Silence met the tall, muscular woman’s question. No one seemed to want to answer her, myself included.
Part of it was the woman’s physique. I was a body cultivator, albeit one at the lowest level, and I thought I’d have trouble fighting her. If I was stronger, that would be something else. As it was, it would be an even match, assuming she didn’t use her magic.
Part of it was the woman’s magic. She had the aura of a Third Circle wizard with affinities for Earth, Metal, and Wood.
All in all, she was the kind of opponent I would hesitate to fight unless I matched her in strength.
“Well?” the woman asked in her loud voice. I swear, I thought I heard the windows in the building rattle. “Anyone gonna answer me?”
Lorelei cleared her throat.
“Mother,” she said. “Mr. Gabriel here was asking about joining the Adventurer’s Guild, when Gyles started harassing and threatening him.”
Mother? This Amazonian woman was Lorelei’s mother?
I looked between the two of them. While there were similarities in how they looked, I found it difficult to believe that the two were related at all, let alone mother and daughter.
Lorelei’s mother gave me a piercing glance and her eye narrowed. It seemed like she was staring me right in my soul. That was impossible of course. I had the soul of an Immortal. For anyone too weak, just glimpsing at my soul would be enough to erase them from existence. This woman looked just fine to me.
Still, it was a nice effect. Even I felt sweat run down my back.
The woman studied me for a few more moments, before she turned her eye on Loudmouth and his friends.
“Is this true, Gyles?” she asked.
Loudmouth opened his mouth to say something. The woman gave him a look suggesting she wasn’t in the mood for his bullshit. He closed his mouth again.
“Yes, Guildmaster Sinclair,” he grumbled a moment later.
It didn’t surprise me that someone like her was the guildmaster. It took someone with her strength to keep a rough crowd like this in line.
Guildmaster Sinclair marched in my direction and stopped right in front of me. I craned my neck to continue looking her in the face. Leroy stood next to me, offering his support.
“So, Mister Gabriel,” she said. “You’re looking to join the Adventurer’s Guild?”
Now that was interesting. She couldn’t know my true identity, could she? I had the aura of a regular mortal, and I had dyed my hair. There was no way anyone would believe I was a Sturm.
“Yes, Guildmaster Sinclair,” I said.
I gave her the same smile I gave her daughter. It bounced off her like a pebble hitting a stone wall.
“Your daughter here was telling me about the requirements for joining…” I jerked my thumb at Loudmouth “…when this one so rudely interrupted us.”
Guildmaster Sinclair glared at Loudmouth.
“Guildmaster,” he said, taking a step back. “You can’t accept this little twerp into the Adventurer’s Guild. Look at him! He’s a weakling. He’ll die on his first job.” He wore a smarmy grin. “Besides, he insulted the honor of the Adventurer’s Guild.”
Guildmaster Sinclair turned her glare on me, accompanied by the weight of her aura. While it wasn’t as powerful as my father’s, I still strained to remain upright. It felt as if a mountain was staring down at me, or at least a very large hill.
“Is this true?” she asked in a voice suffused with quiet menace.
I shrugged with pretend nonchalance.
“I merely said that the Adventurer’s Guild doesn’t have the highest of entry standards if it lets in people like Loudmouth over there,” I said.
“Loudmouth?” Loudmouth exclaimed.
Guildmaster Sinclair glanced at Lorelei, who nodded. When she looked at me again, she crossed her arms and smirked at me.
“Oh?” she asked. “And you think you can be a better adventurer than Gyles, Mister Gabriel?”
I scoffed.
“I know I can be a better adventurer than Loudmouth.”
Perhaps it was arrogance on my part, but I spoke from experience here. I had met people like Loudmouth before. Weaklings whose bark was worse than their bite. While they talked big, they never amounted to much. They were never as clever or as strong as they thought they were.
It was Guildmaster Sinclair’s turn to scoff.
“In that case,” she said. “Let’s put your boast to the test.”
I arched an eyebrow at her.
“How?” I asked.
“Simple. A duel between you and Gyles. Best of three. If you win, I’ll waive the entry requirements and you can join the Adventurer’s Guild right away.”
Okay, it sounded simple enough. I hadn’t planned on joining the Adventurer’s Guild right away, but I saw no reason not to take advantage of this opportunity.
Guildmaster Sinclair leaned forward until our faces were inches apart. Her single eye focused on me with frightening intensity.
