Novel Eccentric Egon (Ch10)

Discussion in 'Community Fictions' started by Judgecutioner, Oct 31, 2016.

?

Shall I continue?

  1. Yes!!!

    6 vote(s)
    37.5%
  2. Yes.

    5 vote(s)
    31.3%
  3. No.

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  4. Kill it with fire before it spawns more eggs!!!

    5 vote(s)
    31.3%
  1. monkey magic

    monkey magic Born from an egg on a mountain top

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    I came here for Ghostbusters but I guess I was wrong T.T
     
  2. Judgecutioner

    Judgecutioner [Supreme Noodly God][Created 69^69 universes][Dom]

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    Part 2

    Next morning, Egon and Imoto opened their food stand once more. Imoto was delighted. After eating three new meatballs for dinner and practicing Awakening Transformation mantra, all her Awakening circles started to emit silvery shining. Egon told her that they were about half way between solid and silver. After they became Silver, her cultivation speed would grow by about 10%.
    But that was not the main advantage.

    Egon explained to her that main advantage of Silver, Translucent and Pure Circles was not cultivation speed they would provide, but Strengthening Qi-Art proficiency.

    Strengthening Qi-Arts were powerful methods of enhancing one’s body’s strength. She for example had cultivated Screaming Eagle Technique to third layer which allowed her to enhance her power by about four stages for a few seconds at the cost of massive increase of stamina consumption. While this was only low grade technique, practicing it until third layer was still achievement she was proud about.

    Most sect disciples she knew did not pay that much attention to techniques, focusing only on cultivation instead. If she were to fight weakest of those seven disciples that Miss Loli sent after her in one on one scenario, she felt like she would probably stand a chance.

    She also asked Egon for some better Strengthening Art, but once again he rejected her until she cleared her qi circles.

    She prepared to take orders. And soon they came. Once more, first ones to start buying were merchants passing by, who heard about what happened here two days ago. But very soon, they were replaced by crowd of disciples.

    However, Imoto has already prepared herself.

    “There is also special spice for cultivators only. But it’s made of very rare herbs. It will be three gold coins if you wish for it.”

    Three golds was not small sum. They could probably buy some low grade awakening herb for that money. Rare herbs that Egon used, even if their amount was little, were probably still worth more than three gold per portion, but Egon apparently didn’t care. But she, who understood value of money, would not let this chance to earn escape her.

    Seeing crowd of sect disciples, Imoto could tell they already recognized miraculous power of Egon’s spices, so she felt like even if she raised cost this much, they would still be more than willing to pay.

    And willing they were. While at first, they took about quarter a minute to decide, after that, they willingly gave their gold coins. Actually, most of them bought two, and some even three portions of food, afraid that single portion would not be enough for them.

    However, seeing how willing sect disciples were to pay for this food, ordinary people realized something suspicious was happening.

    Three sect elders who left the plaza yesterday arrived soon after, and while they originally wanted to keep a low profile to make sure Drunkensword sect doesn’t notice anything, right now, it was obvious that it was only matter of time before message of this suspicious happening would get to their ears. So the trio decided to approach Egon together.

    “Fellow Daoist, would you mind giving us bit of your time?” first elder asked.

    “I am very sorry but I still have customers who are waiting for food. After I close the stand we can talk.” Egon responded.

    Three elders were surprised. They thought that possibly, this young looking man was cooking simply to attract attention of sects, so being rejected came as surprise. They thought that maybe they were not enough to impress him and he was waiting for mid-grade sect to approach.

    Seeing their gloomy expression, Imoto had an idea.
    “Uncle Egon, could you perhaps cook some special food for these sect elders? Just leaving them wait like this is pitiful.” she whispered.
    Egon nodded and pulled out another herb. But moment the herb appeared, three elders looked at it with stunned expression.

    ‘It can’t be! High grade Qi Adept herb?’

    But in the next moment, herb was dried with four different spirit fires and turned into dust!
    “Eeh?!” three elders exclaimed in shock.
    In front of their eyes, this valuable herb was destroyed in a blink of an eye.

    Dust from the herb was then stored in small flacon, with only small bit being added into mixture of herbs Egon pulled out. Then using this mixture, as well as egg, carrot and onion, Egon prepared an cut pork roulade and then cut it into three pieces and sent it to three elders.

    Three old Daoists looked at this sacrilegious food that arrived carried by strong spirit force into their hands, unsure what to do. Then, first one courageously bit into the meat.

    Tears erupted from his eyes. He had never eaten something so good before. It was as if it had little piece of heaven within. His taste satisfaction reached its upper limit.
    But then, qi from the meat entered his body, and upper limit was left behind in dust. Tears flooded out of his eyes once more and this time, his martial stance became shaky. Such a powerful taste! This food was heaven itself.

    He bit again and again, trying to make the high caused by this meal to last as long as possible. Qi filled his body and was absorbed, but elder could feel it was absorbed differently than when eating usual herbs.

    Seeing the passion of their friend, two elders also bit into their meat reluctantly and then joined him in eating like animals.
    By that time, first elder already finished his meal, closed his eyes, and enjoyed remaining taste on his tongue. Then, suddenly he opened his eyes and exclaimed:

    “My bottleneck! It’s gone!”

    Other two elders interrupted their uncontrolled eating and closed their eyes as well.
    “So is mine!”
    “How is this possible?”

    Three elders looked at each other, unable to express their feelings. Being able to improve someone’s awakening circles was already miraculous, but clearing bottlenecks? That was too heaven defying! Forget about mid-grade sect, even earth grade sects would want to make such person join them.
    In this land, alchemists were rare. Ranking they used was similar to that of cultivators, starting with Initiate, Disciple, Adept, and ending with Alchemy Paragon. But these ranks had nothing to do with their cultivation but instead their meaning was what level of pills they could produce. Their low grade sects had few Alchemist Disciples, and each of them had one Alchemist Adept. Even Drunkensword sect had only four Alchemy Adepts and not even Eagle Claw sect had a single Alchemist master, only dozens of Alchemy Adepts. And that kind of skill – completely breaking Qi Adept’s bottleneck, was something that only Master rank pill could do.

    “This man, could he be an Alchemy Master?” first elder voiced their thoughts. He could not believe someone as important could be in their city, hence the tone of question.
    While ability to improve shattered awakening circle was something unheard of for them, it was not that surprising for them to not know of it. Even high grade sect would only take in those with no shattered circle, so this technique would already be of no interest for them. There would be noone who would waste their time exploring if this was even possible.

    They originally believed that Eccentric chef was some mysterious alchemy expert from high grade sect who found a way to fix shattered qi circles, and was simply enjoying himself here, where there were people who could benefit from this method, since his sect had none who could. But now, it was obvious that this matter was of much greater importance than they believed.

    “What do we do now?”

    Three elders put their heads together. To obtain even bit of help from this expert it was obvious their sects need to forget about competing. Even their combined resources were not enough to appeal such a master.
    All they could do was hope that this expert finds them interesting enough to give them bit of his attention.

    Two elders finished their pork roulade afterwards, waiting for Egon to finish his cooking.
    And it took only bit more than two hours before he did.

    “Fellow cultivators, it appears my job is done for today. So, how might I aid you?”
    “Expert master, forgive our insolence, but your food has helped our three sects’ disciples quite a bit. We thought if it wouldn’t be possible for you to come to our sects for us to thank you.” said first elder.
    “Fellow Daoist, pardon me but I have no intention to receive any thanks. Nor am I interested in helping your sects. I simply enjoy selling my food here and making everyone enjoy its taste.” he firmly rejected them.

    Following this rejection, elders felt like they had no chance but to give up. But second elder, most shameless out of them, spoke up in last attempt.

    “Then, fellow Daoist, what if we wanted to ask you to cook for our banquet?” he said, holding onto last straw of hope.
    “Banquet?”
    To their surprise, Egon actually was interested. To be precise, to cook for a banquet was something he wanted to try. While on a surface, in terms of how many people there would be, it was not that different from selling in his stand, but banquet had its own special atmosphere.

    “Yes. Our three sects would like to have a banquet to strengthen our relationship and brotherhood, and it would be honor for us if your Excellency cooked for us.” said shameless elder.
    “That sounds interesting. When do you plan to have that banquet of yours?” asked Egon, showing his interest.
    “In three days, but for his Excellency, we could delay it.”
    “No, it’s fine. However, it will be hard for me to get resources within few days.”
    “No worries, we will prepare anything his Excellency could need.”

    While Egon was talking to second elder, Imoto was observing this interaction with disbelief. This useless uncle! To let them manipulate him so easily!

    But she decided not to speak up. It was obvious that Uncle Egon was happy about prospect of cooking at banquet, and as far as she was interested, that was a good thing. If he was happy, maybe he would give her those powerful techniques sooner.

    While Egon was talking to elders, asking them about how many people would be present at banquet and telling them how much and what meat he wanted them to buy, there was one person who escaped his perception.
    Standing in crowd, he observed the young man with eye patch from distance.
    He heard about mysterious cook appearing in market, and came to check on his competition. But instead of fear of losing customers, after seeing his cooking, his eyes were filled with tears.

    ‘Young master.’ He whispered as he dried his eyes with piece of cloth. ‘You were alive after all.’

    With happiness, he turned around to return to his restaurant, not knowing about disaster drawing near.

    * * *

    At the same time, two sect elders of Jackhammer Sect were arguing.

    “I am sure sect master had gone insane during his last seclusion. Ordering us to build new orphanages and take existing under the protection of our sect, what kind of nonsense is that?” first elder asked.

    “Well, at first, I also shared that opinion, but whatever revelation went the old man through completely changed him. Over his two years seclusion, somehow, his cultivation grew by eight stages. And he said he is expecting to reach peak of master rank within next few months.

    Moreover, he brought back some rather weird cultivation methods that he created with guidance of his ‘master’, whoever that might be. At first I was very skeptical of them, but after trying them, I am sure that they are superior to even mid-grade sect methods.”

    “You had never seen single mid-grade sect cultivation technique, so how can you compare them with those techniques? And even if that is true, that still does not explain why we should take care of some dirty street brats.”

    “Well, I also don’t understand, not even after I asked him about it, but we should believe in sect master Piper. I think that we should. I…”

    “You asked him, huh? What did he respond?”

    “Well... He said that ‘cute children are justice’. What that means, I don’t really know. And I am not sure if I even want to know.”

    “I don’t want to know either.”

    Next Chapter
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2017
  3. Judgecutioner

    Judgecutioner [Supreme Noodly God][Created 69^69 universes][Dom]

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    Sorry mate, but with my mediocre writing skills, I would never dare to touch Ghostbuster's Egon. He's too good of a character for me to screw with.
     
  4. Judgecutioner

    Judgecutioner [Supreme Noodly God][Created 69^69 universes][Dom]

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    Chapter 5

    It was early night outside. Sitting at restaurant, elder Bong was drinking third bottle of pear spirit. One of drawbacks of cultivation was that alcohol was less effective.
    Elder Bong used Fly Agaric powder to spice his drink up, but even then, he found it unsatisfactory.
    “For me, great Elder Bong, to receive such an order, what an injustice! I am to search for some pathetic cultivator who wastes his time by cooking at market? Why was I chosen to do this chore?”

    Elder Bong, in his anger, conveniently forgot that he was one who willingly took sect master’s request. After all, three low-grade sects made their move, so Drunkensword sect wanted to send elder as well. Then he learned that two instances when man appeared in market were one day apart. So he expected him to come today for third time… yet he didn’t. That weird chef didn’t come after all. He waited for him few hours and that chef had audacity not to appear.

    As mid-grade sect elder, his cultivation was similar to that of low grade sect’s master, but he believed his position to be more important, and most people would agree. So he found this situation insulting.
    “Listen well,” he said as he turned towards restaurant’s owner who came out of kitchen to be the elder’s Bong’s company. “I will have city lord imprison him. No chef will make mockery of me, you understand?!”

    “Please, elder Bong, calm your anger. I am sure he meant you no wrong.”
    “You, shouldn’t you be happy I will eliminate your competitor? Why are you defending him?” suddenly elder’s Bong’s anger was redirected against him.
    “Perhaps, you know this chef?” elder Bong asked.
    “I guess you could say that.” responded restaurant owner.

    “Very well, then tell me how can I contact him. Or contact him for me.”
    “I don’t know how to contact him.” owner responded.
    “Are you trying to protect him?”
    “No, I really don’t know.”
    “Making fun of me? Very well! I shall entertain you then. Not just him, I will have you imprisoned as well. I will not let any chef make fun out of me!” said drunken elder, stood up and left.

    Restaurant owner gulped. He could tell that elder Bong was serious. He called his children to prepare them for what was coming.

    * * *

    Later that night, soldiers barged into Young Lord’s and took away chef Rumsay. Both his children were already gone.

    * * *

    However, because I, the narrator, said so, we will be returning back to three low grade sects. To be precise, we will talk about meeting of three sect elders with three sect masters, which happened on the night after elders invited Egon to cook for a banquet.

    “So do I get this right? That eccentric is called Egon, and he wants to cook at a banquet our sects are to organize?” asked sect master of Micro Elephant sect. Of three sect masters, he was oldest one and as long as their alliance stood strong, he was respected by his two martial junior brothers, as he called two other sect masters.

    “Yes. I am sorry, sect master Eropan, but he rejected our first invitation and I mumbled something out of desperation.” responded second elder, who also belonged to Micro Elephant sect.
    “And the food you received from him helped you unblock your bottlenecks?” Eropan asked again.
    “Indeed.” second elder nodded.

