"The crowd remembers the winner. The winner remembers the fight."
The arena was massive.
Lu Chen stood at the entrance and stared. The structure rose before him like a behemoth carved from stone and spirit wood, its walls etched with protective formations that hummed faintly in the evening air. Tiered stands ringed the central stage, row after row of seats that could easily hold five thousand outer sect disciples. The stage itself was a raised platform of polished black stone, scuffed and scarred by countless battles.
And right now, around thirty disciples were fighting on it.
They clashed in the center, swords flashing, auras flaring. Stray techniques, arcs of lightning, bursts of flame shot toward the edges of the stage, only to fizzle against an invisible barrier before they could reach the audience. The crowd roared with every near-hit, every narrow dodge.
Lu Chen grabbed the nearest disciple, a skinny cultivator with wide eyes and a slack jaw by the shoulder.
"What's the status? How far along is the competition?"
The cultivator blinked at him. "Who are you?"
"Doesn't matter. Talk."
Something in Lu Chen's voice made the cultivator's mouth open without further protest. "We're on the ninth elimination stage. One more after this, then rankings start tomorrow."
"How does it work?"
"Battle tokens were distributed first thing. First come, first serve, only a hundred. If you missed them, you go through elimination." He pointed at the stage. "Ten groups. Each group fights until twenty are left standing. Those twenty qualify. Two hundred qualifiers total. Then tomorrow, rankings matches the number of opponents you defeat determines if you make quarter-finals, semi-finals, finals..."
Lu Chen's blood ran cold.
Battle tokens. First come, first serve.
I missed them.
I KNOW.
I KNOW.
I DON'T NEED THE REENACTMENT.
For a moment, he let himself feel it, the cold dread that had been building since he saw the arena. Three days. He'd lost three days inside that creature. Three days of his life, gone. If he'd missed this... if he'd been too late...
He pushed the thought away. No time for that. Not now.
The kid was still talking. "—ninth stage is almost over, so tenth starts any minute. Once it begins, no late entries—"
Lu Chen was already moving.
He pushed through the crowd toward the holding area, his mind running the numbers. Tenth elimination stage. Last chance. Twenty spots. Around a hundred competitors.
You don't know that.
Lu Chen stopped at the edge of the disciple holding area.
Disciples milled about in clusters, some stretching, some meditating, some visibly trying not to be sick. Their auras ranged from Body Tempering 7 to Peak Body Tempering 8. None of them were above him now.
But they didn't know that. To them, he was just another face. Another competitor. Another obstacle between them and the rankings.
But if they recognized him, they'd gang up. A known quantity. A threat worth eliminating before the real competition started.
I need to hide.
I know.
I KNOW.
Lu Chen reached for the Veil.
[Veil of the Unremarkable]
[Basic Function: Renders Host 40% more forgettable. Not invisibility — just profound mundanity.]
[Hidden Functions Unlocked (Body Tempering 10):]
[— Aura Restriction (Passive): Unless Host willingly releases aura, cultivation level and presence remain undetectable.]
[— Face Changer: Host can alter facial features to any appearance of his choosing.]
[— Form Manipulation: The Veil can reshape itself into any clothing or remain invisible against skin.]
[— Auto-Repair and Auto-Clean: No defensive properties, but automatically repairs tears and removes stains.]
[— ???: Get stronger to unlock further functions.]
Lu Chen stared at the list.
I'll decide my own face.
He concentrated. The Veil against his skin warmed, then shifted. His features rearranged, subtle changes, nothing dramatic. His jaw softened. His cheekbones lowered. His eyes went from sharp amber to a dull, forgettable brown. His hair darkened to a nondescript shade that would blend into any crowd and be remembered by none of them.
He looked like someone you'd pass on the street and forget before you'd taken three more steps.
That's the point.
You've never commented on my face before.
He tugged at his robes. The Veil flowed over them like water, reshaping the fabric into a standard outer disciple uniform — grey, unmarked, identical to a hundred others milling about the holding area. The sect insignia sat in its proper place. Nothing else to draw attention.
He stepped into the holding area.
No one looked at him.
No one glanced his way.
He was furniture. He was wallpaper. He was the human equivalent of an unremarkable stone on the side of the road. Not the kind of stone that changed someone's life. Just a stone.
Despite himself, Lu Chen smirked. It was working. For the first time since he'd entered the sect, he was nobody. Just another face in the crowd. Just another competitor.
It felt good.
Don't sound surprised.
...
The holding area was chaos.
Not the dangerous kind. The social kind. Disciples clustered in groups, and within those groups, old rivalries simmered like pots left too long on a fire.
"—and I'm telling you, Han Feng, you only won last time because I slipped."
"Slipped? You fell on your face. There's a difference."
[TO BE CONTINUED...]