“There is no way we can help you with this,” Menon told him outright.

“Why?” Jay asked, thinking if anyone could do it so could he.

“It’s not a matter of how capable you are, but you just do not have what it takes to do it,” Menon insisted.

“Just point me in the right direction, and all will be hunky dory,” Jay grinned while saying this, still rather adamant about learning that skill.

“Sir, it’s just not possible, in the first place you have never tried it before, and to make it harder, we do not even know where that meridian is on you,” Yulia joined the conversation, seeing that Jay refused to back down.

“I agree, and the fact you only have 2 extraordinary meridians unlocked, mea….”

“It’s 3 extraordinary meridians, I unlocked another since the last time I volunteered to be your lab rat,” Jay interrupted and updated Menon.

“Ok three, so in like two thousand years? You only mana…”

“One thousand nine hundred and sixty seven years to be exact, I opened it about 30 years back,” Jay interrupted again.

“The numbers are just arbitrary, and stop interrupting me!” Menon responded, a little exasperated.

Jay and Menon each belonged to one of the top 4 races, they had similar lifespans and an average person of these races could live to three thousand years. When the Unknown Realm was unlocked, it increased that by many folds.

Unfortunately, Menon has not reached the Unknown Realm, hence he looks worse for wear when compared to the Wei siblings.

Jay is in fact a thousand and five hundred years older than Instructor Wei and almost eight hundred years older than Menon. Menon on the other hand was around seven hundred years older than Instructor Wei.

“That is the exact problem, you only have three opened. From what we understand, the time and effort taken to unlocked an extraordinary meridian one after the other gradually increase and multiplies. It is highly possible you may not be able to open another before you enter heaven,” Yulia explained.

“I understand that part. My idea is simple, lead me in the right direction like how you did Xia Er and I will be set from there,” Jay replied.

“I have been trying to tell you this from the beginning, it’s not so simple. You have five locked extraordinary meridian, means there is only a one in five chance its either one. However it took you almost two thousand years to ope….” Menon was trying to say more, but Jay interrupted again.

“One thousand nine hundred an…”

“Alright whatever! It already took you that long for the third, the forth is even longer, and Yulia is right, you may be dead before its opened, not to mention what I said earlier,” Menon told Jay in a rather exasperate voice.

“Damn! You could have just said so from the start!” Jay cursed, turned around and left while putting on a show of being ridiculed.

“We did!” both Menon and Yulia were thinking the same thing.

**********

With a bit of luck, Xiaoxia’s first opponent was not a humanoid, it was another of the races and the highest Duelist Realm he had met to date. She was a Duelist Realm 6th Tier, but her battle prowess was not honed and could neither defend not counter against him.

Xiaoxia been through very tough training with Instructor Wei in the battle room. They had progress into the middle ones down the hallway and the dummies were much more difficult than they had on the 1st battle room. As they progressed, dummies gradually became much faster and attacked in random patterns; it was close as it gets to real life battles.

It was a training he was extremely thankful for, as most students had good Ki Realms but lack actual combat experience. This enabled those with lower Ki Realms who had actual experience to defeat them, and it was a widespread thing especially among the races. Many children were complacent when it comes to power and actual combat.

Xiaoxia was already abnormally strong since young, and this training boosted it. Given he was born with a God given physique, it also vastly improved his agility, stamina, constitution and reaction.

“Xia Er, the next opponent is a Crustanian, you should know what to do,” Instructor Wei told him.

“Yes and thank you Mentor,” Xiaoxia replied.

Crustanians’ defense were considered the 3rd highest in the competition, the only others who were better are the Dragonians and Tetsudians. The common thing was all had sufficient natural protection on their weak areas, making defeating them a chore.

Instructor Wei had proceeded to demonstrate effective measures against them the previous night, as a result Xiaoxia had to postpone with Menon and Yulia.

The training was beneficial, as Xiaoxia only learned the anatomy during his lessons with Sem. During the practices with Instructor Wei, she increased the defenses on the dummies so it would be three times that of the Dragonians who are widely considered as having the best natural shield.

Xiaoxia managed to break through the dummies defenses with his focused Ki attacks. Although sometimes he would miss the mark as the dummies moved around in random patterns. However the results were notable.

“Good, there is nothing more I can show you now, just make sure to observe carefully during the battle,” Instructor Wei advised him.

**********

“Competitors approach the center please,” the referee instructed.

Xiaoxia calmly moved to the center while looking at his opponent. The Crustanian had little semblance to the racial beings, it walked on two limbs but had four arms. There were feelers protruding from its forehead, and the entire skull was covered in a translucent shell instead of hair.

