To Walk The Mist

The next day, a lot of people trooped to the arena like the day before. Amongst them was Lu Guan, who used to be Jia Lin's master. He had not arrived yesterday to see his former student stand at the top of the arena, but when he arrived, he heard no words of praise about his student, he only heard talk about some boy, Nti Anem. An energy manipulator? Were they not myths? Now he has come to watch for himself. Even though the patriarch took away the boy, the heaven alliance meet was not a small event. There was more to come. It was said that what held yesterday was only the preliminaries.

Today, like him, many came to see the popular young masters of the heaven alliance. Many of them came to see young master Di Wong.

The heaven alliance, like it's name, was an alliance of multiple strong forces into one power that can rival the legendary two clans. As such, there were many divisions and arms of the alliance and all were eligible to send their young geniuses to participate in the meet.

For those participating, this meet was their life. If one hoped to make it in the alliance someday, it started by making a name in this meet.

Many know that those who made it to the top thirty had the right to compete for a spot in Heaven's list. Those on the list were considered the future of the alliance and were given mush attention and resources to grow. But this came with a big if. One had to have the ability to stay on the list. The top fifty would join the sky mountain. This was basically a school inside the alliance mountain range.

Even if one could not make it to any of the mentioned above, displaying your skill could lead to open doors. th e determined faces of the participants were on full display for all to see.

Tie Nse finally made his appearance in the arena. This time, he did not just appear suddenly, he strolled in, to the surprise of everybody.

After taking his seat, the officiating elder stood to begin. His eyes scanned the crowd before he cleared his throat to speak.

"Welcome to the mass elimination stage." he said and the crowd was silenced.

"Strength is the core of the Heaven alliance and only absolute strength will gain recognition. This principle is the foundation of the Heaven alliance meet. To reach the top, only one thing will be recognized in this arena; Strength!" as the words left his mouth, Tie Nse sighed. You only recognise strength during the meet, yet you put a bunch of young cultivators on display to enter the meet using talent alone, the day before. Are you not ashamed to speak those words? Just yesterday, you talked about how talent can top strength in the meet, and now you say strength is all that is recognized. Are you not afraid of getting struck lightening?

He was not the only that thought so. The crowd had a weird expression on their faces. Many of the powers had an amused expression. They could see the politics in the Heaven alliance. The Heaven alliance elders understoodthat the officiating elder was someone from Elder Di's faction. His words showed clearly, that the show of talents yesterday scared Elder Di greatly.

Some group in the audience saw the Heaven alliance leaders give one person amongst them a look, many trained their eyes on this person. This was Elder Di.

"Ah, it seems some people did not think that so much talent will pop up yesterday." someone said.

"Is that not Elder Di? Are you saying he is pulling strings from behind the shadows?" another asked.

"Hasn't his son been going by the title, Heaven alliance young master? Now that the patriarch has a disciple, where does he stand?"

"Trying to capture the patriarch's eye, but another monster popped up yesterday." another said with pity. They had spoken amongst them selves, but for some reason, others around them heard and conversations started popping up in the crowd.

Elder Di's face soured at this. He had only told the officiating elder to leave hints through out the competition that strength was a big factor. He wanted to give his son some opportunities to shine. Who knew that this tactless man would open his mouth and the first thing his said, made him out as shameless? Among the participants, Di Wong frowned.

He had heard of the energy manipulator that had popped up all of a sudden in the preliminaries. He had not attended yesterday because he knew people will notice. It was his way of showing that he looked down on the preliminaries and did not care for some young talents. But the competition ended with no one speaking about his absence. Instead, a monster had appeared in the meet. Someone that claimed to know the patriarch's disciple and was thereby taken away by the patriarch. He had not even had the chance to meet this monster face to face and he was already under the patriarch's wing.

Many said that the patriarch only cared about talent. If one monster appeared again with a weird constitution, only then will he have the ability to be taken in a the patriarch's disciple. He did not like the sound of those words. It was as though they were saying that the reason he had not caught the patriarch's eye was because he was not talented.

Hearing many talk about his threatened position in the alliance, he frowned.