The tournament delay was slightly convenient to allow for people to practice for the non-combat events. As cultivators, the main draw of the tournament would always be the combat portion, showing off who was strongest. However, this was their second attempt at introducing alternative events. John's intention was to vaguely replicate the olympics, but doing it precisely wasn't possible. First of all, he didn't even remember the various things that constituted modern olympics, and secondly some of them were pointless.

Fencing and wrestling? Along with any other organized and limited combat, it was far too restricted for cultivators. With the benefits of formations, they could fight in ways that were most suited to individual cultivators without huge risk of permanent injuries. Real combat was still important, as seen by the continent just coming out of two wars. Others weren't going to stop being threats just because they could go fast.

Certain events simply didn't make sense as cultivators. High jump and pole vault were a bit nebulous in their value when people could fly. There was some thought to implementing non-energy events, but the idea wasn't really popular.

With the aid of Deirdre, John recalled as many modern events as possible, adapting them as necessary. He had sought out Sitora as well, but when he asked her about it… he realized she predated modern olympics. Not by much, but she was more than a century older than him and thus hadn't quite gotten to them. So it was up to John and Deirdre.

Throwing things had been popular before, but they had to limit the options. They came up with various compromise options that really weren't at all like the original. Javelin was effectively the same, except with the ability to use spiritual energy. The goal was to get the javelin literally as far as possible from its starting position. The only other rule was that the javelin had to remain whole.

In the end, the javelin toss ended less about throwing and more about maximum range of energy control. John could see various techniques developing, from those who made their javelins rise high in the air to arc down into the distance, as well as those who tried to impart as much horizontal momentum as possible, with only a small measure of upwards angle. Because the javelins weren't particularly aerodynamic, the latter usually won. A moderate position was sometimes better, as height plus horizontal momentum were both necessary and the total distance from a cultivator usually remained the same- with certain exceptions. For example, earth cultivators who could extend their energy further through the soil. Ultimately, even though the javelins hit the ground, the final resting place was all that mattered. Air and earth cultivators seemed to be the most consistent in that category.

However, the winner was an earth and fire cultivator from the Burning Delta. Radomil threw with the force of a volcanic eruption, and was quite ecstatic that he managed not to destroy the javelin, unlike most of his attempts during practice. Well, it might have become slightly melted but it was enough within tolerances that nobody could really complain.

Shotput was modified to require releasing energy control at a certain distance, shortly beyond the physical release. This was 'aided' by formations, but it was still good for a cultivator to dissolve their own energy as the formations could accidentally slow down the projectile while removing spiritual energy. John thought it still had some way to go before it became a popular event.

Once more, air and earth tended to dominate. Earth had brute strength and force as one of their baselines, though fire element cultivators could also build up a lot of power at once. John also saw some interesting water techniques involving ice shells and steam expansion, which almost made it more like a cannon. The grand prize winner was a cultivator who performed such techniques from the Boiling Springs, previously unremarkable.

John wondered if there was something special about regions with mixed water and fire elements, but Radomil hadn't followed the typical elements of the Burning Delta. Venkat, on the other hand, seemed pretty typical for the Boiling Springs except for his creativity with ice.

It was quite possible that some people John knew would have won those events, but they were competing in others- or reserving their energy for the combat tournament. For Ursel specifically, she was more interested in another event that clashed with the timing. Weightlifting.

John rarely saw his earthen daughter outside of armor. It wasn't that she was defensive around him most of the time, she just didn't see a reason to take off her armor. For her, it was more like casual clothing. However, even she had to admit that it had relevant weight.

The bar and weights were heavily enchanted. Otherwise, they couldn't possibly compress enough weight into a convenient size. Not when they were allowing people to lift with the benefit of spiritual energy. They could have had one for pure muscle but… it wouldn't have been even close to fair. Ursel would have won for certain.

She did still win, but her competition was actually able to compete. Renato and even Johannes gave her a good match. A surprising second place contestant was Venera from the Sky Islands, but upon further consideration it made sense that an earth and air cultivator would be good at lifting things. The first cultivator to not have some earth element was sixth place, a water cultivator from, once again, the Boiling Springs. However, he was a pure water cultivator instead of mixed water and fire.

An important part of weightlifting that didn't come up on Earth was supporting your weight on the ground beneath. While it was possible to enchant a platform that wouldn't crack under such large amounts of weight condensed into the space of two feet, to really be practical a cultivator had to be able to do something like that in other conditions. Thus, only basic stone platforms were provided, and the cultivator had to distribute their load over the ground properly. Or simply enhance the buoyancy of their weight so that it didn't press down. Spiritual energy could negate counter force to a large extent. John was certain that broke all sorts of laws of physics, but that wasn't new.

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They didn't have any cycling based events, due to the complete and utter lack of bicycles. John wasn't sure they would be of much use to cultivators, and they would be less useful for commoners in most places, except where they had proper sorts of roads.

