Dao of the Deal

The dining room fell into shocked silence. Next to Muchen, Elder Yang sighed. Finally, a chorus of laughter broke out down below.

After a moment, another disciple walked over and prodded the sleeping disciple awake. Junfeng blinked lazily as he sat up, lacing his fingers together and stretching out his arms as he looked around the room. Give him credit, it didn't take him long to figure out what was going on.

"How much?" he asked, absently scratching the back of his head.

The good impression Junfeng had generated with his quick thinking took a hit as Muchen got a better look at him. When he'd been sitting down Muchen had thought that the boy just had a round face. Now that he could take a better look he saw that he had a round everything. The Iron Bone sect disciple's robes, designed to be one size fits all, were stretched over a significant pot belly.

Muchen had never thought it was possible to be severely overweight when going through a steady diet of cultivation and martial training, but the proof was right there before his eyes. Maybe contribution points could be exchanged for snacks.

Somebody must have answered Junfeng's question as he ambled to the impromptu arena in the front of the room. He yawned and tucked his necklace away beneath his robes—Muchen caught a glimpse of metallic luster but nothing that looked terribly valuable—then brought his hands together in a formal greeting. "Five points? I'll accept your challenge."

The other boy returned the greeting, and with that the fight was on. Or rather, the one sided beating. Junfeng had brought his hands up as the other boy approached but didn't even try to take a swing at him. Instead, he focused on shielding his face from harm as he absorbed punch after punch with his body.

Muchen glanced around the room. Nobody had stepped forward to act as an official referee. He hoped somebody would step forward if things got out of hand, though his hopes faded as the beating continued without any sign that an elder would intervene.

The only sound in the hall was the steady thump of fist striking flesh and the steady stream of complaints coming from Junfeng's mouth.

Strangely, while nobody had stepped forward, all of the elders did seem to be paying close attention to the fight, despite its one sided nature. Muchen turned his attention back to the contest, intent on deciphering what was going on.

It took a moment for him to notice the anomaly. Despite standing there and passively accepting a beating, Junfeng barely moved from his initial spot. He turned to face his opponent as he circled around, but that was all.

While the sound of each punch striking home was enough to make Muchen wince, the ongoing barrage wasn't having much effect on its target. Not really. Junfeng was still steady on his feet, rooted in place like a mountain. If anything, it was his opponent who looked wobbly.

Punching was hard work. Normal people would work up a sweat after half a minute on a speed bag. Cultivators were made of sterner stuff, but then fighting a person took more effort than punching an inanimate object.

Now that Muchen was paying closer attention, Junfeng's complaints sounded more peeved than panicked.

This couldn't go on forever. Waiting for an opponent to punch himself out might work in a mortal fist fight, but Muchen had seen the kind of training cultivators had to go through on a daily basis. Junfeng's opponent was feeling the fatigue from his efforts, yes, but he was a long way from done.

The end came quickly. Junfeng's opponent had begun his attack with a series of quick jabs. Emboldened by Junfeng's lack of retaliation, he gradually shifted to slower, more powerful strikes. When those also failed to make an impression, he stepped in close and wound up for a haymaker. That was when Junfeng made his move.

He was overweight. He wasn't particularly nimble. But all that he needed to do was take half a step forward and he was practically chest to chest with his opponent. Closing the distance robbed the incoming haymaker of most of its force. More importantly, it allowed Junfeng to get his hands on his opponent, locking on to his arms like a pair of fleshy clamps.

Had he specialized in grappling? Muchen hadn't seen much emphasis on such things from what little sparring he'd seen. Cultivators developed a level of strength that made mortal wrestling techniques useless. Not to mention their supernatural abilities. The thought crossed his mind, as the fight reached its tipping point, that Junfeng might have found his own niche by exploiting a blind spot in the Qianzhan Continent's common sense of combat.

Muchen looked forward to seeing what Junfeng could do, his mind conjuring up a few different scenarios that he would consider a sufficiently flashy finish.

He took another shuffling step forward, then toppled over on top of his opponent. Caught off guard, the other boy wasn't able to avoid the fate of being pressed to the ground underneath Junfeng's bulk.

"It hurts! Senior brother, you're all skin and bones."

Junfeng rolled back and forth on top of his hapless opponent, complaining all the while. It took half a minute before he was able to stretch a hand free of the onslaught and tap out.

Junfeng leapt to his feet, surprisingly nimble for somebody carrying so much extra weight. A smile creased the folds of fat on his face as he stretched out a hand to help up his downed opponent. "You should have known that asking me to give up contribution points is like asking me to spit out dessert."

His opponent didn't reply, only grunting as he hauled himself up to his feet before staggering out of the sparring circle. Muchen needed a moment to process what he had just seen. The other disciples seemed to feel the same way, judging by the way they were looking at each other instead of stepping forward to make their own challenges.