Instead of skin, it looked like it was covered in armor plating. It had a short fanned tail, that look like a shield jutting it out from its posterior. On top of that, instead of hands with a thumb and four fingers, it had what looked like pincers. The only thing that was familiar, were its eyes and face.

“Is this thing really 7 years old?” Xiaoxia’s mind was reeling with that thought, the thing in front of him looked older than his parents. He had seen images depicted in the books from his lessons, but it did not prepare him for this.

“Hellooob! Myy Naame is Briabel .. blurgb … “

Xiaoxia did not understand a single thing after that, he only caught the name Briabel. Foam was coming out of its mouth as it spoke and it was a disgusting sight for Xiaoxia.

“Well met, my name is Zhen Xia, Academy of the Six Elements, Sha Mo Ren, 1st Colony, Hu Yuan Empire,” Xiaoxia did the normal introduction.

“No killing or serious endangerment, no hitting the opponent on their reproductive organs, no use of forbidden skills or weapon, no unregistered weapons, maintain proper pugilist honor at all times and finally have a good duel!” the referee made the standard statement, changing the ‘family jewels’ to reproductive organs.

The problem is during Sem’s lessons, he did not mention where the reproductive organs were for the Crustanians. Apparently he deemed Xiaoxia too young to learn about the birds and the bees.

“Sorry referee, I do not know where his reproductive organs a….”

“Meeeee blurggb grriirrlll” Briabel suddenly interrupted as foam spewed out from her mouth, and indicated to somewhere between the joints of the limbs she was standing on.

“Ok, I hope there is no further questions. You may take your positions,” the referee said, while looking a little embarrassed. In fact he did not know about that either, and worse was he shared the same thoughts as Xiaoxia on Briabel being a boy.

Standing at their positions, both opponents faced each other. Xiaoxia had trouble looking at Briabel, as her habit of spewing foam from her mouth was making him lose his focus. But he knew from the details Briabel was a Duelist Realm 7th Tier, the highest ever opponent he confronted.

“Phreeee!”

“Let’s end this quickly,” Xiaoxia thought as he used the foot technique and appeared on Briabel’s exposed back.

“Whooosh!”

To his surprise he missed, Briabel had moved off suddenly to her left. She had an ungainly sideways movement that was astonishingly fast.

“Blurggh, hee hee hee heeblgurgh,” some sound came from her.

“Are you trying to laugh?” Xiaoxia said, a little irritated at that.

He did not stop and used the same foot technique. This time he did three direction changes in mid stride to confuse her.

“Bam! Bam! Bam!”

All three of his blows hit their marks, but Briabel shifted slightly each time, so they hit the densest shielded part of her body.

“Whoom!”

In a sudden counter attack, one of her arms lashed out at Xiaoxia. He immediately raised his Ki defense and blocked it with his right arm. The blow pushed him a few feet back.

Immediately turning her whole body towards where Xiaoxia was, she gave something like a smirk with foam coming out her mouth.

“You blurgh blugrgh b … ose!” she screamed out something incoherent, spewing more foam around.

There was a spike in Ki as all four of her limbs lunged in the direction of Xiaoxia. Four intense Ki attacks blasted towards him, he dodged one and had to block the other three, as the distance was too close.

“Whoosh! BOOF! BOOF! BOOF!”

The surprising thing was not the Ki attacks, but it’s after effects. Ice formed over Xiaoxia’s right and left arms after he blocked them.

“Elemental Ki attack!” he blurted out in amazement, as he use the foot technique and backed away about forty feet.

The stadium went hush, all the spectators were stunned. Elemental attacks were limited to those in the Unknown Realm, it was extremely rare and almost unheard of for someone to have it before then.

“Damn! There was not such information in the details, freaking hell!” Instructor Wei was cursing in her mind when she saw that attack.

“Blurghs hehehe blgurh!” Briabel continued grinning and saying incoherent things.

“Grrr!” Xiaoxia’s amazed reaction changed immediately, he was getting pissed off by Briabel.

Angrily he let off a sequence of focused Ki attacks with his index fingers, these were aimed directly for Briabel’s joints. According to Instructor Wei, his focused Ki attacks should have no problems in breaking through and disabling the opponents limbs.

“BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Wham!”

Three of the attacks missed their target and slammed into the platform’s shielding, as Briabel’s amazing sideways movement weaved right and left causing them to miss. However Xiaoxia made a gamble and shot the fourth attack in the direction opposite of the third.

“ABLURGHAAHH!” Briabel screamed.

She had moved sideways to her right to avoid the third attack and shifted back again to her left, catching the last attack right between her left arms. It was below the upper left arm and directly above the lower left arm on her torso, there the armor-like plating cracked wide open and raw damaged flesh was exposed.