    “We have brought you few pieces of meat to try.” said second elder and pulled out pork skewer he received from Egon after scheming it out of him.

    ‘I would like to bring back something for sect masters to try the taste of your cooking, so they will be more willing to employ all our resources.’ he said back then.
    Hearing him, suddenly, the girl behind Egon gave him gaze of contempt. In the end, Egon gave them one skewer, and elders gave him all the herbs they had with them, in order to calm the girl, who looked like very dangerous person.
    Since they wanted to be polite, they never used their qi sense to probe their cultivation level. But they were sure of one thing. That young woman behind the Eccentric chef was scary. They needed to make sure to not anger her.

    “So in three days of time, we need to organize the banquet.” Said the sect master Eropan as he stripped three pieces of meat and threw one to sect master Bitsho of Rabbit Shoe sect, and one to sect master Ermil of Deer Milking sect.

    Three sect masters casually ate one piece of meat. And then their expression changed.

    “This… this taste!”
    “Unbelievable!”
    “Indescribable!”

    As they tasted the skewer meat, they were completely bewitched by its juicy and spicy taste. While they were indeed surprised by the taste, they didn’t completely lose their reason. However, after checking out their bottlenecks, their expression changed once more.

    Their bottlenecks no longer looked like unpassable wall.
    When anyone cultivated, at some point, bottlenecks would start appearing. These bottlenecks would sooner or later effectively stop person’s cultivation, as breaking one meant facing another that was twice as high. Once you arrived at your first bottleneck, it would be hard to climb more than four stages.

    It was believed this was caused by impurities absorbed from herbs and cultivation techniques. High grade herb had fewer impurities and cultivation techniques of higher grade sect also absorbed fewer impurities – so people from mid and high grade sects had advantage over those who belonged to low grade sect.
    However, Rabbit Shoe, Deer Milking and Micro Elephant sect had long histories. Unlike other low grade sects with shorter histories, their sect had lot of time to develop cultivation methods that could almost compete with mid-grade sect.

    Yet, sect masters Ermil and Bitsho who were at fifth stage of Qi Master Rank and Eropan who was at sixth had little chance of reaching anything above than seventh stage in their lives. Compared to them, Drunkensword sect had sect master of tenth stage or Qi Master Rank and four grand elders at eighth.

    This was a very big difference in power between them.
    Was it not for their sects having certain treasures or their ties to Dere clan’s previous master, they would be already destroyed by Drunkensword sect, which was only two centuries ago established by group of inner disciples expelled from Eagle Claw sect.

    So when three sect masters felt their bottlenecks weakening, they greedily looked at the skewer. But now, only two pieces of meat remained.

    “I shall take one piece, you two shall fairly divide other one, junior brothers.” said Eropan as he held the skewer with left hand and his right was covered with thick qi aura.

    “Eropan Tsu! Don’t try to anger us! Splitting this treasure unevenly, I will not stand such injustice!” said Bitsho with sparks of lightning in his eyes and wrapped around both of his fists.
    “I also disagree. We should fairly divide those two pieces, senior martial brother.” added sect master Ermil as fire covered his arms.

    Eropan looked like he was going to fight them over the meat, but suddenly second elder stepped closer to him and whispered something. Eropan’s expression changed into that of pain, but he nodded.

    “Junior brothers, I have changed my mind. You two are younger ones here and are more worthy of this treasure. I shall only take a half, while you two each take three quarters of a piece. Is that fine with you?”

    Two younger sect masters looked at each other. They didn’t know what the second elder said to Eropan, but they knew him and knew that he was very scheming person. He was well known schemer and anyone in three sects would be careful around him.
    But they didn’t see any reason why not to accept.
    So they divided remaining meat and started preparing the banquet.

    * * *

    For those two days, Imoto was left alone and spent her time improving her Awakening circles. With no more help from meatballs, she only managed to fully change first two of her circles into silver using the mantra she was taught by him.
    Without help of Egon’s spices, her progress was much slower, yet she felt happy about doing something herself after a while. While being pushed forward by someone else was really nice, but without putting any effort in, it would not feel right for her.

    However, in her mind, Egon’s help to her was merely compensation for unfair condition she had to start with. As long as he was willing to provide her help, she would shamelessly accept it. Since she was twenty years old, her best cultivation years were coming to an end anyways. If she entered body refining phase, she could extend her youth by a decade or two, but she only had two or three years to do so.
    Right now with her ‘foundation’, if she started cultivating it shouldn’t be that hard to enter the body refining phase in a year or so. But what Egon promised her was much more than that, so she was willing to delay her ascension to ‘true’ cultivation world in order to obtain better foundation.

    She was quite interested in cultivation method that he said he would give her. So when he visited her in the afternoon of second day, she was delighted. And after he told her that he would teach her his cultivation method, she was delighted twice so.

    So when he led her out of city towards the Windburp lake, she was unsure what to expect. There, two of them stood for a while, silently.

    “Sun. Its heat and light are sources of the life. It is what feeds plants. But it can also be source of qi. But the qi of the sun is scorching, and within it, pieces of fire that even dragons have hard time absorbing is contained. But it’s not impossible, there are ways to absorb the qi and not the fire, or to remove fire from within that qi.
    I have developed qi cultivation technique called Sun Reflecting in the Sea. It’s technique that takes qi from reflection of sun on the water surface. It’s quite weaker than directly absorbing qi from sun, but for you it’s impossible to deal with fiery energy contained in sun qi. And this way, you can avoid absorbing fiery energy.”

    “I could spend two or three days teaching you just first layer of this cultivation method and I am not sure if it would be enough. So rather than doing that, I’ll do this.” He finished, and touched her forehead.
    “Technique imprint, layers one to three, Sun Reflecting in the Sea.” He said.
    In an instant, information flooded Imoto’s head. For a second, it felt like her head was about to explode and she fainted.

    Once she opened her eyes again, she realized only fraction of a second has passed. She stabilized her stance not to fall, and then calmed down from the shock. Probing her mind, she could feel presence of something that was not there. Just by wishing so, she was now able to access knowledge that was not hers originally.
    However, it was not easy to understand – far from easy – she found it almost impossible to understand it. Like a school book you have opened in the middle, without learning the beginning, it seemed like she lacked some necessary knowledge to understand.

    “I feel like something is lacking.” she said.

    “What is lacking is your comprehension, but that is to be expected. You will need to take some time comprehending it. It should take you few hours before you fully understand everything I gave to you. In order not to distract you, I will leave you alone now. Find me if there's anything you don't understand.” Egon answered and then left without saying anything else.

    Imoto sat down and started comprehending.

    * * *

    As the sun was setting, he sat down on a beach and stared at reflection of sun in the waves.

    “I would like to know if Egon is doing well.” he expressed his thoughts loudly.
    “I would never think that you are type who would leave your territory, old dog.” voice behind him responded. He didn’t turn around, though.

    “You are thinking about his safety as well, King?” he asked, still gazing at the reflection of sun.
    “Not really. It would be good if he was doing well, though. But I am not afraid for him. He can take care of himself well.” responded King.
    “Indeed he can. Do you think it was alright to lie to him like that?” he asked again.
    “Which one do you mean?” King asked for clarification.
    “I mean about his comprehension.” he clarified.

    After short silence, King answered.
    “Oh, right, that one. I can still remember your face when you told us about how he comprehended blood refining in few hours after you imprinted method to him.” King laughed, mocking him.
    “Do not laugh at me. He did same thing when you imprinted your Shadow refining to him.” he barked out angrily.

    “Indeed he did. Honestly, his ability to comprehend was too much for me to stomach. And when he proudly imprinted that Sun reflection cultivation technique of his to me, it took me half a day to comprehend even first two layers.” said King.
    “That’s no surprise. It took me that much time to comprehend just first layer. Even Lizard who prides herself in Sun and Fire comprehension has yet to comprehend final layer today.”

    “He still didn’t give up?” asked King surprised.
    “No. Old hag is proudest thing to ever fly beneath the sky. She would rather cut her wings and eat her own tail than give up on his challenge.” he answered. Then, he continued.
    “I still think we should have told Egon that his comprehension speed is abnormal. Imagine what would happen if he fancies a disciple.”
    King laughed. “That would be interesting indeed. But convincing him that his comprehension speed was slow was good way to make him work harder. And it was also funny to demean him for being slow.” He said.

    “That child must have been blessed by heaven. In seven years, he rose from nothing to be able to compete with us. And if we didn’t place all restrictions on him during our sparring, we would have to get fully serious to beat him.” added voice of newcomer.
    “Oh, Pigsy, you came out as well?” King asked.
    “No. I was just passing by.”
    “Has anyone ever told you that you are boaring?”
    “You did, about million times.”
    “And I never get boared of that.”

    He finally turned around.

    Monkey King standing atop his long staff was smiling and laughing, while Boar Lord was staring him in the eyes with calm and boorish look.
    “King, you know you really can be annoying.” he said.
    “Don’t bark at me, Old Dog. We both know you're all bark and no bite.” Monkey King responded with laugh.
    “Whatever. I am returning to my territory. You two have fun together.” he said ignoring King's remarks.
    He leapt away and ran back to forest.
    Monkey King observed Old Dog’s retreat with calm face.
    Then he stared at the reflection of sun for a moment.

    “It would really be hilarious if Egon took a disciple. But I don’t think that will happen though. After all, we made him promise he will not teach our techniques to anyone else.” Monkey King said.
    “He could still teach them his own techniques though.” Boar Lord responded.
    “I guess that is true. We never told him anything about not teaching his techniques to anyone.” King nodded.
    “After all, it is very unlikely anyone would be able to learn his techniques anyways. The way he explains them and understands them is beyond reason of normal person.” said Boar.

    “That would require either millennia old experienced master, or genius with similar level of comprehension. Apart from Tengu, there should be very few in the first category there, and for second person with talent like that to appear in same generation is impossible. Best he can do is to give them some cultivation pointers and explain some profound truths.” responded King.
    “Yes. There is no way anyone there could comprehend those techniques of his.” Boar fully agreed.

    * * *

    Sun was setting.

    “I see.” Imoto said as she stood up.

    She managed to comprehend first two layers of cultivation method she was given to her by Egon, and she realized she would have to ask Egon few questions about third layer before she could fully comprehend it.
    How did she manage to do that in just two hours?
    While her comprehension was certainly extraordinary, it was in no way as heaven defying as Egons. But there was one thing that Egon’s teachers failed to predict.

    When Egon imprinted his cultivation method onto them, he gave them his personal understanding of the method. Since he had full trust in his teachers’ knowledge, he did not go into details he believed to be pointless.
    But after spending some time with Piper, he realized that when teaching someone, he would have to take them through it step by step. Although he did not teach any technique to Piper and instead helped him create new ones, it helped him learn how to teach others.

    Now, this recently obtained skill of his allowed him to pass his cultivation method to Imoto. And she with her comprehension talent was able to receive it. That day, new rising star to shake the cultivation day was born. Maybe. Or something. As a Narrator I am not omniscient and to be honest, I'm paid to make this shit up all the time.
     
  5. Judgecutioner

    Judgecutioner [Supreme Noodly God][Created 69^69 universes][Dom]

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    Chapter 6

    Part one

    Banquet was to happen in the training hall of Micro Elephant sect. Second elder used ‘gesture of friendship done by his sect master’ when he preferred his brothers over his own gains, as leverage to make two other sect masters agree. Of course, it was not easy, but in the end, they decided to allow Micro Elephant sect to host the banquet.
    Question was how many would participate. Sect masters originally wanted only highest sect officials to participate, but once again second elder interfered. He said that Eccentric chef, expected large banquet, and advised to invite all officials and all disciples. Each sect had around 200 disciples and around 400 officials.
    Sect officials were working for the city, hunting qi beasts, and doing other work. Low grade sect would rarely be picky when it came to promoting disciples to officials and would only discard worst few of them, giving those who achieved at least Qi Disciple rank some lower official function in sect.

    However, in reality each sect had around two hundred sect officials and few dozen disciples working outside the city at this moment, so final number of feast participants was a bit over a thousand. That was still very many people, but originally, when second elder talked with Eccentric chef about the details of banquet, he said there would be few hundreds and Egon was alright with it.

    Second of three elders sent to meet Egon surprisingly had a name. His name was Bearded Oltfart, and his Oltfart family had become important part of the sect only in last two generations. His elder brother and elder sister were hall masters, and his father and grandfather were elders like him.
    But right now, of all elders of Micro Elephant sect, he was one of most important, even though his cultivation was not highest. That was because he was only forty eight years old and already eleventh stage adept. With his remaining vitality of 500 years, he still had long way before him. At least, that was what he expected.

    But his expectation was wrong. Now that he reached peak of eleventh stage of Qi Adept rank, he met his first bottleneck. That meant path ahead of him was very short. At best, he would barely qualify to become Grand Elder of his sect. For his sect, he was still seen as very important talent to groom, but his aim was higher than that. His hopes were crushed by reality.
    However, that changed completely with a single piece of meat roulade. When he no longer expected it, hope came in form of eccentric cultivator who was for some reason obsessed with cooking. And he would not let go of this this chance that was given to him.

    * * *

    It was early in the morning. Imoto didn’t sleep well, but she forced herself to sleep. In the end she fell asleep late and woke up early.
    When she arrived to the old fountain where they agreed to meet with elders, Egon was already there, however. He was sitting on top of the head of a statue of a monkey in armor with a staff and shield. Statue was about four meters tall and had a battle ready expression. It was an imposing sight. Even though Windburp city was not capitol, it still had some beautiful works of art alright.

