Chapter 24. Tactics.

Standing in front of Melissa, whose remarkable appearance was enhanced by her Ice Body gift, Rand immediately noticed that it wasn't just her name that connected her to his sister. At first glance, it seemed to him that he saw his sister's figure in her.

"Though they didn't look much alike. My sister was tall for her age, with soft facial features and moon-colored hair. She would have undoubtedly become the ideal of beauty by imperial standards if she had been given a few more years to mature… This one, although also beautiful in her own way, is just an ordinary girl compared to my sister: short, with sharp facial features like a carved ice sculpture, blue hair, and a figure as flat as a sheer cliff. But they shared something in common, which made me momentarily compare their images. They both had similarly blue eyes, and the look in those eyes was equally full of coldness and self-assurance, and even their gait was almost identical, reflecting a desire to rise above those around them. This created a very similar aura of arrogance and disdain for everything else, as if no one was truly worthy not only to be near her, but even to look from afar.

However, for my sister, her gaze sometimes softened for the chosen ones, creating the feeling in the observer that a wonderful warm summer had come after a long and harsh winter…

But my sister was a princess, possessing incredible talent, strength, and beauty, worthy of being the jewel of the empire, so her arrogant and majestic demeanor was justified and more than suited her, and was sometimes simply necessary. Apparently, this girl thinks that with her modest status and talent, she too is much better than others? Must be the upbringing of a clan or a powerful family. They rarely evoked anything other than laughter from me with their clumsy attempts to prove they were superior to everyone else. Let's see what this representative of theirs is capable of. Although it's strange that there was no mention of her origins in the journal…"

"Begin," rang out, but instead of immediately launching an attack, Melissa decided to speak, slowly closing in on Rand and assuming a combat stance. Although such behavior wasn't encouraged, short exchanges of words during a contest weren't prohibited.

"Your gaze. Appraising and at the same time dismissive, as if you were looking at a curious animal. No respect or reverence. It seems you don't see me as a threat at all."

A flicker of surprise crossed Rand's eyes.

"You're quite observant. You almost guessed it right about the gaze. As for the threat… yes, that's pretty much the case."

At these words, Melissa's face, which seemed to have already reached the peak of chilliness, conquered a new icy height.

"An arrogant commoner who got a good master and immediately thought too much of himself. Know your place."

Hearing her words, Rand didn't respond, only smiled slightly, thus ending their brief conversation.

They simultaneously closed the remaining distance with quick, smooth steps taught by the Dancing Dragon martial art. Melissa decided to seize the immediately initiative by attacking first. She delivered a palm strike from an unusual angle, from bottom to top. Under normal circumstances, such a strike would be relatively weak and pose no special threat, but right before impact, the edge of her palm was covered with a thin, sharp layer of ice, resembling a knife blade. Combined with her impressive speed, granted by her cultivation, this was a deadly combination capable of cutting most novices almost in half. But unfortunately for her, her opponent was Rand, who was not particularly afraid of sharp objects. Moreover, her speed wasn't even sufficient to prevent Rand from blocking such a strike, although there was no real need even for this.

When Melissa's palm met Rand's forearm, there was an immediate sound resembling breaking glass or ice. Both simultaneously felt the immense difference in the toughness of their bodies. The girl jumped back from Rand and examined her hand; the ice layer had shattered, and several cracks appeared on her palm with a faint hint of blue-red blood. Then Melissa looked at Rand's forearm; there wasn't even a scratch on it, as if there had been no strike at all.

"So, your body is indeed significantly tougher than mine. A pity, but if you think this means you've already won, you're gravely mistaken. Now you'll have to experience the power of my technique. Ice Armor." Starting from the center of her chest, Melissa's body quickly began to be covered in massive ice shards, which immediately connected and formed some sort of armor. "After today, no one will dare to look down on the heiress of the Gothenheim clan. Feel the power…"

But before she could finish her pompous speech, Rand interrupted her with a kick to the head, adding, "You talk too much."

Melissa, completely confident in her imminent victory and the superiority of her technique, had become so engrossed in her speech that she didn't notice how Rand silently and swiftly closed the distance between them. He launched his attack with such speed that she had no chance to react. All she managed to do was turn her head slightly to the side at the last moment, which likely only made things worse for her.

Boom!

The not fully formed ice armor on her face shattered across the arena, and the girl lost her balance and fell. Rand immediately pounced on her, not giving her a moment to recover or a chance to get up, and without wasting time, he continued to strike her head, this time with his fists, preventing any formation of dense ice armor. He methodically landed blow after blow on Melissa's face, while she frantically tried to shield herself with her hands, hoping to stop the assault, but her movements were uncoordinated and ineffective, so there was little benefit from such protection. Her sturdy body allowed her to endure for a bit of time, but soon she began to weaken, her movements slowed, and their frequency decreased significantly. When it seemed that her struggles were about to end, she found the strength to wheeze, spitting blood:

"I can't lose to anyone… especially not to someone like you…"

"Just shut up already," Rand, tired of listening to her, said, delivering a double-handed strike with most of his strength.

Boom! Crack.

The girl's skull cracked, and she immediately lost consciousness as her body was enveloped in the formation's light and carried off the arena.

"Winner: Oberin. Next up: Eyron and Balron," announced deacon Fargus.

