During these 2 weeks of recuperation, the city made quite a bit of progress. The walls and buildings that were destroyed in the war 2 weeks ago were being repaired at an astonishing rate. It would probably only take a few more weeks to rebuild everything. But even though the buildings were being repaired, the minds of the residents had taken an impactful blow.
At first, they wanted nothing more than for Mira to stay in the city, get stronger, and become something like a guardian of the City. But this was just lazy and wishful thinking. Hearing that Mira had no plans in staying in the city, they realized that the war was a wake-up call and Mira's speech only sent them over the edge.
The people of the city wanted nothing more than to gain strength. Enough strength to where they could pull off what Mira did, but this was also wishful thinking as well.
Mira's spent most of her life on a battlefield, whether she's at war or not, she has always always been fighting. Most of the time against more than one person at a time. It goes without saying that even if someone has lived for several thousand years, they might not have the same amount of experience in battle that Mira has.
Even those old fogies from the Soul Devouring Sect couldn't even reach a fraction of the amount of experience that Mira has accumulated. This also shows in the way they planned their war, merely gathering a bunch of people and teleporting them on top of the enemy. They were just throwing waves of people at a city, hoping to kill them off while they are still dazed by what's going on, then using the higher-ups to distract the stronger people in the city.
If Mira were in command, this idea wouldn't even pop into her mind due to how idiotic it is. But she can't really blame them. They've probably never been in a war or at the very least, never a commanding officer in a war.
Though Mira had these thoughts, it didn't matter. They were dead and would no longer be able to bother her with such troublesome things like war.
Mira glanced at Vulcan and Rhydian, who were currently sleeping in her room. Mira gave Vulcan some of the Core Formation Realm corpses to Vulcan and let him eat to his heart's content then gave the rest of them to Rhydian. Vulcan's cultivation sky-rocketed to Low-Stage Rank 5 and he also grew quite a bit, though he wasn't nearly as big as Rhydian. His flames became much hotter and just his breathing threatened to melt his surroundings. His fur would flicker with embers as though it was alive and his tail seemed like it was made of fire even though it was his fur.
Rhydian also grew a bit during these 2 weeks as well, but she still had the face and fur of a cub. Mira was seriously wondering just how big this little beast would get. Her aura was also getting more and more fierce during her sleep. Her cultivation wasn't rising, she was just consolidating it, but even while sleeping her strength was rising by leaps and bounds.
Maria went to go check up on her parents to make sure they were alright during this time, but they said they didn't even get to do anything during this war. Maria just gave them a bitter smile and chuckled. She was glad that they were safe. Maria also decided to spend this time with her parents and left Vulcan in Mira's care.
Dominique stayed by Mira's side this entire time, refusing to leave. It seems that this war was a bit too much for her to handle and the only place she felt safe right now is by Mira's side. But surprisingly, Dominique asked Mira a bunch of questions regarding the war, battles, and just fighting in general. She wanted to understand what went wrong, what they did right, why Mira was able to do what she did with ease, what Mira thinks about when she fights a group like that, how to control the flow of a fight, and various other things.
Mira answered all of these questions to the best of her ability and Dominique even wrote what Mira was saying down so she could study them later. Dominique also requested Mira to bring her out into the city and look for a weapon that suited her, she wanted to begin practicing with it as soon as possible. Mira readily agreed as she wasn't doing anything.
After searching for a few days, they were able to find something that Dominique immediately fell in love with. Mira was surprised when she saw what Dominique picked as the weapon she picked was quite unusual. It's not quite as rare as a scythe, but as far as the cultivation world is concerned this weapon is definitely a bit unusual.
What Dominique decided on was a pair of Butterfly Swords. Butterfly swords are essentially just single-edged short swords with a rather wide blade and a crossguard to block blades and poles. The blade is about 40 centimeters long, so much bigger than a dagger but only about half the length of a sword.