    After welcoming her with good morning, Egon closed his eyes and focused on something, leaving her to her own devices. So Imoto sat down next to fountain, also closed her eyes, and pondered over the knowledge that Egon imprinted onto her.
    While he said he would imprint the technique onto her, in reality, she could also access rudimentary knowledge that was necessary for her to understand the technique, most importantly some of his comprehension of water, fire, ice, sun and reflection.
    Comprehension of these concepts was extremely valuable. If she mastered them, she could use them to empower her attacks or learn qi arts related to these concepts. They were almost as valuable as the cultivation method itself.

    Not too long after Imoto sat down, three elders from low grade sects arrived as well. Three of them bowed their heads, and waited. Middle one; shrewd young looking sect elder, who asked for Egon to become cook for their banquet, carefully measured Egon with a look.

    “Is everything alright, master Egon?”
    Egon opened his eyes stared at the elder who shivered, and then slowly nodded.
    “Yes, everything is alright. You can lead the way.” He said.
    “Alright, great, follow me.” said young looking sect elder, who now stared at ground to avoid looking Egon, who had scary expression in his face in the eyes. Three elders turned around, and started walking in direction they came from and Imoto stood up and followed.
    After few steps, shrewd elder turned around and screamed, making Imoto and other two elders turn around as well.
    Three screams mixed together.

    Egon was not following them. What was following them was entire statue Egon sat on. And reason why they didn’t hear steps of enormous statue was simple – statue’s feet hovered few centimeters above the ground.

    After they suppressed their shock, all of them realized – that statue did not belong to fountain, it belonged to Egon.
    Egon who had his eyes closed stopped the statue and opened them again and looked at her.
    “Why are you looking at me like that? Do you also want to ride it? Very well then.” said Egon using his qi without opening his mouth. Statue’s palm descended and before she could voice her protest, Imoto was sat down on the shoulder of statue by its hand.

    Three elders took a few breaths of time to calm down, and then wordlessly continued towards Micro Elephant sect.

    * * *

    Scary, elder Oltfart thought. That statue, while he could feel no qi from it, from the way it moved he could tell it was at least comparable to peak qi master cultivator. And that terrifying expression he had in his face!

    Daoist Egon has decided to show them off his power and anger. Why? Elder Oltfar could guess. They have not paid him enough respect, after all. For such a respectable master like him to lower himself and cook for them, it was obvious they needed to treat him with much more respect. Very dark and ugly expression of Daoist Egon confirmed this belief of his.
    Traveling quickly using their qi, they left the city and entered area owned by Micro Elephant sect. Stopping before the gate leading to sect’s garden, Elder Oltfar asked Egon and Imoto to stay behind while they would inform sect masters. While only one elder was needed to inform sect masters, none of them wanted to stay, because of terrifying expression of Egon.

    * * *

    Imoto was also slightly scared. She had never seen this expression of Egon. She was surprised, as he looked very threatening. It was surprising because during past few days, she came to conclusion that Egon was harmless and peaceful, although not very bright person. So for him to threaten others, she felt like her previous conclusions were wrong.
    But after three elders left…
    Egon released his contracted facial muscles and teeth chattering could be heard.

    “Uncle Egon, perhaps, you are nervous?” she asked with disbelief.
    “It is first time I am going to cook at a banquet. I thought I would be alright but as time approached, I was more and more nervous. My teeth can’t stop chattering and my legs can’t stop shivering.” he said.
    “Your legs are shivering… wait, don’t tell me you pulled this statue out just to hide that.”
    “I can’t show weakness now. As a chef, I can’t show I don’t have enough confidence. I can’t let my customers doubt me.” he responded.

    Imoto had to use all her willpower not to laugh.

    “How will you hide your shivering and chattering once you have to cook or when you’ll have to talk to sect masters? Uncle Egon, this is not a solution. You can’t use scary statue like this just to hide your lack of self-confidence! You are just pointlessly scaring your customers! If your customers are afraid of you, do you think they will want to buy your food?” she chastised him.
    Egon hanged his head in shame.
    “Now, make this statue disappear. You don’t want to scare them any more than they are now.”
    Egon nodded and using his spirit power, made them both safely land on the ground. After that, statue started shrinking until it was size of small bird. Then, with a single gesture, Egon stored it into his ring.

    However, his teeth were still chattering and legs shivering.
    Imoto shook her head in disbelief. This martial uncle was so immature. Did she really have to be mature one?
    She hugged him.
    “Uncle Egon, I am here with you. I will support you, so there is no need to fear the banquet. Your food is great, and you are skilled chef. So calm down, we will handle it easily.” she said.
    Because this martial uncle looked still young, it was slightly embarrassing, but Imoto was certain that he was some old monster with young visage, so it was just like hugging some grandpa, nothing she should be ashamed of.

    Not even in her wildest dreams would she think that this ‘uncle’ was only three years older than her.

    Egon, shocked by sudden hug, stood paralyzed, his legs no longer shivering and his teeth no longer clattering. After short while he was released.

    “Feeling better now? See! Don’t worry! We’ll handle it, uncle!” Imoto cheered him with wide smile.
    And Egon has completely forgotten about his nervousness.

    Part 2
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2017
  6. AMissingLinguist

    AMissingLinguist [Not Here][Blank Sect][Nuffian #N]

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    Is there a limit to how much you can put into each spoiler box?
     
  7. Judgecutioner

    Judgecutioner [Supreme Noodly God][Created 69^69 universes][Dom]

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    I don't think so. Maybe there is but I have yet to find it.
     
  8. Deleted member 41274

    Deleted member 41274 Guest

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    Yess definetly!!!

    Man the moment you read eccentric song... @_@
     
  9. Judgecutioner

    Judgecutioner [Supreme Noodly God][Created 69^69 universes][Dom]

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    Part 2

    Egon gulped. Training hall of Micro elephant sect was quite sizeable, but it certainly was not constructed for all three sects to eat in there. Luckily, there was barely enough space for eleven hundred participants. However because of how densely disciples were packed, they looked much more numerous than they in fact were.

    These participants wearing dresses of different colors were all present and sitting with crossed legs and staring at him with expectations. They heard about how valuable this Daoist’s cooking was to their friends so they had some expectations. However, all disciples who benefited from cooking were merely Awakening rank disciples. Those who were already in Body Refining were much less confident in benefits this food could provide to them.

    Same thoughts were circulating in the mind of Egon. What kind of spice effect should he use for these sect disciples?
    It was obvious that Awakening rank disciples needed to have their qi circles cleared. For early body refining disciples, he could do the same, but there was bigger problem with everyone else.
    In Body Refining rank, one’s qi was used to refine your own body. If you were to simply cultivate while in Body Refining rank without any body training, you would emerge with what was called Grade 0 Refined Body. That kind of body would create great setbacks for you in fights and later on in cultivation as well. It was possible to improve one’s body by physical combat or some specific body refining pills, but most important were Body Refining methods.

    Looking at constitution of sect’s masters and analyzing it, Egon came to conclusion that all three sects probably use one method, some Inferior Grade 3 Body Refining method. This method, it barely qualified as Grade 3 Method, and more importantly, it was method utilizing self-harming to strengthen one’s body as well. Utilizing this kind of method, it was obvious Grade 3 Refined Body was best their disciples could achieve, and only fraction of them would, while most would only achieve mere Grade 2 Refined Body.
    Egon’s observation was correct. Tyrannical Body Refining method shared by three sects was very painful. Only small amount of sect members managed to complete it, and most were satisfied with minor completion and Grade 2 Refined Body.

    He knew certain mixture of herbs that could improve efficiency of body refining. If he used it, body refining disciples could easily reach Grade 4 Refined Body even with mere minor completion, and possibly, even Grade 5 Refined Body. Even those who already left Body Refining rank could jump a grade were they to use this herb mixture. Difference between grades of Refined Body was not that big, three grades would roughly translate to additional bonus of two stages of cultivation in terms of combat power, but having high grade refined body would slightly increase body’s ability to deal with qi impurities and prove extreme advantage when attacking rank of Qi Champion.

    All ranks before Qi Champion could be seen as preparatory. Egon remembered his disciple Piper. It took him more than a month before he started noticing terrifying state of Piper’s basics. He had a cracked awakening circle. He had a mere Grade 2 Refined Body. His blood paths were not fortified. His qi was grey. His qi circulation was terrible. Impurities within his qi were starting to clog. He spent months using his cooking to slowly reform his basics to at least passable extent. Now, as long as Piper used his new Qi Refining method, and Qi purifying mantra that he created with Egon’s advices, he would have chance to become Qi Paragon.

    Practitioners of three sects were probably in similar states. So to properly help them, using mild spicing that would slightly elevate cumulated negative harm their flawed cultivation caused, was what he decided to do.
    “Welcome, supreme Daoist master Egon.”
    Arriving in front of seats of sect master, three sect masters greeted him in kowtow.
    It was slightly awkward for him to receive so much respect.
    “Fellow Daoists, I am unworthy of such respect.” Egon responded.

    ‘What the hell is he saying?’
    ‘He was angry when he was treated with not enough respect, but now he’s acting like he does not care?’
    ‘He obviously wants us to worship him more!’
    Three sect masters thought.

    Then they landed their eyes on a girl following supreme expert. Elders informed them that they need to be careful not to anger her. Whether she was his teacher, wife, guardian, or disciple was not known, but all elders agreed she was scary and not to be displeased.
    But her expression appeared to be giving their actions approval.

    “We are very thankful for accepting our request to cook for our banquet. I will now guide you to the place of honor, if you don’t mind.“ said sect master Eropan Tsu as he stood up.

    In the center of the hall, there was large empty space prepared for them. As soon as they arrived, Egon started pulling out all of his collection of cookware. Butcher knifes, woks, flacons with multitude of spices and oils were placed in the air where they stayed levitating.
    As Egon finished his preparation, Eropan Tsu made a gesture towards few kowtowing disciples who stood up and started bringing in meat, vegetables, flour, and other things from nearby storage.

    Like a kitchen deity, Egon started frying meat in four woks mid-air and vegetables in two other woks, while boiling rice in big kettle. Adding mixture of Awakening herbs. Using dragon-fire, he quickly prepared first eight portions of curry and then continued instantly. Imoto had nothing to do, as Egon rejected her help, saying he can do everything alone, so she sat down to meditate in order to deepen her comprehension of fire.
    This was now her primary goal, to understand all the elemental essences of Egon’s profound cultivation method. Her luck was that she could observe the flame that Egon used to cook. With her shallow understanding of elemental essence of fire, she could only grasp very little, but it was enough to stimulate her comprehension.

    Three sect masters and six grand elders after a while also noticed the profoundness of flame Egon was using to cook. All nine of them wordlessly sat down and also started meditating.
    This flame was purest flame they have ever seen, and once they focused on it, they realized this was unique opportunity for them. So they sat down, trying to grasp this opportunity and deepen their understanding of fire.
    About dozen of elders joined them after a while, but most elders and officials either had insufficient comprehension of essence fire, or were not even fire element experts, and therefore were unable to raise their comprehension even a bit.

    In less than an hour most of disciples had their food done and served, now, Egon switched his herbal mixture, and added some body strengthening herbs mixture. His cooking sped up and now included appearance of new flame. Two types of flame, namely Dragon Qi Flame and Infernal Spirit Flame intertwined and danced beneath woks. Egon took single herb and had it slowly burned by two flames.

    Smell of food was already permeating entire room, but now even qi and spirit power started escaping two flames started due to their dance and the herb it burned.
    Imoto could feel as pores of her body started absorbing qi. This qi was however not deposited into her Awakening circles; instead it permeated her body and started strengthening her muscles, bones, and blood vessels. Without realizing what was going on, Imoto made her first steps towards Grade 0 Refined Body before she even entered Body Refining rank.

    Unlike her, other disciples who were much more distant from him could not really benefit from him burning this herb, but Egon did it simply because he wanted to help her, without caring for sect members.
    Soon, remaining sect disciples and worse half of the sect officials were served their food and Egon added new herb to his spice mixture, Spirit Disciple herb, to prepare food for rest of sect officials.
    Room was starting to get hotter. Flame Egon used to cook the food heated it up and while for practitioners, temperature was easy to withstand, Egon decided he should cool the room down the bit anyways.

    In the air slightly further away from him two new green flames manifested. It only took few seconds before some of sect officials noticed that these flames were not hot but instead cold!!!
    “Frozen flame? Even lowest grade one would require for him to be mid stages Qi or Spirit Grandmaster with deeply profound comprehension of ice to manifest.” gasped elder Oltfart suprised.
    While even ordinary fire manifests its flames, but for coldness to be so extreme as to manifest as flame, it required insane level of ice comprehension and qi or spirit power.
    Flames could be divided into five grades, common flame, extraordinary flame, profound flame, unique flame and legendary flame. For Ice flame, however, flames below profound flame didn’t exist.

    Element Elder Oltfart cultivated was the ice because of his affinity for it, and therefore, when he realized how profound Egon’s cooking flames were, he regretted he didn’t have fire affinity instead.
    But now, seeing ice flame, his heart calmed and he also started meditating, in hopes that his comprehension of ice essence would improve. Few water and ice cultivating elders joined him very soon.

    Another hour later, last serving of curry was made, including fifteen for sect disciples who served the finish food and two for Egon and Imoto. Flames disappeared and Egon slowly let out single sigh. He was not tired physically, but regardless of his cultivation, his nervousness still strained his mind slightly. Now that he was done, his mental fatigue was instantly washed away by the results.
    All elders who spent their time meditating on fire and ice essence stopped their meditation unwillingly. They wanted to continue for at least few more minutes, using imprint of flames that was still in their memories, but they were all told they need to be very polite during this banquet, not to insult this mysterious master who would be cooking for them. Moreover, if they were polite, maybe, they would be given another opportunity to see those profound flames.