"So, she knew a simple technique, even though she reached Qi Condensation only a few days ago, with little time to practice it. As expected from a clan child. To have mastered it to such a level in a couple of days is impossible. She must have studied it for a long time while still mortal, even though she couldn't practice it until she achieved Qi Condensation. An extremely impractical and mostly useless approach to learning a technique. Trying to memorize the channels through which Qi should flow, the intensity, and sequence, along with a hundred other factors without feeling these channels or understanding how Qi flows through them is like trying to memorize a book word-for-word without understanding a single word. It requires an enormous amount of time, many months, constant help from a teacher, and yields only minimal benefits. After becoming a cultivator, it may reduce the time to learn the first level of a simple technique by just a few days. Hundreds of days condensed into only a few, as the abilities of the 'blind' and the 'seeing' to 'read' differ too greatly. Sometimes this method can even have the opposite effect and slow down the practice of the technique initially. But to her credit, her speed and quality of technique execution were good. At first glance, you wouldn't think she had studied it for only a few days. And she managed to hide this trump card until the last moment, which is also commendable. If she had thought to choose a better time to use it, such a technique, combined with her Ice Body, could have created some difficulties for me. Then fight might have dragged on into a battle of attrition, though even in such a fight my victory would have been assured, because her Ice Armor technique constantly consumes Qi, while my Bronze Body provides passive protection without any energy expenditure. But it's good that it didn't come to that."

"Clan Gothenheim, interesting that this information was left out of the records. The name sounds familiar. If I recall correctly, there was a mediocre clan in the western province of the empire specializing in the Water path and pill production. But they were supposedly wiped out about five years ago after their patriarch failed to break through to the Nascent Soul stage and subsequently died. It seems Melissa is one of the few who managed to escape."

After the fight, Melissa was given a healing pill, and she quickly recovered from the brief loss of consciousness, but the pill lacked the strength and time to fully heal her. Her face resembled a bloody-blue mush, where it was difficult to find her broken nose and swollen eyes. Staggering and breathing heavily through her mouth, she managed to stand up and the first thing she did was feel her face. Realizing what it had become, she screamed in rage, found Rand nearby, and lunged towards him, shouting:

"I'll kill you…"

But before she could take even two steps, deacon Gerhard, who had been sitting in the stands a moment ago, appeared behind her and caught her right arm, instantly and effortlessly stopping her run. Surprised by the sudden halt, still not fully recovered Melissa immediately lost her balance again, and it was only the deacon's hand that kept her from falling face-first onto the ground.

"Your disgraceful behavior shows disrespect to everyone present. One more outburst like this and you will lose the chance to participate in the competition and will be punished. Apologize to everyone present," Gerhard reprimanded her.

Fargus immediately approached them and said, "She tried to attack another participant outside the arena. According to the rules, she should be disqualified. That's the least the rules allow. Nothing personal, Gerhard."

Deacon Gerhard glared at his colleague and was about to respond when Elder Edard intervened. "Let it go. She didn't manage to do anything, so there's no real harm done. This time. Fargus, return to judging, and you, Gerhard, come to me."

But before Gerhard could leave, Melissa, crying and wiping her tears, approached the deacon and muttered, "Sorry, thank you," then bowed to Fargus and the seated elders, apologizing once more, before retreating to the far edge of the stadium, covering her face with her hands and continuing to cry.

Watching this scene unfold, seeing how a fury-driven, enraged wolverine instantly transform into a tormented, weeping little girl, Rand felt only one thing — disdain.

"Our fates are similar in many ways. Both of us had powerful families that were destroyed, and both of us are heirs of these families seeking strength for some distant goal. But a harsh fate did not harden her character or strengthen her will. First, she let her arrogance and self-adoration overcome common sense, leading to a shameful and swift defeat. Then, unable to accept a relatively minor loss and move on, she completely lost control, bringing herself even more humiliation, disgrace, and numerous problems. Perhaps I shouldn't have compared her to my sister in the first place; the strength of their characters is utterly incomparable. Maybe the fact that I started comparing them at all says more about my desire to see… I shouldn't dwell on this."

A few minutes later, Rand completely dismissed thoughts of Melissa from his mind and returned to observing the battles of his remaining groupmates. Occasionally, he glanced at Weed, trying to spot something unusual, but he noticed nothing out of the ordinary, as Weed behaved just like all the other novices around him.

Nothing particularly noteworthy happened in the arena battles; at least for Rand, there were no surprises, and the strongest novices emerged victorious in the third round. Somehow, none of them had faced each other in the arena in the third round or the rounds before. It seemed that the randomness of the draw was not as "random" as deacon Fargus had claimed. Among these novices were, of course, Lin, Lucius, Eyron, and Rand himself.

In the fourth round, someone again had to be lucky enough to advance to the next round without a fight, and this time, luck smiled upon the former prince, allowing him to reach the next stage without any combat. In the fifth round, with only four people left, he was set to fight Lin.

The two promising young men ascended the arena without exchanging a single word. Everyone around held their breath in anticipation of the deacon's order to start, eager to see how the clash between two of the group's strongest would unfold. Some among the spectators even placed bets on who would emerge victorious: the disciple chosen by elder Byron or the youth with a gift perfectly suited for combat.

"Begin," Fargus's voice rang out, and immediately following this announcement came another one that stunned many spectators eager for a fight.

"I surrender," Rand declared.