The Qingyun Clan held an internal tournament every year at the end of autumn.
It was not a grand event as no outside clans were invited. There were no high-value prizes or invitation letters to other powerful sects on the line. It was simply an annual assessment, a way for the clan elders to see which of their younger generation was worth more attention and resources.
For most of the outer disciples, it was a chance to show progress.
For Lin Feng, it was a complication. He had been careful. For the months since his awakening ceremony, he had cultivated quietly, hunted quietly, and kept his strength out of sight. He had let people continue believing he was at the bottom of the outer disciples, a trash-soul orphan with nothing to offer.
That was useful in the short term as people who underestimated you stopped paying close attention to you.
But the tournament required public matches. Which meant choosing between losing deliberately and exposing more strength than he planned to show. Neither option was entirely clean.
He thought about it for several days and eventually settled on a middle path: show enough to survive without shame, but not enough to attract the kind of attention that would bring interference.
The balance point was harder to find than it sounded.
The tournament grounds occupied the large practice field behind the main hall. Matches were organized by age group. Lin Feng's age group, the twelve-to-fourteen bracket, had eleven participants.
Matches were decided by surrender, unconsciousness, or stepping outside the ring's boundary lines. Lethal force was strictly forbidden, a rule enforced by the three elders watching from the platform above the ring.
Lin Feng watched the early matches with patient attention.
The boy who had boasted about his mid-grade Profound Rank Martial Soul was the clear favorite of their age group. His name was Qingyun Zhao, a main-branch disciple with a Stone Bear Soul and a thick, sturdy frame that made him look two years older than he was.
He had spent money on proper cultivation pills like Body Tempering Pills and had access to the clan's technique library as the grandson of an elder. His level was already at the fifth layer of Body Tempering; Blood Tempering, an impressive mark for his age.
Lin Feng had quietly reached the sixth layer without anyone knowing, Marrow Tempering.
The early rounds went predictably, as everyone had expected. The stronger disciples won. Qingyun Zhao dispatched his first two opponents efficiently if not gracefully, using simple power and mass to overwhelm them.
Lin Feng's first match was against a boy named Qingyun Wei, a branch disciple with an Iron Sparrow Martial Soul at Mortal Rank mid-grade. Qingyun Wei was honest about his chances. He did not look at Lin Feng with contempt but with the resignation of someone who had accepted that this match was going to be uncomfortable.
Lin Feng let the match go for three minutes before ending it. He did not use the War God Art. He did not draw on the strength that months of devouring had given him. He used only the body conditioning from his childhood exercises and the basic combat knowledge from his past life.
He moved, blocked, created an opening, and put Qingyun Wei on the ground with a controlled throw that was not pleasant but was not damaging.
Qingyun Wei surrendered from the ground.
Mild applause rang out from the spectators. A few murmurs of surprise that the trash-soul orphan had managed a clean win.
Lin Feng walked back to the waiting area without expression.
His second match was against a girl named Qingyun Hanyue, who had a low-grade Profound Rank Wind Serpent Martial Soul and was genuinely fast.
She moved like water, quick and direction-changing, and for the first minute of the match Lin Feng had to work to stay ahead of her footwork. She was better than Qingyun Wei by a significant margin.
He let himself get hit once on the arm a few times, then decided this match needed to end before it went too long and someone started watching him too closely.
He caught her next strike, redirected her momentum, and swept her leg. She went down hard but caught herself on one hand, already rolling to recover.
'Fast.' He noted that. She was genuinely talented.
He pressed the advantage before she could fully reset, applied a lock to her striking arm, and held it at the exact threshold of pain that made continuing impractical.
She tapped the ground.
The elders noted his two wins. One of them, an older woman named Elder Shen, nodded with a glimmer of interest on her face. Lin Feng noticed but did not change his expression.
The semifinal put him against Qingyun Zhao.
The main-branch boy came into the ring with the comfortable authority of someone who had never seriously doubted his outcome.
He looked at Lin Feng with his head held high, nose crooked like he felt disgusted by the thought of fighting a known trash. The way a person looks at a mild inconvenience, something to be dealt with quickly before moving on to more interesting things.