“If you lose,” she said, a hard expression on her face “You leave, and never darken our doors again. Do you accept, Mister Gabriel?”
“Mother,” Lorelei said in a pleading tone.
Guildmaster Sinclair ignored her and continued to look me in the eyes. I snorted.
“I accept,” I said.
The guildmaster leaned back and smirked.
“Excellent!” she said. “Follow me to the training yard.”
The adventurers broke out into excited murmurs. Loudmouth looked unhappy with this, and glared at me. His friends glared at me as well.
“Youn-…” Leroy started to say, before I gave him a look. “Gabriel, are you sure this is a good idea?”
I patted him on the shoulder.
“Have a little faith, Leroy,” I said. “This will be easy.”
Loudmouth walked past me as I said this.
“Careful, twerp,” he muttered under his breath. “You never know what kinds of accidents might occur.”
I smirked at this piss poor attempt at intimidation, and followed Guildmaster Sinclair. We walked through the halls of the Adventurer’s Guild. It was a sparsely decorated space, almost spartan, and utilitarian in nature.
Loudmouth and I followed Guildmaster Sinclair, while Leroy, Lorelei, and a crowd of adventurers tagged along. As we walked through the Adventurer’s Guild, the crowd picked up more people.
Guildmaster Sinclair led us to a large training yard that occupied the back half of the lot occupied by the Adventurer’s Guild. The ground was hard packed dirt. A shoulder high stone wall surrounded the training yard.
In one corner sat training equipment that wouldn’t look out of place in a gym on Earth. That made sense since adventuring was a physically intensive profession. While most wizards tended to neglect their bodies, adventurers couldn’t afford to.
There were also wooden training dummies for melee training, as well as straw targets for archery and ranged spell training. Wooden weapons racks filled with practice weapons stood next to the training dummies. What looked like a race track wrapped around the entire yard.
In the center was a large circle drawn in the dirt. I assumed this was where our duel would take place. Guildmaster Sinclair led us over to the weapons racks.
“Disarm and take one of the practice weapons,” she commanded. “This isn’t a duel to the death. I don’t want to risk either of you killing, or even seriously injuring, the other.”
I shrugged at this and unbuckled my sword belt, before handing it over to Leroy. I also took out my many daggers, and gave them to Leroy as well. Someone in the crowd let out a whistle at the number of daggers I had on me.
Loudmouth looked reluctant to disarm, but after a look from Guildmaster Sinclair, he did so. Like me, he had a sword for his primary weapon. He also had a pair of daggers.
Once we were disarmed, Loudmouth picked up a training sword. It was metal, but blunted. While it could do some serious damage, it wasn’t meant to be lethal. I studied the weapons on the rack, before deciding to remain unarmed.
Since I had this opportunity to make an impression, I figured I’d go all in. Beating a Wind wizard while unarmed would make for one hell of a first impression.
Guildmaster Sinclair raised an eyebrow at my choice, or lack thereof.
“I would recommend picking a weapon, Mister Gabriel,” she said. “I don’t care how good you think you are. You aren’t beating Gyles with your bare hands.”
I shrugged, before giving her a smile.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I don’t need a weapon.”
While getting hit with the blunted sword would hurt, it wouldn’t do any damage to me thanks to my body cultivation.
Loudmouth sneered at this.
“Let him do what he wants, Guildmaster,” he said. “At least this way, he’ll have an excuse for when he loses.”
After a moment, Guildmaster Sinclair sighed.
“Fine,” she said. “Don’t blame me for what happens next.”
She walked over to the dueling circle. Everyone followed her. I started to as well, but Leroy grabbed my arm, stopping me in my tracks.
“Young master,” he muttered under his breath. “What are you doing? You can’t face that lowlife with your bare hands. At least take a weapon.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
While Leroy’s concern was understandable, it was his job after all, it did irk me a little.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, pulling out of his grip.
Before Leroy could say anything, I marched over to the dueling circle. After a moment, he followed.
Loudmouth and I stepped inside the circle, facing each other from opposite ends, while everyone else crowded around.
“The rules are simple,” Guildmaster Sinclair said, while standing off to the side. “This duel will consist of three rounds. The combatant who wins two out of the three rounds wins the duel. This means that if each of you wins a round, we’ll move onto the third. If one of you wins the first two, we won’t bother.
