explained, her eyes tracking the rapid, precise detonations. "At this level, it is merely efficient. But the true danger lies in the next stage. A master can layer the compression. They create a sphere, then manipulate a shell of energy around it to force a second, inward collapse before the first detonates. They repeat this, over and over, building a self-contained explosion of critical mass. When finally released…" She trailed off, the implication clear.
Juxian's playful demeanor was fully absent. "To reach such a level of **Shidow** control… it is beyond mere talent. I have heard tales of manipulation masters who could alter a person's fundamental energy channels to force such growth. I do not say he is one of them. It may be his own gift. But such control at this age is… unsettling."
Dou Yi gave a single, grave nod. "Even I would struggle to manipulate energy with such layered precision."
Gen listened, but his eyes never left Liang. "It doesn't matter," he said, his voice firm. "Liang isn't the same as before. He's stronger. Way stronger." There was not a trace of worry in his statement, only certainty.
On the arena, the fight intensified. Li Zhi dominated with his superior **Jingdao**, weaving through Liang's lightning storm as if it were a gentle rain. He ducked under a crackling arc, sidestepped another, and closed in with a mocking laugh.
"Your lightning is powerful," Li Zhan taunted, his fist slamming into Liang's crossed forearms, "but if it cannot touch its target, it is useless!" He danced back as Liang swung a wide, desperate backhand surrounded by electrical energy. Li Zhan parried it aside, the lightning grounding itself harmlessly into the stone, and in the opening, drove a brutal knee into Liang's exposed ribs.
Liang grunted, the air forced from his lungs. He defended desperately in the close-quarters assault, but Li Zhi's **Jingdao** was denser, his movements sharper. And all the while, Liang could feel it—the subtle gathering of energy, the invisible, compressed spheres beginning to hover in the space around them like malevolent dew.
Li Zhi saw his moment. He snatched one of the nearly-invisible compressed spheres from the air and, with a cruel smile, slammed it directly against Liang's forward-guarding forearm.
"It's over."
The detonation was not a *pop*, but a ***CRUMP*** that shook the foundations of the arena. The newly-formed barrier around the fight cracked like ice, though it held. Liang was hurled backward, his arm smoking, his face contorted in pain. He landed in a heap, not moving.
Li Zhi straightened his robes, a victorious smirk on his lips. "Too easy."
A wave of worried murmurs passed through the spectators. Had he lost already? Gen took a half-step forward, his jaw clenched.
Then Liang moved.
He pushed himself up onto his knees, then slowly, to his feet. The pain was gone from his face, replaced by a cold, clear focus. He took a single, deliberate step forward.
From within the mouth of the **Kalash of Elements**, still hovering beside him, a new light bloomed. Not the white of lightning, but a deep, pulsing **orange flame**. It spilled out, not as an attack, but as a mantle, wreathing Liang's body, setting his sleeves ablaze with harmless, controlled fire.
He took another step. The flames grew, licking up his legs and back, forming a corona of pure heat around him.
On the sidelines, Gen's worried expression vanished, replaced by a wide, fierce grin. He rubbed his hands together like a mischievous spirit. "There it is," he muttered. "The new element from the Kalash. The Black-Green Wood taught him more than just a new trick. It taught him to feel."
Liang's flaming figure did not dash. It *flowed*. The fire was not just for show; it was an extension of his will, a crude but potent layer of **Shidow** manipulation he had learned to bind to his own energy, compensating for the gap in raw **Jingdao** density. He became a comet of orange light, shooting across the shattered arena toward the now-wide-eyed Li Zhi.