On the stage, the 17th cage free-for-all battle ended just one minute later.
Li Yuan killed the last opponent, survived until the end, and scored 31 points.
It wasn’t that he didn’t try hard to fight in the last phase, but the time spent fighting Kimura Tatsuo was too consuming, and there weren’t enough people left… to support Li Yuan in scoring many more points.
But even so.
The points from the two rounds combined brought Li Yuan’s second-round total score to an impressive 105 points.
This was already an exaggerated score.
On the stage, only Li Yuan was left.
“Temporarily in first place overall?” Li Yuan glanced at the total points ranking.
The sizable point advantage from the first round, coupled with a good performance in the second, kept Li Yuan’s total score in the lead.
Although there were still three cage free-for-all battles left.
However, top contenders like Yu Ming, Guan Ying, and Garava had already finished competing in the previous rounds, and none of their two-round total scores had surpassed one hundred.
So, in a sense, Li Yuan had almost secured the first place in the total score for the second round.
“Let’s go.”
With a thought, Li Yuan disappeared from the stage; he didn’t return to the spectator platform but directly exited the virtual network.
…
“Li Yuan!”
“Li Yuan.” The spectator platform once again erupted with the intense cheering of numerous onlookers.
However, the freshmen from Kunlun Martial University were searching all over the spectator platform.
“Where’s Li Yuan?”
“Where’s our senior brother?” They were all puzzled.
Logically, after exiting the stage, one should return directly to their seat on the spectator platform.
…
At Kunlun Martial Arts University, inside Li Yuan’s villa, in the underground martial arts room.
Li Yuan had walked out of the resting room and took a weapon off the rack beside him.
“Entangle, Continuous.” In Li Yuan’s mind, the battle with Kimura Tatsuo was still fresh.
Suddenly, the smart ring on his wrist vibrated continuously.
At this time, a vibration meant an important person had sent a message; Li Yuan looked down.
One was from Li Yang: “Well done.”
Another was from Lin Lanyue: “You’re in first place, keep it up.”
A smile unconsciously appeared on Li Yuan’s face as he replied to both messages.
He turned off the smart ring and put it aside.
Holding the spear, Li Yuan came to the center of the martial arts room, closed his eyes slightly, and held the long spear tightly with both arms, adopting the ‘spear holding stance’ of the Stellar Spear Technique.
“Stars like spheres, rolling powerfully.” Li Yuan murmured to himself.
During the recent battle, through the exchange with Kimura Tatsuo,
That flash of insight enabled Li Yuan to re-examine his spear technique from a different angle.
Kimura Tatsuo’s ‘Continuous Spear’ seemed similar to Li Yuan’s ‘Twelve Continuous Strikes.’
But there was a fundamental difference.
‘Twelve Continuous Strikes’ was about one spear surpassing another, where the momentum of the next spear would always be stronger than the previous one, focusing on ‘accumulation.’ At its peak, it was like the gathering force of a great river, bound to burst out powerfully.
If it didn’t explode and overflow, even at its peak, it wouldn’t last long.
It was not durable.
‘Continuous Spear,’ however, emphasized ‘entanglement,’ a continuous, never-ending flow, where from the first spear to the last, the power often didn’t differ much.
The downside was that it wasn’t domineering enough, but the upside was stability, not causing one’s spear momentum to suddenly collapse.
“Similar techniques, like ‘Cloud Commanding Spear Technique’ which Teacher Li Yang had me practice actually contains a similar concept,” Li Yuan realized he had encountered such moves before.
In the Starry Skies Fighting Network, when exchanging blows with others, he had faced it as well.
When practicing in real combat with Teacher Jiang Lun and the two Prime Warriors, they had also used similar moves.
But they had never deliberately developed a systematic approach.
“Most importantly, previously, I was solely focused on comprehending the five forms of the Stellar Spear Technique. Where would I have paid attention to this?” Li Yuan couldn’t help but smile and shake his head.
It was like the moral of many stories in textbooks. Learnt in the classroom as a child, you thought you understood them… only to realize a decade or two later that you never truly comprehended them.
The same was true for spear techniques.
Before completely comprehending the five forms of the Stellar Spear Technique.
Even though Li Yuan knew that the core of ‘Stellar Spear Technique’ lay in the first form ‘Stellar Illumination,’ and that he was aware of the core concept ‘Stars are like spheres.’
Even having seen other masters use similar concept techniques.
Without the corresponding level, it seemed like understanding the principle, but in reality, never having truly comprehended it.
And the exchange with Kimura Tatsuo, in a way, came after Li Yuan had comprehended the five forms of the Stellar Technique, and had reached a new level of understanding of the Stellar Spear Technique.
It was upon re-examining it that he gained a new understanding.
It wasn’t that Kimura Tatsuo’s spear technique was particularly strong, it was just that he appeared at the right place and time.
Timing.
Is often very important.
“From the second form ‘Stellar Waterfall’ to the fifth form ‘Stellar Battle in the Wild,’ all are offensive moves,” Li Yuan contemplated: “Out of the five major moves, four are offensive, yet the ‘Stellar Spear Technique’ is recognized as ‘an extremely strong defensive spear technique.'”
“Why is that?”
“At the core, it is the first form ‘Stellar Illumination.'” Li Yuan’s long spear moved slowly, as he began to practice the first form ‘Stellar Illumination’ anew.
Although it seemed the same, once he executed it again, Li Yuan held a different understanding in his heart.
In the past.
Whenever he used it, he pursued the ultimate burst and speed, as spectacular as an exploding star.
But now, revisiting the technique, his moves were slower, and his power more restrained.
It was like a blazing star that, after billions of years of evolution, transitioned from its initial ‘molten lava’ period to stability.
Not because the star no longer contained the potential for explosive power,
But because it had condensed this surging force within, seldom unleashing it arbitrarily.