The Jade Shadows Must Die [Cultivation LitRPG]

Rix grinned. That did manage to get him out of his funk.

"You're right. I hit High Whisper yesterday," he said.

"Congratulations."

"Took out a fade a rank above in the process too. It was lurking on the border between zones." It was a lie he'd prepared ahead of time, mostly because he was proud of the achievement.

Her smile widened. "Well, that is impressive."

He felt a little internal glow at the praise.

Putting her feet on the ground, she leaned forward to touch the system stone that hovered above her desk. "These options are a little different from your first batch. Most of those were tied to your weapons. Here, you've got all general techniques that are more functional; they're for utility, defence, mobility, that sort of thing."

Again, Rix summoned his display and was greeted with new options. The list was extensive, maybe twenty in total, but a handful stood out.

[Hardened Guard (Common): Reinforces a blocking weapon or limb for a moment (Cost: 25 mana)]

[Mana Shell (Common): Surrounds the user in a weak protective field for three seconds(Cost: 50 mana)]

[Sound Lance (Common): Creates a piercing sound that disorients enemies at a point within 20 feet (Cost: 15 mana)]

[Root Stand (Common): Briefly anchor yourself to the ground (Cost: 30 mana)]

[Sunspot (Common): Create a momentary blinding flash of light at a point within 20 feet (Cost: 15 mana)]

[Shock Absorption (Common): Reduces the impact of a single strike (Cost: 30 mana)]

[Wind Dash (Common): Shoot backwards with the speed of the wind (Cost: 20 mana)]

Luna's [Wind Dash] was there, and that had already proved its value. There were also a variety of defensive options which brought his mind back to the fight with Yutaro and Kenzo. They'd both had defensive tools in their kits that had been extremely effective.

"The mana costs on some of these are massive," he said.

The Quartermaster nodded. "Yep. Another detriment of common techniques, unfortunately. They're usually the least mana-efficient way to achieve a desired effect."

His pool was currently 200 mana. Assuming he continued to assign 20% to his mantle, that left 160. [Mana Shell], for example, would take nearly a third of that for a single use. While that was the most extreme example, the idea of weaving any of those expensive options into his rotation of tricks seemed untenable right now.

Even if they had been cheaper, he ultimately felt like a defensive option wasn't the play. Defence was not the thing he needed to shore up to kill Han.

That's why he'd shortlisted [Sunspot].

It didn't sound very exciting — a simple flash of light — but he remembered what his neighbour in the stands had said that first day Rix had watched Han in the arena. Landing a truly powerful technique was the only thing that had even a chance of working. A moment of blindness might give him the window to make that happen.

He looked through the list again, double and triple checking that there wasn't anything else worth considering. In another world, he'd probably have taken [Wind Dash], but he didn't have that luxury. He had to be hyper focused.

"[Sunspot]," he said, locking the technique in place.

***

New tools in hand, Rix raced to the training area. The arena was due to start in ten minutes, but there was no way he was entering a duel without understanding everything at his disposal.

Unarmed, he stepped into a training cell and immediately called on [Sunspot]. As this wasn't a weapon-dependent technique, the motion that sprang into his mind was different, a subtle thrust of his arm, palm outward. Instantly, a burst of light flashed at the head of the nearby dummy.

"Huh," he said. He didn't know what else he'd been expecting. It worked as described and had been bright enough to make him glance away momentarily, but still, it felt a little underwhelming. He'd need to experiment more.

For now, though, it was time to duel.

***

With his enhanced senses, he could feel the shift in the prison as the arena began to fill, a faint vibration through the rock, as though the place was a living thing slowly waking up. He'd never seen any civilians passing through the main prison grounds on arena day, which said that there was a different staging area for these weekly portals. From what he knew, portalling techniques could be configured in a variety of ways: permanent or temporary, one-way or two-way. He had to assume that the portals the crowd used to arrive were temporary, created on the city side and inaccessible to people here. Though he himself had no interest in escape, at least not until he'd done what he came to do, he found himself wondering how many people did try to break out. Was it even possible?