    “Master Egon, can we start the banquet now?” asked Eropan Tsu. He also regretted not being able to continue comprehending the flame, but he made important breakthrough. If he was correct, he felt like he could now manifest flame that was half-way between common and extraordinary. That would be great leap in power for him!

    Egon nodded and so the banquet started. As disciples started eating food, they discovered that even though food was placed in front of them two hours ago, somehow, it was as if only few minutes have passed for it. Everyone enjoyed taste of herb spiced curry. Egon specially mixed herbs in a way so that it would take three or four days for them to fully manifest. Thanks to that, he could even slightly fix cultivation errors sect officials and elders have made.

    Unlike everyone else, Imoto was still sitting down meditating on essence of fire and ice. Egon had no wish to interrupt her, so he sat down as well and started eating his curry, waiting for her to finish. It seemed like everything was going well. Important words here were – it seemed.
     
  10. Deleted member 41274

    Deleted member 41274 Guest

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    *bookmarks for reading later*
     
  11. adislt

    adislt fanfic lover

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    Can't wait to see his reaction when he know misfortune that befall upon his master the chef from before he disappeared
     
  12. Judgecutioner

    Judgecutioner [Supreme Noodly God][Created 69^69 universes][Dom]

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    Chapter 7
    Pan Rumsay had very bad mood. Being first lieutenant of town’s guard, she was already used to seeing injustice. There were many influential people who believed rules don’t apply for them, and she would usually be one to oppose them. She was seen as most talented warrior in the Windburp city, and therefore Town’s guard was her domain and most evildoers would fear her. But there were ordinary influential people and extraordinary influential people. Sect elders were existences even she herself could not offend, no matter how shady business they did.

    While she was originally rejected by Drunkenstick sect when she was fifteen and secretly participated in disciple selection, now she recently had to reject offers of all four low grade sects who wanted her to join them. At the age of twenty four, as seventh stage body refining expert she could easily compete with best disciples of four low grade sect, so she was highly valued by the city lord.

    When her childhood friend Egon ran away from his home, two masters from Dere clan came to investigate situation. Pan was secretly practicing martial arts ever since she was twelve. She wanted to become powerful cultivator, but was just slightly short of being accepted by Drunkenstick sect. One of experts of Dere clan, Official Kuu, noticed her secret hobby and gave her small note with some minor cultivation technique and tips for cultivating. Thanks to it, she became the rising star and pride of city guards, hero of common folk.

    But compared to the elder of mid-ranked Drunkensword sect, main sect of Windburp city, she was completely powerless. City lord and guards helped to arrange hers and her brother’s escape, but they would not dare to hide her father.

    She was angry. Elder Bong had so much influence that she couldn’t do anything against him. Moreover, her father asked her to contact the man who was main cause of this situation, eccentric man known in the city simply as The Cultivator Chef, and to advise him that he has to escape. She would probably never do that, but her old man said it was his final wish.

    But after she did her information gathering, what she found was rather suspicious. City guard was already searching for The Cultivator Chef for Elder Bong, so she just needed to ask around. City guards were spying three low-grade sects, believing they would guide them to him. And their expectations were not betrayed. Three low grade sects were having something like alliance conference and it was suspected that The Cultivator Chef would also appear.

    So she went to Micro Elephant sect, wanting to speak with The Cultivator Chef. But two guarding sect officials didn’t even listen to her. She tried to convince them it was important, but two women were most ox headed people she had ever seen.
    She had no clue that there were spies from Drunkenstick and Drunkensword sects around, observing the situation, and two guardians were afraid of letting anyone in, for they thought it could be distraction. Apart from two visible sect officials, there were also three low ranked elders and eighteen officials standing a guard, making sure no spy enters. For their guarding today, they would receive many herbs and few treasures, as well as free access to best cultivation methods of sect, which was why they were twice as careful.

    After their rejection Pan decided to sit down and wait. Opportunity would present itself sooner or later, she thought. Well, she was not completely wrong. Three elders who were guarding sent message to main hall, and soon, Elder Oltfart himself came to check the situation out.

    “Young lady, I heard you have an important message for our important guest. If you tell it to me, I will deliver it with a haste.” he said.
    Pan blinked as she turned around. Elder Oltfart came almost soundlessly.
    “That’s fine. I don’t need to see him; I simply came to warn him. Drunkensword sect’s elder Bong wants him dead.”
    “I see. I shall deliver your message to him. But you do not need to worry about it. Mere Drunkensword sect is no threat at all.” he responded with a smile.

    “Someone is looking down on my sect quite a lot.” said another voice, as man appeared fifty meters away from them.
    Behind Elder Oltfart, Elder Bong was standing with a sinister smile in his face. Together with him, six elders and about fifty sect officials revealed themselves. All of them were at least late stage Qi Adepts, elders were all initial or early stage Qi Masters.
    “It was quite wise of us to trace this child. She helped us confirm our suspicion that The Cultivator Chef is here. We shall be merciful and simply cripple her instead of killing her.” said Elder Bong.

    “Not on my sect’s land, Bong! This is not your sect’s lawn. Disappear or I shall dispose of you.” Suddenly, loud voice exclaimed.
    Between Elder Oltfart and Elder Bong from the sky, sect master Eropan Tsu descended.

    “Eropan Tsu! You dare to stand in our way? Even if sect master Brawler has overlooked your three sects, don’t think you can oppose us. That kind of wishful thinking…” Elder Bong exploded in rage
    “What’s going on here?” new voice asked. Everyone turned to new voices appearance.

    “Master Egon, you don’t need to personally interfere. Just few people who do not know depths of heaven think they can demand meeting you. We will deal with them in this instant.” said Eropan, as he spotted casually walking Egon.
    "Meeting me? I don’t mind meeting new people.” said Egon, slightly confused.

    “Ah, so this is where he is. Listen well, you useless chef, our sect master demands that you go with us to Drunkensword sect.” said Elder Bong. Face of the man was slightly familiar to him, but he couldn’t really tell where from.

    Egon looked at them wordlessly. Were these people hooligans? They appeared to be battle ready. But this pitiful group of weaklings, why did they acted so arrogantly? Egon was quite sure that even master Eropan could easily smash them. Three elders were fourth stage of Qi Master Rank while two were third stage and two second stage. At best, they could fight off Eropan for some time if they all joined their power together. But if other two sect masters joined, or even if Micro Elephant’s sect’s Grand Elders joined, this would become just a slaughter.

    He was scratching his head in disbelief. These people, just what was their problem? Were they braindead? Were they suicidal?

    * * *

    Sect master Brawler of Drunkensword sect could barely keep his calm. Finally! This unique opportunity to destroy three low-grade sects that had been thorn in his side for so long has presented itself.

    His grandfather has visited him few days ago, for the first time ever since he was expelled from Eagle Claw sect. He came to make Drunkensword sect into official branch sect of Eagle Claw sect. Moreover, he has taken liking to Brawler’s grandson and promised to bring him back to Eagle Claw sect and make him into his own personal disciple.

    Brawler’s Grandfather was not just someone. Grand Elder of Eagle Claw sect, third stage Qi Grandmaster, he was an existence worlds above ordinary practitioners. He only had decade or two of life remaining, so he came here, to make a peace with his grandson, who was expelled for attempted rape of another disciple together with four of his friends.

    “Yo, Gramps.” said Brawler.

    “Yo, Grandsonny. How ye been doing you lil’bastard. Ye all grown up now. Ye sect's all nice ’swell.” responded his grandfather.

    Brawler was originally of Gya clan within Eagle claw sect. Gya clan had advantage of insane bodily strength compared to other physiques, but it also had its drawbacks. Members of Gya clan had body tanned, could not speak politely nor articulately, youngsters were extremely horny and hotheaded and those with strongest potential had tattoo-like birthmarks appear on their body. These tattoos, for men, would often read “I’m gangsta” “If ye read this I’ll stab ye bitch” or similar nonsense. Women of Gya clan had it evem worse, as they had to deal with obscenities written on their bodies by these birthmarks and also had terrible addiction to lollipops. Of course both Brawler and his grandpa Gin had many birthmarks on their bodies.

    Brawler hated the fact that he gave in to his physique’s desire so many years ago. Was it not for that one night where his body flared up and he tried to do something inexcusable, surely today, he would be Qi Grandmaster himself, possibly even stronger than his gramps.

    But he had to deal with what he had. And he, right now, had unique opportunity to deal with three low-grade sects.
    Of course, if he directly asked his grandfather, he could not expect any help. But perhaps, was there an incident in which some of his sect elders were killed, his grandfather would make a move. After all, causing incident like this to a recently contracted branch sect of theirs would be like spitting in Eagle Claw’s sect’s face. And elders he sent to bring the mysterious chef were pawns to be sacrificed, and honestly, they were causing more trouble than Brawler could tolerate. Due to their arrogant behaviors, The City Lord was silently on side of three low grade sects, even though he wouldn’t dare to say it out loud.

    So he would get rid of seven annoying elders, their powerful and equally annoying fifty followers, and could even use their death as an excuse to put the end to three sects with help of his gramps. Who cares about some crazy cultivator who thinks he is cook?! He certainly didn’t. He only planned to use him to somehow incite arrogant Elder Bong.

    * * *

    “Is that so? You want me to go with you? But I don’t want to.” said Egon, scratching his chin, looking at this group of people behind Elder Bong. He really couldn’t figure it out: why would these moths want to hug fire so much? Someone without self-preservation instincts could make it this far in human cultivation world? If so, perhaps mankind’s cultivation was not as bloody as sect master Piper, his sole disciple, has claimed it to be. If it was, would this insane person still be alive today?

    “You have no choice, you thrash. Now you either go with us or we will kill you.” said Elder Bong angrily.

    “For you to kill me, I find that to be impossible scenario.” said Egon. He was not taunting Elder Bong, merely stating his observation, but that did ignite anger in elder Bong to extreme. He rushed at Egon with all his power and punched him.
    Sect master Eropan could interfere, but seeing indifferent expression of Egon, he didn’t. Loud cracking sound could be heard as punch connected and Elder Bong screamed.

    “Ow ow ow ow!” Elder Bong’s animalistic scream was heard in the entire mountain.

    Egon, having profound expression was looking upwards towards the sky, without moving an inch. It was obvious he didn’t pay any attention to elder Bong’s attack nor had he any intention to.

    Elder Bong covered his palm in common flame and attacked again. As flame approached Egon, suddenly, as if scared, it stopped moving and then moved away from Egon, directly into the eyes of Elder Bong.
    “Fuck fuck fuck fuck!” cursed Elder Bong. His eyes were not burned but he was blinded for a moment and it hurt him as hell. “Attack him you idiots.” He screamed at others. By that time, Eropan and Elder Oltfart retreated quite a bit behind Egon, carrying shocked Pan Rumsay with them.

    “He does not even register them as enemies. Hell, he does not even register them as mild annoyances. What rank is that?” said Elder Oltfart who was also in awe about power of Eccentric Chef.

    “At least peak Qi Grandmaster, maybe even Qi Champion. His defenses are so profound I can’t even see through them. It almost looks like he does not even use any.” responded Eropan. Drunkensword sect was really unlucky to pick such an enemy.

    Egon was scratching his chin, as barrages of attacks landed on his body. However, ones to fall to the ground in pain were the attackers. Their attacks always somehow backfired, as if the attacks themselves were scared of Egon. Two minutes later, more than half of attackers were lying paralyzed on the ground while those of them who were sane have already ran away in haste.

    Egon looked at the men lying on the ground and blinked.

    What was going on here? He was just thinking about how he should solve the situation using Dao of Cooking, and paid no attention to his surroundings. Even after a while, when he still couldn’t come up with an idea, he finally noticed cursing men lying on ground who were somehow injured. He looked around and after noticing expression of Eropan, he came to realization.

    “Oh, so they attacked me?” he asked in disbelief.
    What the hell? How come so many of them harmed themselves this way? If after two or three attacks they didn't succeed and only inured themselves, how come they still kept attacking? What kind of mental retardation was this?

    “This is too weird.” he said to himself, scratching his head.

    At that moment, girl in chain armor prostrated herself on the ground in front of him.
    “Please, your excellence, I beg of you, please, save my father!” said girl with desperate voice.

    Egon smiled, but then his smile froze. After all, he recognized her.
    “Big sister Pan?” he said, before he could stop himself.

    * * *

    Ever since she was ten, Pan has seen Egon as her little brother. After two years, he was promoted to lazy little brother. Wanting to become a cook?! This irresponsible little brother was so lazy! He had enought talent to become a martial artist and live a happy life. He would have lots of money, and he would be able to woo beauties, and if someone would want to harm him, he would just smack him easily. But this little brother of hers wanted to become ordinary chef, even though he had a potential to aim for more. And her real little brother didn’t have any talent, unlike her and Egon.

    Right now, they had some protection because of influence of Smith’s family, but once they all grow up, who would protect them? Since these two little brothers of her were so useless, Pan had to do it herself. So she did her best to train as much as possible.
    Two years later, Egon was promoted from little brother to perverted, foolish and lazy little brother. She caught him spying on her when she was washing herself in the garden and smacked him few times. He didn’t learn and did it second time. Luckily, she caused enough pain so there was no third time.

