57. 61,000 (Patreon)

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| Purchased: Any Weapon (G) | -10 AP

| Remaining AP: 59,324

Shen was surprised to get teleported to the topmost row of the  spectators' seats. From there, he could see the Arena had expanded even  more. At least a hundred thousand people were fighting, and tens of  thousands watched. It made him wonder how big was the tutorial. How many had joined it, and how many remained?

He followed the line of people climbing down to the battle area. A  few people were waiting at the edge, talking to newcomers. One of them, a  short, thin guy in plate armor, explained the human-made rules to Shen  when he approached. He made to sidestep the man, but he put himself  firmly in Shen's way.

"Now, listen to the rules before entering, will you? Don't be a dickhead."

Though the guy was being rude to Shen, Shen didn't want to be  needlessly harsh in return. A few minutes of listening to the rules  wouldn't change much. He nodded.

"To avoid weakening people too much, we're only betting 10 AP unless  you reach the inner circle," he pointed at the center of the Arena.

Two people were fighting in his previous spot at the very center. A  girl in a blue dress was magicking her victory with invisible spells  against a big dude in plate armor. The number 21,980 was displayed above  her head and 9,220 above his.

A few thousand people were also fighting relatively nearby. Everyone involved had between one thousand to ten thousand AP.

There was a clear divide, an empty zone, between the middle area and the rest of the Arena.

"The girl fighting the big dude in the middle is the King of the  Hill—well, queen, I guess. The ones with more than one thousand net  worth are princes and princesses. Lame naming sense, I know, but it  stuck. Bunch of nerds, if you ask me."

Shen shook his head. Children playing at being kings. Did they even  understand the responsibilities of the position in the real world?

"You gotta be a prince yourself to fight other princes or the queen,"  the guy continued. "They almost always bet 100 AP there. Sometimes they  go for less than that, but don't count on it if you ever make it. Also,  don't ignore the prince versus prince rule. It makes battles more  attractive and valuable. Beating weaklings or being abused by someone  much stronger than you helps no one. We're fighting to save Earth and  all that."

Shen was actually surprised to hear that. The boy had mentioned  fighting for Earth in a disregarding tone, but Shen hadn't expected them  to even remember it.

It seemed his arrogance was making him look down on mortals once again.

"Now, we can't really enforce the guidelines, but don't be a dick,  alright? And you can make a complaint about anyone who breaks the rules.  We're creating an exclusion list of assholes, and you don't want to be  in it." He looked Shen from top to bottom. "Now, what the fuck did you eat as a child? Are you even sixteen?"

Shen was confused by the question, then remembered his size. He  looked at his hands, then at the guy. He realized the guy wasn't short; Shen had become a couple inches taller.

He wondered how much that would affect his battle ability on top of his new insights.

"If I understood it well," Shen said, "whoever has the more net worth is the king or queen." Interesting term, that. The system translation function explained the meaning to him.

"Yes," the boy said, frowned, then widened his eyes. "Holy shit, E rank? Did you eat a rank-up pill?"

Shen smiled, said, "No," and entered the Arena. His net worth appeared above his head.

61,000

He walked towards the center of the Arena. People gave way for him  upon seeing his net worth, and he walked unhindered. The only exceptions  were those fighting each other. They saw no one but each other during  battle, and sometimes they even touched—and went through—others. Some of  them got in the way, but he didn't care.

It took a while to get to the inner circle; the Arena had gotten too  large. Even the princes and princesses—he snickered at the naming in his  mind—gave way to him. They widened their mouths and eyes less than the  ones at the edges of the Arena. Some of them had already seen him  before.

The queen was already waiting for him when he arrived, as his passage had caused a small commotion.

Shen would've considered her short even before his rank-up. Her body  was thin but showed well-toned muscles on the exposed calves and arms.  She had long braided caramel hair, blue eyes, and skin whiter than  Shen's. Her long blue dress seemed to shimmer with light, revealing that  it might be more than G-tier equipment.

"Inspect," he said, though no one could see his mouth move or hear his voice in the Arena due to the rules against win trading.

| Evelyn Kora Livingston (E) | 120 / 120

Shen smiled. Evelyn was the first E-rank human he would have the  pleasure of facing. Since she had ranked up this fast, it also meant she  was an elite, and he really wanted to see what humankind had to offer.

He wished he had paid attention to her previous fight. E-ranks needed  to know a Concept. What was hers? Then again, maybe it would be more  fun to find out in combat.

