The arena was quickly cleared and Hou was chauffeured to the arena. He was sent down a set of stairs into a prep room.
It was a dark room with a wall of different tools and weapons. There, one man stood with a pair of goggles on his head.
When Hou walked in, the man with the goggles excitedly flipped them on and spoke,
"Hello there, you're not the typical fighter type. There's a set of rules here, take off your treasures or if you want you can propose to have a set number and the opposing fighter can accept or reject."
'I need to have at least the transformation ring on and also I want the brush to write the Flowing Divine Script.... I'll need at least these two, I'll have to propose two treasures'
"Can I propose two treasures?"
"Yeah sure, BOSS!" The man with the giggles shouted up the stairs and the boss came waddling down.
"What you want me for Zhi Fa?!" The boss came in smoking a cigar and banged on the wall.
"The boy wants to propose two treasures, that fine?"
"Yeah do that, but two treasures won't help haha" The boss pointed at Hou with his lit cigar, coughing while laughing.
"That's all, thank you boss." Zhi Fa, the man with the goggles, turned back to Hou.
"What two will you choose? The ring, brush, wings?"
'Wings?! How can he see my wings, they should be completely hidden by the transformation?'
Zhi Fa saw Hou was surprised when he said 'wings' and took off his goggles to explain,
"It's the help of these goggles. You were hiding the look of the wings but they are still there and these goggles can detect treasures."
'But it can't detect the Celestial Ink in my body? Perhaps since it combined to form the Celestial Law Amplifying Physique?'
"No, I'll just keep the ring and brush, I'll take off the wings." Hou wanted to test his fighting, not rely on too many treasures.
Zhi Fa nodded and held out his hands,
"Just pass them to me and I'll give them straight to your master. I swear that I will not do anything to them."
Hou squinted and nodded. He then closed his eyes and looked inwards to take off the wings. He never has actually taken off the wings, when they were attached they formed with his body. Hou tried to take them off by thinking of them falling off, hoping they would follow suite.
As Hou was thinking so. The wings detached and became visible. As they fall in the air, the transformation ring ceased to act on then and they became visible.
Before they unfurled, the wings were still in their compacted form. The size of Hou's upper back, it was covered in bronze metal but in-between the metal was the feathers. Slightly translucent white feathers with a galaxy-like look under them.
Zhi Fa walked up and picked up the wings gently, he held them in with his hands and told Hou,
"I'll just send these up, then I'll be right back just stay here."
Zhi Fa took the wings and brought them up the stairs, handing them off to a pair of guards. All the guards were former fighters who were fairly strong.
"Don't touch it or damage it, it seems expensive. Just hand it over to the scholar's master."
Hou waited as Zhi Fa was away, again thinking of what he should do.
'How does a scholar fight, and how should I? Since Mo Huai said as if I could already fight I don't need to hide my power too much. I think I'll focus on external attacks. Maybe I can use qi, like Fatty Kuang did in Cloud Prism? The Celestial Law Amplifying Physique should let me use qi physically despite not being in Cloud Prism anymore'
As Hou was thinking, Zhi Fa returned,
"We seem to be ready, just stand at the doors here and wait for the fight to start. When the doors open, go into the arena and wait for the bell to start fighting."
Hou nodded and moved towards the set of doors Zhi Fa pointed towards. Hou took a breath and got his mindset ready. He had not done much fighting since he came to the Nine Clouds Sovereign Sect, much less with other 'cultivators'
The doors swing open and Hou was blinded by the light for a moment. He started walking through the doors, entering the arena. It was a deep recessed circular arena, a dirt floor with concentric circles drawn in.
Hou looked up at the audience shouting and screaming. They all had bet many silver on the fight, a few picked Hou in hopes of winning big.
On the other side, the fighter stood. The young teenager wore black wraps around his hand and on his feet were more black wraps. Hou did not know, but he assumed these were his two assigned treasures since he did not see them before.
Hou stood up while holding his book and brush, looking towards the fighter. Then the teen spoke,
"Nothing personal, don't struggle and it won't hurt. I'm Shou by the way"
Hou smiled and shook his head,
"I'm Shu, Shu Daizi. Nothing personal here either." Hou smirked at the Shou, he was not a real scholar.
Suddenly, a bell rung and the fight started. Firstly, Shou started running, the feet wraps making his running speed increase as he moved.
Hou saw this and begun his first move, using qi he had been storing without use and siphoned it through the Celestial Law Amplifying Physique.
The physique's specialty actuated and the qi became physical. As he did this, Shou had caught up and threw a punch towards Hou's face.
In the split second Hou moved his hand either side in front of his face. The qi threads crystallized mid-air into a lattice, each strand having been made physical with the Celestial Law Amplifying Physique as it absorbed the punch's impact for the most part.
Hou was sent back from the force and the qi threads all shattered, dissipating back into the atmosphere. He was still upright and even fully blocked a punch with the power of the fighter and two treasure's behind it!
The crowd became silent with only a few gasps. No one had expected much from Hou and the control over qi was completely out of left field.
That's when the boss smacked his legs and laughed. He was at on a large throne, watching the fight from above. Beside him, on a smaller seat Mo Huai sat watching.
"So that's it, he a qi master! But clearly a novice, I bet that fighter should be able to disrupt it himself. Qi masters can be easily disrupted without complete control over the qi haha"