The chubby little fellow had a big grin on his face, winking and gesturing at Jiang Chen while keeping his voice low: "Bro, give me a straight answer. I'm the challenger here, so losing doesn't affect my results. That means I have zero intention of actually winning this fight. Why don't we put on a show? You don't hit too hard, and I won't make it too obvious. After we put on a decent performance for a while, I'll just go ahead and get knocked off on my own. I hate this ice arena the most. No way I'm wasting my true essence fighting you to the death over here."
The little fatty's round, bead-like eyes kept darting around, and he spoke with the tone of a merchant negotiating a deal.
Jiang Chen had faced all kinds of opponents, but someone openly asking to throw a match was genuinely a first.
"Honestly, bro. Just give me an answer." The fatty urged when he saw that Jiang Chen remained silent.
Jiang Chen nodded slightly: "That depends on whether you really want to put on an act, or whether you're planning to make the act real."
The little fatty beamed with delight: "You'll find out soon enough."
With that, he let out a booming shout and charged toward Jiang Chen, his round, ball-like body rolling forward like a boulder. The moment this massive flesh-ball got rolling, the entire arena thundered and shook.
The spectacle certainly looked impressive. But the fatty clearly had no intention of wasting true essence on this kind of battle, so as he rolled, he deliberately left several openings.
It wasn't that the fatty was weak — he was doing it on purpose to make his stance of not planning to win absolutely convincing.
Since the fatty was being so cooperative, Jiang Chen figured he might as well play along.
Seeing Jiang Chen go along with the script, the fatty silently praised him as a true bro. The two of them went at it on the stage, shouting and hollering with awe-inspiring momentum, putting on a performance that looked blisteringly fierce.
If you weren't one of the two participants, there was no way to tell it was all an act — they roared like they were going all out, but in reality neither had consumed any meaningful amount of true essence.
After roughly a quarter of an hour, the fatty's shoulder wobbled, and he let out a miserable shriek as if struck by lightning, his corpulent body plummeting straight off the stage.
Watching his over-the-top performance, Jiang Chen couldn't help but want to laugh.
This ridiculous fatty, even as he fell off the stage, didn't forget to flash Jiang Chen a sly grin of triumphant scheming.
In this first battle, Jiang Chen had actually won his opening victory in such a comical fashion.
"The warriors in the Earth Spirit District really are different from those in the Mystic Spirit District. If this fatty fought for real, he could probably hold his own against me for a while. Even though his actual cultivation is only at the fourth level of the Spirit Realm, in terms of both combat strength and presence, he's on a completely different level from the fourth-level Spirit Realm warriors in the Mystic Spirit District."
Jiang Chen had been observing carefully. Most of the sect disciples in the Mystic Spirit District had been at the third or fourth level of the Spirit Realm. In the Earth Spirit District, they were almost all at the fourth level as well, with a few at the fifth level, though those were rare.
But despite all being at the fourth level of the Spirit Realm, the fourth-level warriors here in the Earth Spirit District were superior in every conceivable aspect to their counterparts from the Mystic Spirit District.
"I'm also at the fourth level of the Spirit Realm, but my actual combat power is far beyond what an ordinary fourth-level warrior can match. These Earth Spirit District warriors are basically second-tier geniuses from the four great sects, or even near-first-tier talent — every one of them must have something exceptional about them. They really are nothing like the mediocrities of the Mystic Spirit District. I swept through the Mystic Spirit District unchallenged, but here, constrained by various factors, the approach I used in the Mystic Spirit District may not necessarily work."
Jiang Chen recalled Lord Fang's warnings and had already formed a preliminary plan in his mind.
"This Earth Spirit District is run by that woman Shuiyue. If I'm too dazzling, I'll inevitably catch her attention, or worse, she'll try to suppress me. Besides, the arenas here are non-standard. If I keep winning in such a dominant fashion, some of my trump cards will inevitably be exposed, and that wouldn't do."
These five types of arenas each contained one of the five attributes — metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. If Jiang Chen plowed through them all, his hidden strengths would inevitably be revealed.
After all, an ordinary warrior couldn't possibly cultivate all five veins simultaneously. Cultivating all five veins was the exclusive advantage of those born with the Innate Constitution.
Even among those with an Acquired Constitution who could cultivate all five veins, it was invariably because they had encountered extraordinary fortuitous events and defied heaven to change their fate.
Someone like Jiang Chen, who cultivated all five veins — that was thanks to the transformation brought about by the Five Dragons Open Heaven Pill, combined with the accumulation of one fortuitous encounter after another.
If he swept through every arena, what would that imply? It would mean that this warrior could adapt to any arena, that he possessed exceptional talent in all five elemental veins.
"Forget it. Sweeping the field is satisfying, but there's no need to keep doing it like this. Besides, these five arenas aren't ordinary arenas. Blasting through them all in one move, like I did in the Mystic Spirit Arena, is clearly unrealistic. The battles in the Earth Spirit Arena aren't just contests between warriors — you're also fighting the arena itself. The drain the arena puts on a warrior is enormous. So, the kind of sweeping I pulled off in the Mystic Spirit Arena simply isn't practical here."
With that consideration in mind, Jiang Chen decided to adopt a more conservative pace.
He had three months to complete a hundred challenges — time was more than sufficient. Back in the Mystic Spirit Arena, his mad winning streak had been driven by provocation and the contempt of the entire Mystic Spirit Arena, which had ignited the fury buried deep in his bones.
Now, facing an examiner like Master Shuiyue who was watching him like a hawk, Jiang Chen had the distinct feeling that this old woman could cause trouble for him at any moment. So, it was best to keep a low profile…
Of course, keeping a low profile didn't mean he had any reason to step down from the platform the instant he won a single match.
When the examiner asked, Jiang Chen resolutely chose to continue challenging.
This time, Jiang Chen seemed to have drawn the short straw. He had pulled a Rank-A warrior, and a highly ranked one at that — twenty-third out of the five hundred warriors in the Earth Spirit Arena.
"Another Purple Sun Sect disciple." Seeing the name of the opponent he had drawn, Jiang Chen felt a twinge of strangeness. Was he truly fated to be entangled with the Purple Sun Sect in some cosmic grudge?
Still, Jiang Chen felt no fear whatsoever. Purple Sun Sect or any other sect — once he stepped onto the arena, his mind was free of distractions. He had only one thought: defeat the opponent.