Chapter 1144: A Stronger Person
Carmen Clover had been watching Roland for eleven minutes before he called his men over.
“What did you find?”
His aide kept his voice low, professional. “Ordinary family background. No record on the contest registry — he’s never entered a match. Joined the Association three months ago, which is unusual.” A pause. “He arrived with Garcia’s invitation card.”
Carmen processed this. He knew the martialist circuit well enough to understand what the absence of a contest record implied. New martialists were eager to compete — the rankings were the fastest path to visibility, sponsorship, income. The ones who refused to enter either had something to hide or considered themselves above the exercise. Amateurs, mostly. Former criminals who’d stumbled into an awakening and preferred to stay in the shadows.
He watched Roland stand near the edge of the dessert tables, apparently at ease, apparently watching nothing in particular, while the three young women he’d brought ate everything within reach. Garcia’s proxy. His sister didn’t trust easily. Whoever this man was, she’d decided he was worth something.
Carmen filed that away and was about to move on when he heard the voice from behind him.
“Thank you.”
He turned. Fei Yuhan was watching him with the faint, impersonal courtesy she extended to everyone who wasn’t wasting her time. She had arrived an hour ago and immediately become the gravitational center of the room — not through effort but through the simple physics of her presence. Her father had called it a good evening already, just from her attendance.
Carmen composed himself. “You heard?”
“I heard your man approach. I concentrated when he reached you.” She tilted her head, a minimal movement. “Lip-reading, mostly, at that distance. I fill in what the sound misses. Most martialists develop something like it, eventually.”
“I — I see.” He managed a smile. “You’re truly exceptional, Miss Fei.”
“The best?” She echoed his unspoken word with mild amusement. “I haven’t won the cup yet.”
“It’s only a matter of time. No one has reached the final match in their first year since—” He caught himself.
She listened to him finish anyway, politely, with the expression of someone who has been told this many times and has no strong feelings about it in either direction. When he reached the end of his sentence, she thanked him again and looked away.
Carmen felt the slight land like a door closing. Not unkind — she hadn’t been impolite, exactly — but absolute. She had wanted the information about Roland. She’d gotten it. The conversation was over.
He excused himself and moved off, jaw tight.
Fei Yuhan watched him go without interest.
She had known the conversation was finished before he had. Most people didn’t understand when they were talking to her versus talking near her. Carmen Clover was the kind of man who believed that patience and courtesy constituted engagement. They didn’t. They constituted courtesy. Engagement required her attention, and her attention was currently elsewhere.
It was on Roland.
She had noticed him within three minutes of his arrival — not because of anything he did, but because of what she couldn’t read.
Fei Yuhan had developed her ability to assess opponents gradually, across several years of the contest circuit and several years before that of watching fights she wasn’t allowed to enter. At a certain threshold of training, a martialist developed what her master called resonance — the capacity to sense the Force of Nature in others, to approximate their strength relative to your own. It wasn’t precise. It gave you a general impression the way weather gave you a general impression of the season.
She could read almost anyone she focused on. The exceptions were her master and two or three others she’d met at the highest levels of the Association.
She couldn’t read Roland.
Not because he was suppressing his Force of Nature — she would have felt the suppression. Because there was simply nothing there to read. He moved like an ordinary person, breathed like an ordinary person, held his champagne glass like someone who’d held a great many different kinds of vessels in his life and found this one unremarkable. His face showed exactly what she’d expect a man in his position to show: mild interest, mild calculation, a certain comfortable ease.
But the Force of Nature was invisible.
It wasn’t absent. She was sure of that much. You didn’t get a hunting license — she’d confirmed the news a week ago through her master — by being absent.
A newly awakened martialist. No contest record. Licensed within three months of joining the Association.
The conservative faction had been talking about a new kind of martialist for years: someone formed entirely through real combat rather than staged competition. Someone whose power had been tempered not by rules and point systems but by actual encounters with Fallen Evils. The theory was that this produced a fundamentally different fighter — harder to read because the markers were different, dangerous in ways that contest training didn’t prepare you for.
Most people in the new faction considered this a romanticization. Fei Yuhan had never quite decided.
Roland, apparently, was the test case.
She watched him navigate toward the front of the hall, moving through the crowd without friction — not invisibly, not assertively, just through — and felt something sharpen inside her.
He’s going to talk to Garde Clover. She tracked the angle of his approach, the positioning of his body relative to the host. This wasn’t an accident, his being here. He wants something and he came prepared to ask for it.
The three young women he’d brought were still at the dessert table, apparently competing to see how much they could eat. She heard a fragment of their conversation float through the hall noise.