Obviously they didn't include Earth-based competitive sports. They did, however, have a few teams compete in local world sports. Cultivators tended to find them mundane… but that might have been an excuse to fight more. Either way, there was a decent amount of running around trying to deposit various shaped 'balls' into nets or hoops. Perhaps some of these sports would become more popular in future years, and suggestions were open for what people wanted to see.

Some of the more cultivator oriented sports that were popular couldn't be reproduced in a short time. For example, the Burning Delta had some lava based sports that required more volume of volcanic rock than the arena normally produced.

Gymnastic events weren't necessarily popular, however John planned to encourage similar things in the future. Since much of it was about practicing a sort of dance routine in odd circumstances, it took time to get people convinced it was interesting and actually good at it. Then, of course, one had to consider how much it would be based on spiritual energy. They could easily split by cultivation rank, but focusing purely on the body was uncommon.

People weren't much interested in running around a track, but agility courses were quite popular. Air cultivators had certain advantages, but they couldn't just fly about however they pleased. They had to follow the track, and there were tunnels and obstacles that they had to navigate through instead of just past. They might build actual tunnels if things got more ambitious, but in that case they were going to need to move further outside Lunson. They were already doing that with many options.

In future decades they would no doubt swap out events, but John was pleased that people were interested in the non-combat options. They were still of interest to cultivators that wished to show off, and the ability to become the best in some category besides the ability to kill someone was of interest to many.

In addition to traditional sports type categories, they were still expanding secondary events related to crafting and material growth or retrieval. There was an entire mining segment that involved cracking apart artificial ore veins. Then there was rapid herb growth. Maybe some day they would have a long term version of that event where they could actually produce something useful instead of just quick-growing and cheap options. John hoped the shifting emphasis would prove beneficial to overall cultivation growth for the continent

But of course, battle was still the big draw. And that wasn't likely to change unless the world itself changed.

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Ursel unsurprisingly swung her way to the end of the combat tournament. Her fighting prowess and tenacity were well known, and she often seemed invincible. She wasn't, of course… but her armor was certainly a contributing factor to that perception. It wasn't completely immutable, but she was constantly looking for improvements as her own power grew. Combined with a powerful body in case any attacks did pass through, she was durable enough to take hits that would fell others without using a drop of her own energy, allowing her to focus more on offense.

Still, specific matchups were bad for her. Even if she could defeat many fire cultivators despite their elemental advantage, that wasn't limitless. Lucanus was extremely powerful, and she was merely lucky that she didn't meet him on her path to the finals.

Yustina did, and she defeated her own husband. As far as John could tell, they had both fought with proper seriousness. Yustina's experience as a water cultivator in her previous life gave her the leg up she needed to defeat him. Plus, John found her adaptability was a bit better. Both cultivators were very familiar with each other as one would imagine, and Lucanus wasn't rigid in his fighting style, but Yustina had managed to provoke him into overextending himself.

Then came the final battle between Yustina and Ursel.

They fought all over the arena, with Ursel usually on offense chasing Yustina around… but occasionally she was forced to retreat. Whenever Yustina took over a section of the battlefield, she could fill it with flames that could flow past Ursel's armor. Diamond Defense only did so much against fire element assaults, so Ursel had to actively resist the attacks with her spiritual energy.

The difference of a couple ranks wasn't enough to overcome Ursel's advanced body tempering, but in the end Ursel's club came down on Yustina… at the same time as spears of fire pierced towards Ursel's eyes.

The tournament ended with a completely unanticipated tie. Yet neither seemed upset. Indeed, they were quite eager for the next step… which was challenging John to a match. Technically, they could have done that any time, but they could be much more serious in the context of the tournament. It was a bit expensive to activate the formations the rest of the time, especially for mid Ascending Soul Phase cultivators.

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John didn't actually believe he was the best… but he did believe he had the potential to defeat anyone he went up against. He hadn't fought Abritt to the end, but that wasn't because he didn't have the potential- he'd simply spent more energy than necessary on theatrics. That had seemed important at the time, and John still stood by it after the fact.

He had kind of expected to fight both 'winners' one at a time, but obviously the more exciting prospect was a three-way match. They did have to extend the tournament date by several days to make sure that the arena could handle that safely, as well as to make sure the other two were in decent shape. Nobody complained.

Each of the three wanted to win, but they didn't need to. They were quite happy to test their limits. John found he couldn't accept a single moment of distraction. Otherwise, he could take a blow from Ursel that if it didn't 'kill' him would greatly weaken him. And Yustina could set up any number of tricks if he forgot about her. Any two focusing on each other meant the third party would be able to gain an advantage.

It was fun, John wanted to look good in front of his wife, and he had to admit he had a bit of a competitive spirit in him. There was a moment of pause as the three split apart, leaving broken ground in the middle of the arena. The next few moves would determine the ultimate winner… but it could be any of them.

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