(Book 1&2 Complete!) Dao of Healing [Transmigration Healer Xianxia]

There had been three disciples remaining in arena one before Wang Ren used his Glaive Intent to surround the remaining three groups and force them into action. As the barriers began to shrink, a female disciple who wielded a sickle and chain was the first to move.

Her opponents, two male disciples wielding a spear and a sword respectively, hesitated. Their fear of Wang Ren's barrier was obvious. Their hesitation lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough.

The female disciple launched the ball at the end of the chain at the sword disciple. It wrapped around his ankle and she yanked it, bringing him to the ground. In a shocking display of physical strength, she then heaved the disciple into the air and launched him over the barrier and into the sands of the arena.

The spear disciple finally got his bearings, but the female disciple's attack was far from over. The enormous momentum she gained by tossing the first disciple was maintained and transferred through the chain as the sickle flew outwards. With deft control, she sliced the spear's shaft down the centre while rushing forwards.

A breath later she held the blade of the sickle to the spear wielder's neck. He yielded and they bowed toward one another in a show of respect. At least my disciples had a respectful attitude.

"That girl was always a crafty one. I like her," Wang Ren chuckled.

"Do you think she has a chance to win the entire competition? Those moves were exceptional." He didn't reply, simply maintaining his smirk. "Fine, keep your secrets," I muttered in annoyance.

The battle taking place on the final outer stage had already finished by the time I turned my attention back to it. The winner was a disciple I didn't recognise, but Wang Ren seemed unsurprised by the boy's victory.

That left only the central stage to finish. Yu Bao was still manipulating the stones in an undulating wave, but his opponents were dealing with it far better than they had been earlier.

None of them had been knocked out, but it seemed as though that would change soon. The staff wielding disciple was currently defending against a pincer attack from the long-haired girl and her tamed rabbit beast companion.

They were all dealing with the shifting terrain caused by Yu Bao, leading to chaos. The fan wielder wasn't standing idle while this happened. She was launching blade after blade at the two who were fighting.

To his credit, the staff wielding disciple was deflecting every blade while also fending off the rabbit and the girl simultaneously. His staff was whirling through the air so fast it seemed to be fluid.

Through my spiritual senses I felt a sudden fluctuation around the rabbit. A breath later, a laser of condensed spiritual energy fired from its horn at the staff wielder's chest.

He was in the middle of blocking two other attacks. It struck him, burning through his robe and sending him flying off the stage.

One down, two to go.

The fan wielding disciple immediately turned her attacks onto the rabbit and its tamer. With both fans twirling as a constant stream of spiritual energy flowed through them, she was a force to be reckoned with.

Yu Bao realised that his passive control of the arena was no longer an effective strategy. It had worked to take the weaker opponents by surprise, but it would not earn him victory. He clapped his palms together and slammed them into the stones. The shifting stage suddenly stopped moving.

Disciple Nang—the tamer—yelled something at her rabbit as this happened. She almost tripped as the rolling floor of the arena suddenly became flat once again, but kept her balance.

The rabbit hadn't been affected. It leapt at the fan wielding disciple, charging another spiritual energy laser. Suddenly Yu Bao raised a foot and smashed it into the ground, causing a huge slab of stone to fly into the air.

This blocked each disciples' vision of the other two for a brief moment. I could sense everything that happened despite this, thanks to my spiritual senses. In a single breath, three things occurred.

The rabbit fired its spiritual laser at the fan wielding disciple, but her King grade fans were able to reflect the laser back. The rabbit was blasted away, fur smoking and blood leaking from the wound on its side.

Disciple Nang, who had split from her horned rabbit, charged at Yu Bao while drawing a sword from a spatial artifact. The enormous slab of stone which he'd sent into the sky suddenly burst into a dozen large fragments which flew in every direction across the arena. The tamer slid under the first in a display of athletic excellence, only for a second to smash right into her head.

Her neck snapped to the side with a sickening crunch. Blood began to leak from her temple in rivers and streams. The rest of the fragments managed to send the fan wielding disciple flying. Though she'd managed to evade the first three, there were simply too many.

Yu Bao had claimed victory in group three. However, there was no time to waste.

I saw the healing disciples rushing towards the stage, but they would be too slow. That wound looked lethal.

As the shocked gasps of the crowd gave way to silence, I was already kneeling beside Disciple Nang. I felt her heart beating weakly. She still drew breath, but her life was rapidly fading.

That was fine. As long as my patient still had even an iota of life remaining in their cells, I could heal them. My medicinal qi flooded out of my dantian in a rejuvenating wave.

Her bones snapped back into place and the nasty wound on her temple was healed. I wasn't sure about memory loss from a head wound and whether my healing technique could reverse it, but we would soon find out.