    Then he got affianced to his childhood friend Elisabeth and everything looked good for him. While Pan failed to be accepted in sect, she didn’t give up on cultivation, quite the opposite, she decided to join the city guards in the future and at least become influential city guard officer to watch over her two silly weak little brothers.

    When Elisabeth, Egon’s childhood friend, broke their engagement, Pan was angry. She could see how much that made Egon suffer, but she knew there was nothing they could do about it, as she left him for young master of Dere clan. But Egon did something very stupid. He attacked that young master of Dere clan. He was so spoilt he didn’t realize Dere clan was not a clan you could offend.

    And then he did another stupid thing, his last one that would lead him to death.

    It was not in her power to do anything to save him. She was so powerless, even if she cultivated, so what? What kind of power would she reach? Now that she lost Egon, would she be even able to protect her little brother? But she cultivated nonetheless, because it was only thing she knew. And when officials of Dere clan came to investigate, one of them noticed her suffering and gave her a cultivation note. Single cultivation method and few advices on how to properly cultivate, it didn’t appear to be much, but its value was not low.

    She trained very hard, growing up very quickly in power. It was eight years since Egon died, and she became powerful. While she didn’t have any body-refining method, she was training her body to extreme, and her body was already at point where it was almost grade one refined body. She has mastered and even improved multiple martial arts belonging to city guards and made them her own. She believed she rose high enough in the city hierarchy to be able to protect her family, so that losing her family would never repeat again. But in the face of power of sects, she was powerless.

    However, this crazy cultivator, who went around cooking, was different. He had power to oppose the sect, he could save her father. She was very prideful person, who would rarely bow to people. But now, she prostrated herself on the ground as if worshipping ancestors. If it meant saving her family, she would not care about her pride. And this crazy man with black eyepatch over his left eye, had power to save her father.

    “Big sister Pan?” escaped his lips, and Pan was barely able to hear it.

    Suddenly, she realized that his voice was slightly familiar. Remembering the little boy, her annoyingly stupid ‘little brother’, she looked up and then, sat on her knees paralyzed in disbelief. She didn’t recognize him at first. But now, she was sure.

    “Little brother Egon?” she asked, as tears welled up in her eyes.

    * * *

    He was currently eating together with his grandson and grandfather. And just as he expected, message from his most trusted man has arrived. Grand Elder Pauper was observing matter with three low grade sects, and he sent him message.

    Theatrically, Brawler opened the scroll and started reading. And he was shocked.

    “What ye be reading grandsonny?” asked his grandfather.
    Brawler blinked.
    “Oh, it be nething impertent, gramps.”
    “Like the hell it be nething impertent, ye bastard. Don’t lie to ye gramps. Ye grandfather be interested, so dontcha dare lie to me.”

    Brawler gulped. Suddenly, he was pressured by his grandfather’s qi, so he responded truthfully.
    “Sent few my boys earlier to local sects to talk it out with them, ya know, and they be kinda thrashed. Some powerful bastard was there. I don’t think…”
    “Shut up ye caward. Ye want to weasel out, dontcha? Well ye out of ye luck, ye little bitch. We be going there now! We take your grandsonny as well to show him, how powerful Gya clan be!”

    Brawler gulped again. After all, he trusted his brother Pauper like no one else, and brother Pauper evaluated this enemy as ‘At least mid-Grandmaster rank threat, possibly even higher.’
    Since Grand Elder Pauper was only eighth grade Qi Master, his evaluation might be wrong and he could be overestimating the threat. But what if he was right? In order to evaluate enemy this highly, he must have seen something reason defying.

    He sighed as he followed his gramps, hoping that Pauper was wrong.

    * * *

    It was lucky that she was wearing a chain mail. Egon has already noticed his fatal weakness. Breast hugs. When Imoto hugged him before, he froze to the point where it took him half a second to cleanse his mind.
    When Pan hugged him, thankfully, chainmail protected her weapons and he was safe from her attack.
    “You are alive! You are alive!” she screamed as she hugged him and cried.
    Since Egon was not paralyzed, he didn’t lose track of his thoughts.

    “You wanted me to save uncle Bleu. What happened to him?” he asked.

    This question slightly calmed Pan down.
    “He’s been imprisoned on the order of Elder Bong!” said Pan.
    Egon quickly fed growing rage to his rage deity. Then, he asked with indifference: “Who’s Elder Bong?”
    Pan pointed towards his feet, where a middle aged man was lying on the ground.
    Egon fed even more anger to his rage deity. If this went on, his rage deity would soon overflow.
    “I see. Did uncle do something to justify his imprisonment?” he asked.
    “No, Elder Bong was sitting in our restaurant cursing at you and father tried to calm him down.”
    Suddenly, the entire mountain started shaking. It took only few seconds for shaking to calm down, but everyone was scared instantly.

    “I see. Sect master Eropan Tsu, I request for you to go to jail and have the chef named Bleu Rumsay released immediately.” said Egon, this time, anger filling his voice.
    “Uncle Egon, what is going on? What was that earthquake?” suddenly, Imoto arrived on the scene, running. When Egon left her in main hall to take a walk, she stayed there only for a while and then went out as well, to look for him. She wanted to ask about his flames, but unexpected earthquake made those thoughts go away.

    After she entered the scene, other sect masters also arrived in an instant. While they were further away, as earth started shaking, they moved instantly to see what was happening.

    Egon, reminded of what he did by Imoto’s question, adopted guilty expression.
    “I’m sorry everyone, I sort of lost control of myself a bit and it appears I slightly shook the ground in that moment.” he said apologetically, freezing the words in everyone who heard him.
    He was the one who caused that? Is earthquake something that human can cause by simply losing the control a bit?

    Eropan, scared out of his wits quickly talked.
    “It’s alright, master Egon. I will go and have him instantly released.”

    Egon nodded, but then he froze.
    “This is bad. I can sense something extremely dangerous moving towards this area.”
    “Something dangerous?” Eropan asked. After this earthquake, what could this insane powerhouse see as ‘something dangerous’.
    “I am sorry, but I will have to intercept it.” said Egon. Then he pulled out small piece of metal and using his fire and ice flames, transformed the metal into five rings in an instant. He threw three rings to sect masters and two rings to Imoto and Pan. Then he pulled out of his subspace storage the enormous monkey warrior statue that he used before.
    “I order you, protect those two girls and listen to their orders.” he said to the statue. Statue nodded. Three sect masters gasped when they saw the statue appear.
    “Those things are for your self-protection in case anything goes awry while I am not here. Now, excuse me.” he said and then he vanished like he never existed.

    “What the hell might be going on?” Eropan Tsu asked himself, not understanding what kind of disaster could make this mysterious Eccentric Egon feel uncomfortable. Seeing moaning people on the ground, he thought about slaughtering them in order to ensure they don't attack his sect, but then he noticed all of them had their Qi and Spirit Power fully restricted. They were as harmless as civilians right now. Since they were no longer a threat, he let them be.

    “Guard my sect properly, I need to do something for master Egon.” he turned towards his two brothers on the martial path, sect masters Bitsho and Ermil. Bitsho and Ermil nodded. They looked at their rings as they placed them on their ring fingers. Those rings were decorated by motif of wolf. What those rings did, they didn’t know, but they could tell these decorations were very profound.

    * * *

    In the Western Ten Thousand Worlds Jade Snake Province, Heavenly Sovereign Ma Sox sighed. Ten thousand worlds under his rule were expanded to twelve thousand, but he was very disappointed. Under his rule, million years ago, one of the worlds conquered by his predecessor had suddenly given birth to two human brothers - Martial Emperors, who rose above the clouds and ascended to immortality.

    Ever since the beginning of time Heavenly race with its Heavenly Cultivation was opposed to humans and their Martial Cultivation. Apart from these two races, there were many other races, but Heavenly race and humans were strongest in numbers. They battled each other, and while Martial Cultivators had numeral advantage, they lacked cooperation. Their alliances were unstable, they would backstab one another. It was obvious that these humans needed to be corrected and submit to heavenly empire! Heavenly empire had many provinces, but they cooperated fully and slowly managed to obtain victories.

    But as balance of powers started changing, human alliances started to be more solid. In order not to lose against humans, recently, Heavenly God’s Tongue ordered provinces to subjugate worlds of other races. And for Heavenly Sovereign Ma Sox, it was unique opportunity.

    That a single world within this territory gave a birth to human Immortal was an insult to him, but more importantly, he lost ability to access that world freely and that world became independent. When once in ten thousand years, he found his men able to enter it; they were met with seven guardian beasts. These beasts were following degenerate path of False Martial Cultivation, which was degraded version of Human Martial Cultivation. Heavenly Empire would not prohibit subdued worlds from cultivating, but it would forbid evil Martial Cultivation. Degraded version called False Martial Cultivation was not forbidden, but it was far weaker cultivation path than Heavenly Cultivation or true Martial Cultivation.

    Yet for some reason, those seven damned guardian beasts were heaven defying, especially that wicked woman - Willow. He could send hundreds Heavenly Emperors against her and she would slaughter them like most common mortals.

    It was impossible for them to directly enter the world, instead, they would always have to enter the sub-dimension and face those seven beasts. But now, they had a way around.

    “Princess Longwei, do you understand your situation?” he asked.

    In front of his throne, princess of recently defeated empire was kneeling with her head down.
    Threatening this inferior species was not very tasteful, he knew. Slaughtering them after they submitted to Heavenly Empire? To do something so untasteful would be impossible for him. If he ordered it, he would lose his position of ruler of Jade Snake Providence. But this princess had no clue about that. So to pressure her with false threats was not hard.
    It was bit distasteful, but he needed to make sure he will not leave rebelling world to his successor.

    Princess nodded. “I will use the world travelling seal of our royal family to enter that world, and eliminate the eighth guardian Tengu, using the emperor’s seal.”
    Tengu. Fucking Tengu, Heavenly Sovereign swore. Two Heavenly Emperors and ten Heavenly Kings managed to enter the rebelling world after rest of army suppressed the seven guardians only to be slain by that fucking Tengu.

    “Great. As long as you accomplish that, I will leave partial sovereignty for your small empire that is of course under the rule of my province. You future husband has already been selected by us and the contract has been prepared. As soon as you return, we shall proceed with it.”

    “Understood, your majesty.” She responded
    “All hail Heavenly God.” he said.
    “All hail Heavenly God.” she responded in defeated voice.

    Heavenly Emperor Ma Sox wanted to spit at her but didn’t act upon this thought. These lesser species, they hated submitting to Heavenly God so much. They could not understand benevolence of their god. But after some time, they would learn it. They would learn it indeed.

    * * *

    “To use this power to help the Heavenly Empire. How deep have we fallen, my ancestors?” princess Longwei sighed.
    “But in the end, to protect motherland, I have to do this. Fate is cruel to defeated, and we lost after all.”

    Her proud empire of two hundred worlds could not withstand even a century of the war. Enemies outnumbered them too much.

    She opened the seal and passed into the human world. She was in a wilderness, thousand miles away from the closest city. She quickly spread her sense over the area. She could not sense anyone who would have power close to that of Tengu that Heavenly Sovereign described.

    But then, in the mountain near that city, someone traced her back. Using his sense, he was staring back at her. As she looked closer at him, his power was weak. Far too weak to be able to sense her over that distance.

    Someone who is restricting and hiding their power, she thought. Suspicious.
    She started slowly moving towards his location. And after a while, that person also went towards her to meet her midway.

    Levitating in the mid-air with porcelain set in front of him, young man looked at her and smiled.
    “Would you like to have some tea, my lady?” he asked. “Or perhaps, shall I cook some lunch for you?”

    She spread her wings and ascended above him and spat fire at him, but fire was stopped by the barrier shape of a turtle shell.
    “I’ll take that as no. But don’t think I didn’t expect that.” said a man, finishing his tea and storing his set into sub-dimensional storage.

    Next Chapter
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2017
  13. Deleted member 41274

    Deleted member 41274 Guest

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    I gonna eat chapter 7. Thanks for writing

    @HavekZero will love it.
     
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  14. Judgecutioner

    Judgecutioner [Supreme Noodly God][Created 69^69 universes][Dom]

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    Chapter 8

    When Egon realized he was being probed over a long distance by some unknown existence, he probed it back. And what he found was certainly not nice. He was being spied on by a woman, who was obviously not a human. She had featherless wings, her body and arms were covered in scales, her legs ending with bird-like feet, and her face… well, she had a beautiful face.

    To be precise, she had very beautiful and noble face, to the point where all other previously mentioned problems could be seen as just minor flaws of this extraordinary beauty.

    But unlike this unworthy narrator, Egon was not bewitched by her beauty. What he focused on was assessing power of this person and also their cultivation. But to his surprise – huh, she had no martial cultivation.

    That woman was probably some very rare existence. No matter what, she is quite powerful, but doesn’t cultivate qi nor spirit power, he thought.

    Woman has focused her perception on him and Egon sighed inwardly.
    Huh. It appears she wants to meet. From a way she inspects me, she probably plans to fight me. And she’s moving in this direction. What a bother, he thought.

    This all happened in a fraction of a second.

    “This is bad. I can sense something extremely dangerous moving towards this area.” Egon informed them.

    Immediately, he began preparing for a battle, but then, he realized there was a problem he had to solve first.

    Normally, if there was any big fight where Egon needed to be involved in, he would be able to appear there in blink of an eye. While he was not stalking Imoto, he had a karmic alarm spell casted onto her secretly, and were she to find herself in trouble, he would arrive in an instant and solve it. But against enemy of this caliber, he would not have freedom to interfere back here. In fact he needed to fight this enemy as far from this place as possible, because there would be collateral damage for sure.