“To win a round, you must disarm your opponent…” She glanced at me when she said this. “…, force them to yield, or you must knock them out of the ring.”
I listened with a patient ear, while Loudmouth looked ready for her to stop talking so we could get this over with. Everyone else wore the same impatient expression, as if they all knew how this would end and wondered why the guildmaster was even bothering with all this preliminary stuff. Lorelei and Leroy were the only ones who looked worried for my well being.
The crowd’s mutterings reached my ears.
“Why doesn’t he use a weapon?”
“He’s just showing off. Idiot.”
“There’s no way this dumbass is going to beat Gyles.”
Oh, ye of little faith.
There was a reason why I knew I would win against Loudmouth, and it wasn’t just arrogance on my part. Like with spiritual cultivation, magical cultivation had nine small realms within each large realm. In this case, they were called threads, which corresponded with the number of mana veins they had created. Once a wizard created nine threads, or mana veins, they would fuse them together to form a new Circle.
Each new thread increased a wizard's power, though the differences weren’t that great between wizards who were one or two threads apart. With my divine sense, I could tell that Loudmouth was a First Circle wizard with two threads. This barely put him above a wizard who just formed their First Circle.
I was a First Rank body cultivator. While I had just begun cultivating my body, that was more than enough to defeat Loudmouth, especially with the skills I had honed my life as Immortal Celestial Thunder. In a fair fight, there was no way I would lose to Loudmouth.
However, I fully expected him to cheat. His two friends stood on opposites of the circle, with Fatty to my left and Rat to my right. One or both of those two fuckers would just try something during the duel if it didn’t go Loudmouth’s way.
Not that I minded. That just made it all the more exciting.
“I want a nice, clean fight,” Guildmaster Sinclair said, giving Loudmouth a pointed glare. Ah, it seemed she was onto his bullshit. That, or she thought he might be an actual threat to me. “If I detect even a hint of killing intent from either of you, the perpetrator forfeits the match. Understood?”
I nodded.
“Yes, Guildmaster Sinclair,” Loudmouth said, before spitting off to the side.
“Very well,” the guildmaster said with a nod.
She stepped out of the circle and raised her hand. Loudmouth gave me a nasty grin and raised his practice sword.
Guildmaster Sinclair lowered her hand with a swift chop.
“Begin!”
----------------------------------------
The moment Guildmaster Sinclair’s hand reached the bottom of its descent, I exploded into action. No one expected much from me, so I might as well take advantage of the element of surprise while I had the chance.
My physical prowess was leagues above a regular mortal’s, even at the lowest level of body refining. When I shot forward, I moved so fast that in terms of speed, I rivaled a low level Air wizard using internal magic to move faster.
I caught Loudmouth off guard. Before he had the chance to react, I hit him with a double palm attack to the chest. I held back my strength, since my blows were strong enough to shatter bones and break bodies. I wanted to beat Loudmouth, not seriously injure him. This was supposed to be a friendly duel after all.
Now if he tried something nefarious, that would be something else altogether.
My blow knocked Loudmouth away, though he remained on his feet. He stumbled back several steps, one of his feet landing outside of the ring.
The crowd, which had been waiting for Loudmouth to defeat me, fell silent. They all looked at me with shocked expressions. Lorelei stared with her mouth hanging open. Even Leroy looked surprised, though he hid it well. Guildmaster Sinclair was the only one who remained calm, but I saw the disbelief in her eye.
Loudmouth stared at his chest, as if he couldn’t believe what just happened.
“I believe the round goes to me,” I said with a smirk, before I turned around and headed towards my side of the ring again.
Loudmouth recovered fast.
“He cheated!” the skeevy fuck screeched. “That doesn’t count!”
I faced him again.
“Cheated?” I asked, putting on an air of innocence. “Cheated how?”
“You used magic!” Loudmouth said, pointing a finger. Anger twisted his face. “That’s the only way you could move so fast. You were only pretending to be mortal!”
I tilted my head in confusion.
“No, I didn’t,” I said, before looking at the guildmaster. “Isn’t that right, Guildmaster Sinclair? As a Third Circle wizard, you should have been able to sense if I used magic or not.”
Everyone turned to her. Her lips pursed, as if she had swallowed a lemon.
“He’s telling the truth,” she said. “He didn’t use magic.”
Everyone then looked at me in disbelief. I gave Loudmouth a smile.