Within moments Disciple Nang was healed, but she remained unconscious. Her breathing was stable and the flow of her qi was weak, but regular.

I allowed the healing disciples to carry her away to look after her, before standing and turning to Yu Bao. Briefly, I wondered whether to punish him for his reckless attack, but I decided against it.

This was a martial competition. The disciples following this path needed to be strong, in order to defend our sect from threats. That meant preparing them for life-and-death battles.

If he had purposely tortured or killed a fellow disciple that would be another matter, but I wouldn't punish him for winning the way he did. Instead, I raised his hand into the air and announced his victory, bringing an end to the first five preliminary battles.

"Congratulations to Disciple Yu Bao for claiming victory in group three! The first five spots in the knockout tournament have been claimed, but there are still eleven more up for grabs. The next five battles will begin immediately."

With that said, I left Yu Bao to exit the arena and returned to my seat in the stands. A few disciples rushed into the arena, where they used a combination of earth and wind techniques to clean the rubble and debris and fix the five stages for groups six to ten.

Both Yu Jin and Teng Sheng would be fighting in the next set of battle royales. That was a shame for the crowd as I doubted most mortals could follow even a single duel between disciples on a stage, let alone the chaos that would unfold across all five at once.

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It would not be a problem for me, however, so I was eagerly awaiting them. Once all fifty disciples had made their way onto the five stages corresponding to the wooden tokens they'd drawn, it was time for Wang Ren to announce the start of the second round of preliminaries.

He didn't bother flying into the air this time, simply standing at the front of our box and yelling, "Begin!" The moment his shout faded, fifty disciples leapt to action.

The battles played out quite differently to the first five. On two of the outer stages, there were immediate knockouts as the disciples rushed to eliminate their opponents. Within ten minutes, about half of the original fifty had been defeated.

Unlike the first five battles which fell into a stalemate after the first wave of knockouts, these groups were more aggressive. Yu Jin, while also being an earth qi cultivator like his twin brother, utilised his affinity far differently.

Where Yu Bao manipulated the earth around him, Yu Jin used earth qi to empower his own body. He was like a rampaging bull in a china shop, smashing his opponents out of the arena and into unconsciousness as he charged around the stage.

Just twenty five minutes after Wang Ren had announced the start of the second round, Yu Jin's group only had him and one other disciple remaining. His final opponent was a youth who reminded me of Wang Ren—tall, muscular, and as sturdy as an ancient tree.

He was also using some sort of body empowering art, but it didn't seem to be derived from earth qi. Whatever the case, he was the immovable object to Yu Jin's unstoppable force. The two fell into a stalemate.

Meanwhile, Teng Sheng was struggling. A brief scan told me that he was only six-star Body Tempering. He'd reached nine-star, but we'd reset his cultivation together as my research into the cultivation process continued.

His group was occupying the central stage, but it was a chaotic melee. Only one of the original ten had been knocked out of the arena, with the remaining nine constantly exchanging opponents.

Techniques and weapons flew across the field. Teng Sheng was locked in combat with a disciple one moment, then the next he found himself forced to disengage and dodge a wild strike that gave him a new opponent to focus on.

Despite him being outmatched in terms of cultivation, his raw skills were exceptional. He managed to parry or counter almost every strike that was sent his way. This led to his opponents growing frustrated and making minor errors.

The issue with his style was that he was facing too many opponents to push his advantage. Whether he could emerge victorious or not would depend on his stamina.

Wang Ren's expression was constantly shifting as his eyes darted from one battle to the next. Almost every single one of these disciples had been trained personally by him and while he was supposed to be a neutral party, it was clear he had favourites.

Occasionally a disciple would get knocked out, only for him to wince or make an amusing comment. When a disciple who looked barely a day over eleven defeated the final opponent in his group by delivering a devastating kick to their privates, Wang Ren kissed his teeth and said, "Kids these days… I need to beat them more."

Leaving aside the implications of that remark, I had to say the young disciple was a savage fighter. However, once he had won he bowed towards every single one of his martial brothers and sisters who he'd defeated.

I had to respect his spirit, even if his methods left a lot to be desired. Sometimes the end justified the means.

"That one is going to be an asset to the sect one day," Yu Chun said, a smirk on her lips as she took out a new jade slip to record information in.

"If he manages to survive to adulthood, perhaps," Wang Ren snorted. "Half his peers hate him for how he fights. It is effective, though. Reminds me of street thugs back in Three River City."

"No, he's far more intelligent than those common bastards. I can see it in his eyes. He's calculating every move. Twisting his opponent's emotions against them. I like him," the delighted woman continued.

"Well, if Miss Yu thinks so, then I defer to her expertise. It's why I made you the Administration Elder, after all," I said, turning my attention back to Teng Sheng's battle.