The stadium was still relatively empty by the time he arrived. Nothing had changed since that first week; most people would arrive when the combatants got strong enough to be 'worth' watching. Nonetheless, there were a few civilians spotting the stands, their flamboyant city fashion a stark contrast to the plain block colours of the inmates and prison officials.

Rix glanced to the Omen's sponsor box where already there was some movement, though he couldn't tell if the man himself was there. There was still something vaguely chilling about being in a room with someone so powerful. Even now, with Rix on the Martial Path himself, it was hard to shake that lifelong indoctrination that those people were closer to the heavens than the ground.

At that point, he'd witnessed proceedings enough times to know what he had to do to enter. The moment he arrived, he headed down to the staging area. There were already several other Whispers there, most of whom he recognised from last week's bouts. They sized him up, recognition flaring in several of their eyes. Iron Hand members or just curious watchers?

Even up close, the ringmaster was all drama. "And who do we have here? Fresh blood? A new contender for the throne?"

Rix nodded. "Zao Rixian, prisoner 503."

The man wrote it in the book he carried. "Tier and rank?"

"High Whisper," Rix replied.

"You know how our little show here works?"

Rix shrugged. "Hit the other Martial Soul harder than they hit you?"

The ringmaster gave him an indulgent smile. "Oh, how delightfully droll. I'll pair you with someone special." It wasn't said with menace, more with a sense of theatre.

While watching from the stands was a poor way to judge an opponent, he'd seen enough since arriving at Spiritlock to have some sense of how the Whisper fights stacked up. Almost every opponent seemed daunting to him, so at the end of the day it didn't really matter who he fought. He suspected his odds were low regardless. Losing wasn't appealing, obviously, but there was no other way to learn to fight actual people.

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The only person he hoped to dodge was Han. The context between them was now complicated in so many ways that made a mock battle feel strange. More to the point, at his current skill level, Han would absolutely butcher him. After all that Han had done to him, the thought of letting him get even that sort of temporary win over Rix felt shameful.

Thankfully, it wasn't likely that the Ringmaster would pair them. Han was a full rank and then some above him. And a quick glance at the stands showed that the Iron Hand leader hadn't even arrived yet.

"You understand that we're in the middle of the season?" the Ringmaster asked.

Rix nodded. "I know I'm probably too late to win this one."

One side of the man's mouth quirked up. "Such confidence too! I like it. Let's hope the crowd does too. Sit over there," the Ringmaster nodded to a row of chairs. "I'll call you for your shot at stardom."

Rix did as he was told, finding a spot on the end of the row a few seats clear of any of the other competing inmates. There was a tension permeating the air. In not too long, everyone in that line would be called to try and kill one of their neighbours. Even with the protective array, he had no doubt it would feel every bit as visceral as when he fought for his life against Yutaro and Kenzo.

He'd been looking forward to fighting here since that first day witnessing the arena in the stands, but the battle against Yutaro and Kenzo had really crystallised his desire. Fadeborn were a test, sure, but there was something vaguely unsophisticated about it. Man vs beast. Although it lay at the heart of progression along the Martial Path, it wasn't the purest expression of it; that came in one-on-one combat, Martial Soul versus Martial Soul.

The Chronicles were full of stories of duels that had defined lives, epic battles that took place on cliff faces or snowfields or coliseums. One fight between Fang Sky and Wei Ling was said to have gone on for three days and left an entire forest in ruins. Though he was a long way from causing that level of destruction, Rix couldn't help but idolise the notion of testing himself in martial combat.

As more prisoners arrived, Rix caught sight of Luna, who gave him a grin and a thumbs up, but didn't come down to the staging area. Much to her chagrin, her injuries weren't healed enough for her to take part, though she insisted she'd be fine for their heist the following day. Rix was secretly a little thankful. The two of them were theoretically the same tier, but he had no chance of taking her out if they were actually paired together.

