I watch Mara's gloomy face so I ask "what's wrong Mara?"

Mara disparagingly reply "I can't hold your hand while flying master." I blink at her and wonder 'she certainly keeps me busy' as my mind goes into overdrive to consider my two options. Do I take the easy route and make her happy by agreeing with her. Or do my duty as her master and do something about it? I sigh and head down to land on the road we were following to get to the nearby city.

I took out a small couch and cut it in half and use a formation to anchor them to their relative position with the following restrictions. First on command 'merge' to restore the durability of the couch to make it whole again. Second on command 'split' to remove the restriction to return to the cut halves.

Then I take out two new flying swords and with a formation I anchor one to the bottom of each half. Then I put a restriction to anchor them to their relative position with the following restrictions. First on command 'merge' link up with partner flying sword following this relative position template. Second on command 'split' release partner flying sword from this restriction. This will allow Mara to control her flying sword encase we need to split up in a hurry, since I will be in control when in flying couch mode.

Once we are settled in and flying once more, she roleplays the snuggle buni with her mastery in tasty waifuese techniques. When we arrived at the city I checked on local news and we learned that there is going to be a tournament for the younger generation, no weapons or battle skills allowed. It is strictly a hand to hand combat tournament with emphasis on body crafting techniques and brawling talent. They also allow personal equipment, you just can't use weapons or battle skills.

The occassion is the one hundred year 'Brawl of the Century' that is run by famous body crafting masters though out the world. Their disciples always taken the top ten positions and a good percentage of the top one hundred. Anyone who practices a body crafting technique to their limits know everyone by name and probably their entire history of their favorites as fans as they most likey practice the same type of technique.

First place reward is a peak tier seven sword called Render that can create cracks in space leading to the outer void, created by the famous master artificer Wurkorin from the last age. He is famous because more of his weapons are discovered than any artificer from that age by an hefty margin of six to one, but he is consider average in abilities among the master arificers from that age.

I tsked in disgust, my ancestor's memories consider him nothing but trash because he was still a few small advances away from actually full mastery and only through shear lucky manage to forge a pair of peak tier seven weapons. My ancestor consider any artificer trash if they can't even forge peak quality weapons regularily.

Mara then state "Master! Why don't you fight, I know you can win!"

I blink at her and wonder 'she sure is difficult to satisfy' then give her a smile and provide "sure, I guess I can do that."

Mara hugs my left arm smiling and continues with "I can't wait to watch you fight master." So we head over to the local sect holding the tournament and I signed up to participate. We rented a cultivation room in the sect as we waited for the tournament to start. Since she is now a early stage seven cultivator, I spend great deal of time satisfying Mara as we enjoy using the tier seven 'Fly into the Heavens' duo cultivation technique.

I'm not too worry about the tournament because high mastery of body building has taken a steep decline since the last age as the many medicinal herbs have gone extinct. Out of master's body building techniques, the best suited for me I was able to get to early tier five mastery of Dragon Physique a peak tier eight body building technique back in master's cave. Tier five is basically the best most cultivators can do these days if they have access to the best resources for the past three hundred thousand years.

With my master's foundation techniques I am comparable to a mid tier five body crafter. With my mid stage eight cultivation pumping qi into my body crafting technique, I should be able bring out it's full potential. So I am actually looking forward to compare my Dragon Physique against other techniques.

In the end, it was truely dissappointing as there was only three cultivators who manage to gain tier five in their body crafting technique. Two of them was early stage five body crafters and were stage seven cultivators, so it was obvious to me they will take third and forth places. The only interesting fellow was Lindin who was a mid stage five body crafter and currently showing peak stage seven cultivation.

From the response from the crowd, I take it that Lindin was expected to win this tournament. As he battles the third place opponent, I can see he has advantage over him and wins after three long exchanges with five moves each. The crowd goes wild with the expected outcome, so I step into the battle ring before my name is announced as I feel somewhat excited to fight this peak stage seven cultivator who obviously holding back.

