What, You Think Being Rich Makes You Special?!

Lu Yuan was surrounded.

He raised his head and looked toward the bend in the passage.

"It's you!"

Standing at the corner was the cat-kin Hunter he'd run into yesterday. The cat-kin archer and the elemental warrior from last time were both there too.

Three against one. And prowling nearby: three Stone Men and two Black Scorpions.

This was going to be a problem.

He ran a quick assessment. *My strength has grown since last time — but so has theirs. If the cat-kin archer's arrow power is the same as before, I might be able to tank her shots long enough to take out the swordsman first.*

The two sides clashed.

Their teamwork was airtight. With Xiye holding Lu Yuan pinned in close quarters, Moli and Nanqi could pour on ranged pressure freely from a distance. Every time Lu Yuan drove Xiye back and tried to press the advantage, Moli and Nanqi would blanket him with suppressing fire and force a retreat. And every time Lu Yuan moved to go directly for the two ranged fighters, Xiye stepped in to cut him off. Over and over, no end to it.

A perfect deadlock.

Lu Yuan's natural speed was nothing impressive, and with Xiye constantly in his way, closing the distance to the ranged pair was simply unrealistic.

Caught at the center of it all, he kept his sword moving — carving shallow wounds into the Stone Men and Black Scorpions as each came within reach. As long as the hits stayed off vitals, the beasts couldn't do him any real damage. They stung a bit. That was all.

Without mortal danger hanging over him, he let the chaos become a training ground. Every dodge sharpened his footwork; every exchange honed his blade. Throughout it all, that peculiar breathing cadence resonated steadily in his ears.

Clash!

Sparks erupted from both swords. Xiye's expression flickered as he stumbled back two steps.

He stared at Lu Yuan, alarm rising behind his eyes.

"Your strength — how did it grow this much?!"

"What can I say," Lu Yuan smiled, "I'm just built different."

He kept the full reason to himself. Since entering the Land of Origin, he'd been absorbing Spirit Crystals steadily, pushing his tempering from just under 9% all the way to 12% — a gain of nearly five percentage points, close to half again what it had been.

Though 12% wasn't high by any measure, what Lu Yuan had engraved was an elite-rank Transcendent Gene, which made every point of tempering punch well above its weight. And while Black Iron Body wasn't built primarily for raw strength, the total physical enhancement it provided was still substantial. Layered on top with his Gene Armament, his overall defensive capability now matched that of an ordinary Gene Warrior sitting at 50 to 60 percent tempering. At equal raw strength, the fighter with the superior body technique won — and in that area, Lu Yuan had the edge.

Last time, their clashes had been roughly even, with Xiye holding a slight advantage. Now, in such a short span of time, the balance had tilted entirely the other way.

The cat-kin swordsman watched Lu Yuan charge back in and set his jaw, something pained flickering across his expression.

"How do you have this much spirit power?"

Lu Yuan laughed. "This attack output? Their spirit power should be nearly empty by now too. You think you're the only ones burning reserves?"

He kept that secret too. His left hand, curled out of sight, was closed around a Spirit Crystal. Spiritual Energy had been flowing into him continuously since the fight began. This was already the fourth one.

He was in no hurry at all.

Some distance away, Moli and Nanqi were watching the Lu Yuan–Xiye exchange with growing unease.

"How much time has it even been?! He got this much stronger?!" Nanqi's voice was tight with disbelief.

"How is this possible? Last time they were about evenly matched — with a full burst, Xiye should be able to put this human down!"

"Something's wrong," Moli said, nocking another arrow with sweat beading across her forehead, gasping for breath. "Very wrong. This human — he's been sustaining a combat technique the entire fight. His spirit power can't seriously still be untouched, can it?!"

"All our techniques are offensive," Nanqi continued, his face troubled. "We've been burning through spirit power nonstop just keeping the pressure up, and we're nearly empty — but he's been holding a sustained defense this whole time. How?!"

What neither of them could see was the Spirit Crystal nestled in Lu Yuan's left hand.

Before long, one of the Stone Men swayed and crumbled.

One of Moli's arrows, aimed at Lu Yuan but deflected off course, had punched clean through the Stone Man's skull — drilling a hole straight through its head. The creature shuddered, then collapsed into rubble.

