Chapter 4

... I need opponents. I integrated what I could without an enemy of what Izo knows, but I need actual opponents.

This is frustrating, I decide to just go to the young genius disciples residence. There should be many profound artists of lower cultivation there, it will be troublesome that many of them have connections and there is bound to be some with higher cultivation than me, I am still quite low on that regard, but I would still be able to face some opponents before the youths tournament and it should help.

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3° Person's P.O.V.

The place for the geniuses was amazing.

The forest was lush and full of life, and it was dense with spiritual essence. Ancient medicines were were rooted within the cracks of the mountain rocks, and this area was extremely auspicious and peaceful. This was the entrance to the disciples' residence.

As the disciples were talking happily with one another, most no more than 16 and the highest at the top of the Spirit Profound Realm. The men were heroic and the women were like fairies on Earth, a scene like out of a painting.

This place had one costume, there was a arena in the center of the place where if one enters the person can challenge or be challenged by anyone and until the person leaves the others can keep challenging the person inside. When someone stands inside, for each minute the person can remain inside unchallenged the other geniuses get a cut on their cultivation resources equal to 0,5% of what they can obtain and the one who can stay inside can receive the resources of the others, but if someone accept the challenge the one that wins gets 15% of all monthly resources of the loser. There was a special illusory formation in the arena that could ensure that the person entering would be only an avatar, a demonstration of the person with all their powers, body, soul, and everything else, allowing disciples to fight to the death without actually killing one another but upon death the person would receive some degree of injury due to the brain believing the injuries were real.

In other words, entering this arena is asking for a beating, a great cultivation area, and also the fastest way to get extra resources for cultivation.

Today no one entered this arena, the disciples were just practicing leisurely as the formation on these lands helped the cultivation rather well. As this was going one a new person advanced towards this place.

The boy was quite young, his hair was white as snow while his skin was a lively brown that seemed to be filled with vitality. This attracted the attention of the disciples since tan skin is uncommon in the entire sect, they only knew one other person with tan skin that was on the genius quarters and no one there wanted to get close to that freak.

"Hello, young one. Are you lost?" A boy of about 14 with the cultivation of 6th stage True Profound Realm asked as the boy approached. The boy didn't say anything, he just raised one finger and waved it, a sword light came out of his finger and dashed to the older boy.

The said boy's eyes sharpened as he moved his arms quickly, he quickly put a hand on his sword and cut down the sword light with his own blade. He was about to complain when the other boy just moved first and waved his finger sword like if it was a rapier, launching multiple jabs with his finger and all of them releasing cold and emotionless sword light.

"SHIT!" The older boy said as he moved his sword on an intricate pattern, the sound of rain ringing as the sword's movements looked like drops of water coming down as they hit quickly and lightly at all the swordlights.

The boy, seeing this, smiled brightly before cupping his hands in greeting.

"It is nice meeting you, senior brother. I received some indications pointing that this place would have many geniuses of swordplay and I was too excited just now, thus my moves. I hope you don't take it to the heart." The boy said.

The older one was sweating a bit as he could still feel the lingering sword intent in the air, a sword intent that felt cold and heartless with the desire of only blood around it. He could not associate such a brutal sword intent with the boy before him who looked completely harmless and approachable.

It was such a contrast that he even believed it should be some sort of mistake and that he might just have overreacted just now to an excited greeting.

"It is fine, junior brother. My name is Xian Fang, you can call me brother Fang later on." Xian Fang said with a nice guy smile.

"Thanks, and you can call me Chao Tiandi. You can call me junior Tiandi." Tiandi said. Xian Feng did not associate Tiandi with the adoptive son of the Sword Master since he was known for being aloof and distant and the Tiandi in front of him was acting approachable and nice.

Xian Feng then brought Tiandi inside the geniuses area and many sword arts were being displayed as all disciples were practicing, many even dueling or just practicing their sword stances or their sword intents. However, Tiandi noticed that in the large stage in the middle there was no one. Finding it strange Tiandi asked Xian Feng about it and he explained about the situation.

