Starlight Life Of The Sage

The knight wore a teal garb that covered small interlinking pieces of metal armor, each secured by straps and buckles. Blond hair poked out from his headdress, a hood of mail topped with a copper-colored helmet. His uniform bore a crest of a howling wolf backed by what looked to be a moon.

Cara moved first, stepping forward using her MAX ranked skill Celestial Steps. Her body blurred. To most of the onlookers she simply vanished into thin air. Very few could track her movements.

Cara's opponent, to his credit, didn't falter. He drove his Knight Technique and his muscles surged. He raised up his arms, crossing them in front of himself just in time.

Cara's fist smashed into her opponent's forearms. The force of the blow created a depression in the ground under their feet, and the wind produced by the collision knocked the circling crowd back by several meters.

As quick as she attacked, Cara retreated. Her foe's fists smashed into the ground where she once stood like meteors, shaking the earth and kicking up a cloud of dust and rock. Cara noted that his raw physical power was quite high.

"You're quite strong," said Cara with a grin.

"You're not so bad yourself," replied the Knight as he took up his stance again. He looked confident on the surface, but his mind was in turmoil. In that last trade he was definitely on the losing end. The girl in front of him was as strong as him, but her martial art skills were better on a fundamental level.

It took all the knight had to control his boiling blood and his raging mana. He knew he needed to make a move to set the pace soon or else he'd end up dragged by the nose by the teenager in front of him. He started to sweat and he thought of the ridicule he'd face if he lost this battle. He realized he probably couldn't win without using his sword.

"My name is Tabby, and I'm ranked 18th in the Four Families," said the knight, deciding his foe was worthy enough for him to introduce himself, but more so to buy a few moments of time to think.

Cara listened to the man's introduction and her grin grew wider. Her foe seemed to be acknowledging her. "My name's Cara," she said, "And you can still pick up that sword if you want to."

The knight Tabby tilted his head and then laughed. He'd been trying to buy time to think of a strategy, to think of a way out, and then his foe simply handed one to him. The girl was strong, but she was still a child. He said, "You know what, I'll take you up on that offer. But don't regret it."

He walked over to his originally discarded scabbard and drew the blade from it. The sword was long and double-edged; it stretched to about half the knight's height. A massive surge of mana pulsed from the edge of the blade. It was as if there was a typhoon sealed in the weapon. The *shwing* sound it made as it unsheathed sounded like an eagle's scream.

Cara's eyes focused and her body trembled. She could see her opponent's aura transform with the blade in his hands. He looked like an entirely different man. He wasn't just an Outer Cultivator, he was also a Weapon Cultivator. The man in front of her walked two paths.

What was originally going to be an easy fight just became a lot tougher, and Cara couldn't be happier. She wanted a fight to test her mettle.

"Now that's more like it," said Cara as she started bouncing on her toes. She could feel her own cultivation begin to firm up under the pressure of such a battle. Her eyes glowed and she itched for a proper fight.

"Watch your neck," said Tabby as he raised his weapon to his shoulder and took up a proper stance. His whole aura sharpened, and he looked like a sword himself.

"You've reached the first level of Swordsmanship," said Cara. She was pleasantly surprised. She wasn't certain if Sword Intent could even be trained with mana as a base.

"That's right. I've unlocked my Primary Sword Spirit," he replied.

"We call it Sword Intent," Cara pointed towards Zara on the sidelines. "At least, that's what my teacher called it."

"Sword Intent huh? I like it."

The conversation ended. Both fighters prepared for the next clash. The knight stepped forward first, this time. His speed reached a whole new level now that he had his blade, as if it could cut away at his excess movements, and Cara found it hard to keep up even with her Celestial Steps skill. She was briefly overwhelmed by her foe's newfound quickness.

Cara ducked under a powerful cut and returned the blow with an uppercut, but her fist didn't hit flesh. She pulled her fist back, a move that stirred her mana circulation, causing small injury in exchange for advantageous position in a battle. She c.o.c.ked her fist back like the hammer on a pistol.

The knight used the momentum from his swing to turn himself around a full 360 degrees. He stepped back at the same time. His sword continued to spin with him and he angled it up over top his head, building momentum and force like the leading edge of a flood, more and more water stacking behind it. A tremendous mana formed on the surface of the blade and it glowed with the aura of a skill.

Cara didn't have time to dodge, but she didn't need to. She had decided to take a small loss by changing her attack earlier, but it was all for this moment. She drove her Jade-Dragon technique to the max and combined it with her Heaven's Light Boxing. She roared as she gathered a storm of mana onto her fist.

Her body became a forge and her mana became a hammer. A tremendous flare formed on her knuckles, shining with a white light. A cyclone of dust formed behind her and her entire stance looked like a drawn bow, focused all on one point: the arrow that was her fist!

From her feet, Cara could feel the her contracted Earth Spirit aiding her, pouring more and more mana into her body and filling it to the brim. Earth Elemental power joined in with the fires of her Heaven's Light Boxing, and Yggdrasil's Heaven Fist appeared in the world for the second time!

