The Spider Queen

Sophie stretched out her limbs lazily to try to feel for any injuries that would decrease her combat capabilities but was pleasantly surprised to find out that her wounds seemed to have vanished after only a short nap.

"Have the qualifying matches finished yet?" Sophie asked the nurse with an expectant gaze.

The nurse tapped her wristband and typed in a series of commands before looking at the patient calmly sitting on the bed.

"According to the schedule… there is a thirty-five-minute time slot left before the top two of each group are selected for the finals."

Sophie frowned internally as there was clearly not enough time to complete three matches unless she ended them quickly.

Or…faced them all at once… but how to get them to agree?

Another wise saying from Katarina floated across her mind at that moment,

'If you want people to get into a fight… piss them the hell off!'

This would be difficult not matter what option she chose as her qi reserves still had not fully recovered but luckily all her physical and internal injuries seemed to have healed.

"Thank you for the help!" Sophie beamed at the nurse who clutched her heart while blushing furiously.

But before she could recover…. her patient jumped out of the bed and made a dash for the hallway outside of the ward.

"Wait…you still have not fully recovered yet!" the nurse yelled out.

Sophie just gave her a cheeky wink and disappeared into the distance.

The black wristband contained a map of the school facilities and layout, so Sophie navigated the twisting corridors with a careful eye on the countdown.

She saw the hospital exit in the distance but also observed the figure of Leona leaning casually against the wall while staring at her with a fierce look.

"You only won because of a cheap and underhanded method of winning. If it was a real fight, then I would be the clear victor!"

"I don't have time for this," Sophie replied.

Maybe the old her would have stopped and waited but she was in a bit of a rush, so Sophie just brushed past her and continued to walk steadily towards the direction of the exit.

"I... I was going to say back there that I'm sorry…" Leona suddenly said,

Sophie froze in place for a moment and the air between them seemed to freeze, before softly asking a question,

"Leona if you could go back in time…would you have made the same choice?"

The girl behind her stiffened and the momentary pause of hesitation was enough for Sophie to realise that she already knew the answer in her heart.

Her so called best friend would have made the same decision then as she would now.

Sophie just gave a small smile and continued to speak,

"You don't need to worry because I no longer care enough about you to hold a grudge."

Why waste her time on accepting empty words just meant to make someone feel less guilty?

Maybe it was the fusion, but Sophie felt as though her mind had been clear and no longer muddleheaded as before. There was a small spring in her steps as she felt a chain wrapped tightly around her heart begin to loosen up.

If she faced Leona in a fight now…the results would have been far different...

Despite what Leona might think of her actions, she truly had no wish to harm her now.

They were simply strangers who would be going different paths of life.

Leona gazed at her former friend walking hurriedly into the distance while paying her no further attention. A small bud of rage started growing in her heart.

She had tossed aside her pride to apologise to Sophie, but she did not even accept her kind and merciful gesture.

The trace feelings of guilt were incomparable to her pride as one of the cultivation prodigies of the Royal Academy.

The fact that Sophie secured a victory with a cheap method only caused the last traces of goodwill that Leona had towards her to disappear.

"Fine!" Leona growled.

(Field)

"Principal we should just announce the qualifying seeds and start the finals," one teacher spoke up from the crowd.

"No! Are you crazy? That hybrid girl was clearly at the cusp of the qi sprit stage and the current second place in that group is merely qi body stage 7," another retorted.

This argument had been raging back and forth as the teachers could not make up their minds on what to do in the situation.

On one hand Sophie and Leona were clearly the strongest participants of group five even if the former had won her match by pushing her opponent out of bounds.

But there was an issue of points as Sophie only had one point while the other members of the group had played their matches already and passed her amount.

Principal Yang secretly wished to just continue and exclude the hybrid thorn but the fear of Duke Peterlor was still fresh on his mind and who knows what that madman would do if he thought that his daughter was slighted.

Entire noble families have died for less!

The only solution he could think of was to let the time allocated for the qualifying matches to run out and then he would have a justifiable reason to exclude the girl.

He checked his tablet and a pleased smile graced across his face when he realised that there was only fifteen minutes left.

"I'm here! I'm here!" a loud cry sounded out before Sophie dashed onto the field with a haggard expression on her face.

Why on earth was the damn hospital located so far from the entrance to the arena?!

There was a flurry of whispers from the spectators upon Sophie's arrival as many were still coming to terms with the fact that the well-known trash had apparently played pig to eat the tiger and hidden her cultivation level until the tournament.

The referee was a bit dumbfounded…what was the point of showing up now?

Maybe one or two matches could be played but there was no way she could accumulate enough points to pass Brian Cyan who was in second place with two points.

Group five standings were currently:

Leona Braveheart – 3 points (W- 3 L – 1) -Qualified

Brian Cyan – 2 points (W-2, L- 1) – Qualified - Temporary

Stacy Greene – 1 points (W-1, L-2)

Sophie Peterlor – 1 point (W- 1, L-0) -????

Seth Flanigan– 0 points (W-0, L-2) - Eliminated

Still the poor man had to do his job, so with a respectful tone he asked Sophie,

"Which opponent would you like to face first?"

Sophie glanced at all her opponents who gazed at her with warily looks and spoke up with an arrogant tone,

"I'll face all of these trash at once!"