God Of Crafting

As the intensity of the bout continued to rise, so did the effects it had on the surrounding area.

At first, it was just the sound of the constant exchanges growing louder and louder, soon turning into literal shockwaves easily capable of toppling mortals to their knees were they to appear within their range. Before long, however, those shockwaves became spiritual in nature as well, turning the whole area around the two dangerous even to experienced cultivators.

'It's a good thing I retreated all the way to the edge of the barrier, huh?' I thought, smirking to myself, fully aware of how Claire couldn't keep her focus if she felt through our bond how mere aftereffects of her practice could affect me, even if only in the slightest way possible.

Thanks to this sound decision from just a few moments earlier, I could now witness how Claire's hands grew faster and faster, soon turning into a blur that even my enhanced senses couldn't really see through.

Leila, however, easily matched her daughter's speed, soon giving up on the relaxed look on her face as her expression filled with a higher and higher degree of focus.

'Is it just me… or does she enjoy it quite a bit?' I thought, no longer able to see the fine details of Claire's expression as even the tiny movements of her head turned her face into a pixelated mess.

Still, no matter how fast the spar grew, I could still probe Claire's state through our bond. And by doing so, I discovered that by now, with the aftereffects of their exchange already starting to threaten the stability of the fabric of this strange space…

She had only reached up to the core foundation level of her cultivation!

'At this rate…' I thought, allowing myself but a second to inspect the state of the barrier behind me as the waves of condensed spirituality had long since started to wash up to my position, now strong enough not to dissipate on the approach.

'At this rate, this barrier won't hold until she reaches her peak,' I realized, only to turn my eyes right back to the ongoing spar.

By now, both figures had turned into a chaotic mess, with my eyes no longer anywhere sharp enough to keep up with their rapid movements. At this point, I could only read the events by tracking the flow of spiritual energy up ahead as opposed to observing it with my actual eyes.

Yet, even now, this spar… hardly changed in its core nature. Even now, all Claire did was press ahead while trying to break her mother's guard with ever-increasing excitement, while her mother continued to defend, long beyond the level of full focus as she now breached the range of slight desperation.

'Isn't this weird?' I thought, slightly taken aback when barely by reaching the power output of the sixth stage of core establishment, Claire already managed to make her mother so pressed.

'Isn't Leila supposed to be on a level above that of actual cultivators?' I thought, sensing that my cue to step in and stop the bout was soon about to come, given how the barrier protecting this place from potential prying eyes was starting to come apart under the constant barrage of waves of spiritual energy.

'Then, with at least fourteen ranks of cultivation more than Claire… how is she struggling to defend?'

This question, as puzzling as it was, I had no other choice but to put on the backburner. For, as Claire—in her excitement—soon started to unlock the full potential of her cultivation, it wasn't her mother that started to cave in, but the barrier that was supposed to keep this whole event private instead.

'Now.'

This wasn't a conscious observation. Nor was it followed by something that I decided all on my own.

The bout had long grown way too intense for my thoughts to properly follow it, forcing me to rely on nothing more than just my instincts.

The instincts that allowed me to switch from a perfectly passive stance to the full blast of my cultivation as I jumped in, coating myself in a thick layer of the power of the spiritual law.

I moved faster than I could process it, left to do nothing but feel the increasingly overwhelming strain of merely approaching the ongoing bout.

"STOP!"

I uttered a short, concise, and spiritually infused cry right as I reached out with both of my hands to guard my face from the two approaching fists. Enjoy exclusive chapters from My Virtual Library Empire

BAM!

It felt as if a truck, quite literally, struck me. In reality, however, the impact had to be leagues greater than how it felt to me, when both Claire and Leila—too immersed in their fight to act on thought—instinctively punched out when I intruded into their fight.

Thankfully, Leila retained just enough control of herself not to follow up with another strike, while the impact of the first attack was just strong enough for Claire to feel it through our bond, allowing her to nearly instantly drop her fierce stance, relax her hands, and then reach out for my guard, desperate to check whether she didn't end up injuring me by accident.

For a moment, the whole area remained calm and silent as all parties involved finally had some time to let their brains catch up with what actually happened.

"What the hell, Tim! Don't you know how dangerous it could be?! What if I somehow managed to slip my punch through your guard?!"

Claire was the first one to erupt, only to then quickly grow silent when faced with a moot response to her outburst.@@novelbin@@

Yet, as soon as she blinked a few times and shook her lovely, now profusely sweating, head…

"It seems we overdid it a little," Leila whispered, only to breathe out a heavy sigh, retreat a step, and then fall down to her knees before laughing out.

"Just a little, right?" she then added, right as the shards of the formerly solid barrier now glistened in the air as the spiritual energy they were made out of lost its structure and quickly dissipated into the air.

With just this last punch, the clash between the girl's attack and my guard sent out a spiritual shockwave powerful enough for it to crack the barrier open and then, as it bounced inside of it and struck the barrier again—shatter it completely.

"We are quite lucky the last of our energies exhausted out as they cracked the barrier open," I muttered, quickly toning my cultivation down, not to leave any hints in place in case someone just happened to stumble by the nearby area.

"Quite lucky indeed…" Claire tuned in, only for her knees to give in as she fell down on her ass, only to then stretch herself back on the cold, smooth stones making up the floor of the now-devastated practice arena.

"Haaah!" she then heaved a long, satisfied moan as a small smile crept up her slightly trembling lips.

"Got it all out of your system?" Sitting just a few feet away, Leila smiled as she glanced toward her daughter with a small smirk hiding in the corner of her smiling mouth.

"Yeah…" Claire openly admitted, only to then stretch her hands out to the sky as she yawned, only to then relax right back out as she all softened up down on the arena's cold floor. "I had a blast!"