With one fewer beast circling him, evasion became marginally easier.

Lu Yuan pressed on. And just as he cut down another Stone Man himself — a piercing shriek of split air screamed in from behind.

A cold prickle shot down his spine. Instinct fired before thought.

He spun — Xiye was already driving a massive greatsword diagonally downward toward the back of his neck from above.

Clash!

The sword wind howled past, ruffling Xiye's own hair with its force. A dull thud — the swordsman stumbled back several paces.

Lu Yuan had caught the blade in a horizontal parry and flung it wide, immediately following with a kick aimed straight at the cat-kin's stomach. Xiye's pupils narrowed as he threw his left palm up to intercept.

"Sneaking up from behind now?! How underhanded!"

He raised his sword and drove in again. The howling blade whipped close enough to stir the cat-kin's hair a second time.

He could feel it. Xiye was running out of steam.

"Even if your spirit power recovers, it won't mat—"

Before Lu Yuan could finish the sentence, Xiye yanked out a blood-red vial and drained it on the spot, then immediately pulled out a pale-green one and downed that too.

*Spirit power recovery potions?!*

Lu Yuan's expression shifted.

He'd completely forgotten those were a thing.

After taking them, Xiye's spirit power would start climbing back up. He'd worked so long to finally grind him down — and now it all went right back to nothing.

Over where Moli and Nanqi stood, both were doing the same — pulling out vials one after another.

Lu Yuan's expression darkened considerably.

"Oh, what the *hell*?! You think potions just fall from the sky?! Who chugs them like that?! What — you're rich, so that makes you something special?!"

"Go all-out!" Xiye bellowed, cold sweat dripping from his forehead. "If we hold back, we're running again!"

His combat technique was on its last legs. Moli and Nanqi's faces hardened in the distance. They wrung out every last drop of spirit power they had and went for broke.

Moli gritted her teeth. Something fierce crossed her delicate features as she drew the next arrow, which flickered with a faint, bloody light.

Nanqi's expression went cold as stone. The fireball at the head of his staff swelled — larger, and then larger still.

Lu Yuan sensed the sudden surge in their auras. His own expression changed.

An arrow screamed toward his eyes. A massive fireball roared in at the same instant.

Clash! He swept his sword in a single arc — arrow deflected, fireball smothered.

He tried to step forward — no time. Two more arrows came in rapid succession, and a second fireball, even larger than the first, was already bearing down on him.

He cursed under his breath and flashed sideways.

The arrow grazed his cheek. The fireball sailed past and landed squarely on a Black Scorpion's back.

*BOOM!!*

The scorpion's shriek cut off as flames swallowed it. Its upper body erupted in a bloody crater. It went down and stayed there.

And with that, the battle locked into a grinding stalemate.

Lu Yuan outclassed Xiye in a direct clash — but couldn't end the fight quickly. Xiye's constant interference kept Moli and Nanqi viable; every time he drove the swordsman back, suppressing fire killed the follow-through before he could capitalize. Lu Yuan's speed was a weakness at the best of times, and with Xiye dogging him continuously, closing the distance to the ranged pair was simply out of the question.

In a straight war of attrition, he'd lose. His tempering was lower than all three cat-kin Hunters — his raw spirit power reserves simply couldn't measure up.

But that was exactly what Spirit Crystals were for.

This was the quiet frustration of the Guardian type: defense like a fortress, virtually indestructible — but no single finishing blow to end a fight. He could weather anything they threw at him. He just couldn't end it fast.

Still, "enduring indefinitely" cut both ways.

This was going to drag on for a very long time.

And Lu Yuan was in no hurry at all.

Gradually, time wore on. As his tempering continued to tick upward — each Spirit Crystal feeding Spiritual Energy steadily into his body, Black Iron Body growing stronger in kind — the gap between him and Xiye widened. The swordsman's face had gone gray, his originally reddish skin now dull and lifeless. His hands trembled faintly; gripping his sword was becoming a struggle.

"What's going on?! Xiye is being suppressed?!" Moli's voice was sharp with disbelief.

Lu Yuan's sword rose. He smiled.

"I think," he said, "it's your turn next."