    ‘I promised myself to never make spirit weapon again, to think that I would have to break this promise so early.’ He said, as he pulled out a piece of Volcano Steel. Using his flames, he quickly turned it into five rings, three mid-grandmaster spirit dog rings, and two peak-grandmaster turtle rings. They were very weak compared to his current power, but they were designs that he mastered completely and ones he was most confident in. Only because of that was he able to finish them so quickly.

    Egon was sure that this should be enough protection, taking in account how weak cultivators were in this area. Yet he decided to also lend them his training puppet, because he didn’t want anything to happen to Imoto or big sis Pan.

    This training puppet was currently sealed to have power of only peak qi master, but it was virtually unbreakable. If one wanted to destroy it, they would need to be much stronger than anyone Egon has met so far, apart from his teachers.

    Egon left quickly, because if he didn’t, intruder would have come too close to the city. While he was flying towards their meeting point, Egon took out tea set and prepared himself some herbal tea. It was special mixture that would slightly increase his power temporarily. He knew that this woman was opponent not to be treated lightly.

    He met her midway. Just five hundred miles away from the Windburp city and about four hundred and eighty miles away from mountain of Micro Elephant Sect, this distance was still quite dangerous.

    “Would you like to have some tea, my lady?” he asked. “Or perhaps, shall I cook some lunch for you?”

    He still had some hope that this could be solved without fighting. But his hopes failed him.

    She didn’t want to solve this peacefully. She spread her wings and ascended above him and spat fire at him, but fire was stopped by the barrier of shape of turtle shell that Egon quickly raised to his defense.

    It was something he already expected. Finishing his tea, he exchanged few more words with dragonkin woman, and then he stored his tea set back to his storage.

    “Aspect of Turtle.” he called upon power of his defensive barrier.

    Aspect of Turtle was Qi Strengthening Art.
    It was special way of changing flow of one’s qi to maximize your defenses. However, most of defense of this technique was focused on hardening his body, not the barrier. Aspect of Turtle was taught to him by one of his teachers, and he managed to master all nine layers. Egon was using Aspect of Turtle all the time, even when he was sleeping. Moreover, he found a way to improve this Qi Art.
    Right now, using this improved version of his, he could easily resist attacks of late stage Qi Emperor. But it also had its own drawback.
    His teacher’s ninth layer of this Qi art would increase her defenses by at least eight stages of power, but at cost of decrease of one to two stages of offensive power.
    Egon’s modified version would increase his defenses by more than an entire rank, but his Qi use was restricted to mere Qi Paragon rank.

    When he was among human cultivators, this proved advantageous, since if he ever lost control of his unrestricted aura without being restricted, most of cultivators around him would just faint instantly.

    Even in this fight, he was not necessarily disadvantaged. While using qi offensively would be pointless in the fight since it was restricted so much, his other attacking methods were not restricted at all. He was at tenth stage of Spirit King Rank in his spirit cultivation, and he also had mastered all Heretical Cultivation systems of his masters.

    Even without using any qi, his fist would be stronger than qi enhanced fist of any cultivator below emperor rank. After all, he was heretical cultivator.

    Egon remembered words of his master.

    “In these myriads of worlds, there are many ways of cultivation. You can cultivate purely your body, without cultivating qi. You can cultivate your blood. You can absorb a legendary flame, merge it with yourself and cultivate it within your body and soul. You can cultivate your own shadows.
    Paths towards the peak are infinite. In our world, True Martial Path of humankind was forbidden by Heavenly Sovereign, and if one wanted to try to cultivate it, he would need to face heavenly retribution.
    So to stand on equal grounds with Heavenly and Martial cultivators, we created our own systems of cultivation and merged these unorthodox cultivation methods with False Martial Cultivation of Qi and Spirit.”

    “We call our path Heretical Cultivation, because it was a path for us to rebel against heavens that forbade us to cultivate True Martial Path. Heretical path was formed to not just oppose two main cultivation paths, but to overcome them, to ascend above them. At least, that was a wish of my father. Only with help of heretical method was one able to avoid becoming false emperor, and forge a new path by entering False Martial Cultivation’s unique inter-rank between King and Emperor, rank called Virtuoso.”

    What Egon had no clue about was how much headache his cultivation progress speed caused to his teachers. Each of them mastered single unorthodox cultivation method to merge with their false martial cultivation. They spent millennia mastering these methods, and each of them invented at least three or so methods before finding one that was really suited for them.
    Suddenly in comes Egon, who learns their heretical methods and masters them over just few years. And nonetheless all of them! Even his master thought that Egon’s talent was absurdly abnormal. And thanks to this abnormality, even with suppressing his qi to mere Paragon rank, he could still fight against that dragon woman easily.

    But.

    Egon was not type to attack people; rather, he preferred solving conflicts peacefully. Only fight he has ever gotten into was when he attacked Sun Dere, third young master of Dere clan, and that was only because he was desperate. He at that time hoped that Sun Dere would kill him, as he was too scared to kill himself and didn’t feel like living.

    That was really stupid of him, wasn’t it?

    After that, his belief in solving conflicts peacefully solidified and became his core value. To attack another person, Egon would have to be pushed to extreme or cornered.

    And cornered he certainly wasn’t.

    “Come on! Is this violence really necessary? Can’t we just talk it out?” he asked as young woman punched his turtle shell-like barrier again.

    Longwei spat fire again, smashed into barrier, sent massive energy vortex against it, but apart from cracking it very slightly, she didn’t manage to do anything. And Egon would instantly repair those small cracks moment after they formed.

    Longwei was surprised. She was restricting her power quite a lot, in order to first check out how powerful he is, but power she was currently employing was already comparable to peak Heavenly Kings. Especially vortex attack could compare with regular attack of first stage Heavenly Emperor.

    While she was still very young - only two thousand years old, she has long since learned to read cultivation levels of humans and heavenly race.
    This young man was merely first stage Qi Paragon and tenth stage Spirit King according to her senses. While he was certainly relatively strong, but he was still just a False Martial Cultivator and not even of Emperor Rank, so how could he resist attack of this level?

    She decided to add more power to her attack and executed weaker draconic war art of royal family, Fist of Unrestricted Colliding Karma. This technique was powerful enough to destroy even second stage Heavenly Emperor, no matter how well they defended themselves. It would be comparable to ordinary fist of sixth stage Heavenly Emperor.

    Her Dragonkin race, compared to humans, could live ten times longer. During first few hundred years of their life, they would grow to their full power, and after that, they would find it very hard to improve their strength. But even an ordinary citizen would grow to have power at least comparable to human Qi Master or heavenly race Heavenly Master. She, as a member of royal family was able to become being comparable to eighth or ninth stage Emperor, so this was still her being casual.

    Her plan was to first beat Egon and then ask him about location of Tengu, as she suspected someone this powerful could know about it. If she accidentally killed him, her plan would fail. Moreover, she would prefer not to kill anyone in order to not help the Heavenly Empire any more than necessary. This conflict had nothing to do with her empire and less she would help them, better for her.

    Shield shattered completely this time, attack penetrated it and Egon was smashed and thrown to the ground. As he crushed, impact sent dust into the air and trees in the radius of 300 meters have been shaken by wind it caused. For a second, Longwei thought that she went too far, but then she heard laughter.

    “That was quite impressive. That’s what I get for not going all out, trying to solve this peacefully. But that ends here.” said Egon’s voice.

    But if someone who knew him heard this voice of his, they would think that it must be someone else, because his voice was filled with anger so deep that for those who knew him, it would be unimaginable for them to believe that he, person of peaceful nature, would ever talk in such angry voice.

    * * *

    In the Windburp city, suddenly, everyone who didn’t have vision obstructed by city walls or something else was blinded. People were robbed of sight for minutes, stronger cultivators for two or three, non-cultivators for ten or even more.

    * * *

    Each of Egon’s teachers bestowed their heretical cultivation method to him. And from Boar Lord, Egon received heretical method called Rage Deity Refining. One would be able to create special spiritual energy by merging it with his anger. This energy would be sealed deep within his mind, and if he needed, he could use it with no drawbacks. But if anger would overflow, it would take better of him and he would lose himself to his rage.

    Egon barely managed to keep control of his anger when he was at Micro Elephant sect and learnt about what happened to teacher Rumsay. But now, single droplet of anger he felt about underestimating his enemy pushed him over the edge. Rage Deity, as Boar Lord called it, has taken him over.

    Above Egon, twelve turtles have appeared. This was manifestation of Aspect of Turtle that he was using until now. In a next second, twelve turtles shattered as he released this Qi Strengthening Art as he gave up on his defense.

    Instead, nine little dragons appeared at their place.

    “Aspect of Dragon.” Egon calmly said as he imagined himself as Dragon-like being to fully activate this Qi Strengthening Art. Like Aspect of Turtle slightly sacrificed offense for great increase in defense, Aspect of Dragon increased offense massively at the cost of defense.

    Since Egon was not very attack oriented person, he didn’t even try to find if he could modify this Qi Art to gain even more offense at the cost of defense, but right now this increase of power was more than enough.

    His Qi expanded… he’s not Qi Paragon, but possibly Qi King… no something between Qi King and Qi Emperor, thought Longwei, as she observed sudden growth in Qi when Egon released.

    But then, when nine little dragons appeared, Egon’s Qi entered raging state.

    “This power… this is quite close to Qi Emperor.” she thought. However, if that was all, then his offensive power was less impressive than when he defended himself. She reduced her power once more and charged at him.

    Egon mockingly giggled and then combined all his offensive arts into one.

    His body, able to compete with early Qi Emperor without using Qi at all.
    Draconic Power from aspect of dragon.
    Dual fire flames and dual ice flames.
    Death Flame.
    Spirit energy blade.
    His Qi.
    And raging energy of Rage Deity.

    Egon has learned many Qi arts. Abilities that would strengthen his defenses, attack, useful utility techniques, but he has never been able to learn single martial move. For some reason, he was completely incompatible with destructive battle techniques. But with sum of all these empowering methods, did he even need to learn any martial moves?

    Enormous explosion engulfed the area. Trees in twenty miles radius were smashed into woodchips. Trees in fifty miles radius were bent outwards. Absolute destruction.

    * * *

    When sound carried by already weakened shockwave reached Windburp city forty minutes later after the blinding light, it made many people fall to ground in pain again. Everyone lost temporarily sense of sound.

    People started panicking, children started crying, and martial artists were quickly trying to get away from city, thinking that no matter what was happening, staying in city would be unsafe.

    * * *

    Her bones in her arms - shattered. Her wings - torn in few places. Three sharp teeth fell out of her mouth. Lying in crater almost twenty miles away from where they fought, she was barely able to stand up.

    At the last moment, instincts warned her to forget about attacking and focus fully on guarding instead, else, she would have died to that terrifying attack. Even if she switched to guarding at the last moment, she didn’t have any defenses prepared in advance. If she was not careless, she could probably withstand this blow with no injuries at all, or possibly some minor scratch, but due to her being overconfident, she ended in this pitiful state.
    Now, if she returned to fight in this condition, he might be able to beat her. She quickly started retreating; using her sixth sense to make sure she was not being followed. She didn’t expand her sixth sense much, knowing that if she did, he could trace her back like he did once before. If she could retreat now, she would be able to recover in few days of time.

    After few minutes, when she already retreated over a hundred thousand miles, she could suddenly feel him sense her and fear overcame her. But after few seconds, the feeling disappeared. Did he stop tracing her? Or was he still tracing her, only in a way that she was unable to detect. She was terrified and continued running as far as she could. With her wings being unusable and her body injured heavily, her speed was slow.

    If he was chasing her, he would be able to capture her pretty fast, but she still didn’t stop. Only after many hours, she finally collapsed on the ground, not being able to continue and waiting for him to catch her.

    But he didn’t appear.

    * * *

    Egon was lying on the ground. His right arm was completely missing, annihilated by his own attack. All of his bones were cracked and he was bleeding. Without protection of Aspect of Turtle, his own attack has almost killed him. Were it normal cultivator, injuries like this would take years to heal. To heal injuries like this in matter of weeks would take very expensive medicines or expert Spirit Healer. To recover in matter of minutes was impossible.

    But Egon was not normal cultivator. First, one of his heretical arts was Blood Cultivation that he learned from teacher Old Dog, gave him regenerative abilities. Second, he himself was expert Spirit Healer. Third, he had his ‘spices’, which were as good as legendary medicines. After feeding himself some herb mixture, his bones started regrowing. He closed his eyes and guided his spirit power to aid his regeneration. It took him three minutes before he was able to stand up.

    His arm didn’t regrow. That kind of injury would take him few minutes to fix, and he couldn’t spend much time on healing as he first needed to check if that dragon woman was alright. He spread his Qi sense in five hundred miles radius but failed to sense her.

    However, he found crater where she fell after his punch. Quickly, he moved into the crater. He took one sharp tooth that was lying on the ground, and used the tooth and his sense to locate her. After inspecting her injuries from distance, he sighed with relief. They were heavy injuries, but she should be able to heal in time.

    He was afraid that he killed her. After all, from the way she attacked him, there must have been some misunderstanding, he was sure. Instead of calmly solving this misunderstanding, he has lost control and allowed Rage Deity to take over and almost killed them both.

    Rage Deity was something person would cultivate out of his own mind – it was some primeval part of mind that was within every intelligent creature, animalistic part of one’s mind that was usually suppressed by rational mind. Letting it take control over him was therefore dangerous.

