C

The battles then continued...

In Block A, Tang Chi had successfully beaten all of his opponents in a flash. He only drew his sword for a second and a sword light would strike the enemy.

In Block B, every time a participant met with Ximen Tiaolong, they would immediately surrender. Only the 3 members from an intermediate village tried to fight, but still, they only lasted for a few seconds before Ximen Tiaolong had beaten them.

In Block C, a 9th stage genius from an intermediate village successfully won his block. His name is Shang Shuli, he successfully defeated all of his competitors, but he received multiple injuries against the other geniuses from the intermediate villages in his block.

In block D, Kyle successfully won all his matches, albeit receiving a lot of punches. Obviously, these punches can't even hurt him even if he wants too, so he took some punches to make the crowd believed he only won through hardships and perseverance. This made him the 2nd dark horse of the tournament.

Now that the blocks had all finished their matches. The Ximen family head then called all the winners of their blocks and told them the rules. The next stage was that the winner of Block A would fight against the winner in Block B, and likewise block C winner against block D winner.

This made the crowd look depressed since they wanted to see Chi and Tiaolong in the finals. During the fights, the crowd already knew that Tang Chi and Ximen Tiaolong were Xiantian Cultivators and they were the strongest in the tournament.

In their minds, the two from Block C and D doesn't have any chances. So they wanted to complain about the arrangements, but since the Ximen Family made the decision, they could only shut their mouths and treated the first battle like the finals.

"Tang Chi, Ximen Tiaolong come up to the stage" the village head personally became the referee. This might seem unfair for Chi, but since the Head was a respected Xiantian elder, the crowd knew he won't use underhanded tactics to cheat the fight. Doing this could ruin their reputation and faces. So they didn't get worried about Chi being cheated.

The two youths then walked up to the stage and stared at each other. They didn't directly clashed against with each other, but talked for a little bit.

"Two years, I have waited for two years to pay back the disgrace that you have given our village," Chi told Tiaolong in a fierce way.

When the crowd heard this their faces went wide, they didn't expect that these two geniuses would have such a background. When they heard Chi, they started to feel excited. They knew the battle won't be a simple one since their faces and reputation were in the line. So they looked up to the battle more.

"The disgrace in your village wasn't brought down by me, it was because you are weak... that your village got disgraced." Ximen Tiaolong replied in a casual way. He was looking forward to this battle, so he didn't hold his words and tried to provoke Chi.

When Chi heard this, his face became ugly. He knew what Ximen Tiaolong said was true. His weakness made their village lose face. He knew this was the facts, and so he made himself strong and trained harder.

"I know... I know that my weakness in the past made my village lose face, that's why I trained my self arduously in this past two years. I can't change the past, but I could regain our dignity!" Chi then spoked resolutely.

When the crowd heard Chi, they felt amazed. They felt touched by the young man's resolve to regain his dignity and face. So a few of them started to cheer and hope for Chi to win.

"If you want to regain your dignity, then lets battle. Enough talk!" Ximen Tiaolong said and then he rushed towards Chi.

He put his knuckles on while running towards Chi. Chi then brandished his sword and directly activated his *one with the sword* state. When the spectators saw this... They were shocked once again. This was the first time they saw Chi activating this so when Chi activated it they knew he was going all out.

Some of the spectators recognized Chi's state. They didn't expect to meet someone who could have such a high understanding in the way of the sword. They watched Chi with envy since being in the *one with the sword* means he was already on the best path to become a sword cultivator, but to achieve this state only depends on the person and their talent with the sword. So they could only watch with envy.

When Tialong was almost close to Chi, a sword light suddenly appeared heading towards his head. This sword light was multiple times faster than the sword lights Chi used in his previous battles. But Tiaolong wasn't just any nobody.

When the sword light appeared, Tiaolong just sidestepped a little bit and continued to rush towards Chi. When Tiaolong was in front of Chi, Chi's arms then suddenly turn to blur. He stabbed Tiaolong multiple times *swoosh...swoosh...swoosh*

up, down, left, right, he continued to stab Tiaolong randomly. But Tiaolong only moved for a little bit, and he successfully dodged all the stabs Chi made.

This made the watching spectators speechless. "Minute Subtetly!, who could have known that this Ximen Tiaolong had successfully achieved Minute Subtetly!" Some random dude in the crowd shouted.

When the others heard this they were shocked again. They had heard the term *Minute Subtetly* By using the smallest of moves to avoid an enemy's attack, one could reduce greatly the flaws in one's movement. It could also allow one to stick closely to the enemy, and counterattack when the enemy's move was almost done.

When Kyle heard this, he was wide-eyed. He remembered something he read in his past quite similar to this. This made Kyle thought 'I wonder how Tiaolong learned how to do this, hmm, I should try learning this in the future when I have a chance.'

He was already glad about his haki, but the more the merrier, right?

After dodging the series of attacks made by Chi, Tialong then started to throw some punches to Chi, but Chi also successfully dodged all his attacks using his haki.

When the audiences saw this, they also wondered if Chi had also achieved Minute Subtetly. He was also dodging all of Tiaolong strikes with ease, while at the same time attacking like there is no tomorrow. The two continued this charade for five minutes and Tialong suddenly said

"Enough with this nonsense lets go all out" he then took off his knuckles and summon his soul weapon, surprisingly... What came out of Tiaolong's body wasn't a knuckle, but a large green sword. He brandished his sword and started waving it as if he was familiarizing with it. Every time he waved his sword, a huge gush of wind comes out of it and it sliced apart the ground.

"Very well" when Chi saw Tiaolong taking his weapon out, he also did the same and took a sword from his body. A blood-colored sword emerged from Chi's body, it had black curvy stripes on it that made it more cooler. He then held it in his hand and the sword started to burn with flames. The heat of the flames made the surrounding air seems off. He also did the same as Tiaolong waving his sword and fire sparks keep on gushing out of his sword.

When the crowd saw the two youth's taking their soul weapons out, they felt amazed. Even Kyle felt a little bit jealous of the two youths since they could already control and use their Nature Energy so easily. He could also control his space energy, yet only for a little bit and he could only use it by mixing it with his Gura Gura no Mi. But he wasn't discouraged about it since he knew his nature energy was special, so it was only normal for it to be harder to control.

The two youths then continued to battle and started their round two.