Tiandi, hearing about it, smirked inside as he turned to Xian Feng.

"Brother Feng, I will test it out." As Tiandi said that Xian Feng was too slow to stop him as he could only see as Tiandi already moved quickly and entered the stage.

The moment his feet stepped on the stage a dull sound echoed and every disciple on this genius class turned with hateful glares at the one on stage.

Tiandi didn't even need to speak up before someone was on stage. It was a young one of about 13 with messy red hair and a greedy light in his eyes, he was already imagining the resources he will plunder from Tiandi since he noticed he just arrived and was only on the nascent realm. The boy did not hesitate, his sword moved together with him as his expression looked greedy and poisonous.

His sword moved in a cyclone-like fashion as he delivered multiple slashes at Tiandi, Tiandi intercepted them all, his eyes filled with glee as he saw an opening and delivered a jab at it only for the opponent to catch the sword under his armpits, the opening was a fake. The opponent used this chance to catch Tiandi's sword arm in a vice-grip with his left hand while his right descended with a slash to cut Tiandi in half.

Not that it worked since Tiandi dislocated his sword-arm without hesitation so as to semi-spin in the air and launch a foot to hit the hand holding the descending sword and kick it away, the enemy's sword leaving his hand and when the opponent was about to cry out a kick came from underneath and hit Tiandi in the chin, making the opponent lose focus long enough for Tiandi to pull back his sword-arm at a right angle to almost cut the opponent's arm off in the shoulder. He then proceeded to cut his head off and the opponent was launched out of the arena.

Seeing this, all of the surrounding geniuses went bug eyed, their faces losing colour as those whom had regarded Tiandi with hatred and scorn quickly began to re-evaluate him. The way that the dude had swung the blade he had caught them all completely off guard, as during that exchange they hadn't been able to feel a thing from the blade's presence, not a single ounce of killing intent or bloodlust. However, at the moment of that beheading the geniuses had FINALY felt something from the blade, something which caused them all to look at the wielder like they had seen a devil crawling out the flames of chaos itself to take away their souls: A malicious bloodlust on par with the most bloodthirsty of beasts, mindless, raw and primal with the unrelenting force of an expert swordsman. A sword meant only for one thing: to ruthlessly slaughter.

"Come on, isn't there anyone else? the Fun's just getting started you know!" Tiandi called out, seemingly not paying attention to the wary air within the atmosphere, generated by his own actions earlier. His sword, still dripping with the blood of his recently slain enemy still dripped down the length of his blade, forming a slight puddle on the ground just below the sword's tip, only adding to the mix of innocence and intimidation going for him. "Just so you know, I've got a whole sect's worth of resources on me, so if anyone can kill me they're all theirs!"

Now THAT got some attention, greed seeping into the eyes of the Geniuses like poison, which was exactly what Tiandi had intended this whole time. The reason he had made that little white lie was to make sure to exploit the greed of the other geniuses since the world of Cultivators can be best described as a den of wolves, the moment one exposes a weakness or opening they will find themselves beset on all sides. Not really a forgiving kind of world... thus, in order to stay on top, one had to be two things: calculating, and brutally ruthless.

As such, it didn't take long before two new Geniuses stepped onto the stage, each of them radiating the same feeling of intense desire for the resources Tiandi claimed that he had. They didn't even consider the possibility of him lying to them since they were still inexperienced rookies compared to someone like Tiandi himself, whose training under his 'father' had taught him much in the art of being a dickhead. Both of them wielded swords, but the feelings Tiandi got from them could not be any more different, he noticed.

