When Gu Lingzhi demonstrated the technique and hit the young man's arm the second time, he remembered the pain in his arm, and he could almost smell the burning of his skin.

The audience looked at Gu Lingzhi, wanting to hear her explanation.

“I am not externalizing my spiritual energy,” Gu Lingzhi said blandly. Under the suspicious eyes of the audience, she slowly explained, “This is an additional feature of my sword, it can externalize spiritual energy even without my control.”

Externalizing spiritual energy without the wielder's control?

Some people in the audience were speechless, who would add such a useless feature to their sword?

However, the truth was right in front of them – though some features may seem useless, it may be extremely useful when under the right circ.u.mstances.

The young man did not believe Gu Lingzhi, and wanted to try using the Qingfeng Sword himself. Gu Lingzhi agreed readily and with a flick of her hand, sent her sword flying towards him.

The young man took the sword and clenching his teeth, he directed his spiritual energy into the sword. Immediately, the Qingfeng sword started to glisten with golden energy.

He tried to do what Gu Lingzhi did and swung the sword gently towards the ground.

A streak of energy flowed out from the sword and into the ground, exactly like what Gu Lingzhi had done earlier. The expression on the young man changed immediately.

This meant that he had indeed lost, fair and square.

“Do you still have any suspicions?”

“…No.” The young man had never felt more embarra.s.sed in his life. He returned the sword back to Gu Lingzhi and promptly left the arena, not even caring about his upcoming battles.

Gu Lingzhi kept her sword and went back to sit in the waiting area.

This time, people did not have that condescending look in their eyes anymore. In fact, they looked slightly guilty. The feature on Gu Lingzhi's sword might seem weak but on a weapon that was in the Martial Student tier, it had worked extremely well. One person even came up to ask her where she had gotten the sword.

It was boring to wait in the arena, because no one knew whether it would be their turn to battle on that day since it was based on luck. At the same time, it could be interesting because one could watch others battle.

Gu Lingzhi's luck was good, because by afternoon, she had battled three times. She had won all three battles and for someone who had just started out, it was an outstanding result.

Her good luck had continued on for a few days and after winning more than ten rounds consecutively, she finally met with an obstacle.

“Pei Wen, Level Eight Martial Student.”

Gu Lingzhi had always expressed seriousness when regarding her opponents. She did that for the young man, and she would do this for her opponent now.

“Black Thorn, Level Five Martial Student,” Gu Lingzhi said.

Pei Wen smiled, “I've watched your battles, you're good.”

Gu Lingzhi nodded, “You're really strong too.”

Gu Lingzhi was not being patronizing, her opponent was indeed very strong. In the few days that Gu Lingzhi had lingered in the Town of the Brave, she was familiar with her opponent who already had an Emblem of the Brave.

Pei Wen was humble even when she was complimenting Gu Lingzhi.

“That's because you aren't seasoned yet.”

This compliment hinted that Gu Lingzhi would become unrivalled in the future too.

After a polite exchange of words, they got into their starting position, ready to fight.

Using her Black Thorn ident.i.ty, Gu Lingzhi always maintained an elegant yet quick-witted way of fighting. Pei Wen, however, was the exact opposite. Tall and skinny, he liked to use big and rough moves. His weapon of choice was also seldomly chanced upon – a rod. With every swing, it produced a sound that was similar to the wind.

Gu Lingzhi repeatedly dodged the rod, but she felt like a b.u.t.terfly caught in a tornado, trying to orientate itself.

Pei Wen… was indeed very powerful!

The battle had just begun, but Gu Lingzhi was already under enormous pressure. Pei Wen's continuously attacked so that Gu Lingzhi would spend most of her energy trying to dodge. However, Gu Lingzhi had no intention of giving up.

The opponent may be strong, but so was she!

Determination in her eyes, she began her counterattack.

Her counterattack was weak and did not do much damage to Pei Wen, but Pei Wen still treated each counterattack with seriousness. In fact, he started to be fond of her.

His judgment had been right, Gu Lingzhi was indeed an opponent that was just as strong as Xin Yi, Tianfeng Wei, et cetera.

It was a pity that she was still rather weak now.

This battle lasted only for a short while, yet it made Gu Lingzhi feel more tired than her previous three battles.

Gu Lingzhi, who was at the brink of exhaustion, still got hit by Pei Wen's rod in the end and fell to the side of the arena, coughing up fresh blood.

“You've lost,” Pei Wen stated.

Gu Lingzhi nodded her head, signaling to the administrator that he could end the battle.

Pei Wen frowned as Gu Lingzhi wiped the blood from the side of her mouth before hurriedly walking to her side.

“Are you alright?”

Gu Lingzhi merely said jokingly, “It's just a small injury. You dealt the blow, how could you not know?”

“That is true,” Pei Wen laughed. “Well, I'm going to make a move now, I look forward to our next battle.”

Gu Lingzhi is willing to bet that Pei Wen never had luck with women, from the way he acted.

If it were the Third Prince, he would have offered to send her back home.

Realizing that she had thought of someone that she should not have thought of in the first place, she frowned. It looked like she had indeed fallen into the Third Prince's trap. It seemed that though all her previous encounters had annoyed her, it had changed into something else.

She did not know what was wrong with the Third Prince, to be interested in someone who did not even have a name and whose face he could not see. It also seemed that she had b.u.mped into him in many different places recently.

Every time they met, he would come up with an excuse to spend a great amount of time with her. And… it was happening once again.

With a slight ache in her head, she looked at the Third Prince who was smiling at her. It made her wonder who had spread the rumor that the Third Prince was a cold person who did not like to interact with people? Why did it seem that no matter what ident.i.ty she had used, he would make the first move and talk to her?

Rong Yuan was also confused when he looked at Gu Lingzhi, unable to understand what had happened to him.

At first, he only thought that it was fun to tease her because he wanted to see what lay behind the mature mask that she had always tried to put on in front of others. However, he did not know why he felt his heart ache when he saw her being hurt repeatedly by Pei Wen and also when she had coughed up blood.

Even though he knew that there was a possibility of getting hurt during a battle and Gu Lingzhi's wounds were not serious, he could not help but still feel his heart ache when he saw her getting hurt. Was it a side effect of teasing her for too long?

Clutching his chest with one hand and dealing with this strange feeling, the talented and outstanding Third Prince had finally met with a difficult problem for the first time.