“Even if I did use magic, that isn’t against the rules. After all, this duel is a test to determine if I have what it takes to join the Adventurer’s Guild. You’re the one who didn’t take it seriously. Don’t blame me because I proved you wrong.”
Loudmouth’s face almost turned purple with rage. He opened his mouth to say something, but Guildmaster Sinclair cut him off with a gesture.
“Enough,” she said in a sharp voice. She looked at me. “Since Gyles here was unprepared for your speed, would you mind if we considered that a practice round?”
I narrowed my eyes at her.
“Why should I?” I asked.
Guildmaster Sinclair smirked at me.
“Consider it a part of your test,” she said. “To determine if you can be a team player or not.”
What a load of bullshit. Still, if I was going to be working with Guildmaster Sinclair for the foreseeable future, I might as well make nice with her. Given her strength and her position as guildmaster of Icefall City’s Adventurer’s Guild, pissing her off seemed like a bad idea. She was one of the power players in this region. It was much better to make friends with her, or at least develop an amicable relationship.
“Fine,” I said with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter to me. I’m going to win regardless.”
Loudmouth snarled at that.
“You caught me off guard last time,” he said. “You won’t get lucky again.”
Cute.
I didn’t respond, and waited for Guildmaster Sinclair to give us the signal. Once more, she raised her hand. The tension in the air grew thicker as everyone realized that this fight was more even than they first thought.
“Begin!” Guildmaster Sinclair said, chopping the air again.
Almost before her hand finished moving, Loudmouth attacked. He swung his sword, and a crescent made of condensed air shot out towards me. The Wind Blade spell. It was a low level offensive spell that all Air wizards learned after they formed their First Circle. It was weak enough that it only required a wizard’s personal mana to cast.
Under normal circumstances, the Wind Blade spell was sharp enough to slice right through a regular mortal. This one was “blunted”, for lack of a better term. While it was as fast as a regular Wind Blade, it wasn’t as sharp. Getting hit by it would suck, but it wouldn’t kill me.
The Wind Blade rushed towards me, moving as fast as the wind. With my divine sense and my superhuman physique, it was child’s play for me to dodge it. The Wind Blade brushed past me, and hit one of the adventurer’s standing behind me.
“Ack! Gyles, you fucker! Watch where you’re aiming!”
Loudmouth stared at me in surprise. I didn’t know why. I already proved I was fast. After a brief moment, Loudmouth snarled and launched another Wind Blade at me. Like the first one, I dodged it with ease. The adventurers behind me had learned from their comrade’s folly, and started to avoid them as well.
Loudmouth sent a volley of Wind Blades at me, with all of them missing. Not a single one even stirred a hair on my head.
All right, enough playing around.
I rushed towards Loudmouth, moving in a serpentine pattern so I didn’t present an easy target. He launched two more Wind Blades at me, both missing, before he ran forward to meet me. From what I saw, he used internal magic to boost his speed.
Internal magic was using the power of one’s elemental affinities to enhance one’s body. Air for speed, Earth for strength and durability, and so on. It was a more specialized version of using mana to enhance one’s body overall, which was something spiritual cultivators could do.
Most wizards considered internal magic inferior, since there was a limit to how much magic the human body could withstand. Only the weakest of wizards needed to rely on it. More powerful wizards preferred to use spells that affected the world around them.
I looked forward to seeing how I performed while using internal magic in conjunction with my body cultivation.
When Loudmouth and I met, he attacked me with his sword. I had to give credit where credit was due, his form wasn’t terrible. His foundation was solid, and his footwork was serviceable.
It wasn’t enough.
Loudmouth’s swings continued to miss me, despite his best efforts. My divine sense, body cultivations, and millennia of experience meant that I could keep on dodging his swings forever. If he had been more powerful by one or two more threads, that would be another story. As it was, he wouldn’t be able to hit me no matter how hard he tried.
Of course, if he had been more powerful, I wouldn’t have accepted the challenge. Even my arrogance had limits, and I knew better than to get into a fight I couldn’t win if I could avoid it.
With each miss, Loudmouth’s expression grew uglier and uglier.
After another missed swing, I stepped into his reach and grabbed his wrist. Loudmouth saw this and tried to evade, but he was too late. I pulled him off balance, put his arm into a lock and twisted, forcing him to drop his sword. Loudmouth let out a pained hiss as his sword clattered to the ground.