    Seeing that she was alright, he picked up other two teeth and sat down for fifteen more minutes to continue healing himself completely, re-growing his arm. Then he stood up, released Aspect of Dragon, formed Aspect of Turtle again to restrict his Qi and left towards city. He needed to have uncle Rumsay released first.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2017
  15. Judgecutioner

    Judgecutioner [Supreme Noodly God][Created 69^69 universes][Dom]

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    Chapter 9

    “D’hell waz dat?” asked Brawler, when sound wave arrived. Due to his strong body, he didn’t lose hearing, not even temporarily, but it really scared him.

    Seven of them: Brawler, four Grand Elders of his sect who were his friends expelled together with him from sect, his grandson Rex and his grandfather Gin were traveling towards Micro Elephant Sect when they were twice in row met with some supernatural disaster.

    First, they were all blinded for almost a minute, and even with their high cultivation, they were unable to restore their sight any sooner. Even gramps Gin took almost half a minute to restore his own sight.
    After their sight returned, gramps explained.

    “Some fuckin’ Paragon beasts or somethin’ fights near d’city. We gotta wait if there be more flashes. After flashes, there be bangs! After bangs, we be go and rip those sects new asses.”

    There were no more flashes so they waited for the 'bang' that gramps Gin promised. They waited ten minutes, twenty, thirty, but still nothing happened.
    “Guess there be no bang.” gramps Gin finally decided and they continued towards Micro Elephant sect. When they were just two miles away from the main gate, loud thundering sound finally arrived. Apart from Brawler and his grandpa, they lost their sense of hearing but this time, it took them only few seconds to recover.

    “Those ain’t no fuckin’ paragons. Flash be more than half an hour ago! That fight must have happened fuckin’ hundreds miles away! Fuck.” his gramps was cursing heavens.
    “What ye mean?” sect master Brawler asked.
    “It don’t matter anymore. They be gone now. We can slaughter freely.” said Gramps Gin.

    He had once been near something similar, but it was similar only from his point of view.
    While he was Qi Grandmaster, which was seen as powerful expert by many, compared to Qi Paragon monsters, he was still just an ant. When a Paragon rank monster appeared near the capitol, Eagle Claw sect asked for help of their protector, earth grade sect which then brought sect guardian beast to fight against the monster. From a distance of fifteen miles, that fight was slightly similar experience to this.

    Gin didn’t even want to know what kinds of monsters were able to achieve this fight.
    But Gin Gya didn’t care about the distant fight anymore. After all, it would be unsafe to approach such a battle. And if by any chance victorious beast wanted to kill them, they would already be dead, even if they started running away moment they saw flash, they would not be able to get to safety if one of the beast meant them any harm.

    So Gin focused on what he perceived as more important – dealing with sects that dared to oppose his grandson’s sect.

    * * *

    That flash of light took them by surprise. Both sect masters Bitsho and Ermil were blinded for a minute and elder Oltfart for even slightly longer period of time. However, both Imoto and Pan were protected by turtle barrier that suddenly appeared moment before the flash.
    No one knew what happened.

    “I don’t have any idea what might happen but I think that it will be safer to have all disciples and officials retreat to shelter, sect masters.” said Oltfart when he regained his wits after he recovered from shock.
    Sect disciples were future of their sects. It was important to protect them. If they failed to do that, it would be much harder to recruit new batch of disciples. If few disciples and officials die here and there during missions, that’s understandable, but who would want to join sect that cannot protect their disciples from being wiped out?

    Two sect masters nodded.
    “Have elders and grand elders go with disciples and officials to protect them. Whatever is happening, I am afraid this might be dangerous for whole city.” answered Bitsho.
    “How about you, sect masters?” Oltfart asked.
    “Two of us will stay here to wait for return of elder brother Eropan, and our honoured guest master Egon. You should lead our two young guests to safety of the shelter as well.” added Ermil.

    “I will stay.” protested Imoto.
    “Young mistress, please be reasonable. We can’t ensure your safety here.” said elder Oltfart, trying to convince her to go.
    “You don’t need to ensure my safety. This ring I was given and this monkey statue that uncle Egon left here will do that.” Imoto said, turning to scary statue of monkey warrior.

    Truth be told, after seeing the flash Imoto was scared. She realized that whatever was going on was far from her understanding. She wanted to accept hospitability of two sect masters and go to safety shelter, but something was telling her that in this situation, shelter of low grade sect would be as safe as a cardboard house. So there was no difference between staying here and going into shelter.

    Elder Oltfart turned to Pan.
    “I wish to stay and wait for little brother Egon as well.” said Pan. She has just found her long lost little brother who she believed to be dead.
    Everyone blinked. Little brother Egon? Out of four of them, only elder Oltfart was there previously when Pan and Egon recognized one another. Eropan Tsu, who was also present at that time, has left already.

    “Miss, I was afraid to ask before, but what is your relationship with our honored guest master Egon?” asked Oltfart carefully.
    He had long since noticed badge of city guard with rank of lieutenant of her clothing. He started to feel like he was about to reveal something very interesting.

    “Brother Egon was child of family my father served, why are you asking?” Pan responded.
    “Am I correct when I assume you are Rising Star of the city guards, Pan Rumsay?” he asked again.
    “Indeed that is me.”
    While two sect masters couldn’t be bothered about situation in mundane world, elder Oltfart was someone specialized at collecting information. He knew about city life much more than anyone in three sects, and was main diplomat of three sects’ alliance with house of city lord. He had previously used his men to try to scout Pan Rumsay and while he has still forgotten many things since, he remembered important part of her background.

    “Your father’s restaurant, Young Lord’s… by any chance, could master Egon be somehow related to Egon Smith of Smith family?”
    While Smith family was not important enough for him to take notice of them, when their young master got lost, Dere clan sent their officials and elder Oltfart who was newly appointed elder back then has aided them during their stay.

    Now, when elder Oltfart connected the dots and came to unbelievable conclusion! Was it possible for master Egon to be long lost young master of Smith family, who was believed to be dead? Egon Smith? However, that idea was insane! How old would young master of Smith family be? Less than thirty years old! No, Pan actually called him little brother and she was twenty four, so he should be even younger than her! But for someone so young, how could they be late stage Grandmaster, or possibly even Champion?

    “It would be better for you not to talk about uncle Egon’s background with anyone, elder. Keep your conclusion to yourself. If you let your mouth loose, some people could use that information against uncle Egon, and then Egon could become angry.” suddenly, Imoto interfered.

    She had no idea what background did Egon have, and she was very interested to learn about it, but for the sake of Egon, it would be best if as few people knew about it as possible. This useless uncle was too kind hearted and too harmless. She could imagine someone vile using his familiar connections against him. So in order to protect him, when she heard Young Lord’s restaurant mentioned, she decided to stop elder Oltfart.

    Elder Oltfart stopped and nodded. “As you wish, young miss.” he said and bowed to two sect masters.
    “Excuse me I will now go to bring disciples to the shelter.” he excused himself and left.
    Two sect masters had bitter expression. Unlike elder Oltfart, they had little information about the Windburp city, so they could not even guess master Egon’s identity. But they knew that for the sake of cooperation with Egon, it was probably for the best that they didn’t know.

    Pan and Imoto silently stared at each other. Both of them tried to guess what other one had to do with Egon.
    Pan suspected that Imoto was Egon’s girlfriend, but if that was so, why would Imoto call Egon “uncle”. Was that some kind of perverted play? She knew her little brother was or at least used to be a pervert to some extent, so she couldn’t rule that possibility out.
    But maybe, he simply pretended to be more mature and told that girl that he was older than he really was?

    Imoto thought about how Pan referred to Egon as little brother. Was she older disciple from same sect?
    But if that was the case, why did she have the city guard badge? There was no way someone among city guards would be even distantly close to Egon’s level of cultivation. And what did that damned restaurant Young Lord’s had to do with it?

    “Do you perhaps think that master Egon had something to do with that flash of light?” suddenly asked Bitsho.
    “That’s actually possible and very likely. For something like this to happen just a short while after he leaves because something ‘dangerous’ is approaching city, I doubt that to be coincidence.” responded Ermil calmly.

    "That flash, very likely, is decisive strike of Egon’s battle.”

    Bitsho and Ermil both blinked and slowly turned around, feeling coldness crawl up their spines. Pan and Imoto were frozen with fear as well.
    Statue of monkey warrior started releasing imposing qi aura equal to that of peak Qi master.

    “Did that statue just speak?” asked sect master Bitsho, thinking he was possibly crazy.
    “Indeed, I spoke.” statue responded.
    “Sentient artifact!” thought sect master Ermil aloud due to shock.

    “Some time has passed already since the flash was seen. If I were you, I would prepare for soundwave, which should be arriving soon. If you fail to protect your ears, you might lose sense of hearing for some time.” said statue.

    “Soundwave?” asked master Bitsho.
    “Very loud thunder-like sound… wait… here it goes.” responded statue.
    Once again, Turtle rings raised two shields that protected both Imoto and Pan from the effect of loud thundering sound, but two sect masters suffered greatly.

    “Well, I have warned you. It’s not my fault you didn’t listen.” said statue, when two sect masters recovered their hearing.
    “You should have warned us sooner!” said sect master Bitsho.

    Statue apologized without changing its expression.
    “I apologize. In that case, I should also warn you about hostile group of seven cultivators approaching. One is at peak of Qi Disciple rank, four are at eighth stage of Qi Master rank, one of them is at tenth stage of Qi Master rank and leading them is third stage Qi Grandmaster rank. Of those four at eighth stage of Qi Master rank, one of them is also seventh stage Spirit Master rank and Qi Grandmaster is also at peak of Spirit Master rank.”

    Two sect masters gulped. They knew that sect master of Drunkensword sect Brawler was at tenth stage of Qi Master rank, so they expected him to be second strongest person mentioned. Four other Qi Masters then would probably be four grand elders of his sect.
    But third stage Qi Grandmaster?
    Was it perhaps Gin Gya, grandfather of sect master Brawler?

    “We are doomed.” said sect master Ermil.
    “Miss Pan, Miss Imoto, you need to retreat now. We might be able to buy some time, but you cannot stay here. Have that warrior statue take you away to safety.” said Bitsho quickly.
    He himself didn’t believe that they could delay Qi Grandmaster for more than few seconds, but as long as Egon returned, even if they were dead, their sects could be saved.

    Pan and Imoto both understood that they should leave.

    “Your worries are pointless, sect master Bitsho. Rings on hands of two ladies could easily resist even sixth stage Qi Grandmaster’s all-out attack. Lady Pan and lady Imoto can stay here without any problem. It is two of you who will have it tough.”

    “Indeed, rings! We have also received rings!” said sect master Bitsho.
    “Excuse me, but I have to warn you. While rings that lady Pan and lady Imoto received were defensive treasures, fully focused on defense, treasures you received are not focused on defense. They instead enhance your overall power, defense included.” responded statue.

    “What are you trying to say?”
    “Well, I am trying to say, that at best, it enhances your power, speed and defense to that of first stage Qi Grandmaster, or rather something half-way between peak Qi Master and Qi Grandmaster. That means two of you are not safe at all, unlike lady Pan and lady Imoto.”

    Two sect masters were now facing a dilemma. Were they to retreat, they could save their lives. Imoto and Pan would also survive, at least according to warrior statue. But they would leave them unprotected and if anything happened to them, master Egon could be so angry that he would destroy their sects. But if they didn’t run away, their lives would be at serious risk and their only hope would be for Egon to quickly arrive.

    But before they could decide, seven men arrived and circled them. And their retreat was no longer possible.
     
  16. Judgecutioner

    Judgecutioner [Supreme Noodly God][Created 69^69 universes][Dom]

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    Chapter 10
    Gin Gya laughed.
    “So ye fuckers think ye can offend ma gransonny’s sect? Lemme teach ye something.” he said.
    “Gransonny, ye and ye friends just watch, I’ll teach these bastards personally.”

    In front of him, there were four people, two old farts who were probably grand elders or sect masters, and two young girls, possibly disciples. This meeting point also had very interesting statue. It was beautiful piece of art, and after old man Gin kills those four, he will bring this statue back to his sect, he decided.

    *Smash*

    As he approached it, statue attacked him. It was not moving at all until he was in its range and then it used moment of surprise to attack with full power. Because of surprise, not only attack connected but also, Gin’s defenses were not sufficient.

    He could feel two of his ribs crack as enormous stone battle-staff smashed his chest. While this injury was far from fatal, he could tell it would restrict his combat abilities little bit. He took a step back.

    Monkey warrior statue shrank until its size was only slightly bigger than that of normal human.
    Two sect masters who stood next to statue touched their rings and with howling sound, their bodies were covered in grey aura in shape of a wolf-man hybrid beast.

    Two of them also touched their storage rings and instantly had their bodies covered in armor and weapons appearing in their hands.

    Old man Gin Gya looked at two men and a statue, and after measuring their power, he realized this fight wouldn’t be completely one sided. Statue itself was releasing pressure of peak Qi master but Gin could easily tell that it’s overall power was more likely to be at the first stage of Qi Grand master. Two men while their qi was weak, mysterious grey aura covering them would make them only slightly inferior to first stage Qi Grandmasters.

    Now that two of his ribs were cracked, if he entered close combat, he might have hard time dealing with all three of them.
    Luckily, he had way to avoid that. Those two young women behind these three dangerous enemies, if he targeted them with strong qi attack, he would force those three to block his attack.