Two of the disciples had been defeated in the chaos. One was sprawled over the edge of the arena, blood dripping from their nose. They were swiftly carried away by the healing disciples along with the other disciple who'd been sent flying off the edge.

Yu Jin was locked in a wrestling match with his opponent. The two had their hands clasped around one another, neither disciple budging an inch.

Suddenly, Yu Jin roared and stomped one of his feet against the ground. His opponent cursed and disengaged as a giant spike of earth shot up through the space he'd been occupying an instant before.

Before he even reached the ground again, Yu Jin raced up the spike and leapt off the end towards his foe. He delivered a two-footed kick to the youth's chest in mid air. The burly disciple was sent crashing into the sands just outside the boundary of the stage.

He shot to his feet almost immediately, only sporting a few superficial wounds, but the rules were clear. After a stream of expletives, he smacked himself on the face and then offered Yu Jin a martial salute. The boy responded in kind, then raised a fist in triumph to the deafening roars of the crowd and his fellow disciples.

"Both twins made it to the knockout stage. Impressive. Though I do wonder why Yu Bao didn't use his earth qi to empower his body," I remarked.

"Yu Jin took a body refining scroll from the library using his contribution points, but Yu Bao didn't do the same. The disciples can't share the techniques they borrow from the library without permission, so Yu Bao isn't able to replicate it," he explained.

"Huh, I always thought those two were so similar. Will they diverge more the longer they cultivate?"

"Most likely. Then again, anything can happen. It's only been a little over a year since they joined the sect."

I nodded. That made sense. In their village they likely did everything from eating and sleeping to working as a pair. In the sect, while they shared many similar responsibilities, they would have also had a lot more independence from one another. Such was life.

A little over an hour had passed since the beginning of the second round. All of the groups except Teng Sheng's had concluded by now. Teng Sheng had clung on, though I could see from his erratic blood essence flow that he was tiring rapidly.

Aside from him, there were two other disciples remaining on the central stage. I had to stifle a laugh when I saw a boy with a torn robe and a jet-black mohawk. It was comical, but clearly he was a strong contender for the spot in the knockout tournament.

He wielded a simple glaive with a haft of wood so dark it seemed black and a large blade that had three circles carved out of it, each slightly larger than the previous.

I had no clue what the purpose of the design was, but clearly it was an effective weapon as the punk-looking youth had made the top three of his group. Aside from that kid and Teng Sheng, the third disciple remaining on the central stage was a girl with blue hair cut in the princess style who wasn't wielding a weapon at all.

I realised why when I sensed her cultivation. She was one of the talented disciples who'd achieved one-star Qi Gathering before the competition began. Not only that, but her control of her qi was excellent—as evidenced by the ice and wind techniques she used to keep the two others at bay.

To have mastered that many techniques over two different affinities in a single year proved that she was exceptionally talented. I actually wondered how the other sects had missed a child like this in their regular recruitment drives, but thanked the heavens she'd ended up in the Grasping Life Sect.

Teng Sheng grew desperate as his strength waned. With a sudden roar, he charged at the girl, tossing two throwing knives at her with his offhand and raising his sword in his dominant one.

He made it two thirds of the way across the stage towards her, avoiding blades of ice, when the mohawk-wearing disciple intercepted his charge. The youth's glaive made an eerie humming sound as it sliced through the air towards Teng Sheng's neck.

Teng Sheng blocked with his sword moments before he was decapitated. The glaive wielder grinned, licking his upper lip in a gesture that made him look truly sinister.

Wang Ren began giggling like a child. I supposed that meant none of them were in danger and despite appearances, this disciple wasn't actually some kind of evil cultivator. It didn't reassure me much.

Teng Sheng held out for a few seconds before his arm buckled. His sword went flying and he stumbled back as the glaive slashed across his chest. Blood sprayed over the glaive wielder's face and robes. Teng Sheng wobbled, but remained upright.

"Hmm, you're tougher than you look, Sheng," the mohawk-wearing disciple sneered. "Too bad you've lost your sword. Don't worry, I'll win in your place." Saying that, he leapt forward and thrust his glaive at Teng Sheng's shoulder, intending to knock him from the arena.

Right before the tip struck, however, a storm of wind and ice erupted, covering the entire stage. I could barely see through the blizzard, but I didn't need to. The mohawk-wearing disciple flew out, covered in wounds, before crashing against the edge of another stage. A breath later, Teng Sheng followed, crumpling against the walls of the arena.

Then, the blizzard faded as though it had never been there. The brief yet deadly storm had won victory for the blue-haired female disciple, who bowed elegantly to the crowd and her defeated opponents, before smiling warmly and walking out of the arena.

Teng Sheng would need to win the battle of the second place disciples in order to make it to the final stage of the martial competition. He had a tough road ahead of him.