We both eye each other and I state "senior brother if you need a break, I can wait, I want to fight you at your best for the most enjoyment."

He nods in gratitude "my thanks little brother, give me a moment to restore my balance." He closes his eye and take several calming breaths before finally saying "ok, I am ready."

We both power up our body techniques, our muscle bulge and our skin toughen as we prepare for battle. Qi exude from our bodies as we strengthen ourselves to our limits and we both break though to early stage eight. We watch each other during the tournment and so we didn't bother with warming up and went straight to the end game.

To anyone below late stage seven we appear as a blur or vanish from sight. The concussion of our first attack sent a shockwave that sent tiny particles of the platform in the air due to tiny fractures in the formation hardened platform. Neither of us block or dodge, we just pummel each other waiting to see who can out last the other. It wasn't pretty like the previous battles, this was nothing to pure berserker fury as we tried to laid waste to the other.

After the first exchange of six moves, we were both basically unharmed as the bruises we got were quickly regenerating. His smile was of pure satisfaction and I was grinning from ear to ear from the enjoyment of the first exchange. He then goes with "shall we pick out the pace?" and goes full crinos on me. I watch him turn into his alter form from his body crafting technique, and pretty much goes werewolf on me.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

So I pump my qi into my Dragon Physical alter form and turn into a dragonling in humanoid form. My skin harden into scales and I even grew a pair of horns to boot. I stump my right foot once and shatter a depression few inches deep into the platform. This alter form is quite expensive to maintain, fortunately I have plenty of qi to use. I watch his tail swing enthusiastically as he witness the strength of my right foot.

Our second exchange first couple of moves shatter the top layer of the platform, so we took to the air to enjoy pummeling each other. We were too fast for most stage eight cultivators to see properly, but we didn't care, our battle spirits didn't want to hold back and we unleashed our full fury on each other. It was obvious that both of us wanted to see what our body crafting technque was capable of achieving.

We were both grinning from ear to ear as we ripped each other apart until the end of the second exchange. In was apparent I had the advantage, my dragon scales provided me a great deal of protection as my wound were not so deep as his. Although his regeneration is better than mine, my dragon claws rent deeper than his wolf claws.

In the third exchange, the platform was shattered into three large pieces and I sent Lindin finally flying off the ring coughing up a little bit of blood as he staggered back to his feet. He had run out of qi and was unable to maintain his alter form. I was hoping for another fun exchange, but his body crafting techique alter form must use a tremendous amount of qi to maintain.

Some trash blurts out "he must have cheated to beat senior brother Lindin!"

I glance over to see the trash wearing the same sect outfit and supplied "trash, you insult the eyes of the honorable judges and seniors, but most of all you give no face for grandmaster Karrellin who set the formation to protect against cheating."

Before any of the seniors could complain, and his elder slaps the trash rolling a good twenty paces and utters "useless trash! How dare you insult grandmaster Karrellin and the judges!" Then cups his hands and bow deeply to Karrellin and continues with "please forgive me for having such a useless disciple!" The judges and the grandmaster decide to drop the subject seeing the trash has already passed away and wave their hands of we are not happy but will let it pass expression.

Then the principal judge asks "who is your master and is there a sect you belong too?"

I announced "I never formally accepted a master and never joined a sect seniors, all I ever done was follow an inheritance. I hope someday to meet the reincarnation of this inheritance and hope to call him master one day."

The judge then ask "who's inheritance did you receive?"

I sigh, no need to hide anymore since I can protect myself as mid stage eight cultivator, then respectfully replied "Randurin Andessel was his name senior."

I watch many of the seniors stood up in surprise, and from the comotion I hear they had expected he has pass away but there was no evidence until now. Then Karrellin speak up with "that means your an alchemist, what tier of alchemy have you achieved?"

I smiled as I thought and decided to put out "tier six senior, but working on tier seven, I need more experience to improve the success rate." My personal belief as I know I can do better eventually, so I know their truth sense won't be to alarming. It seems to work as Karrellin nods in understanding.

