Mediocre Master: I Can See Your Hidden Potential! (A Xianxia Sect-Building LitRPG)

68. The Stench of Success

by inkadmin

The batches begin, and within the first exchange, I understand why mortals were not included in this bracket.

The Qi Condensation fighters were humans with powers. Impressive, sometimes terrifying, but still recognizable as people who had simply learned to do what people could not. Mortals could, with great effort and luck, make an informed bet on who would win.

The cultivators here could hardly be called human at all.

I watch a woman freeze the air in front of her and shatter it into a thousand crystalline shards, each one guided by her will. I watch a man step through his own shadow and emerge behind his opponent, his blade already drawn. I watch techniques that would have drained my entire qi reserve in a single exhale being deployed like basic footwork.

‘If I had entered Ling’er in this tournament, if I had let her compete… could she truly have stood here? Against these people?’

I do not know. And that uncertainty is why I made the right choice. The stories I read on Earth were guidelines of what I shouldn’t do. Following those tropes, entering the tournament to prove her strength, to gain recognition, to rise through the ranks, would likely spell both her doom and the sect’s. There are no guaranteed victories. There are only people who have trained for decades, who have resources I cannot imagine, who have killed before and will kill again.

Ling’er is twelve. She has been cultivating for months and the level she’s reached is nothing short of extraordinary. But extraordinary is not enough here. Even for me, at Foundation Establishment Fifth Stage, most of the fights are a blur. I have to focus all my senses on one match at a time, and even then, I miss details. A feint here, a shift in weight there, the subtle gathering of qi that precedes an attack by less than a heartbeat.

I choose one dome and stay with it.

‘Yan Gaoque. The monk.’

His opponent is announced as an inner disciple of the Crimson Dragon Alliance. I activate the Gaze briefly.

Crimson Dragon Alliance Disciple – Foundation Establishment (Peak)

Name: Zhao Fenglie

Age: 48

Spirit Root: Fire/Earth (B-grade)

Constitution: Magma Heart (C-grade) – Fire and earth techniques are more volatile and destructive.

Cultivation: Foundation Establishment (Peak) – Stable

Verdict: A solid, unspectacular elite. His techniques are powerful but predictable.

I dismiss the Gaze. Unbelievable. This man would be a terror in any other tournament. And he is merely “solid, unspectacular” by the standards of this bracket.

The match begins.

Zhao Fenglie raises his hands. The earth beneath the dome cracks, and from the fissures, magma dragons rise. Molten stone and fire, each one fast enough to overtake me if I ran at full speed.

Three of them. Four. Five.

They chase Yan Gaoque across the dome. The monk dodges. His movements are economical, precise, and almost lazy. He steps where the dragons are not, shifts his weight a fraction of a second before a dragon would have swept his legs. He runs along the back of one dragon as it passes, using it as a bridge to reach the next. The magma burns his feet. I can see the soles of his sandals smoking, the fabric blackening. His face doesn’t shift. Zhao Fenglie grows frustrated. He commits more qi. The dragons grow larger, faster, more numerous. Three of them form a pincer: from the left, the right, and above. There is no gap.

CRACK!

Yan Gaoque is crushed in the middle.

The impact shakes the dome. Magma sprays against the hard light barrier, sizzling and cooling into black stone. The crowd sighs, shaking their heads. Behind me, a cultivator mutters, “What was Golden Lotus thinking? Sending someone so young?”

Then a yellow glow erupts. It comes from within the piled mass of cooling magma; a warm, steady light, like the sun behind clouds. The glow intensifies. The magma cracks. And then it explodes. Shrapnel of molten rock and cooled stone flies in every direction, hammering against the dome. The crowd flinches. Zhao Fenglie stumbles backward, raising his arms to shield his face. When the dust clears, Yan Gaoque stands unharmed. His robe is singed, and his feet are bare—but his skin is golden. A soft, warm radiance that clings to him like a second layer of skin.

Zhao Fenglie stares.

“Golden Bell Armor?” he whispers. The sound carries through the dome’s amplification.

The crowd erupts.

“Impossible!”

“Golden Bell Armor requires Iron Shirt as a foundation!”

“No Foundation Establishment cultivator can learn it!”

Zhao Fenglie recovers. He summons more magma dragons. He attacks from every angle, layering dragon after dragon until the dome becomes a furnace. Yan Gaoque does not dodge this time. He walks. Straight toward his opponent. The dragons slam into him and break apart. Their claws scrape against his golden skin and leave no marks. Their heat does not make him flinch. He reaches Zhao Fenglie, and the barrage that follows is not elegant. Palm strikes, fist strikes, elbows, knees, each blow landing with the weight of a collapsing mountain. Zhao Fenglie’s defenses shatter. He is pressed against the dome’s barrier, pinned there until his defenses fail and his body follows. Less than five minutes from start to finish.

Yan Gaoque steps back. His hands lower. His golden glow fades, replaced by soft steam hissing from his skin. He looks at the unconscious body of his opponent. His face is serene.

The crowd is silent. Then the silence breaks into a roar of disbelief.

I sit in my seat, my hands still, and realize something.

