Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

In the case of a tie, no one won at all. The challenger didn’t get any stars since they were the one who had issued the challenge, while the challenged didn’t get any stars either since they were the one who had settled on what challenge it would be.

Realizing neither of them was getting a star, Helen stood back up and left.

Alex turned toward Battlesage next. ”I don’t assume you know much about formations, do you?” he asked.

”No. Certainly not this type of formation,” Battlesage said.

To the old man, formations meant runes and scripts, which the man before him would not accept. And since Battlesage hadn’t the faintest clue how formations with lines inside a circle worked, he was never going to win anything at all.

The man stood to the side, watching Alex and Battlesage, waiting for anyone who would challenge him. After a brief moment, Alex turned toward the young man.

”If I challenge you, will you be willing to agree to a battle where I merely defend and you do all the attacking?” Alex said. ”You win if you can hit me within 2 minutes. I win if you can’t.”

The man narrowed his eyes.

”You won’t attack at all?” he asked.

”Not a bit,” Alex said.

”What counts as being hit?” the man asked.

”If the attack touches me. To add to this, I won’t be using any shields, techniques, or external defenses. And I won’t move around either. You will be free to do whatever,” Alex said.

The man paused for a moment with a blank look on his face. ”How do you expect to stop me from hitting you if you won’t defend?”

Alex smiled. ”Let me worry about that. So, do you accept it?”

The man watched Alex as though he was looking at a madman intent on losing.

”Sure. Go ahead.”

Alex challenged, and the man accepted. The condition of their challenge was exactly as proposed.

The man would be free to fight however he wanted, while Alex would have to stand in one place, use no techniques, no daos, no shields, and take no help from any external means to defend against the attacks. Once the conditions of the battle were settled, they stood opposite each other a short distance away and started.

Then, the man used his first attack.

Clumps of sand rose from the ground around the man, compressing as they became smaller and smaller. Once they were tiny and compact, the man tossed the sand beads toward Alex.

The man smirked, as he had just earned the easiest star of his life. He couldn’t believe how stupid Alex was to take part in such a challenge where he could do absolutely nothing at all. Since he couldn’t defend or move, all he could do was get hit.

The beads flew at Alex, and then... they simply lost all momentum, scattering into sand before him, none reaching Alex.

The man paused. ”Huh?”

Something was clearly not right. What had just happened?

”You cheated!” he said quickly.

Alex shook his head. ”I didn’t.”

”But you did,” the man said again. ”How could you have stopped it if you didn’t cheat?”

Alex watched the man with innocent eyes. ”How did I cheat?”

”You... you used some sort of technique. Surely.”

”No,” Alex said. ”And the hourglass is still flowing. You don’t have much time, remember.”

The man wanted to argue, but it would be easier to just hit Alex and move on with it. He created the sand beads again, throwing them toward Alex at an intense speed, only for them to dissolve back into sand and scatter near his feet.

It was another failure.

”Huh?” the man responded.

This time, he had been paying better attention, and yet, he sensed nothing.

”Keep going,” Alex said. ”You don’t have much time.”

The man pulled more sand from beneath him, turning it into the shape of a hound that immediately charged toward Alex the moment it appeared.

Alex watched the hound approach him and took just a split second to focus on the attack and push his Intent into it, erasing the man’s Intent. It took Alex a bit of effort that he didn’t show on his face, but he succeeded again. He was starting off easy, so that much was obvious.

While the man’s Intent from the attack vanished, it still kept its momentum and continued toward him. The sand itself was one thing, but the hound was made of sand using Immortal Qi, which was quite strong.

Alex used his Intent on the sand and gave the command to it that took the most out of everything he had done with it until now.

’Collapse!’ he willed.

The entire hound suddenly broke apart mid-flight, the Immortal energy dissipating into the atmosphere as it belonged to nobody at this point. All that reached Alex in the end was a gust of wind.

The man could not believe his eyes.

”How?” he asked. ”How are you doing that?”

Alex didn’t answer. ”Are you going to continue or not?” he asked.

The man fell into a fit of rage and started attacking even more. He threw out attack after attack, each one of which Alex fought with his Intent, stripping it of any will that was still attached to it before destroying what remained.

Doing it one at a time was easy, but once the man started throwing out attacks in quick succession, especially from different directions, Alex was quickly overwhelmed. While he did much better than he had thought he would, he didn’t last the entire 2 minutes at all and ended up getting hit in the end.

He had stripped the Intent off the attack, but he couldn’t stop it in time, and it ended up hitting him in the chest. It barely felt like anything at all, but that didn’t matter since he was hit.

Alex sighed. ”I lost,” he said and brought out a star, tossing it toward the man before returning to the group.