Tony Clark walked out of the Class 2 Training Room as the heavy iron doors slid shut behind him with a dull thud. His body felt completely exhausted, and a thick layer of sweat soaked his crimson-and-black outer disciple robes, but his dark eyes were bright with a calculating, victorious gleam. Drawing a heavy spiritual bow thousands of times in a single afternoon was a brutal task that would have shattered an ordinary 7th Class Disciple, but his physical frame—hardened by the crushing force of the mountain waterfall—had absorbed the structural stress beautifully.
He found a quiet, shaded stone pavilion near the edge of the training valley and immediately sat down cross-legged on a smooth granite bench to check his baseline cultivation status. Even without the guidance of his dormant system spirit, his Truth Eye was perfectly active. As he looked inward, he could see the incredible transformation happening within his spiritual sea. The dense, high-tier primordial energy he had greedily drawn from the Class 2 simulation room using the Storm Breathing Technique was swirling beautifully through his open channels.
His manual training session had not only pushed his proficiency with the Invisible Shadow Shot straight to a staggering 33%, but the massive influx of raw energy had also perfectly reinforced his core foundation. His internal energy pools were expanding, turning deeper and far more stable than the fragile baseline he had started with just days ago. He was no longer a weak, newly promoted junior; his 7th Class Disciple magus power was now vibrating with a rich, solid density that could easily match a standard 8th Class cultivator in a physical clash.
Tony let out a slow, satisfied breath and relaxed his posture into his standard, lazy stance, casually leaning his head against a stone pillar to watch the twilight shadows stretch over the academy peaks. I started this game as a poisoned, talentless orphan whom everyone wanted dead for a handful of coins, Tony thought to himself, a slow, villainous grin curling the corners of his lips. But in less than three days, I have purged the poison, broken a three-ton stone pillar, outclimbed the entire outer campus, and unlocked a master archer’s soul art. Let the Faith Family and the greedy local clans pile up their little plots; they have absolutely no idea that every single step they take is simply leading them deeper into my graveyard.
"You seem remarkably content for someone whose name is currently being dragged through the mud across the entire outer campus district, young master Tony," a soft, refined voice suddenly murmured from the entrance of the pavilion, completely shattering the quiet atmosphere of the valley.
Tony didn’t even flinch at the sudden interruption. His Truth Eye had already perceived her familiar, elegant energy signature long before her boots even touched the stone steps. He shifted his gaze and noticed the nice-looking painting lady—the disguised merchant heiress—standing there under the fading twilight. She had shed her spatial ornaments for the evening and was holding her signature wooden sketchboard tightly against her chest, her violet eyes swirling with a mixture of deep respect and genuine, frantic anxiety.
Tony let out a low, amused chuckle and casually waved his hand toward the empty space on the granite bench beside him, his tone dripping with his usual, shameless nonchalance. "Ah, the beautiful painting lady has returned to check on her long-term investment. Take a seat, miss. Tell me, what kind of ridiculous, noisy rumors are the local insects spreading about my name now?"
The lady walked inside, her flowing crimson robes brushing softly against the stone floor as she sat down beside him, her posture maintaining an immaculate, royal grace that completely exposed her poor disguise to Tony’s eyes. She set her board down on her knees and looked directly into his dark eyes, her voice dropping into a low, incredibly serious whisper that bypassed the thin mountain wind.
"This is absolutely not a laughing matter, Tony," she warned him sharply, her brow furrowing with a deep sense of worry.
"Just an hour ago, while I was sitting near the grand arena district to paint the evening landscape, I happened to overhear a highly secret, malicious conversation between several top senior disciples and a group of high-ranking outer juniors from the Vance clan. They were actively discussing your name, and their plans for the upcoming morning tournament matches are completely terrifying."
Tony merely raised an eyebrow, looking completely amused as he tilted his head to listen. "Go on, miss. What exactly are these supreme geniuses planning to do to me on the stage?"
"They know you miraculously managed to reach the 7th Class and sneak past the screening barriers through sheer brute physical strength," the merchant lady explained rapidly, her fingers tightening around her paintbrush.
"But because you foolishly chose the ancient, primitive path of the Phantom Arrows and ignored the high-tier elemental spells in the library, they still consider your core foundation to be nothing more than unrefined trash.