When she'd found out he was competing, she'd immediately offered to bet their next week of meals on whether he could beat her fastest victory. Then she offered him the sage advice of "try not to temporarily die," which, to be fair, did seem sensible.

He wasn't afraid of dying down there, exactly, but the bouts could get brutal. What would a sword through the chest actually feel like? Or the moment of 'death'? Was there actually a sensation there, or was it simply agony, then nothing until you were stitched back together?

At one point the previous week, he'd found himself once again seated next to the man who knew everything about the arena. He'd explained to Rix that the array basically saved the state of any living thing within it, and could restore all physical and spiritual matter to that state when triggered. The stronger a fighter, the denser and more complex their bodies were, and the more mana was required to restore them. That was why it took an Omen sponsorship to operate such an enterprise. It also meant that people couldn't use such technologies to make themselves invincible. Nobody had even close to enough mana to restore themselves. You needed to be at least a tier higher, and more likely two.

All in all, there were twenty Whispers cued up to fight when the battles began to be announced. At that point, Rix recognised all of them. They were all regulars from previous weeks' fights.

Two bouts came and went. They were relatively uneventful, save that in both instances, the swordsman lost to something more exotic. That warmed Rix's heart a little. He hadn't entered Spiritlock with any kind of preconceived notions about weapons, but it was becoming clear to him that the wider world most definitely had them, and Rix wasn't on the popular team. That was fine by him. He felt an affinity with the underdog anyway.

Then, with little fanfare, the Ringmaster was gesturing to Rix and in the blink of an eye he was stepping up into the ring, his quarterstaff in hand. There was a moment of strangeness as he felt something settle over him, like he'd just walked his body through a massive spider web. It had to be the protective array.

His opponent was a grim-faced, dark-skinned man who wielded two long sabres, curved like fangs. He cracked his neck as he sized Rix up with a sneer.

Rix had seen him fight before. He leveraged his dual-wielding well. His approach was similar to Rix's own: controlled aggression, using his quickness and multi-pronged weapon setup to find gaps in an opponent's defence. He had some kind of technique that accelerated him further still, possibly [Lightning Reflexes], and a fire-infused sabre strike that had broken one of his past opponents' mantles instantly.

While not the strongest Whisper in the arena, the man was firmly on the list of people Rix didn't want to fight. Judging by his spirit eye, Rix gauged the man to be close to a rank above him, possibly towards the top of High Whisper, or maybe even the bottom of Peak Whisper. In a fair fight, weapon on weapon, Rix would likely fall.

He needed to get creative.

"In the spirit corner, we've got a new contender," called the Ringmaster. "He's young, he's hungry, and he's here to begin his climb to the top! Give it up for Zaaaaaooo Rixian!"

There was a smattering of applause as Rix stepped forward and raised his staff, though in truth, a lot of the civilians barely looked up. It felt like most of the eyes on him belonged to the prisoners themselves. Despite interacting with almost nobody, it was clear he'd earned himself a certain amount of notoriety.

Then, Rix's gaze landed on Han. He felt a moment of illogical panic. At some point, the man had slipped into the stadium and was now seated in the row with the other contenders. He stuck out his fist and held it there dramatically for a moment before twisting it so his thumb pointed down; a classic gesture of death in gladiatorial circuits.

Rix looked away. He'd spent an inordinate amount of focus on the man, but right now, he had a different opponent to contend with.

"And in the steel corner, a victor in his last two bouts. Rumour has it his blades carry with them the heat of the sun itself. Let's get behind Chen Silver. The Sooooolar Blaaaaade!"

Rix suppressed a grin. 'The Solar Blade' was, perhaps, too grand a title. Had the man picked it himself? Silver was impressive, but he was still just a Whisper.

