Closing his eyes and listening to the clashing of weapons on the arena stage not far away, Mo Fan's taut nerves finally relaxed completely in this noisy waiting area.
The higher-ups' suspicion had been eliminated, and that amulet of "loyal and dull" was firmly stuck to his forehead.
The rest of the script only required him to act it out step by step.
Time flew by amidst the clash of blades and the bombardment of spells.
The next few days of preliminary matches were simply a boring assembly line operation for Mo Fan.
He repeated the same process, carrying out the "defense and counterattack" tactic to the end. Facing those ordinary mid-stage Qi Condensation outer court disciples, he didn't even bother to dodge.
Relying on the perverted defense of the consummate [ Iron Bones Stage ], he forcefully tanked their weak wind blades and fireballs.
Then, in the instant the opponent thought they had succeeded, or when their spiritual energy faltered, he covertly shot out a [ Touch of Grave Chill ] from his sleeve.
Once the invisible, extreme freezing death energy attached, the opponent would instantly fall into a fatal neurological stun.
Immediately after, that heavy long rod wrapped in coarse cloth would whistle over.
One strike.
No matter who it was, as long as they were swept by that terrifying, purely physical astral wind, they were all one-shotted or smashed directly out of the arena.
Three consecutive matches, the exact same every time.
Clean, efficient, barbaric.
The name "Lu Xiaoqi," accompanied by labels like "One-Strike Ruthless Man" and "Humanoid Spirit Beast," thoroughly made a name for itself among the outer court disciples.
Even when walking past the resting area, Mo Fan could keenly perceive the fearful gazes cast from the people around him.
As the tournament progressed, one evening, while resting at a tea stall on the outskirts of the martial arena, Mo Fan accidentally heard the fanatical roars of a few gamblers.
In the underground betting pool privately set up in the outer court, the odds of him—an originally unknown servant—winning the championship had actually surged against the trend.
He had been forcefully bought into the Top Five by those crazy gamblers hungry for an upset!
"Top Five?"
Mo Fan took a sip of coarse tea, a trace of wariness and curiosity flashing in his eyes under the hat.
He knew his own bottom line. Setting aside his skeleton army, relying solely on this reinforced physical body and dirty tricks to rank in the top five meant that there were still a few true dragons hidden in the deep waters of the outer court.
Compared to the "dimensional strike" of the inner sect disciples who didn't eat mortal food, these outer court elites who had rolled in the bottom-tier mud and fought their way up surely had some real skills.
Soon, the tournament entered a more cruel elimination phase.
On the Round of 64 to 32 stage.
Mo Fan encountered a slightly hard bone. The opponent was a veteran spell cultivator with extremely rich combat experience, who had clearly studied the recordings of Mo Fan's "one-strike instakills."
As soon as the match began, the spell cultivator didn't give Mo Fan any chance to close the distance. With two slaps, he first stuck two [ Gale Talismans ] onto his own legs.
His figure instantly turned into an afterimage, roaming crazily around the edge of the arena.
At the same time, his hands acted like they were having a seizure, continuously releasing sharp wind blades, attempting to use the "kiting strategy" to grind this clumsy bear Mo Fan to death.
If it were an ordinary body cultivator encountering this extremely counter-style play, they would probably be jumping mad with anger, eventually exposing a flaw in the meaningless consumption of stamina.
But Mo Fan was a "hunter" with max-level proficiency.
Like an extremely cunning cheetah, he deliberately pretended to be flustered by the wind blades, stumbling, panting heavily, and even intentionally exposed a flaw when he "couldn't dodge in time."
He let an azure wind blade hack viciously onto his shoulder.
"Got him!"
Ecstasy exploded in the spell cultivator's eyes. His figure paused in mid-air for a split second.
He brought his hands together, preparing to cast his most powerful chain storm to finish Mo Fan completely.
But what he didn't know was that under Mo Fan's torn clothes, the surface of his skin was already covered with an indestructible [ Skeletal Armament ].
That wind blade didn't even cut a single hair.
Just in that half-breath of time when the spell cultivator paused to channel his cast bar.
"It's over."
A cold sneer hooked the corner of Mo Fan's mouth. His left hand formed an empty grip inside his sleeve.
The invisible, extreme freezing death energy ignored the distance and descended precisely!
The spell cultivator in mid-air suddenly felt the blood in his entire body freeze. The hand seal stuck in his throat, and his whole body fell like a kite with a cut string.
BOOM!
Mo Fan's legs exerted force, shattering the marble of the arena. Like a cannonball, he closed in.
The coarse cloth long rod, carrying a mournful sonic boom, barely stopped an inch from the spell cultivator's chest.
The frenzied astral wind directly shocked the spell cultivator into vomiting blood and tumbling out of bounds.
Overwhelming force.
Easy advancement to the Top 32.
But this time, after the match ended, Mo Fan didn't rush back to the resting area to camp and find peace as usual.
He pulled down the brim of his bamboo hat.
Passing by the underground bank's stall, he casually spent two Spirit Shards to buy a copy of the Seeded Players Intelligence Record, the ink of which was not yet fully dry.
He needed to scout for a perfect "fall guy."
Someone who could let him lose reasonably and flawlessly in the upcoming quarterfinals.
Like an extremely dedicated talent scout and director, Mo Fan began hovering around the advanced stages in the center of the martial arena.
Soon, his gaze locked onto Stage A-1.
An extremely tragic slaughter was taking place there.
The burly man on stage was precisely the 3rd-ranked seeded player on the intelligence list, a senior outer court disciple—Zhao Long.
Zhao Long cultivated the Azure Cloud Sect's orthodox body tempering method, Wood Body Art, which was unknown how many times superior to the incomplete Body Forging Record in Mo Fan's hands.