On one hand, the one on the left had a sword which felt like a living flame, its aura lashing out at its surroundings in response to the wielder's will... the girl even LOOKED like a hothead, or rather a standard shounen action hero as far as Tiandi was concerned. As for the second one, the one on the right wielded a sword which felt like a chaotic cyclone, a mass of wind which swirled wildly and unpredictably around the weapon itself like it was one step away from creating lightning from the rate it was spinning.

Fire and Wind, huh...

Whelp, this sounded like an interesting battle, so Tiandi decided to play with them some more. The first one didn't last too long, to his mental dismay so he wanted to make sure this ended up a little longer.

With that, Tiandi made the beckoning gesture, and the chase began right then and there.

The first one to strike, predictably, ended up being the hotheaded one, as Tiandi would now designate him. The hotheaded one's sword moved just like the fiery aura surrounding it, wild, volatile and uncontrollable as each flicker turned out to actually be a different slash, stab or cleaving motion. Blocking and parrying 10 of these attacks in 2 seconds, Tiandi sausage flipped over a surprise thrust from behind launched by the wind one, resulting in him getting into a position where his form floated upside down and between the two fighters. With a simple flick of his sword, Tiandi spun in a complete 360-degree slash, one intended to decapitate the two only for the two to barely raise up their swords in time, resulting in both being sent flying.

Landing on the ground in a crouching position with his sole free hand placed on the ground, Tiandi quickly chose his next target and dashed forth towards the hotheaded one, ending up right below her before the girl could even react and thrusting his sword up towards where her heart was positioned. Out of reflex, the hotheaded one reacted, gritting her teeth whilst flinging her head downwards and using her body as a pendulum, resulting in her flipping over the strike and evading certain death. However, thanks to this, she failed to see the second strike coming, one which followed through from Tiandi's previous position as a downward slash.

As the wind one dashed to come to his companion's aid, intending to skewer and sever Tiandi's arm from his body, the said boy smiled brightly... all before extending the speed and range of his slash which resulted in both the hotheaded one being vertically sliced in half, but also created an eruption of dirt and dust he used to force the wind one to halt his offense.

The wind one halted all motion by digging his feet into the ground, refusing to get into that smokescreen knowing that it would very well end up as a death trap for him. form ridged from the previous experiences, his eyes darted throughout the area with the intent to search for his prey... only to go wide-eyed when he sensed danger behind him. Quickly sidestepping, the wind one barely managed to avoid getting skewered by Tiandi's sword stab, before he jumped right back towards him with a series of sword swings which resembled the shape of hurricane wind gusts spiraling around their target, intending to slice through his opponent's tendons to render him defenseless for one quick decapitation.

FLOP!

Sadly, Tiandi didn't let that happen as, after managing to analyze the sword style and compare it to one of the many he'd learned from inheriting Okada Izou's inheritance, but he managed to completely strike the enemy's sword down, performing a perfect swashbuckling move which ended up tossing his opponent's sword aside. Before it could even hit the ground did Tiandi act, ruthlessly thrusting his sword into the wind one's neck and then swinging his weapon to the side, ripping the guy's head clean off his body.

Once again, as the bodies got kicked out of the Arena, everyone quickly became stunned by the guy's performance, especially from some of the rather unorthodox sword styles which he had performed so far. Once again, Tiandi subverted their expectations, and contrary to his bloody, gruesome actions, the guy still had that innocent and easy-to-approach demeanor about him. Pretty much sent them mixed signals here, just what was he after? Did he intend to cause a little massacre? Or did he want something else? None of them were sure anymore, thanks to this guy.

BZZT!

Not five seconds after another jumped inside, this one is a young woman of 15 years of age, wielding two large blades as she launched herself at Tiandi, the longer a challenger stood in this place the fewer resources everyone else would have so everyone was desperate to get Tiandi out of there. Tiandi didn't mind it, if anything he was excited at the possibility to face as many opponents as he could.

One did not spend so much time fighting and not gaining any taste for it. He, in his twelve years of life, had faced more life or death situations than most could ever dread to compare. His was a path made by the sweat from his brows and blood from his enemies.