They have explicitly coordinated with the tournament registrars to map you into a specific ring tomorrow morning where they can publicly ridicule you in front of thousands of spectators. They do not want to simply defeat you in a standard match; their plan is to use wide-range, torturous elemental arrays to completely immobilize your movements, toy with your physical frame like a pathetic dummy, and make you look like an absolute fool before the entire institution!"
A cold, dangerous glint flashed across her violet eyes as she revealed the final, disgusting layer of their plot. "The senior disciples explicitly stated that once they completely shatter your pride and make you a public joke on the live screens, they will force you to sign an absolute soul contract on the stage to become a lowly, dog-like servant to the Vance clan for the rest of your academic life.
They want to use your absolute public humiliation to send a message to anyone who dares to cross the noble families, and Lady Julie Faith’s shadow is all over this arrangement. You need to understand that the tournament ring tomorrow will be an absolute slaughterhouse designed entirely to trap you."
Tony kept his eyes on her face as she finished her frantic warning, completely absorbing her words without showing even a single fraction of fear, anxiety, or internal distress. Instead, a wide, ruthlessly brilliant smile slowly spread across his face, and he let out a loud, booming laugh that echoed merrily through the quiet stone pavilion, looking completely delighted by the news.
"A servant contract and a public puppet show?" Tony sneered coldly, his voice vibrating with an immense, terrifying wave of villainous pride that made the surrounding mountain air turn strangely heavy. He casually leaned his back against the stone pillar, his posture entirely relaxed.
"They truly have an extraordinarily grand imagination for a pack of short-sighted dogs. They want to turn me into a dummy to amuse the crowd, but they are completely blind to the reality that they are the ones walking straight into an absolute meat grinder."
The merchant lady stared at him in utter, unadulterated shock, her mind completely baffled by his lack of panic. She had expected him to ask for a hidden route to escape the campus or to borrow one of her family’s high-grade defensive treasures to survive the arena, yet he was sitting there laughing as if he had just been invited to a luxury banquet.
"Tony, I am being completely serious!" she cried out softly, her voice tight with frustration. "The juniors they are deploying are not like Marcus Vance; these are seasoned fighters who have mastered multiple elemental spells, and they have the absolute backing of the senior inner peaks! Your wooden bow cannot protect you if they blanket the entire stage in an inescapable fire matrix!"
Tony slowly turned his head to look directly into her eyes, his signature lazy smirk returning to his lips as he reached out and lightly tapped the edge of her wooden sketchboard with his finger. "Your worry is highly appreciated, my beautiful painting lady, and I am genuinely glad to see that my long-term partner cares so much about my survival," Tony said smoothly, his tone full of shameless confidence.
"But you have completely underestimated the absolute depth of my game. A regular hunter shoots an arrow to catch a common bird, but a true villain allows the prey to believe they are the hunters, just so he can gather them all into a single cage and crush them into absolute dust at the exact same time."
He stood up from the granite bench, his tall frame casting a long, commanding shadow under the moonlight as he stretched his arms lazily. "Go back to your quarters and get some rest, miss. Tomorrow morning, you don’t need to waste your precious energy trying to defend my name or worrying about my safety.
Just find a comfortable seat in the absolute front row of the stands, bring your best wooden board, and get your paintbrushes perfectly ready. I can promise you that the bloody spectacle I am going to display in that ring tomorrow will be the most magnificent, unforgettable masterpiece you will ever paint in your entire life."
The disguised merchant heiress looked up at his unyielding, predatory figure, the total, unshakable certainty in his dark eyes completely washing away her lingering anxiety, replacing it instead with a sudden, intoxicating wave of fanatical awe and absolute curiosity. She realized that trying to warn Tony Clark about a trap was completely redundant; the boy didn’t fear their plots because he was already planning a catastrophe that would turn their entire outer campus into a permanent graveyard.
"Fine," she whispered softly, a brilliant, genuine smile returning to her lips as she stood up alongside him, her heart pounding with a sudden, intense excitement. "I will hold you to your absolute promise, young master Tony. I shall be waiting in the front row to witness your grand masterpiece."
With a final, polite nod of her head, she turned on her heel and smoothly walked down the stone steps, her slender figure disappearing into the quiet darkness of the mountain paths, while Tony remained standing alone in the pavilion, his eyes locking onto the high arena spires with a lethal, silent promise as the final night before the grand tournament officially settled over the world.
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