They couldn't talk in the Arena, but they could scream wordlessly.  She struck her chest with a closed fist, let out a primal roar, then  pointed her finger at him.

| Duel started. State your bet.

"One hundred AP," both said at the same time.

This was the only moment they could hear each other's words, and  using it to anything else made the system push you out of the Arena.  Repeated offenders weren't seen again.

| 100 AP deducted.

| Total AP: 59,224

| Duel started. Time limit: 10 minutes.

The qi in the average environment was usually considered Conceptless,  though it was more accurate to say it had so many bits of all Laws that  none got a hold over it. Shen's core was the same, with a caveat: the  runes in core's walls made the qi his. He could use it more easily and, more importantly, impair it with Concepts himself.

With a twist of his will, he turned some of the energy in his core  into Sharp Qi. Then he pushed it to his spear's head. At the F-rank, he  had been unable to limit his qi's area of influence that much. At the  E-rank, it took some focus, but it was possible.

The edge of his spearhead now was Sharpness itself. The qi didn't  physically affect it, but it conceptually cut everything the blade hit.  By spending qi, the metal would behave as if it was incredibly sharp without really changing.

There was a limit to that change, of course. The sharper blade  physically was, the higher the Sharp Qi's upper limit. But for Shen, who  was testing the Concept of Sharpness for the first time, it was good  that he was using only a G spear.

Then he turned some of the qi in his core into Combat Qi and pushed it into his body and spear shaft.

Combat was the mastery of the self and the control of the enemy to  achieve victory. Some particles of his Combat Qi tried to leave his body  to also affect said enemy, but his mastery over the Concept of Combat  was still too low. It would undoubtedly develop into an aura and then  into a domain in the future. Today, he could only analyze his enemy  through his mortal senses.

The part of the Concept of Combat that focused on himself went much  better. Shen instinctively became aware of the limits of his body. His  body's longer reach, now that his height had increased, would be no  issue. His instincts were honed to react to the slightest eye movement  revealed by his foe.

Only the Concept of War remained.

That Concept made Shen a general of every battle he fought. Even more  than his Combat Qi, his War Qi wanted to expand beyond his body, fill  the area, see everything, push his will against all enemies. He felt it  would be even easier to move it out of his body than Combat, but he was still too ignorant of the ways of war to let the qi fill something as  conceptual as a battle. Someone with mastery over a concept of the Laws  of Air would have a much easier time affecting the air than he would  have affecting war itself.

Instead, he pushed War Qi into his brain. He immediately felt his  mind grow shaper and take better note of everything around him. While  Combat Qi let him react even to his enemies' eyes, the War Qi in his  mind let him prepare multiple moves in advance and strategize a way to  achieve victory over them. It considered the larger picture much better  than Combat.

Infusing three different Concepts into his qi on distincts parts of  his body and weapon took a mental toll. Shen was sure he wouldn't have  been able to do that before reaching the E-rank. Now, he barely had  enough willpower and focus for that.

He idly wondered that magic and cultivation weren't so different after all; both required willpower and focus.

After getting ready, he rushed against Evelyn.

He had expected her to use magic related to water or air because of  her blue dress, even though he had noticed no such manifestations when  he had seen her battle earlier. What she used, however, was gravity.

Shen felt the ground's pull on him increase, attempting to slow him  down. His very body naturally resisted it, to his surprise. It had  become more than mere matter and thus wasn't so easily affected by the  physical world anymore. How the weight change hadn't affected his  balance was another big mystery.

His body's resistance wasn't enough to deal with the extra gravity,  but the Combat Qi already in his body countered what remained. It  refused to be bound by his opponent, and it wasn't even costly to resist  the pull.

His War Qi-filled mind also let Shen realize Evelyn was likely  increasing the gravity pull of the area he went through rather than  allowing her mana to touch his soul. That avoided wasting mana, but it  prevented the Concept she was using from directly affecting him. Thus  the ease with which he was ignoring her spell.

Saving energy would cost her the fight.

Everything, from the moment she had used the ability to now, had  taken a split second. Shen's analytical mind had improved with the rank  up, and the War Qi pushed it even further. Within a few moments, he was  already halfway through to Evelyn.

The Combat Qi made him faster, but not as much as his Boundless Qi  could make him. The latter focused on breaking through all boundaries  and let him push his speed to the utmost. The Combat Qi focused on many  more aspects of combat, making Shen improve in various areas but not  reach the absolute maximum in any of them.

Except one: how to beat his opponent.