He advanced to the dual wielder, seeing how she used the two swords as if they were part of a whole and ideas surged in Tiandi's mind over how to do something similar if possible. As the two clashed the opponent tried to use a thunder-based sword arts that could launch long Lightning streaks at Tiandi, but Tiandi avoided the slashes almost as if he was dancing between the flying attacks, his form making the younger females look at him with awe and predatory gazes, in their society being with a strong male was extremely desirable, not to mention that a strong male able to fight enemies no matter their age, gender or background was also a major plus in this society's book.

Seeing her failure of using this type of attack the disciple got frustrated and used a different one, she moved to just out of reach of Tiandi before dislocating her arms and using her now extended limbs to face Tiandi. Tiandi carefully observed it and when the opponent overextended herself Tiandi was not dumb enough to leave it at that, using his sword he cut through the opponent's wrist.

As the wrist was sent flying the match was as good as over since the person was kicked out not 20 seconds later.

After that, it was stream after stream of fighters going up there and only by the time twenty people had fought Tiandi and he was tired, already full of injuries and with his left hand pierced by one tricky attack did he go down.

As he finally went down the disciples were already quite irritated, many of them lost a lot of resources and as time passed it took longer and longer for people to enter the ring so the resources of all disciples from the genius camp fallen by at least 5% and some lost even more.

When Tiandi finally left the ring he turned to all the disciples and gave a harmless smile.

"Everyone, thank you for indulging in this young one's fancies, I promise to return half of all my resources to be fairly distributed to you all. I hope this helps wash away any enmity you may carry in your heart and that you can keep helping this junior in his future endeavors." Tiandi said and everyone ended up calming down. Most were even happy since many of them did not enter the ring so they would not lose as much as those who challenged Tiandi and thus would get out with more resources than before.

And for those who went up on the stage, they only had themselves to blame for losing. They were weaker, simple as that, and disciples were encouraged to challenge themselves anyway so doing this was no real evil action in their eyes.

What none of them actually knew was that Tiandi's promise meant literally nothing to him. He didn't want to be like those idiots MCs who create enemies left and right due to being greedy for resources, in the end, he could still have all the resources he wanted from the elders and his adoptive father to improve his cultivation. Truthfully he would only take time to advance to the next stage of cultivation because he was only starting and he wanted to improve as steadily as possible.

He could jump straight to Earth Profound Realm in at most a month if he wanted to and had the resources, such is the way the Origin Sword Technique works, but he wanted to take things slowly. He has no reason to be like most MCs that rush to the peak way too quickly and lose sight of the world around them. Living hundreds or thousands of years and only having a few moments of rest in between in their pursuit of power or some other stuff.

Tiandi wanted revenge, true enough, but that was not in a rush that demanded him to do that in such a short while and that, if he did not hurry, something terrible would happen. Tiandi has NO intention of forcing himself like that, losing his life in exchange of something like search for power, honor, face, or something else just as unrelated to being actually happy. Facing huge dangers and difficulties for small gains he can obtain right where he is right now is not his style.

He can leave that sort of adventurism for the likes of Yun Che and other such MCs.

What he failed to notice as he left was someone looking at him from on top of a building, in her mouth a lollipop as she smirked at what she saw.

"Heh, interesting boy. I guess I can play around with him for a bit." The girl said as she opened her hands in front of her, in one a black bow appeared and in the other an arrow appeared. The girl did not hesitate to shoot the boy, the arrow aimed at his leg.

Not that it worked. Tiandi had long since obtained a certain amount of sixth sense for danger due to his 9 years of hellish training (he began fighting at three years old). He heard the whoosh sound of the arrow flying and avoided it handily, jumping to the side and taking out his sword with no hesitation, already ready to face whoever attacked him.