He wore a pair of heavy profound iron gauntlets, but his combat style was not the mindless charging Mo Fan deliberately faked.
This was a true dual cultivator of spells and body.
Before charging, Zhao Long's hands rapidly formed seals, applying a thick layer of [ Stone Skin Spell ] to himself. The blue-gray rock armor combined perfectly with his knotted muscles, generating terrifying wind with every strike.
And his opponent was equally a peak spell cultivator with flashy positioning, unleashing an endless stream of fireballs and water arrows.
Under the dense spell bombardment, the Stone Skin shield on Zhao Long's body was shattered time and time again.
He didn't have Mo Fan's perverted "HP locking" ability, nor the undead foundation immune to spell damage.
Those wind blades and fireballs that broke through the defense truly tore into his flesh and blood.
In a short while, Zhao Long was already streaming with blood, skin torn and flesh gaping, even faintly revealing stark white bone splinters.
But he gritted his teeth and didn't let out a single scream. His eyes burned with beast-like madness.
Relying on a fierce bloodlust of trading injury for injury and life for life, he forcibly tanked the bombardment of two fireballs and forcibly broke through the spell blockade!
"DIE!"
Zhao Long roared in anger.
The heavy profound iron fist, carrying overwhelming power, ruthlessly smashed the opponent's protective light shield. With one punch, he sent that spell cultivator flying backward over a dozen meters, spewing blood wildly and fainting on the spot.
A narrow victory.
Thunderous cheers erupted below the stage, but Mo Fan stood on the outermost edge of the crowd, evaluating all this calmly.
"This is what a normal body cultivator should look like... tragic, heroic, and covered in scars."
Mo Fan assessed silently in his heart.
"His cultivation method is higher-level than mine, but his physical strength and recovery are far inferior to mine. It seems that when I act later, I have to find a way to make myself bleed more, otherwise it'll look too fake."
Reasonably assessing the true combat foundation of cultivators at this stage was crucial to his infiltration.
Although Zhao Long was strong, he belonged to the fierce and unyielding school, not enough to counter himself. Using him as the fall guy lacked persuasiveness.
Mo Fan shook his head, flipped open the intelligence record, and walked to the next target stage.
Stage B-2.
When Mo Fan arrived, the area below the stage was already packed water-tight, mostly by male cultivators with fanatical eyes.
Standing on the stage was the 2nd-ranked hot favorite for the championship—Shen Qiu.
This was a tall, glamorous female cultivator with a beautiful face. She wore a tight purple-black martial suit that perfectly outlined her body's curves, but her frosty face exuded an arrogance that kept people a thousand miles away.
What attracted Mo Fan wasn't her face, but the weapon in her hand.
It was an unconventional weapon quite rare in the Mystic Realm—a long, soft whip.
The moment the battle began, the eyes hidden under Mo Fan's hat lit up sharply.
This woman simply couldn't be compared to those low-level cannon fodder mages he met before. Her combat skills were already proficient to a terrifying degree.
She followed a "multi-thread kiting" school that required extremely high micro-management.
Her right hand wielded the long whip. Injected with spiritual energy, the soft whip turned into countless purple afterimages in the air, like a venomous snake flicking its tongue, emitting ear-piercing cracking sounds, perfectly sealing off all the opponent's possible approach routes.
What was even more terrifying was that while swinging the long whip, her left hand could actually form seals single-handedly!
Pfft! Pfft!
Several impossible-to-guard [ Earth Spikes ] and [ Entanglement Spells ] accompanied the whip shadows, instantly triggering precisely where the opponent stepped.
Physical long whip for distance control, low-level spells for containment. Divided attention, dual-thread operation!
Her opponent, a fierce man wielding a saber, was currently plunged into deep despair.
Want a ranged shootout? Before his spell even formed, it was whipped apart by that powerful and heavy strike.
Want to force melee? Before he could even get within ten meters of Shen Qiu, he had to simultaneously deal with the extremely tricky sky full of whip shadows and the spell traps suddenly popping up under his feet.
Overwhelmed, the opponent was like a mouse toyed with by a cat.
In less than half a cup of tea's time, a vicious whip kick swept his lower body, and then his wrist was tightly wrapped by the long whip, throwing him directly out of the arena like a sandbag.
Perfect curbstomp, handling it with ease.
Snap.
With a flick of Shen Qiu's wrist, the long whip obediently retracted to her waist like a spirit snake. She didn't even look at the loser below the stage, turning coldly and stepping down.
Mo Fan stood behind the crowd, holding the intelligence record, watching Shen Qiu's departing back with keen interest.
This was the true foundation the outer court of a mid-tier sect like Azure Cloud Sect should have. This perverted operational awareness and combat IQ, placed outside, was definitely a master capable of fighting above their level.
And, most importantly...
"Long-distance soft whip kiting, plus dual-thread spell kiting..."
The corner of Mo Fan's mouth rose uncontrollably, revealing a smile like a hungry wolf seeing the perfect prey.
"Isn't this school tailor-made to counter those 'clumsy body cultivators' who only know brute force?"
He rapidly deduced the upcoming schedule in his mind.
"If I meet her in the quarterfinals or semi-finals, and under the watchful eyes of the public, I am kited by her flawless kiting tactics until my 'stamina is exhausted and I am covered in scars,' and finally suffer a 'regretful defeat'..."
"Who would suspect I was match-fixing? Who would suspect I hid my strength?"
This was simply a god-sent fall guy, the perfect target for his wrap-up!
Mo Fan drew a heavy circle around the name "Shen Qiu" in the intelligence record.
"Target, locked!"