Trial Project: Challenge a School match completed. Result evaluation: Victory. Experience Points +100.
The System Panel's prompt rang in Zhou You's ears, while the wounds on both his arms twitched with searing pain.
The price of victory had not been small either. More than a dozen wounds covered his body, and at the deepest ones, bone was visible.
Even now, some of the wounds were still bleeding.
Lu Qiang's voice rang out. "Zhou You, step down. You there, apply medicine to his wounds."
Back among the apprentices, Li Hao took out a porcelain bottle, scooped out some ointment, and spread it over Zhou You's wounds.
A cooling sensation washed over him. The bleeding stopped at once, and the pain gradually faded away.
Zhou You looked at the porcelain bottle in surprise. "This wound medicine is good."
"It's made by Xingrentang, an old and respected shop in the city. One tael of wound medicine costs ten taels of silver."
After applying the medicine, Li Hao lowered his voice. "You fought well. You didn't disgrace our martial arts school."
With so many fellow disciples present and the school master watching, if Zhou You had lost by even the slightest margin, the consequences would have been miserable.
Zhou You still felt lingering fear. The opponent's three consecutive moves had come fast and fierce, catching him completely off guard. Only by going all out at the final moment, trading wound for wound, and relying on his high health and defense had he managed to wear Zhang Shiyu down to death.
"You were unlucky too. Such a profound martial skill as the Three-Stage Technique is something only Senior Disciple Xu knows. Yet that boy on the other side, about our age, had mastered it too. Hard fight, hard fight."
Li Hao was speaking fairly. Among the Official Martial Arts School Disciples, Zhang Shiyu's strength was enough to rank in the top eight.
If Li Hao had gone up himself, he would at least have needed to use his family's secret technique just to barely force a draw.
Li Hao could not help admiring his sparring partner, who had turned defeat into victory through sheer ruthlessness.
"Fighting some country-style boxer left you covered in wounds. You city kids really are delicate."
Gossip and rumors drifted over. There was no need to look to know Zhong Shaoying's faction was mocking them.
Xu Ying replied, "What are you whining about? If you've got the guts, go up there and try."
More than half of them fell silent. They truly could not do it. Everyone had witnessed the power of the Three-Stage Technique—encounter it, and one would either die or be crippled.
While Li Hao was applying medicine to Zhou You, the second match had already been underway for some time.
Lu Qiang and Zhuang Tie were both Qi and Blood Disciples, and the power of their attacks was far from ordinary.
Judged by fist martial arts alone, it was an upgraded version of the first match—a clash between Tiger Subduing Fist and Great Village Fist.
But the might of Qi and Blood Disciples was nowhere near comparable to Martial Force.
Zhuang Tie's Mud-Treading Steps had reached a deeper level. The instant his toes touched the ground, he shot more than ten meters away in the blink of an eye, too fast for the eye to follow.
"The speed boost of Basic Lightness Skill lv2, pushed to its limit, would only be about this much!"
Zhou You's eyelids twitched as he watched. The gap between Blood Qi and Martial Force truly was enormous.
With his every move, red light flickered in and out of sight. This was a sign of Blood Qi circulating through his entire body.
His fists and claws tore through the air, their piercing whistles rumbling like distant thunder.
The bluestone beneath his feet cracked apart, and ravines opened in the soil, as though seven or eight mad bulls had trampled the place into ruin.
Zhou You understood something. No wonder Zhuang Daqiang had dared to come challenge the school with only a handful of men. With a fierce general like Zhuang Tie under him, that was enough.
Then unease rose in him. He wanted to kill Tu Laosan, but Tu Laosan's elder brother, Tu Lao Er, was a fellow Qi and Blood Warrior. That would not be easy.
Zhuang Tie's opponent was Jianxiong Martial Arts School's Senior Disciple Brother, Lu Qiang.
Though no one said it aloud, everyone tacitly acknowledged that Senior Disciple Brother Lu Qiang was equivalent to an assistant school master.
Wang Jianxiong was saving himself for the third match, while sending Lu Qiang ahead to test the waters. That proved how highly he valued and trusted him.
"Iron Tiger Lu Qiang."
A tiger's roar seemed to drift faintly through the air.
Faint black aura coiled around Lu Qiang, and a dark, iron-like sheen surfaced over his skin, spreading across his body like tiger stripes.
