Time: Afternoon (The Semi-Finals)
?Three matches. Three broken weapons. Three completely humiliated opponents.
?The Grand Arena was in a state of unprecedented outrage. Disciples were throwing half-eaten spirit-fruits into the pit, screaming curses that would make a sailor blush.
?In the center of the ring, Aris (Han Xiao) sat in his signature defensive squat, hands over his head, looking pitiful. Surrounding him was a ring of shattered swords, broken spears, and one deeply dented warhammer.
?"Boooo!"
"Kick him out! He’s ruining the tournament!"
"Fight back, you coward!"
?Aris ignored the fruit bouncing off his "Iron-Tortoise" aura.
?"Mo," Aris projected telepathically to his servant, who was standing stoically at the edge of the arena. "How is the betting pool looking?"
?"You are currently a 1-to-500 underdog for the overall victory, Master," Mo replied. "I have placed all 25,000 of our Spirit Stones on you. If you win this tournament, we will bankrupt the Outer Sect syndicates."
?"Excellent. Passive income is the best income."
?High in the floating pavilion, Elder Razor-Wind wiped sweat from his brow. He looked at the tournament bracket, then up at Sect Leader Qin Tian.
?"My Lord," Razor-Wind bowed. "Han Xiao has reached the Semi-Finals. His opponents simply exhaust their Qi trying to penetrate his defense. The crowd is growing restless. Should we... intervene?"
?"Intervene?" Qin Tian’s silver eyes locked onto the squatting alchemist. "Why? Survival is a valid Dao. If the sharpest swords in my sect cannot crack a turtle's shell, the swords are to blame, not the turtle."
?The Sect Leader tapped a finger on his armrest.
?"However, physical kinetic force is a crude test. Let us see how the tortoise handles a different state of matter. Send in Yan Huo."
?Razor-Wind paled slightly but nodded. He stepped to the edge of the pavilion.
?"SEMI-FINAL MATCH!" Razor-Wind’s voice boomed. "Han Xiao (Rank 1) vs. Yan Huo (Rank 4)!"
?The crowd’s boos instantly transformed into deafening cheers.
?"Yan Huo!"
"Burn the rat!"
"Turtle soup! We want turtle soup!"
?From the opposite gate, a young man with hair the color of molten lava stepped into the ring. The air around him shimmered with intense heat. He didn't carry a weapon; his entire body was a weapon.
?[Scan: Yan Huo (The Scorching Sun)]
[Level: 58 (Core Formation - Peak).]
[Physique: Pure-Yang Fire Body.]
[Threat: Extremely High Thermal Output.]
?Yan Huo walked to the center of the ring, stopping ten paces from Aris. The stone beneath his boots began to glow red and melt into slag.
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?"Han Xiao," Yan Huo sneered, flames leaking from his nostrils as he breathed. "You made a mockery of Jian Wang. You relied on mass and density to break physical steel."
?Yan Huo raised his hands. Swirling vortexes of white-hot fire ignited in his palms.
?"But fire has no mass for you to break. You cannot deflect heat with a heavy neck. Today, I am going to cook you inside your own shell."
?Aris looked up, his eyes wide with fake terror.
?"P-please, Senior Brother!" Aris shrieked, waving his hands. "I burn easily! I have sensitive skin!"
?"Die!"
?Yan Huo slammed his hands together.
?FWOOSH.
?A massive pillar of fire erupted from the ground beneath Aris. It wasn't just a fireball; it was the Hellfire Furnace—a localized tornado of plasma that reached temperatures of 3,000 degrees Celsius. It engulfed Aris completely, forming a swirling dome of blinding white flame.
?The crowd went wild.
?"He's trapped!"
"That's the core-melting flame! Not even Earth Qi can withstand that for more than ten seconds!"
?Inside the fire tornado, visibility was zero. To the outside world, Aris was being incinerated.
?In reality, Aris was sitting exactly where he had been, looking incredibly bored.
?[System Warning: Extreme Thermal Radiation Detected.]