Unlike before, excited murmuring met my victory. Now that the adventurer’s knew what I was capable of, they realized that I had a good chance at winning this duel.
“The first round goes to Mr. Gabriel,” Guildmaster Sinclair said, not emphasizing the “mister” for the first time since we met.
While it was tempting to break Loudmouth’s arm for all his shit talking from earlier, I resisted the urge. Instead, I let go without a word and walked towards my side of the ring again. When I faced Loudmouth once more, I saw hate and anger burning in his eyes. For a brief moment, his gaze flickered to my left. I didn’t need to look to know that he had glanced at Fatty.
I assumed that this was some sort of signal. If it was, then there was a chance that Fatty would interfere with this match. I also made sure to keep an eye out for trickery from Rat, just in case.
Once we were in our positions, Guildmaster Sinclair raised her arm without a word. If she had noticed Loudmouth’s glance, she didn’t say or do anything about it.
“Begin!”
Loudmouth didn’t bother with the Wind Blades. Instead, he rushed towards me right away. I did the same, keeping an eye out for any surprise Wind Blades from him.
As the two of us rushed towards each other, in the moment before we clashed, three things happened at once.
First, it felt like the dirt beneath me grabbed my foot, just as I was about to step forward with it. It only lasted for a fraction of a second, but it was enough to trip me up and make me stumble forward.
Second, Loudmouth swung his sword, aiming for my shoulder. A savage grin lit up his face. Given my current position, there weren’t many places for me to move if I wanted to avoid it.
Third, a small dart made of water shot out towards my foot from my right. It was so fast and so small, if I didn’t have the divine sense of an Immortal, I might have missed it. It would hit me before Loudmouth’s sword did, messing up my dodge.
For most people, it would be a losing situation. Even if they tried to dodge, they would be hit by the water dart and then by Loudmouth’s sword. Me? I just smiled. Finally, a challenge.
Rather than try to recover from my stumble, I moved into it and did something that would have been impossible without my body cultivation and life experience as Immortal Celestial Thunder. I landed on my hands and lifted the rest of my body up into the air in a handstand. The water dart missed, since my feet were no longer there, hitting the dirt.
At the same time, I twisted my body to avoid Loudmouth’s strike while remaining on my hands. It was a near thing, and I felt a thrill of fear as his sword grazed me. Thank the ancestors that body cultivation also increased one’s flexibility.
While Loudmouth was still trying to recover from his missed strike, I twisted around and kicked him in the ribs. It strained my body, but with my cultivation, I could handle it. Unfortunately for Loudmouth, I wasn’t able to hold back as much as before.
When my foot connected, I heard an audible snap as one of his ribs broke. The adventurers around me sucked in a breath at the sound. Loudmouth stumbled back, gasping for air.
As he recovered from my blow, I rolled to my feet and prepared to continue with the fight. My movements brought me close to the edge of the ring, near where Rat stood.
“Enough!” Guildmaster Sinclair called out. “There’s no point in continuing. It’s clear that Mr. Gabriel is the winner of the duel.”
The crowd around us let out a cheer. Many of the adventurers grinned at me, no doubt entertained by the spectacle. Guildmaster Sinclair frowned at me in annoyance. However, I also saw a hint of respect in her single eye.
“Lorelei, go get your father so he can take a look at Gyles,” she said.
Lorelei, who was looking at me, opened her mouth to answer her mother. However, she paused. At the same time, with my divine sense, I noticed Rat step towards me and raise his hand. His movements didn’t seem threatening. In fact, it looked like he was about to clap my shoulder and congratulate me.
Yet, my intuition warned me that I was in danger.
“Look out!” Lorelei called out.
Following her warning, I stepped to the side and avoided Rat’s hand. In a move similar to the one I used with Loudmouth earlier, I grabbed his wrist, put his arm into a lock, and twisted. However, I didn’t hold back this time. Rat’s arm broke with a sickening crack, and he let out a shriek of pain.
A thin silver needle dropped from his hand. I snatched the needle before it fell to the ground. The tip had a greenish sheen to it.
The crowd of adventurers, caught off guard by my actions, started to get angry but stopped when they noticed the needle in my hands. Guildmaster Sinclair had an ugly look on her face. She turned that ugly look towards Rat, who had fallen to his knees next to me. He cradled his broken arm and let out little mewling sounds.
“Well now,” I said, giving Rat a sharp smile. I held up the needle. “What’s this?”