"I'll make this fast, trash." Qingyun Zhao said unpleasantly. A straightforward confidence of someone who genuinely believed what he was saying.
Lin Feng said nothing.
The elder signaled the start.
Qingyun Zhao charged without hesitation. Heavy and powerful, relying on mass and cultivation level to overwhelm with the first exchange.
Lin Feng sidestepped at the last second then redirected the force along the angle it was already traveling, and added a precise strike to the back of Qingyun Zhao's knee as he passed.
Qingyun Zhao stumbled but did not fall as he caught himself quickly. He turned fast, looking surprised. But the surprise instantly turned into anger.
'Good recovery.' Lin Feng noted that too.
They exchanged several more rounds. Lin Feng consistently gave ground, used angles, and avoided direct strength contests. Zhao was physically stronger and had more Qi, compared to his suppressed cultivation. Meeting him head-on was the wrong approach. Making him work for every step was the right one.
After two minutes of this, something changed in Qingyun Zhao's expression. The comfortable confidence was still there, but underneath it, something else had appeared. Frustration. And beneath that, the beginning of uncertainty.
Around the arena, the watching disciples had begun to murmur.
"Why isn't Qingyun Zhao finishing this trash off?"
"He's way faster than that kid."
"No… look closely. He's always dodging at the last second. Qingyun Zhao hasn't landed a clean hit yet."
Each of Qingyun Zhao's attacks sliced through the air with speed and power, but Lin Feng moved just enough each time. A half-step here. A slight turn of the shoulder there. The difference between being struck and merely brushed.
It was like watching someone try to catch smoke.
Qingyun Zhao's brows slowly drew together in frustration. His strikes grew sharper and harder. He was becoming less patient.
"You!!!... Stand still! Stop running around like the trash you are." Qingyun Zhao snapped finally, driving forward with a powerful straight punch meant to break Lin Feng's guard.
Lin Feng's eyes remained calm. He had been waiting for this moment.
When Qingyun Zhao committed to the strike, Lin Feng stepped forward instead of retreating.
The crowd gasped.
The fist still landed, but the force was cut in half because Lin Feng had moved into the attack rather than away from it. The blow thudded against his shoulder instead of crushing through his guard.
At the same instant—
Lin Feng's hand shot forward, not wildly or with brute strength. But a single controlled strike.
His palm slammed into Qingyun Zhao's solar plexus.
THUD.
The sound was dull but solid.
Qingyun Zhao's body froze.
Then his breath exploded from his lungs in a harsh, involuntary exhale.
"Hrrk—!"
His eyes widened as the air vanished from his chest.
Lin Feng did not hesitate as he took one step with a shift of his hips.
He hooked Qingyun Zhao's arm, twisted his balance, and drove forward with a clean shoulder check.
Qingyun Zhao's feet left the ground. The arena floor met his back a heartbeat later with a heavy thump.
Before Qingyun Zhao could recover, Lin Feng was already there.
He dropped to one knee, pinning Qingyun Zhao's arm while placing his forearm across the boy's throat. Enough pressure that everyone watching understood.
The fight was over.
Silence swept across the tournament grounds.
It was the stunned, hollow silence of several hundred people realizing the expected outcome had just been overturned.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three.
Then the whispers erupted.
"Qingyun Zhao… lost?"
"That was Qingyun Zhao!"
"How did that nobody do that?!"
On the ground, Qingyun Zhao stared up at Lin Feng in silent shock and disbelief. His chest still struggled to draw breath, and the calm certainty he had entered the arena with was gone.
He swallowed hard. "…I surrender."
Lin Feng immediately removed his forearm and stood. He neither celebrated nor showed arrogance.
He simply stepped back and walked to the center line, his expression as quiet and composed as when the match had begun.
He did not look toward the spectators or acknowledge the noise of the crowd that had suddenly become twice as loud.
In the observation area above the arena, Elder Shen nodded with expectation in her eyes. For several seconds, the old woman simply watched Lin Feng.
Then, very slowly, a faint smile appeared on her face. "…Interesting."