Alex was surprised at seeing the sickle, but the man was still only in the Muscle tempering realm, so he had no worries. He simply walked forward with his sword and started swinging it randomly.
He wanted to see how one would fight with a sickle in this case. The man swung his sickle in a simple manner, which Alex easily dodge. The man once more brought back the sickle the other way around, which Alex once more dodged easily.
But, on the third swing, something weird happened. Suddenly, as the man was swinging, the sickle left in hand and flew past Alex. 'Did he make a mistake?' But before Alex could even think of a reason, the sickle immediately flew back, targeting the back of his head.
Thankfully, Alex had spiritual sense so he could see what was happening even behind him. He simply ducked as the sickle was about to attack him.
The young man who caught the sickle, and the elder who was about to save him were both surprised. Alex nodded to himself, thinking he did well sending out his spiritual sense even during a fight with a weaker opponent.
He would've been badly hurt if he hadn't. The man with the sickle tried attacking some more but he didn't use any different techniques. He had a pretty simple movement technique that made him just as fast as Alex, but his damage was nowhere sufficient.
After a few bouts, Alex struck him to the ground and the match was over. Alex left the stage after taking his badge.
Over the next couple of hours, Alex fought quite a few disciples and managed to win every single one of them without using any of his techniques. He just used his superior cultivation and spiritual sense to knock down everyone.
Thankfully, he also wasn't challenged. Finally, around 8 pm, he challenged his final opponent for the day, number 194. He waited around half an hour watching the other people's fight in stage 4 before his turn came.
"Number 198 and 194," the elder shouted from stage 4. By now he had managed to defeat the 198th ranking opponent who had a cultivation base of Bone Tempering 2nd realm.
"Here," Alex shouted and waited for another voice to appear.
"Here," someone did speak, and Alex walked up to the stage.
The one who he was going to have to fight was a massive guy with a very well-built body. He was also tall and looked more like a bodybuilder than a cultivator.
'Damn, he looks even beefier than Kong Yuhan,' Alex thought. He took out his sword and got ready to fight as he checked his opponent's cultivation base.
'Bone Tempering 3rd realm? And a person who knows how to fight at that. This is going to be troublesome.' He would have to show more focus in this fight than any of the ones before this. He activated focus mode and adapted to the sudden changes to his senses.
The passage of time slowed down as the different lights from the lanterns started painting the stage in bright orange color. Alex got into his fighting stance as per the Elusive Heavenly Sword for the first time today. He couldn't afford to underestimate the fighter here.
He would also have to be careful about his damage output. Even if the opponent was a veteran fighter, he was still a 3rd ream Bone Tempering cultivator. And all of Alex's damage abilities did way more than that.
"Start," the elder shouted from the side.
Alex waited for the beefy man to come into close combat so he could fight him. But, suddenly, the man did something completely unexpected.
He started using a technique. With a move of his hands, the wind started moving at extreme speed trying to blow away Alex. The only thing Alex do was struggle through it.
'He is using techniques, and not close combat?' Alex was surprised. Alex also used the 2nd sword strike in the Elusive Heavenly Sword and fought wind with the wind. Alex however, did much more damage and destroyed his opponent's wind gust. The remaining damage went on to attack the beefy man and damage him a little.
The man started swiping his hands left and right, creating blades of wind that attacked him. Using the evasive part of his sword style, Alex dodged every single one of the wind blades the man was using.
'Does he only have wood-type spiritual root?' he wondered. His attacks were strong enough to hurt Alex if he let them hit him. The man was also only using Wood type techniques and nothing else.
Suddenly, the man places his palms on the ground. Out of nowhere, roots and vines started appearing out of the ground that targeted Alex.
Alex weaved and dodged as he started cutting every root and vine that came his way. He slowly moved forward while doing that and reached the beefy man. The man had an absolutely shocked face. He had never seen someone so efficiently destroy his Rooting Vine Technique.
The technique wasn't meant to damage, but to obstruct their movements so that other techniques could land easily. Yet, the young man in front of him had used a weird dance-like sword style to cut off all of his roots and vines and nearly reached him.
Immediately, he turned into a bunch of roots and barks as he didn't remain there any longer. That wasn't a problem for Alex however. With his spiritual sense, he could see the beefy man appear inside a cluster of roots and vines in the side. He brought his sword to the highest point above his head and swung it down.
The sword itself did nothing, but Alex secretly used Qi manipulation to throw the whole group of vines, roots, and the man outside the stage.
"Fight over," The elder shouted. Alex walked up to the elder and took the 194th badge. He walked away from the stage thinking, '194 is already so unique at fighting, what are the ones in the higher numbers like? I can't wait.'