The first to recover was a younger boy who looked like he had only recently been promoted to become an outer disciple. He stood half a head shorter than Junfeng and looked like he weighed perhaps half as much. Still, his expression was confident as he stepped into the ring and cupped his hands in greeting.

"Senior brother, I'd be grateful if you could offer me some pointers."

Junfeng peered at him, curious. "Are you sure? Even though I look like this, I do have eleven meridians open."

Muchen leaned over to Elder Yang, who was happy enough to provide a quiet explanation. The other boy was indeed young for an outer disciple. He had opened up five meridians and was considered something of a prodigy, but it was still a year or two too early for him to be challenging somebody like Junfeng.

Despite that, the smaller boy still had that confident expression on his face as he replied. "I'd like to try my luck. Besides, I'll never learn if I don't challenge strong opponents."

"All right," Junfeng said. "Five points. Don't let anybody say I was bullying you."

This fight took on a distinctly different pattern than the first one. Junfeng's new opponent was content to put up his own defensive stance and wait for Junfeng to close the distance. After watching him weather so many blows in the first fight, Muchen could see where he was coming from. Against an opponent that you couldn't hope to take down in one all-out assault, the best chance at victory was to wear him down over time.

Junfeng didn't wait too long before he started closing the distance. Muchen was a little surprised that he was so willing to take the initiative. Judging from the last fight, he'd thought Junfeng was shameless enough to wait and let his opponent come to him, no matter the circumstances. Given such an overwhelming advantage in cultivation, though, maybe there was no need to be so cautious.

Junfeng was light on his feet for a big man. While he didn't put on any sort of intricate display of dazzling footwork, from what Muchen could see he kept himself well-balanced at all times. After all the lessons Xinyi had beaten into him on the importance of maintaining a solid base, he was still far from an expert but he could recognize a capable fighter when he saw one.

His opponent wasn't going to stand there and bring on a test of strength. Given the gap in cultivation between them, that would be tantamount to a concession. Instead, he moved once Junfeng got close, circling to keep the distance. Both of them tried a few probing blows, but neither of them could land a clean hit on the other.

"I thought you wanted to learn," Junfeng said. "You're not going to pick up much from dancing around."

The younger boy grimaced, but didn't take the bait. He kept circling around, still looking for an opening. Junfeng had a sheen of sweat coating his forehead, the cumulative effort of two duels starting to show.

Still, Muchen expected that anybody who was able to get eleven meridians open in a combat-mad place like the Iron Bones sect wasn't going to let a little bit of fatigue get him down. It seemed that Junfeng reached the same conclusion, as he finally abandoned his attempt to outmaneuver his opponent and simply charged straight forward.

It was an echo of the fight Muchen had seen by the sect gates. There, the larger boy had absorbed a punch to the gut before closing within range. Now, Junfeng was forced to take a heavy roundhouse kick to his shoulder before he could get in close. It landed with enough force to make him take a half step to the side, but that was all.

Junfeng kept his balance and kept moving forward, soon crashing into his opponent and bearing him to the ground. It didn't take long before he secured his second consecutive concession. He hauled himself to his feet and took a look around the room, a hint of challenge in his gaze.

A momentary hush fell over the crowd before another teenager stepped forward.

"I'm impressed by your victory. Brother Junfeng, could you offer me some pointers?" the boy said, cupping his hands together in greeting. "Ten contribution points."

Junfeng ignored him and instead turned his attention to the crowd. Specifically, he was staring down a group of people that Muchen recognized from the inner disciples' table. "Senior brother Hong, there's no need to waste each other's time."

Muchen raised an eyebrow. Most conflict within sects happened on a peer to peer basis. It was generally considered demeaning to pursue a grudge with those who were beneath you in the sect's hierarchy. Picking a fight with somebody above you was simply suicidal.

If Junfeng had somehow angered an inner disciple, it wouldn't be out of the question for the offended party to find some lackeys among the outer disciples and ask them to cause him some trouble. It was his bad luck that he'd recruited an incompetent set of lackeys.

Elder Yang had an embarrassed expression on his face. "Youthful energy sometimes exceeds the bounds of propriety."

Muchen nodded, keeping his voice low so as not to interrupt the ongoing drama. "I understand."

The crowd of inner disciples split apart, leaving one young man standing alone. He had an air of refinement to his bearing that matched the sumptuous robe he was wearing. If Muchen had to guess, this was not somebody who had dragged himself to an inner disciple position on the strength of his own will and discipline.

Being born into the right family was also a kind of strength. Not to mention that to become an inner disciple he had to be in the foundation building stage, so he had to have a reasonable level of fighting strength.

"Junior brother," he said, "I wouldn't want others to think I'm bullying you."

"If you don't want others to think that, you shouldn't have started bullying me," Junfeng said, waving a hand dismissively. "Don't waste time talking, just get over here."