Maximum speed wasn't needed. Instead, the Concept of Combat told him  that focusing too much on one thing would make him an unbalanced warrior  filled with weaknesses. Combat was more than rushing ahead, and only by  mastering every aspect of battle, yet not going through any individual  extreme, would he achieve absolute, extreme, overall perfection.

Of course, Evelyn didn't just wait for him to kill her. She wasn't  the top dog around for nothing, quickly realizing her mistake and  changing tactics. Instead of affecting the ground, she pushed her mana  to surround Shen and pull him from all sides. She wanted to make him  float with limbs extended, like a harmless lamb awaiting slaughter.

Shen laughed at her attempt. Her mana burned in contact with his  soul, and his Combat Qi would be enough to resist the rest. It would  burn through some of his reserves, but he had no doubt it would be worse  for her.

But why focus on defense only? Combat was more than that too.

Shen held his spear with both hands and swung.

The Sharp Qi on the edge of his blade had already been resisting  Evelyn's mana, but now it cut with purpose. The Concept of Sharpness met  whatever Concept was in the mana around him and cut it.

The wisp had taught him that the stronger willpower won when spell met spell. Shen found out it was the same when qi met mana.

He felt her will resist his, her Concept battle Sharpness. He pushed,  getting himself a light headache. She pushed back, fighting for  supremacy.

Evelyn's was a losing battle. Shen was fighting primarily with his  Sharp Qi, yes, but his very soul was also assisting in resisting her  mana. On the other hand, if her energy pool was much larger than hers,  she might come out as the winner of that clash.

Shen wanted to find out if his raw will was more potent than hers, he  really did. But his was the Path of the Spear. A spear could be used as  a tool of endless attack, but limiting it to only one purpose was an  offense to its potential.

Up until now, every time his blade found more resistance than he  wanted to deal with, he just retracted it and struck again elsewhere in a  different manner. So he pulled the Sharp Qi from his spearhead and the  Combat Qi from his body and spear shaft.

His body was immediately taken from the ground, but he wasn't done.

His Combat Qi let him know combat was more than the extremes. But his  War Qi assured him that war was more than combat. And this was a war of  tactics and strategies rather than just a random brawl.

In war, oftentimes, the best tool for the job won.

So Shen filled his body with Boundless Qi. Then instead of fighting directly against the spell, he pushed through it.

His Unrelenting Pursuit was about withstanding whatever attack was  thrown against him and keeping going. Now that his soul gave him extra  protection against the incoming attack, it was perfect. Because his  Boundless Qi refused to be stopped, it was more than perfect.

Shen just kept moving.

When he had been using his Combat Qi, resisting the pull from all  sides had been like a mortal swimming in mud. Now that he used Boundless  Qi, Shen felt like a mortal moving through water.

At first, it was slow, and he felt his qi burning to resist the magic  pulls, but the mana should be burning much quicker. How much had Evelyn  invested in her mana pool? He was about to find out.

In the end, it wasn't her mana pool that gave out but her will. Shen  didn't need to push his will against her at all, only improve his soul's  natural defenses, while she had to keep focusing, keep her magic under  control, keep spending her willpower.

Suddenly, it felt like he was moving against a strong wind. Then Shen was running freely toward her.

Evelyn had a defeated expression on her face when Shen's spear beheaded her.

| Duel won. Reward: 200 AP

| Total AP: 59,424

As the girl turned into light, the only thing he thought about was how much he had to improve.

He had too much information telling him to do too many different things at once. He had his old skills and needed to learn how to properly apply his new Concepts to battle. Everything had felt so slow and rigid. Where was the usual fluidity of his spear?

Moreover, if it  wasn't for him using the Concept of War to determine the path of least  resistance, he might've wasted a lot of time and qi fighting Evelyn in a  direct crash because that's the only thing the Concept of Combat had  told him to do.

Even that sounded wrong. How could the Concept of Combat be so easily  overpowered? Maybe dividing his attention into three Concepts had  affected how much wisdom he could pull from them.

Maybe that was why the books didn't mention foundations with multiple Concepts?

What was done was done. Shen felt it would be a terrible idea to  change his foundations again. His Path-picking episode showed the  heavens had a thing or two to say about Paths. Moreover, he liked the  Path he had picked for himself; he just needed to get used to it.

Luckily, there were tens of thousands of opportunities to get in sync with his Path walking around him.

Shen returned to the middle of the Arena, and before his one minute was up, he pointed to a prince.

The naming might be lame, but he had to admit he enjoyed being King of the Hill.

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