?Gravity affects everything, Aris thought, calmly checking his nails. Even light. Even plasma.
?[Law Manipulation: Gravimetric Lensing]
[Target: Extreme Local Perimeter (1 inch from Host's skin).]
[Effect: Bending space to redirect energy vectors.]
?Aris didn't block the fire. He simply increased the gravity in a microscopic layer around his body to such an extreme degree that space itself curved. The white-hot plasma, following the curve of space, wrapped around him, never actually touching his robes or his skin.
?He was sitting in a perfect, room-temperature vacuum bubble, watching the fire swirl harmlessly an inch from his nose.
?"Is this it?" Aris muttered to himself. "I should have brought a book."
?Outside the furnace, Yan Huo was pouring every ounce of his Core Formation Qi into the attack. His face was red, sweat evaporating instantly from his skin.
?"Burn!" Yan Huo roared, pushing the temperature higher. "Why hasn't he screamed yet?!"
?Thirty seconds passed.
?A minute passed.
?The crowd’s cheering began to falter.
?"He... he should be ash by now," a disciple whispered.
?Yan Huo’s legs began to tremble. Maintaining a 3,000-degree plasma vortex was draining his Dantian at an astronomical rate. His mana reserves were crashing.
?"Impossible!" Yan Huo gritted his teeth, his vision going blurry. "Melt! MELT!"
?He pushed one final, desperate surge of Qi into the flames, overdrawing his core.
?Crack.
?A sound echoed from Yan Huo’s chest. The sound of a Dantian fracturing from absolute exhaustion.
?Yan Huo’s eyes rolled back in his head. The flames sputtered, turned orange, and abruptly died.
?Yan Huo collapsed face-first into the cooling slag, completely unconscious.
?The fire cleared.
?The stone floor of the arena was a massive crater of glowing, molten glass.
?And sitting in the exact center of the magma, completely untouched, not even a single hair singed, was Aris.
?He looked around, blinking in the sudden sunlight. He patted his robes, which weren't even smoking.
?"Wow," Aris said, pitching his voice to echo across the silent arena. "It got really warm in there for a second. Good thing I held my breath!"
?He stood up, carefully stepping over a puddle of molten rock, and bowed to the unconscious Yan Huo.
?"Thank you for the sauna, Senior Brother!"
?The Grand Arena was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Ten thousand jaws were collectively unhinged.
?Elder Razor-Wind dropped his ledger.
?High in the pavilion, Sect Leader Qin Tian slowly stood up.
?His silver eyes were not looking at Aris’s fake yellow Qi aura. He was looking at the way the light had bent around Aris’s body during the firestorm.
?"That was not the Iron-Tortoise Sutra," Qin Tian whispered to himself, a terrifying, predatory smile spreading across his face. "That was Gravitational Lensing. He bent space to redirect thermal radiation."
?Qin Tian gripped the railing of his balcony.
?"An Old Era relic? Or a Void Walker? Fascinating..."
?Elder Razor-Wind cleared his throat, his voice shaking.
?"Winner... Han Xiao! He advances to the Finals!"
?The crowd didn't boo this time. They were too deeply horrified. The "Luckiest Idiot" had just outlasted the strongest fire cultivator in the sect by doing absolutely nothing.
?Aris scampered out of the ring, but as he reached the tunnel, his System flashed a critical warning.
?[Threat Alert: Sect Leader Qin Tian is moving.]
[Targeting Host.]
?Oh, Aris thought, his violet eyes flashing in the shadows of the tunnel. The final boss wants to skip the cutscene.
Wiki Update - Gravitational Lensing:
- ?Mechanic: A subset of The Sovereign's Weight. By creating an incredibly dense, microscopic gravity field, Aris bends the fabric of space-time around himself. Energy attacks (light, heat, radiation) are forced to follow the curve of space, passing entirely around him without making contact.
- ?Drawback: Requires massive processing power to calculate the vector math in real-time. Cannot be used to block physical, mass-heavy objects (like a sword or rock), which would simply crash into the gravity field.