”— the Dream World—”
”— His Majesty—”
She filed it. An unusual phrasing. Not the language of fans, not the shorthand of an inside joke. Something else. She’d ask him directly, she decided — if he turned out to be what she suspected he was.
The question she actually wanted answered was simpler and older than any of that.
Which is stronger — a fighter made by competition, or a fighter made by war?
She had been forbidden to hunt Fallen Evils directly. Her master’s order, absolute and non-negotiable. She had respected it for three years without fully understanding it.
But if old-school martialists were genuinely different — if the thing that hunting built in a person was real and not mythology — then she should know. Not from theory. From proximity, from combat, from the only test that actually mattered.
Fei Yuhan watched Roland reach the front of the hall and intercept Garde Clover between toasts.
Interesting, she thought. He had done that efficiently. Confidently. Without the hesitation of a man intimidated by money or position.
She uncurled her right hand slowly, deliberately, and let it relax.
The party had become more interesting than she’d expected it to be.
Chapter 1144 - A Stronger Person
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
While Roland was studying the other guest, somebody was also studying at him.
“How did it go? Did you find anything about him?” Carmen asked his men in an undertone.
“Yes,” the latter whispered into his ear. “He’s just from an ordinary family. He became Lady Garcia’s neighbor purely by accident. There’s no record whatsoever of Roland on the contest registry, so I don’t think he has ever participated in any games. He joined the Martialist Associations just three months ago, which is highly unusual.”
Although Carmen did not possess the Force of Nature, he knew all about the martialist contest. As it was the most popular sporting event among the mass, many people were familiar with its rules and procedure. Apart from the final match, “the Martialist Duel”, held every other year, there were also many tournaments and trial games every month to encourage new martialists to enter.
Normally, new martialists were very eager to partake in a contest to improve their skills and rankings so they could gain exposure and money. Only amateur martialists would feel reluctant to showcase their power. Carmen believed that these arrogant amateurs feared to be thrown in a spotlight because they were mostly former criminals.
As Garcia’s brother, Carmen was very concerned about the proxy his sister had chosen. Garcia was definitely not a very easygoing person. She was too headstrong. Her obstinacy naturally created a barrier that detached her from the rest of world and made people who attempted to approach her hesitant to further the relationship. With this being the case, Garcia trusted very few people.
Carmen was not remotely surprised at the disagreement between Garcia and her father. Garcia might be a competent martialist but was definitely not a good businesswoman.
Nevertheless, this was not the main reason he wanted to investigate Roland.
Another more important reason lay in the VIP table at the front of the hall.
He gazed upon the first row and saw a woman in pure white sitting there. She was not wearing any accessories. Her sheet of jet-black hair streamed down and gave her an air of aloofness and sophistication.
This lady, Fei Yuhan, was one of the most talented new martialists in the past five years. She had already successfully entered the final match of the martialist contest twice. Although she had yet to win the championship, most people attributed her defeat to her young age and lack of experience and firmly believed that she would soon gain her first championship. It was rumored that Fei Yuhan, as a genius martialist of the new generation, would eventually become another executive in the Prism City after she won her championship match.
Carmen did not expect a proud person like her to attend this party. Her attendance really gave Carmen’s father a pleasant surprise.
This party would definitely make the front page because of Fei Yuhan’s presence.
However, when Carmen had finally found a chance to talk to Fei Yuhan, he had been given an unexpected task.
Carmen calmed himself down and ambled over to the lady
“Miss Fei Yuhan, what you asked me to do…”
“I heard your conversation,” Fei Yuhan interrupted Carmen and gave him a faint smile. “Thank you.”
Carmen was astonished at her acute hearing. She was at least 10 meters away from him and surrounded by the buzz in the hall. Could normal people really
do that?
“I didn’t hear everything you said. Even though I could hear them, I need time to process the information,” Fei Yuhan explained to him good-naturedly in response to Carmen’s shocked expression. “When your men approached you, I concentrated my mind and read the conversation based on the movement of his lips and voices. Most martialists possess some lip-reading skills.”
“I-I see… You’re indeed the best martialist in the country,” Carmen said as he managed a smile.
“The best?” she echoed in a silvery voice. “I haven’t got that cup yet.”
“It’s just a matter of time. Nobody except you has managed to enter the final match within one year of awakening and this even includes the ‘guard’ of Prism City…” His voice trailed off as he spoke.
Fei Yuhan was listening, but the nonchalant smile on her face clearly told Carmen that she had no intention of continuing with this conversation. She listened to him patiently only because it would be rude not to.