"BLUGRHFIDIDIIIEEE!!" she screamed in painful anger.

Immediately her Ki spiked, and Ki energy blasted at Xiaoxia from her uninjured side. She was also moving rapidly and chasing Xiaoxia, who was avoiding her attacks and backing off.

“Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!”

The battle dais’s shielding rippled incessantly as all the attacks missed Xiaoxia and hit it.

Xiaoxia was hard pressed at this moment, at this distance he could still avoid all the attacks, but that wasn't the issue. The element Ki was causing the ground to freeze and proper footing was beginning to be a problem for him.

“If only I can get her cloo….whoa!” right at the instance while he was thinking, he slipped on the icy surface and fell flat on his back.

“BLURGHEHEHEHEHE!” there was a shout of something that sounded awfully triumphant, as Briabel immediately blasted more Ki attacks at him.

“WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!”

The impacts caused a flurry of ice to form around Xiaoxia and soon a thick mist surrounded the area. Gradually, the mist dissipated as the attacks stopped.

At this time Briabel was expecting to see the limp figure of Xiaoxia laying on the ground. She had actually turn bright pink in her anger and there was no longer foam spewing from her mouth.

But instead of a broken limp figure laying on the ground, a figure was standing with its arms in a crossed position. Somehow Xiaoxia had recovered in time to block the attacks, the aura of his defensive Ki was glowing intensely.

When Xiaoxia fell, he immediately sprung up again. This was the lesson he learnt in the battle room. The dummies were ruthless and will pummel him to a pulp if he did not recover in time. It is now instinctively built into his very flesh and bones.

“Hey seafood! Is that all you got?” Xiaoxia taunted Briabel, who actually does look a lot like the shellfishes he had eaten on the island continent of MeisterSchloss.

“Phreeee! No insulting remarks like this!” the referee warned, while also trying to hide a grin.

“Sorry sir!” Xiaoxia responded.

“There will be no other warning, you may continue” the referee added, as Xiaoxia nodded again.

But the damage was already done, this time Briabel’s color went from bright pink to red in a heartbeat. Her aura begin to rise and blood started dripping from her injured side. Oblivious to the bleeding and pain, she lumbered forward with her amazing speed.

As she got closer, she shot out Ki attacks with her uninjured side. These were avoided by Xiaoxia.

“AARGHBLURGH!!!” Briabel shouted in frustration.

“Hey you,” suddenly Xiaoxia shouted at her.

She immediately paused with a questioning look on her face.

“Come,” Xiaoxia said, standing there with his defense totally down.

“Hit me! I won’t move, hit me with your best shot!” he further taunted.

Briabel did not trust him, so she decided to get as near as possible before launching her most devastating attack. This attack will probably drain all her Ki, but victory must be attained at all cost.

Xiaoxia had created a distance of more than a hundred feet between them as he avoid her Ki attacks and constantly moved out of the frozen areas. It was not something he wanted, as both sides could defend easily against long distant attacks at this range.

He continued standing there as Briabel sprinted in her weird gait towards him. In a blink of an eye, she covered over 30 feet, and was about 70 feet from Xiaoxia. As the number gradually decreased, Ki was building and could be felt from both of them.

60, 50, 40, it was close, but Briabel wanted it to be closer.

30, 20, 15, 10 “BBBAAAAAANNNNGG!”

Between the distance of over a hundred feet and the Ki attack, it took less than 5 seconds.

“Whoosh! BOOM!”

When the first Ki attack connected, the area surrounding it and the two opponents immediately clouded up. As the area cleared, Briabel was laying on the ground, while Xiaoxia was still standing less than a feet away.

“Phreee!”

“Red side is unable to continue, victory to blue side!” the referee announced slightly impishly as he was really forcing himself not to laugh as Briabel was a bright red color.

“Yes!” Xiaoxia pumped his right arm.

When Briabel attacked, Xiaoxia countered with his own Ki blast. The two opposing forces collided with tremendous impact. The resulting cloud immediately blinded both sides, but Xiaoxia had released a reduced focused Ki blast at the same time.

Gauging where she was, he used his Ki control to remotely divert it to the back of her neck just below the skull. The impact cracked the armor-like plating and knocked Briabel out.

His normal focused Ki attacked had broken away her armor-like protection and damaged the flesh underneath . Hence he controlled and limited the focus Ki blast he sent towards her necked, or it would probably had killed her.

The entire stadium exploded in cheers and applause, and Amelia was screaming her head off again. Instructor Wei and Menon had slipped away beforehand, not wanting to be associated with Amelia, while Jay was no where to be seen.

Only one figure standing above the crowds on the far end of the stadium was not cheering.

"Savor your victory, you will regret it soon enough," it said.

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