Chapter 8: The Monthly Competition Divergence - Part 1
Day 19. Competition morning.
The combat arena is packed—five hundred students arranged by rank, instructors in the elevated viewing stands, clan elders present to scout talent. This is where reputations are made and broken.
I draw my first opponent from the lot: Gu Yue Wei Shi. Same person I fought weeks ago in practice. Earth path, defensive style, predictable.
Perfect.
The match begins.
Wei Shi activates Stone Skin Gu immediately—his standard opening. Gray-brown hardening spreads across his arms and torso, turning him into a walking fortress.
I activate Moonlight Gu. Pale light surrounds my hands, enhancing vision and striking power. Standard response.
We circle. He lunges with Earth Spike Gu—exactly the same attack pattern as last time. I sidestep, counter with a palm strike to his exposed ribs.
"First point: Mo Bei."
The exchange continues. He adapts—slower than me, but competent. I let him score the second point with a grab that could have been avoided.
"Second point: Wei Shi."
Great Sage runs analysis in real-time. "Opponent demonstrates: Limited tactical flexibility, over-reliance on defensive Gu, fatigue setting in after 47 seconds continuous Stone Skin activation. Optimal counter: Feint high, strike low, force essence depletion."
I execute the strategy. Feint toward his head, drop low, sweep his legs. He falls hard.
"Third point: Mo Bei. Match concluded."
Victory. But not impressive. Just adequate.
"Performance assessment: Within parameters. Observers perceive host as competent but unremarkable. Proceed to observation phase."
I retreat to the sidelines and watch.
Seventeen matches over the next three hours. Great Sage catalogs everything.
Gu Yue Chen Bo: Relies heavily on Moonlight Gu in combination with Wind Blade techniques. Predictable attack angles. Tends to overcommit when confident. Exploitable weakness: Poor defense against grappling.
Gu Yue Fang Zheng: Orthodox righteous path style. Strong fundamentals, hesitates against genuinely lethal techniques. Moral limitations create tactical vulnerabilities. Observed reluctance to finish opponents decisively.
Gu Yue Qing Shu: Fire path specialization. Aggressive opening, conservative mid-fight, explosive finishing techniques. Essence management: Excellent. Combat experience: Above average for age and rank.
Student after student, pattern after pattern. Great Sage builds a database of weaknesses, tendencies, probable responses.
This isn't about winning today. It's about knowing how everyone fights before I ever need to fight them for real.
Then Fang Yuan steps into the arena.
His opponent is Gu Yue Yang—Rank 2, peak cultivation, three years older, documented as one of the academy's strongest combat students.
The match begins.
Eighteen seconds later, it ends.
Fang Yuan doesn't waste movement. Yang attacks with practiced combinations—blade techniques, footwork drills clearly trained for months. Every strike is textbook perfect.
None of them land.
Fang Yuan shifts angles microscopically, letting attacks pass by millimeters. Redirects Yang's momentum with minimal contact. The fourth exchange, Fang Yuan's counter comes so fast I barely see it—a palm strike to Yang's sternum that sends him sprawling.
"Match concluded: Fang Yuan."
Yang lies on the ground, stunned, trying to process what happened.
"Analysis: Subject Fang Yuan demonstrates: Perfect counter-timing (probability of prediction: 94.7%), zero wasted motion (efficiency rating: 97.2%), adaptation to opponent's pattern within 3.2 seconds. Conclusion: Subject has fought this specific opponent multiple times in previous temporal iterations. Movement pattern recognition: CONFIRMED."
I watch Fang Yuan walk off the arena. No celebration. No acknowledgment of the crowd's murmurs. Just clinical efficiency.
He's done this before. Hundreds of times, probably. He knows exactly how Yang fights because he's killed him in previous loops, learned the patterns, optimized the counter.
I'm competing with someone who's already won.
FANG YUAN
The matches were tedious. Necessary, but tedious.
Fang Yuan had fought Yang three hundred and forty-seven times across various loops. This iteration, Yang used the same opening combination as iterations 213, 298, and 334. The counter was automatic.
The real value wasn't the victory. It was maintaining his reputation trajectory—talented but not impossibly so. Dominant enough that clan elders noticed, limited enough that no one suspected five hundred years of experience.
Mo Bei watched from the sidelines with unusual intensity. Interesting. Most students watched with envy or fear. Mo Bei watched like he was taking notes.
Still being cautious. Still calculating. Good.
Variables that thought strategically lasted longer. Useful, if managed properly.
My second match is against a water path cultivator. I win by attrition—wear down his essence reserves, force him to overcommit, counter when he's exhausted.
Third match: deliberate loss. My opponent is genuinely better, and losing to superior cultivation looks natural.
Fourth match: narrow victory that could have gone either way.
By afternoon, I've secured tenth place in my bracket. Exactly where I wanted—high enough to be competent, low enough to be forgettable.
Fang Yuan advances through his bracket without losing a single point. Fang Zheng places second, frustrated but determined. Gu Yue Qing Shu places fourth, impressive but overshadowed.
The day ends with preliminary rankings announced. I'm listed in the middle tier. My parents will be disappointed but not devastated. Perfect.
GU YUE QING SHU
Fourth place. Again.
Qing Shu watched the rankings board, jaw clenched. She'd trained for months, advanced her cultivation, refined her techniques.
Still fourth.
Fang Yuan was untouchable—she'd accepted that. Fang Zheng's second place stung less because she cared about him. But the gap between her ambitions and her results was widening.
Mo Bei had placed tenth. Mediocre. Exactly as expected.
She'd made the right choice, ending that engagement. Status came from power, and power came from advancement. Mo Bei would stagnate in administrative roles while she climbed.
I just need to train harder. Push further.
The thought was becoming familiar. Almost like a prayer.
Evening. I sit in my dormitory reviewing the day's data.
Great Sage has cataloged seventeen complete fighting styles, identified exploitable weaknesses in twelve students, and confirmed Fang Yuan's temporal advantage with near-certainty.
"Combat database: 17 profiles stored. Strategic value: High for future confrontations. Fang Yuan analysis: Subject has experienced current timeline events minimum 50-100 iterations based on adaptation speed and perfect pattern recognition. Estimated total loop count: 200-500 iterations. Host is competing with entity possessing centuries of accumulated experience."
Centuries. He's lived this life hundreds of times, perfecting every moment.
And I've died once and can barely function.
The gap is insurmountable. I can't beat him. Can't outthink him. Can't survive if he decides I'm worth killing.
My only advantage: he doesn't know about Return by Death yet. Doesn't know I can loop too.
If I'm very careful, very lucky, and very smart, maybe that's enough.
Outside, the moon rises. Competition continues tomorrow. Fang Yuan will dominate. I'll be forgettable.
And an assassin is still out there, waiting for the next opportunity.
Day 21. Nineteen days survived. Eleven to go.
The numbers climb. The danger doesn't decrease.
But I'm learning. Every death, every reset, every calculated risk—it's all data.
And in this world, information is the only currency that matters.
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