"Not bad, how about this one." The girl on the rooftop said as she created three more arrow constructs and shoot them all at Tiandi who, now that was seeing them, aimed to cut them down but one of the arrows hit the other's butt and changed its trajectory at the last second. Tiandi's leg received a shallow cut due to this and he grimaced a bit.

The girl was about to launch another arrow but Tiandi dashed in her direction very quickly, in his back flames appeared as if igniting him forward. This movement technique was part of the cultivation technique he chose, it increases his dashing speed by 40% for those bellow Earth Profound Realm.

The girl was shocked since Tiandi didn't use this movement technique during his battle, the actual reason being that he didn't want to tip off any enemies the next day about what he can truly do. Exhibiting all your cards in front of enemies is stupid, something he fully believes.

He steals techniques and information from others, not the other way around.

The girl smirked seeing that the boy climbed the house and was about to get to her when she jumped back just out of reach before releasing the bow and creating a pair of regular steel daggers and launching them at Tiandi who barely avoided both of them. This, however, created just enough of an opening for the girl to reach the ground and turn away from him.

"Humm, this was fun. We can see each other again tomorrow, lord boy." The girl said and dashed away, Tiandi looked at her and had to massage the bridge of his nose when he realized who that was.

'Well, fuck. I guess the one chosen was Chloe, but how exactly does she does projection? And is it just me or she is a bit too sexy for a twelve years old girl, she is even swaying her hips more than necessary. I need to figure out who she is in this world and if she can be my fiancee or not. She would probably fit in well with this world but if she can't be my fiancee and someone else must be chosen I need to try again another summon, fuck!'

While Tiandi was thinking that some of the disciples of the genius camp came from the sound of fighting and they saw Tiandi standing on top of one of the houses quietly when a bird came close to him and he extended a hand and the bird stepped on top of it calmly, the disciples saw this and felt like he had the aura of an immortal or a saint of some sort.

The scene of Tiandi smiling slightly with a sword in one hand and a chirping bird in the other would immortalize itself on many's hearts, not that anyone knew of how Tiandi was ranting and cursing up a storm in his mind or the fact that the bird, a pigeon, was looking at Tiandi with a bit more interest than it is normal.

No one realized it, except for one supreme god who was thinking on how to make sure Tiandi's life can get even more messed up.

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AN:

Larger than expected chapter. In case anyone is wondering, yes I decided to go with Kuro after some discussions via PM. She will have the skill of tracing, in this case, it would be a profound art but how it works exactly I will explain later. She will NOT spam Excalibur in this fic, at least for a long while.

Also, I would choose Musashi before, I even had the whole meeting figured out, but I imagined.

'What a bored god would do to make sure the MC's plans did not go so well' and the result was Chloe.

Musashi can appear later or I could make the MC inherits her powers and bloodline and gain with it the Empyrean Eyes she has, it depends on popular demand. Another one I decided to not use was Shiki since I want Tiandi to get the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, but they will be nerfed quite a bit so don't expect him to kill someone like a Bhrama God right away (PS: He will definitely kill one of these Bhrama Gods).

As for the other one, it will be Semiramis since she is easier to write since I have her character well explained in an anime and she is hot. She will have the knowledge of something called a Congenital Poison Spirit Body, a special body that can practice poison arts very quickly but makes any non-poisonous arts impossible to cultivate. It is a body in pair with others like the Nine Profound Exquisite Body in terms of rarity and especially known for its speed in cultivation in poison profound arts and the higher toxicity of their poisons. The one to take the vital ying of a possessor of this body can become fully immune to poisons while also cleansing the body of all it's impurities making the user's cultivation much faster.

I also had the idea of him getting the Azure Dragon inheritance, it always seemed a bit wasted in Yun Che who already had the Rage God powers. I could even let Tiandi obtain an extra inheritance from someone with a draconic bloodline as well as a reward.

Next will be the tournament and then a time-skip to a bit of time later. This is pre-CANON in terms of time-line, just a warning.