"Combatants, ready!" the Ringmaster called.

Silver dropped into a combat stance, his legs slightly bent, his swords held high out to either side, his eyes cold and calculating. Rix dropped into his own stance, his blood hammering through his veins. Despite the knowledge that, whatever happened, he would survive this, his body felt primed, as though he was staring down certain death. It made everything feel thrumming and electric and hyper-real.

"Fight!"

His opponent blurred forward before the Ringmaster had finished speaking, just as Rix knew he would. In both of Silver's fights that Rix had seen, the man began with an onslaught, all-out attack. With Energy Surge, Rix suspected he might survive it, but it would be a close thing, and surviving was not winning. He was sick of fights that drained his resources and forced him into a desperate gambit. He wanted to be on the front foot.

Fortunately, he wasn't without tricks of his own. He even had a new one to deploy.

As Silver was moving, so was Rix, and it was a movement of two parts. He fired Energy Surge to dash to one side. At the same time, he thrust his palm forward and activated [Sunspot] aiming directly for his opponent's eyes. The technique flared, and Silver staggered, letting out a hiss and throwing one arm up to shield himself. It left an afterimage in Rix's eyes, but not enough to disrupt him.

To his credit, Silver had good instincts. Blinking furiously to clear his senses, he blindly raised his blades, one guarding upward to protect his face and neck, the other lower across his torso.

Neither was even remotely enough as Rix's [Force Hammer], fuelled by Energy Surge, smashed directly through his guard and down on the man's head. Silver's mantle shattered instantly, along with his skull. His swords, one of which bent horribly from the impact, clattered to the ground.

It was a catastrophic blow, though the protective array stopped the man's head from literally exploding. Instead, Silver tottered on his feet momentarily as Rix pulled his weapon free before collapsing to the sand.

From the stands, he heard a whoop that could only belong to Luna. That triggered the rest of the crowd, who broke into a round of applause. It wasn't the cacophony that most of the higher-tier fighters earned, but it was more substantial than most Whispers got. Rix looked up to find most of the eyes in the stadium were now on him.

A smile split his face.

Everything had gone exactly as he'd envisioned. He'd won his first bout, and in the blink of an eye, too. It was a combination that probably wouldn't work again. At least, not against anyone who had seen him use it. Even a simple movement technique, like Luna's [Wind Dash], would let someone escape after the [Sunspot]. But he knew Silver didn't have anything like that. The man didn't like to retreat.

The Ringmaster cleared his throat. "Ladies and gentlemen, in a display of shocking efficiency, your winner by devastating knockout... Zao Rixian!"

Another round of applause, more muted this time, but still it filled Rix with a sense of pride. He'd expected the crowd to be bemused at best. While there were no rules on the Martial Path, there were traditions. A duel was a test of style and skill. Weapon against weapon. Rix had ignored that in favour of something quick and direct, but apparently the theatricality of the combination was enough to override that.

On the ground next to him, Silver stirred. He blinked several times, getting his bearings, before dragging himself to his feet. Despite having witnessed the stitching process from the stands numerous times, there was something unsettling about seeing it up close. Just seconds ago, the man's head had been a ruin. Now he was up and on his feet, glaring at Rix.

"A coward's trick," he spat. It was the first time Rix had heard him speak. He had a heavy accent that elongated the vowels, something Rix didn't recognise.

Rix shrugged. "But an effective one."

Despite still being in an adrenaline-fuelled daze as he stumbled out of the ring to take his seat once more, he still kept his eyes out to ensure he didn't wind up sitting next to Han. The man didn't seem to be anywhere in the stands now, but as Rix found a place and turned back to the arena, he spotted him. Han was talking with several people in a group on the far side of the ring. There were several prison officials, including the Ringmaster and the Divemaster, as well as one other man Rix took a moment to recognise. It was someone he hadn't seen for over ten years and who he hadn't expected to see for several more.

Han's father, Xu Sho.