Blood Qi filled his pupils. His hands swelled, veins bulging wildly, and he stood a third taller than usual.
The clash of two Qi and Blood Disciples tore apart the air and smashed through the ground, their speed so great that their figures could not be distinguished.
The packed earth in the open space by the entrance had first been kicked into a huge pit by Zhang Shiyu, and now it suffered further devastation, a complete mess everywhere.
"Zhuang Tie is clearly running out of strength."
At such a tense moment, only Qi and Blood Disciples could still offer commentary aloud.
The moment Shen Sijing spoke, the apprentices all chimed in. "Senior Disciple Shen's eyesight is truly sharp."
"The opponent can't withstand a single blow. Senior Disciple Brother is guaranteed to win this round."
Beside them, Zhong Shaoying poured cold water on the mood. "Not necessarily. When these Su City martial artists are driven into a corner, they may risk their lives in desperation. The outcome is still hard to say."
There was sense in those words, but he had said them at the wrong time.
"Zhong Shaoying, you're the only one showing off your cleverness!"
Wang Jianxiong spoke coldly, and every disciple and apprentice instantly fell silent as cicadas in winter.
Senior Disciple Brother was still fighting in the arena. As fellow disciples, they should have been cheering him on.
Zhong Shaoying and Shen Sijing had been arguing, yet Zhong Shaoying had inadvertently undermined Senior Disciple Brother. He truly had no sense of propriety.
After being rebuked by his master, Zhong Shaoying became like an eggplant struck by frost, unable to straighten up again.
"Nili Shattering Hand."
Seeing that a prolonged battle was unfavorable to him, Zhuang Tie instantly let out a great shout and unleashed his heavy-hand ultimate move.
Every fist martial art had moves for killing enemies and securing victory. Their power differed from ordinary techniques, and they were known as... ultimate moves.
The power of ultimate moves was terrifying, and they could only be performed with Blood Qi as their foundation.
No matter how favored Zhang Shiyu was, he had only learned the Three-Stage Technique and had never come into contact with a heavy-hand ultimate move.
Zhuang Tie was different. He was a Qi and Blood Disciple, as well as the trusted confidant Zhuang Daqiang had carefully cultivated.
Seeing his opponent erupt with a heavy-hand move, Lu Qiang shouted, "Good!"
The Nili Shattering Hand merely released a gale of force, yet spiderweb cracks appeared in the ground ten meters away.
The frontal pressure it brought was like hanging a thousand-pound lead weight from his body, making it impossible for him to move even an inch.
"Waaah!"
Lu Qiang's chest suddenly bulged, as though he had gathered ninety-nine percent of the aura throughout his body into his chest, then violently expelled it.
The tiger's roar was sharp as an awl. Everyone present covered their ears in unison.
Zhuang Tie was rocked by the invisible sound waves, his body swaying twice as a line of blood dripped from the corner of his eye.
The next moment, Lu Qiang charged over like a gale. A pair of tiger claws descended over Zhuang Tie's head, ringing with the sound of gold and iron.
Iron Tiger Claw versus Nili Shattering Hand.
The two forces collided, and victory was decided in less than a single breath.
Lu Qiang's tiger claws drove both forces back, shattering Zhuang Tie's finger bones, wrist bones, and arm bones.
Their momentum did not stop there. He seized Zhuang Tie by the shoulder and violently tore away a huge chunk of flesh.
Zhuang Tie cried out in alarm and staggered backward. His entire arm hung limply, blood gushing out without end.
The entire crowd erupted in uproar!
Their eyes focused on Lu Qiang's palm, where a large chunk of bright-red muscle was still twitching.
"He tore off the entire biceps. That arm is finished."
Zhou You's eyelids twitched at the sight of such a brutal scene.
Most of the bones in Zhuang Tie's arm had been pulverized, and all the muscle had been ripped away. Not even the most skilled physician could heal it.
Zhuang Tie was a tough man as well. Sweat poured from him in agony, yet he gritted his teeth without saying a word, refusing to admit defeat.
Lu Qiang crushed the flesh in his hand and did not attack again. He had won!
"Zhuang Daqiang, stop wasting time. You and I will settle victory and defeat in one battle."
Zhuang Daqiang looked much older than before. Hearing this, he raised his head. "Wang Laohu, this old man has been unable to wait any longer."
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