PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

233 Chapter 233 A Ruthless World

(Desmond POV)

I do not consider myself a proud person, at least not extremely proud but it still hurt me to admit that I had underestimated this world too much, my first clue must have been the painful beating that Mei gave me, but for some reason even then I didn′t think too much of this world.

In the first place, I thought that the so-called martial arts of this world would not be very different from the ones I knew... that was a big mistake.

After following Mei who kept jumping across the rooftops of buildings, in a matter of minutes we reached what looked like a massive collection of dueling areas, with some equipment visible in certain sections, this seemed to be the training area from which Mei spoke and this was where the combat tests were held.

As Mei explained quickly, the so-called combat tests were a small event that happened once every month end were the best disciples of each class had the opportunity to challenge the disciples of a higher class, if they managed to defeat their opponents, then they would move up the class as disciples and the losers would be demoted.

Of course, if only that was at stake, this event would not be so noticeable, but one had to take into account how important status was in this world, being an inner disciple meant that one would have access to better resources, martial arts, and facilities in between other things.

It also meant that they were above the lower-ranking disciples not just as a mere formality, in this place the inner disciples could employ the outer disciples for all kinds of tasks.

In addition, according to Mei, there were other less recurrent advantages to which the disciples of higher rank had access, as she had previously mentioned when precious natural treasures appear on sensitive territories, the various sects in the area competed for said resources through their disciples.

One might expect that the sects would then send only their best disciples in order to have a better chance of obtaining these resources, so the teams sent by the sect were normally made up of three-fourths core disciples and one-fourth of intern disciples.

.....

And that’s where the benefits lay, although these resource contests were extremely dangerous where fewer than half of the disciples returned each time, they were also a tremendous opportunity for a disciple to gain resources from the sect.

Although the resources obtained through competition between sects were rarely given to the disciple, they still received a considerable amount of resources and their status within the sect would also increase greatly.

For all these reasons and some more than Mei was too lazy to explain was that these monthly duels were so important, also no disciple would dare to miss because that would mean an instant defeat.

It wasn’t long before the lower level duels began and it was there that I began to realize my lack of understanding about this place.

The first duel was between a fairly ordinary-looking outer disciple and a cocky-looking inner disciple, the beginning of the duel was quite bland, to be honest, maybe because they were just low-level disciples it was that they didn’t seem strong even to my standards as a mana user but little did I know that I was wrong.

Soon I saw the so-called martial arts they use in this world, I almost wanted to curse the one who designed the translation function of the hunter’s book, how the hell were those martial arts? They were clearly fucking ultimate moves not unlike my best elemental skills.

Powerful shock wave fists, energy whirlwind kicks, and other abilities, all were called martial arts in this place, but clearly, the meaning was different from what I knew; heck a guy could even project high-pressure wind blades from his hands.

And that was not all, these so-called martial arts did not focus only on offensive aspects, some disciples used these skills in a showy way to greatly increase their movement speed or even undertake strange and unpredictable movement patterns.

Others could mount defensive barriers of various shapes and attribute to nullify or deflect the abilities of their opponents, I couldn’t help but admire the versatility of the martial arts of this world.

Of course, it didn’t take long for me to realize that the misunderstanding lay in one simple truth, unlike the people of my world, the people of this world could use Ki, so it made sense that their combat methods were different; but still, it left me a bad feeling.

As if that was not enough, I also seemed to have underestimated the cruelty of this world, this place was much more brutal, from my observation the vast majority of the disciples of this sect were between 14 and 24 years old, however, the amount of cruelty in the duels between them was shocking.

Sure, I have beheaded, dismembered, impaled, and cremated other human beings, but even then it was different, those people were my enemies, threats to my life and the lives of those around me, I will not say that such cruelty was absolutely necessary or that a small part of me even got to enjoy it, but even so, I had a reason for my actions as valid as these were.

But these people should be sect mates, friends, or rivals and yet they did not hesitate in the slightest when it came to hurting the other, on more than one occasion I saw a person being on the verge of being crippled, the broken bones were so common like grass in the prairies and there were even at least two deaths.

It was ridiculous, it was only a monthly event to test the disciples’ martial ability, and yet there were so many people heavily injured or killed, they also didn’t seem to measure up to women, the only case where someone received a strong reprimand was when someone purposely tried to humiliate sexually to the girl he was fighting.

But even then the response from the crowd seemed to be rather neutral, only the female population and a small portion of the male population showed any reaction to such an event.

And strangely enough, I am glad to see that Mei was furious with the idiot who humiliated the girl, she seemed eager to go beat the poor bastard, but she held back in the end, it was a relief to see that Mei was not insensitive to such mistreatment and cruelty; I would somehow not feel comfortable if it had been different.

The duels continued to advance and in a matter of a couple of hours, the stage where the external disciples challenged the internal disciples had finished, according to Mei these duels represented the vast majority of the duels given each time.

Even with that being the case, the most interesting and intense duels were the duels between the best inner disciples and the core disciples, what these duels lacked in quantity they made up for in quality.

And Mei was right, the disciples at this level were completely different, not only was their strength superior, but their martial arts seemed to be far more complex and powerful in comparison.

Soon it was Mei’s turn to be challenged, as I watched her go on stage two things crossed my mind, the first was that Mei had one of the best butts I have ever seen in my life and the second was that someone should go calling a doctor.

And it seemed that my second thought was as accurate as of the first, as soon as the duel began Mei used her tyrannical physical power to appear in an instant in front of her adversary and used a movement that I vaguely recognized.

And when I say vaguely recognized, I mean I think I saw a flash of that color before flying off when Mei hit me in the ribs in our first encounter, golden waves layered around Mei’s arm and exploded on impact sending to the poor guy whose face I didn’t even have time to see before he was sent on a stretcher to the medical wing.

It could be me, but I think my ribs had a phantom pain when I saw the blow that Mei gave her opponent, in the same way, I am glad to see her win, although I did not think for a moment that she was going to lose; at least not at the level that the disciples had shown so far.

Mei came down from the stage with a neutral expression and I could see that even though people feared her for her crushing victory there was still a strange feeling around her, I don’t know who this girl offended, but it seemed that they had quite an influence on the sect.

The girl came to my side and for the first time since we arrived at this place she smiled very faintly, I replied with a smile, but to my surprise, Mei’s attention seemed to have been completely absorbed by something to my right and for a moment I recognized that look; it was the look of a maiden in love.

But that can’t be true, can it? I mean, that person is... well, this seems interesting.