Cara and her opponent both roared as their attacks collided. Earth and stone shattered like glass. The air popped and cracked apart. Thunder boomed and split the sky. Everything started to shake for miles. The earth beneath their feet caved in, forming a conic depression almost a mile in diameter. A tremendous shockwave formed from the point of impact, as if a nuclear bomb had gone off, and it blew outwards with enough force to tear up metal and stone.

The spectators scattered back under the blow, leaving only the strongest few close to the action. Zara, in particular, seemed completely unaffected; she didn't even bother to dodge the debris, letting the flying rocks break on her body like seafoam on a hard shore.

Just behind Zara stood a few of the younger audience members, mostly children who came to watch the show, and they found themselves shielded from the carnage. They were unable to move out from the shadow of the green-haired woman, as if their bodies refused to listen… Most didn't even remember getting behind her in the first place.

An old man on the opposite side, covered in muscle and sinew, shielded a few people as well, including one familiar teal-robed mage.

There were a few others that could withstand the blast scattered about, too.

"So this is the level of Broken-Soul Knights," said one spectator as his hair whipped around. "How much damage would there be if a Tier 7 Mage fought?"

-

Cara flew back at least ten steps from the crossing blows. A small trail of blood ran down her smiling lips. She couldn't hold back, and a small laugh escaped her. Her knuckles were frayed and bleeding but still intact.

"So, how is it? You glad you picked your sword up?" She asked as she took up a fighting stance again, her voice mocking but holding just a twinge of respect.

The knight Tabby, standing at least 15 steps back from the point of impact, laughed as well. "I'm glad you let me pick it up," he said, his voice far more confident than his body. His hands and sword were shivering, shaking about like he were in an earthquake. His internal injuries were immense. The results of the battle were obvious. One trade was enough for both fighters to see how things would go.

"Do you want to call it here, Mr. Tabby?" Cara asked. Her body didn't feel much worse-for-wear. Her stat distribution had always been skewed towards stamina. The Jade-Dragon Technique she practiced was renowned for its toughness above everything else, and the mana of this world only made it tougher. She felt like a real Jade Dragon at that moment.

Cara was fine with letting the fight end at that point. She could safely judge her own strength and she had shown off just enough to make things interesting for the future. From the crowd she could see several strong men and women watching on with interested eyes. One of which gave off such an intense aura Cara almost couldn't stand up under it; the strongest aura belonged to a well-muscled old man, and he was one of the two Soul Refining level people Cara had sensed earlier when she approached the city with Zara.

The knight Tabby looked over towards his current master, the little Miss of the Zeitgars, but instead found the Head of the family in her stead, shielding the girl behind him. The substitute nodded from the sidelines.

"It seems," said the Knight, "that we no longer need to fight."

Tabby bowed towards Cara. "You are truly strong. Thank you for the battle." He no longer cared about his face. If he continued to fight the girl in front of him he would end up dead or worse, crippled. Even now he could feel her tremendous Fire and Earth auras invading his body, thrashing about like parasites, and threatening to tear him to pieces. He needed to escape and force these energies out fast, lest they cause serious damage.

That girl's knight technique was of the Evil path, and its strength could not be measured.

-

Just as Tabby started to walk off and his aura receded, all the crowds began to disappear in kind, as if pulled by some strange force. Cara could feel mana on the air and she knew her feelings weren't wrong. There was a Mage spell at play, sending the crowds away.

A man in a teal robe, someone Cara found familiar, approached.

"So we meet again, young Cara," he said, his voice still just as high-pitched and annoying as before.

"So we do," Cara replied. "I don't think you ever gave your name last time, so forgive my rude greeting."

"It's no matter, no matter at all," the teal mage waved his hands. "You can call me Stalsen, Stalsen Zeitgar."

"Okay, Mage Stalsen Stalsen Zeitgar," Cara mocked him by repeating his name in kind, "then why are you here and why did you cast a spell to send wandering eyes away..."

"So you noticed that~ Well, the truth is, I'm actually here to invite you to a meeting with the strongest man from the Four Families, the current head and a Tier 6 Mage, Sir Dixon," said Stalsen with a grin. He had a letter in his hands. "You might have even seen him earlier during your fight, watching from the sides. He'd like to meet you tomorrow."

Cara took the letter from Stalsen but didn't open it. She thought for a moment.

"I'll see if I can make time," she replied.

"That would be wonderful. The sooner the better," said Stalsen. "If we're done here then I'll leave you and your Master alone. I'm sure you two need to discuss your battle. The spell I put on this area will last an hour or so longer, so feel free to stay here if you'd like without worry. Others wont be able to spy on you~"

Stalsen walked off and Cara noticed the words left unsaid. The Mage Stalsen specifically didn't mention that *He* wouldn't spy on the conversation. Cara didn't trust his magic at all. She waved over towards the still-fawning Zara.

"Zara, let's get out of here for now. We can talk back at the Inn," she said.