Then it suddenly dawned on Carmen that she had actually wanted to end the conversation when she had said “thank you”. She gave him an explanation simply because he was the organizer of this party. Nonetheless, she did not have the slightest interest in engaging in a personal interaction.
At this thought, Carmen felt a surge of anger blazing inside him. As the representative of the Clover Group, he had never been so slighted.
But Carmen managed to control his temper.
The Clover Group could not offend the Martialist Association, as the latter had an intertwined relationship with various governmental bodies and industries.
This was the exact reason his father put so much money in networking with these people.
Carmen smiled stiffly and walked off.
Fei Yuhan obviously noticed the affronted look in Carmen’s eyes.
She did not really care about what others thought of her. The only person she could rely on was herself to defend against the erosion. Wealth and power meant nothing to her.
Her eyes were back on Roland again.
She attended this party just because her master had asked her to. At first, she did not understand why she had to sacrifice her training sessions for such a superfluous networking event, until a man caught her attention.
Once an Awakened reached a certain level, they would be able to know how strong their opponent was. Fei Yuhan had gained such an ability three years ago. She noticed that very few people outside of Prism City were stronger than her.
Nevertheless, she could not read anything out of that person.
She sensed Roland’s conduct, the tone in which he spoke, the expression on his face, and the micromovement of his skin, which were exactly the same as those of a normal person, but she could not sense any fluctuations in his power. Therefore, she could not figure out how strong Roland was. Common people normally did not have the Force of Nature, however, Roland was a martialist.
That was why Fei Yuhan had asked Carmen for help.
Although she could do the investigation herself, she preferred to have others take care of these matters for her. Most people were more than happy to help her and, often, did a better job.
Then, she heard Carmen slip that man’s name, Roland.
Everything seemed to make sense now.
A week ago, Fei Yuhan had learned a piece of news from her master that there was a new “hunter”, a licensed martialist, in Prism City. Fei Yuhan was not surprised at the news because an outstanding martialist who fought
against the Fallen Evils deserved some privileges. It wasn’t until a little later that she learned that this new licensed martialist was not an old member but instead a newbie!
This incident would have definitely stirred the whole martialist community had the Association not kept the personal information of licensed martialists strictly confidential. Licensed martialists were typically viewed as equal to champions of the martialist contest, and were sometimes even more respected by the public. This was like telling Fei Yuhan that some newly awakened martialist had just snatched the champion cup from her. How outrageous!
If that was the case, her two entries in the championship final suddenly seemed to not matter as much.
The new hunter’s name was Roland.
Fei Yuhan balled her right hand into a fist, but kept her face expressionless.
As a student of an old guard in Prism City, Fei Yuhan had also heard about the disagreement between new and old martialists. One of the main questions they argued about was which school of martialists was the stronger one. Were those who put their lives on the line and trained themselves through numerous battles against the Fallen Evils stronger than combatants on the stage, or vice versa?
Fighting against Fallen Evils was indeed challenging, but the chance of encountering a Fallen Evil was slim, and more often than not, the first battle would also be the last for a lot of fighters. Combatants, on the other hand, could train themselves in a more safe manner. However, as they were used to the way they fought, they would easily panic when coming across a difficult enemy. Both theories had a great number of supporters, and it was hard to tell which one was truer in practice.
However, Fei Yuhan now found a way to find that out.
Roland, who had never participated in any matches and had been continuously fighting against Fallen Evils since his awakening, was definitely
an old-school martialist.
Compared to Roland, Fei Yuhan was obviously considered as a modern martialist.
Her master intended for her to come to this party, probably in hopes that Roland and she, as the representatives of traditional and modern martialists, could get to know each other.
However, Fei Yuhan had no interest in involving herself in the conflict within the Association. She never thought she was a modern martialist. In fact, she would have fought against Fallen Evils if her master had not explicitly forbidden her to do so.
Just like Roland.
She only cared about who was stronger.
And Roland seemed to be a decent competitor.
Fei Yuhan would have known how big her chance of winning had she been able to detect Roland’s power. Howeover, since she could not, it was hard for her to envision the duel between them.
In other words, they were tied.
Fei Yuhan curled up her lips. It appeared that this party had become a little more interesting.
She had also overheard some interesting conversations between the three girls Roland brought to the party.
She heard words like “the Dream World”.
Also something like “His Majesty”.
Was this some new trendy game?
However, judging from the three girls’ looks, she did not think they were doing some juvenile role-playing either.
She decided to ask Roland in person.
Fei Yuhan quickly came up with a few questions in her mind.
…
In the meantime, Roland finally found the person whom he was looking for.
Garcia’s father got a resounding round of applause as he ascended the stage at the center of the hall.