But the crowd isn't as trusting and I hear people's outrage whispers saying I'm too young to be a master alchemist. Many of the seniors start frowning as they also begin to doubt what I said. So I pull out my cauldron and materials and began refining a tier six nirvana breakthough pill to prove my alchemy skills to the doubters.

When the pill is finally form I instill as much spiritual force into the pill that it can handle and I hear the thunder crackle above me. I hear people shout "pill lightning" and start counting out loud the different colors above and ends up with four. I raise my left hand with palm held up to take on the four lightning strikes with out flinching. As each lightning strikes my palm the residual energy gets absorb by the pill marking it until four lightning pattern appears.

Once the pattern is completed I make a grabbing motion and draw out the newly formed pill in a qi grip and presented to the Karrellin and request "grandmaster Karrellin, there is no eyes better than yours present, would you be so kind to inspect this pill with your divine sense?"

Karrellin puffs up being on display and stares at the pill before announcing "it is a peak tier six nirvana breakthough pill." I see all the seniors nod in agreement and stumping all the nay sayers to silence, and then a chorus of apologies issue from the crowd.

I put the pill into a jade container then add "grandmaster, please accept this pill as a gift for one of your grand children," and toss the container to him.

As the grandmaster catches the pill he smiles and asks "are you sure about this?"

I laugh and provide "exchanging the pill for your friendship is a small price to pay," and I smile.

The grandmaster laughs and nod in understanding "I'll gladly accept it my young friend."

So I cup my hands and bow to the grandmaster and pull out my flying sword and step on and called out "seniors and fellow cultivators, live long and good fortune!" Then begin to take off.

One of the judges called out "what about the prize? Render is a peak tier seven sword."

I responded by pulling out Burning Rage "no need, I prefer to make my own weapons." The shock expressions from everyone was to die for and gave me a hearty laugh.

An elder speaks "then why did you join the competition?"

I replied "I joined because we were just passing by and my disciple wanted to see me fight. Mara, lets go!"

Mara jumps on her flying sword and joins me as we fly south towards the nearest teleportation gate while the crowd stare at us in disbelief. Mara's bright and cheerful face was all I needed to make it worth the effort to win the tournament.

How can I say no to this cheerful chatterbox, she like having the time of her life sprouting her nonsense about this or that. None of it has anything to do with me, but I listen to her cheerful chatter and reply with correct answers that keeps her happy and content to continue snuggling me like it's her favorite thing to do.

So I pet her hair as she continues with her line of reasoning over anything that seems to randomly pop in her head. We would be talking alchemy then suddenly be off to some tangent of someone she didn't like. After a while it just became a habit to listen to her trying to convince me she is right for some reason I didn't care about. If I give in too quickly she gets mad, so I learned to hold and play poker face and play the game with her.

It didn't take long for me to enjoy this game with her, flying is just plain boring after few hours of flying, playing with her I lose track of time. I was emitting early stage eight cultivation coming though so nothing dare to twitch my way as we flew past. A few stage eight cultivators I past do as I do and ignore each other out of respect for reaching the peak cultivation in this realm. Only a few broke through to reach stage nine in the past four hundred thousand years.

It is common knowledge that only a true genius that is blessed with outstanding luck could possibly break though to stage nine cultivation. No stage eight practioner is going to cause trouble for another one passing though. Everyone has their trump cards at this stage so why risk injury or possible death for someone who rudely passing though who don't want to be bothered at all. Everyone at that stage gets in that mood every now and then so it just best to stay out of their way by keeping their distance.

But if they listen carefully, they might catch a whisper of laughter in the wind as Mara and I talk about hair ornaments. I mention chopsticks and I cement another area of her heart as we laugh at the more creative uses. We ended talking about recent string of public executions cause by the Chopstick Ninjagirls Clan and their chopstick hair weapons.