No matter how much I plan, no matter how carefully I manage resources, no matter how many manuals Ling’er transcribes or bets I win… I have been underestimating what it means to be strong in this world. These people are forces of nature wearing human skin. I glance at Ling’er. Her mouth is slightly open. Her eyes are glazed, unfocused. I look back at the other domes. The matches are wrapping up. I search for the one Ling’er flagged—the fighter she said would lose. I find the dome. The match is over. The victor is being announced. The fighter Ling’er predicted would lose is being helped off the field, barely conscious.

‘She was right.’

I listen to the cultivators around me. They are talking about the match—the one I missed while watching Yan Gaoque.

“Dead even,” a man says. “Down to the wire.”

“Could have gone either way.

I turn to Ling’er. She is still watching the domes, her expression distant.

Her combat intuition is already impossibly high. The Gaze gives me information; stats, constitutions, verdicts. But Ling’er can read how a fight will unfold. Not just who is stronger on paper, but how their techniques will interact, how their minds will respond to pressure, how the momentum will shift. She saw it before anyone else. Even in a crowd of seasoned cultivators, she can still see things they can’t. Where my gaze tells me what people are, Ling’er is starting to see what they will do. That realization brings a shiver to my spine.

After Yan Gaoque’s match, I expect the next batch of fights to feel less overwhelming. I expect my senses to adjust, my mind to calibrate, my pulse to settle. But they don’t.

The next batches move quickly: each batch beginning, unfolding, ending within minutes. But every fight feels like something worth studying. Not because every fighter is a future Nascent Soul seed; many will plateau according to the Gaze, but because every combatant has something. A hidden method. A refined technique. A strange weapon. A way of moving that I have never seen before and will likely not see again. A woman uses threads of light to bind her opponent’s limbs before he can complete his first technique. A man fights with a broken sword, but the break is intentional: the blade separates into segments connected by invisible qi, extending his reach tenfold. I try to absorb. I realize, with growing unease, that I cannot.

This is the first time I have seen Foundation Establishment combat at this scale.

Not the isolated fights I have been in myself, alone, against bandits or spirit beasts. Not a provincial elder showing off in Greenstone, demonstrating techniques that looked impressive but were never tested against real opposition. Not the faded memories of the original body, who had seen occasional sect disputes and nothing more.

This is two hundred fifty-six people who have crossed the first real threshold of cultivation. Most of them are pushing toward Core Formation. My memories of “powerful cultivators” are provincial in context. I have read novels about cultivation. Thousands of chapters. I have imagined mountains splitting, seas boiling, the sky itself cracking under the weight of a single technique.

Those novels failed to capture the thing sitting in front of me now.

Every movement is layered with decisions. Every technique is built on years of refinement. Every exchange carries more information than a weaker cultivator could process in the time it takes to blink. I sit in the stands, my hands still, and my eyes straining, to follow one match at a time. Even that is difficult.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

The Gaze helps. but it doesn’t tell me how these fighters will move. I look at Ling’er. She is watching the same matches I am watching. Her eyes are gold-brown, focused, tracking, but not one specific match. It feels like she’s perceiving them all. I turn back to the domes. The matches continue and before I know it, the midway point concludes, and a larger break is announced. Most cultivators begin leaving, heading toward the concourse for food and discussion. The stands empty around us. But Ling’er and I do not move from our seats. She has been almost entirely silent for hours now. In any other context, this would concern me. But I know why.

Around us, a few cultivators remain. Some close their eyes, sitting in meditation between batches. At first I think this is theatrical, but then I understand.

‘These matches are instructional texts written through combat.’

Even without the Gaze. Even without Ling’er’s thread-reading. A cultivator can watch and realize where their imagination has been too small. A technique they thought was the peak of their art. A combination they believed was original. A defensive method they had never seen countered.

All of it, dismantled or refined or rendered obsolete by someone they have never heard of. This is why the tickets were so expensive.

Where else could a loose cultivator see a Nether Veil heir, a Golden Lotus core disciple, Violet Sky sword experts, Crimson Dragon elites, and wandering monsters all in one place? Where else could someone realize their “ultimate technique” was only ultimate because they had never seen anything better?

I think of the frog in the well. It believes the sky is small because it has never left the water. I have been that frog. So was the original Lu Chen. So are half the cultivators in minor sects who mistake isolation for mastery.

With that, I close my eyes and try to meditate. I replay Yan Gaoque’s footwork. I replay Zhao Fenglie’s magma control, the precision of forming multiple constructs, each one moving independently. I replay the ice-shard technique from the woman whose name I have already forgotten. I cannot copy them like Ling’er can. I cannot even fully understand them. But I can let them expand the boundaries of what I consider possible.

Because my greatest weakness is not my cultivation stage. It is not my mixed spirit root. It is not even my mediocre foundation. It is the simple fact that my imagination is still catching up to the world.

The afternoon deepens and the stands refill. The last batch is called before I even realize it. The names echo through the dome. Then the name everyone has been waiting for.

‘Xu Wuyin.’

The young mistress of the Nether Veil Sect.

The air changes. People stop talking. Even the cultivators who had been gambling loudly lower their voices. A few spectators shift away from the front rail, as if distance from the dome matters. She walks onto the platform. Her hood is still drawn. She simply stands, waiting.

Her opponent is introduced next.

Han Jue – White Moon Pavilion (Inner Disciple)

Age: 45

Spirit Root: Wind (B-grade)

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