    “Ye arrogant brats, this great me shall teach ye difference between sky and shit.” He screamed and used qi to form massive earth spike.
    This offensive qi art was his strongest attack and even fifth stage qi grandmaster couldn’t take it and would have to dodge. However, it was not that fast so dodging it was not that hard. Two sect masters avoided the spike and only statue decided to take it on. However, it was hit by spike and thrown backwards, without being able to block it.

    Gin Gya was not completely satisfied, since he only managed to get rid of single enemy, while other two dodged.
    And when he realized that two girls were fine, protected by turtle shell shields, he gasped in disbelief.

    “That tickled a bit.”
    Statue also stood up was not destroyed. It was not even scratched.

    Gin Gya felt disbelief overcome him completely.
    “You?! How can you even stand after that attack of mine?”

    For Gya clan, their vocabulary was limited to punks’ vocabulary due to their physique, but if they were shocked to their core by some event, sometimes this restriction would break permanently. Most of experts of Gya clan would live their lives without having this happened to them, and most of those who had it happen to them didn’t live to tell the tale, as this shock was usually connected to some deadly threat.

    “Your attack was nothing special. While my qi is currently restricted to that of Qi Master, my body is still so hard that even a Paragon wouldn’t be able to leave a scratch. You simply do not qualify to even dream about striking me down.” said statue.

    Gin Gya gulped. If this statue was telling truth, it was obvious it didn’t belong to two sect masters. Its master was probably not that far, and if he came here, he, Gin Gya, would not be able to escape death. He had to kill everyone here and then escape! he thought.

    This was, of course, not sound course of action. Why should he kill those people to offend some supreme expert?
    But this chain of thoughts was caused by his physique and triggered by his current state of mind – utter despair. It was final defensive method of Gya constitution – Berserk. His mind became filled with slaughter and his power grew by more than three stages.

    But instead of attacking, he pulled out green piece of paper instead.

    Two sect masters screamed.
    “How can that be?!”
    “That is Champion’s Poem!”

    Once a person reached Qi Grandmaster rank, they could write a poem onto paper and seal into it power of an attack or defensive formation. Be it power of attack or defense, it would be few stages inferior to theirs. While defensive formation could still be used by them as a means of defense, offensive formations were mostly used as a gift for some weaker cultivator who served them.
    However, these poems were not easy to make. Qi Grandmaster would be only able to make one Poem in a decade, while Qi Champion could make one every five year. If one were to reach Qi Paragon rank, they could write one Poem every year, but that was still far from enough.

    Poems could be easily differentiated by the color of paper. Grandmaster’s Poem turned its paper blue, Champion’s turned it green, and Paragon’s poem had its paper turn yellow.
    Even statue was suddenly unsure. While this level of attack couldn’t harm it, it would easily harm two young misses, and statue knew it would be unable to stop it.

    “Qi Grandmaster, it would be wise of you to stop. Once little Egon returns, if you did something bad, you will wish you were never born.” statue said.

    “Gramps, please, stop it ye old goat! We shan’t offend some expert here. It’s nut worfit!” even sect master Brawler joined in persuasion. Since this battle was far from his and his friends possibilities, they didn’t join and simply observed. But Brawler wanted to prevent offending mysterious expert. While that person was currently not here, from items he left behind, it was obvious his background was terrifying.

    But old Gin couldn’t care less, as berserk state supressed his thinking.

    “Thousand roots will pierce the ground,
    Thou shalt be buried to never be found.”
    Gin read the poem and pointed at statue.

    This wasn’t an offensive attack; rather it was type of attack to seal someone’s movement. Against this indestructible statue, it was best way to deal with it.

    From the ground, thousands of roots rose towards the sky and bound the statue, completely sealing it within.

    Now that he dealt with statue, his attention focused on two girls protected by turtle shield. And he pulled out another Champion’s Poem.

    “You two little lasses, I am sorry, but today, I have to kill you. Nothing personal.” he said.
    He received these two offensive poems from his backer, who was wood element cultivating grand elder of Three-headed Worm sect, earth grade sect that was protector of his sect, after a hundred of years of service. Now he was to waste both of them at the same time.

    “Grass turns into blade,
    death you can’t evade.”
    Gin read second poem and pointed at two girls.

    * * *

    Imoto was observing the battle from the very beginning. For her, she never before saw battle between Qi Adepts, much less Grandmaster level battle and seeing this opened her eyes. Such a terrifying power! Would she really ever be able to reach this level? Right now, it seemed impossible. These kinds of existences were so unimaginably powerful that she couldn’t believe that she would ever be able to even get close to them.

    Pan next to her shared her thoughts. Today, she finally realized how scary those who stood at peak of cultivation were and why offending them was so dangerous.
    When statue was suppressed, both of them suddenly realized. They were about to die. And they were powerless. They could do nothing.

    When elder Gin started reading second poem, Pan closed her eyes. ‘I am sorry father, I am sorry Kay. I won’t be able to protect you two anymore. Little bro Egon, after meeting you again, at least I know you are fine.’ she thought, as she prepared for death.

    Unlike her, Imoto didn’t give herself into embrace of unavoidable death. Instead, she could feel anger within her rise. She was powerless, but she rejected to give up. ‘You want to kill me? Very well. In that case, I will at least die resisting.’
    Egon’s cultivation method used reflection of sun in water.

    Imoto used it now, but instead, she looked directly into sun and pulled scorching qi into herself and quickly expelled it in an attack. This fiery attack, even peak Qi Grandmaster would have hard time withstanding it! Fireball flew towards grass blades, and burned through it. Even if this attack was from Qi Champion, he was probably only first or second stage, and his Poem was of inferior quality, making attack only comparable to that of peak Qi Grandmaster.

    Gin Gya was surprised as fireball flew towards him. Imoto smiled as she realized she was able to win. Even though her victory would be short lived.

    Ring on her hand exploded. While grass attack was consumed by flame and didn’t hit the shield, ring was protecting her from wild scorching energy that she drew from sun. Even after she expelled energy in form of fireball, many bits of sun’s essence remained within her. Ring was only able to protect her for a fraction of second. Now, this was the end.
    Or at least it should have been.

    In front of her, as if he teleported there, young looking man appeared. With left palm, he touched her forehead and she could feel scorching blaze of sun move into her forehead and out of her body. With his right hand, he pointed towards fireball and made it disperse.

    “Using power of sun like this, are you stupid?! I had just finished regrowing my right arm not long ago and now I need to lose left!” Egon screamed.

    His right hand pulled out butcher knife and he cut off his left hand instantly. Moment his hand hit the ground it instantly burst into flames and turned into ashes.
    Two sect masters sighed with relief.
    “We held out until master Egon returned.” said sect master Bitsho happily.

    “Umm, you see, actually I have returned long before they arrived.” said Egon, pointing with his handless arm at group of Gin Gya, Brawler and others while scratching his head.

    “”””“What?!””””” Imoto, Pan, Bitsho, Ermil and even statue exclaimed.

    “Well, I have seen that you were having fun so I wished not to interfere as long as there was no danger.”

    “But you didn’t interfere when grass was attacking us!” said Imoto with anger.
    “I was going to, but then I noticed what you were doing and I was so dumbfounded by your suicidal move I froze for a second.” responded Egon with anger as well. “I told you that Sun’s scorching essence is something even Qi Emperor can’t deal with easily! Why would you do something so stupid?”

    “If I knew I was safe, do you think I would do that? I thought I was about to die and wanted to at least try taking him down with me. If you told us you were here, it wouldn’t happen.” she screamed at him.
    “Well, you have a point.” Egon said, unable to protest.

    While they were talking without care, Gin Gya whose berserk state was dispersed moment Egon entered the scene, was trying to slowly walk away.
    “And where do you think you are going, old man?” asked Egon suddenly as he turned around.
    “Uh, uh, well, I need to go… somewhere.” Gin responded weakly.

    “Don’t you feel any shame? You, such an old bear, abusing your juniors like this? My name is not Egon if I don’t teach you lesson here!” Egon said.
    “Uh, well, you see, it was just a game!” Gin pulled desperation move.
    “A game? That’s great! Incidentally I also like games. Let’s play.”

    Egon suddenly appeared in front of him.
    Gin was scared witless. “What kind of game?” he asked weakly.
    “Ideal game for cultivators. Rock paper scissors, game about perception and ability to read movement of your opponent.” Egon responded.
    Gin sighed with relief. He was afraid the game Egon talked about would be much more sinister.

    “Let’s go! Rock paper scissors!” Egon said.
    With his right arm, he made obvious movements and grand elder Gin could easily predict that Egon was going to make scissors. In order to appease him, he decided to lose on purpose.
    “Paper? You lost, elder.” Egon said, showing scissors victoriously.
    “Indeed, you won.” said Gin in response, happy about Egon seemingly being in good mood.

    Egon then made a gesture of cutting with scissors and Gin’s hand was cut off from his arm and dropped to ground.
    “Oww!!!” he screamed in pain.

    “Let’s go again!” said Egon, ignoring his painful expression.
    “But my hand!!!” elder Gin protested.
    “You can use left one, no?” asked Egon, with anger in his voice.
    “Indeed, I can.” elder Gin rushed to answer, scared to death.

    “Rock paper scissors.” Once again, Egon was going for scissors, but this time, Gin decided to use rock to avoid losing other hand.
    “Oh, rock. You won.” said Egon with sadness in his voice. Then he made cutting gesture again and once more, elder Gin’s hand was cut off.
    “OWWWW!!!” he screamed even more than before.

    “It’s one-one. It appears you don’t have any hands remaining. Well, you can play using your eyes this time. One open eye is scissors, both open are paper, and both closed means rock, alright?”
    Elder Gin shivered. Does this mean this time his head would be cut off?
    “Can I give up?” asked elder Gin.

    “No, that would be boring. If you give up, I’ll play with them.” Said Egon and pointed at Gin’s grandson Brawler, his grandson and his friends.
    If Gin was younger, he would probably feel no remorse at abandoning this useless grandson of his, but he only had few years of life remaining. To die here to save his family, even if Brawler was a disappointment, he was now willing.

    “No, it is fine, let’s play.” he said, with tears in his eyes.
    I should let him win, not to anger him, he thought.
    Once more, Egon’s move was readable and Gin could tell he would use scissors. He wanted to leave his eyes open, but expecting incoming cut he closed his eyes at the very last moment.

    “Well, it appears you won. Good for you. Let this be lesson for you why abusing juniors is bad.” he heard Egon’s voice.
    He expected death, but it did not come. Moreover, pain of his missing hands disappeared.

    He opened his eyes to find his arms intact. Around him, everyone else was blinking. At first he thought his hands were somehow healed but then he realized what happened.
    “Illusion world.” he said, suddenly understanding. Nothing he experienced really happened, it was mere illusion. But apparently, it was not just him, but everyone was made to watch this lesson that Egon gave him via illusion.
    “Abusing juniors is bad, because if you do it, you have no right to protest when a senior abuses you.” Egon said, patting Gin’s shoulder, and then turning back to Imoto and Pan.

    “I’m sorry for not interfering earlier, but I hoped that seeing this battle would prove to be good experience for you. My disciple has told me that for most cultivators, it is extremely beneficial to participate in real, dangerous fights.” he said.

    Seeing genuine apological expression on his face, Imoto could no longer stay angry, especially after he cut off his wrist just to save her.

    “Egon! You scared me to death! I thought I was never going to see my father and brother again. Don’t ever do anything like this to me again.” cried Pan. Unlike Imoto, she was not willing to forgive easily.

    “Okay, okay, I promise, big sister Pan.” he said.

    He turned around once more, facing grand elder Gin, sect-master Brawler and others from Drunkensword sect.

    “What are you still doing here? Go away.” he dismissed them.
    They gladly complied.

    * * *

    “Gramps, me told ya that we shan’t…”
    “Shut up, Brawler. You were right, is that what you want to hear me say?”

    Gramps Gin has now permanently joined very few Gya clan members who were not forced to speak like thugs, and he was enjoying this unique privilege. Fact that he escaped alive from meeting such powerful expert was also great. Moreover, he didn’t even lose his hands. It was only illusion, a lesson from supreme expert! Only thing he lost was his arrogance.

    He could tell his pants were wet, but he had no desire for revenge. If enemy was at the peak of Grandmaster rank, maybe he could contact his backer and ask for help, but from the way Egon suddenly appeared, he should be above mid stages of Champion rank at least, if not a Paragon.

    Since only thing he lost was his face in front of his grandson and grandgrandgrandson, he could pretend like nothing happened. After all, if he poked into hornet nest some more, maybe, he would die next time.

    He remembered how few ‘ruthless geniuses’ who competed with him during his youth ended. They were long since dead, and he was here. Because they didn’t know when they could afford to be ruthless and when they should back off, they died prematurely. Their talent might have been only slightly inferior to his, but they were arrogant in front of earth grade sect disciples, and ended up crippled or dead. Indeed, there is always bigger fish in the sea, so acting like you are invulnerable will only make you dead.

    During last few decades, grand elder Gin has almost forgotten this rule, and now, he was reminded about it, luckily by someone who didn’t cripple nor kill him.

    “I’ll be taking your grandson to our sect with me. I have already prepared best possible cultivation method for him and many great pills, even if he can’t become grand elder like me, with his talent, becoming elder of our clan should not be hard.” he said, trying to distract himself.

    “Thank ye very much, gramps.” responded Brawler with only mediocre enthusiasm. Was it under any other circumstance, he would kiss his grandfather’s feet with happiness, as Brawler doted on his grandson very much, but right now, he felt so much happiness about them simply being alive that this great fortune appeared to be onle secondary concern.