Mira also knew quite a bit about the butterfly sword and knew that the butterfly sword is highly compatible with martial arts. In fact, out of all of the weapons that Mira's come across, Butterfly swords would be her favorite, second only to the scythe. This is because when one wields a pair of Butterfly Swords, the swords become an extension of the body in a literal sense. They aren't too long nor too short and martial arts techniques don't need to be altered due to the addition of a weapon.
Mira was secretly glad that Dominique loves this weapon as she'd be able to practice martial arts and with her Butterfly Swords at the same time. Dominique then proceeded to get used to her new blades while Mira cultivated the rest of the time. Mira was feeling like she was close to breaking through to the Late-Houtian Stage and would probably only need a few more weeks max.
All of this came to an end when Mira heard the announcement that the Tournament would resume in a few days. Mira continued to cultivate for the next few days as she was even less worried about the tournament after the war.
The next few days went by quickly as it was now time for the Tournament to resume. The disciples all made their way back to the Colosseum to participate in the Tournament.
Mira also made her way down to the arena with Dominique and on the way she was constantly getting looks of reverence and gratitude. It seems even after her speech the people still idolized her.
After making her way over to the Battle Maiden Sect area, she was greeted by all of the disciples there who all had big smiles on their faces. Mira just slightly nodded at them and sat down and waited for her turn. Dominique, on the other hand, had her eyes glued to the arena. She wanted to try and memorize these battles then create a shadow with her mind to practice with since Mira refused to spar with her personally until she made it to the Qi Condensation Realm.
"Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the Inter-Sect Tournament! I know we got interrupted by the Soul Devouring Sect a few weeks ago, but we are back to resume where we left off! Also, I know that the Hero of Lunar Fox City will be participating, but I hope to see everyone trying their best despite that as this is still a tournament! Now, enough introductions! Let's begin!" The City Lord announced and the crowd went wild.
With the City Lord's announcement, the duels began again and the disciples went at it with even more fervor! The war really riled them up as they spent the last few weeks trying to perfect their techniques as they felt their strength was severely lacking.
The first up was Alexa and her opponent was someone from the Glacial Sword Sect, a Sect that's located in The Sparkling Expanse in a City called The Sleeted City.
It wasn't much of a battle as Alexa was easily able to overpower her opponent and win the match in just a few short minutes.
Every battle after that contained a Battle Maiden Sect disciple and there was even one unlucky disciple that had to face Mira, though she just surrendered as soon as the battle started. There was no need for her to embarrass herself.
Out of the 9 Battle Maiden Sect disciples that took place during this round, only 4 of them made it through. Those 4 were Mira, Maria, Alexa, and Cleo. They were, without a doubt, the 4 disciples in the Sect right now.
The next round of duels began shortly after and this time the Battle Maiden Sect Disciples were against people from different Sects, but the only noticeable disciple was Jax, from the Immortal Sword Sect, whose opponent was Cleo.
Jax and Alexa actually fought beforehand, but they never got to finish their match and it seems that they redrew the lineup and Jax was able to fight someone else and proceed to the next round.
The next round began, but it ended almost just as quickly. During Maria's fight, the person let his guard down in front of her and she was able to take out her opponent very quickly by taking advantage of that.
Mira's opponent was so scared of Mira that he barely put up a fight. Alexa's opponent was actually quite tough, but he was just unlucky that his opponent was Alexa. It was Alexa's hardest fight yet, except for the fight with Jax, but in the end, she still won. Cleo, on the other hand, wasn't able to pull through. Jax was too strong and too skilled with the sword and she ended up being overwhelmed and Jax took advantage of that and kept up the pressure until she couldn't take it anymore.
The battles in the next round then consisted of Mira vs. Maria and Alexa vs. Jax. The results were rather obvious as there was no way Maria was going to beat Mira and Alexa was also confident about beating Jax as she basically beat him last time.
And like they had predicted, that's what happened. Maria actually gave Mira a good fight especially with her new Seven Stars Strike and her newfound skill with the sword. But this was far from enough for Mira to get serious as Mira also had a strike that was similar to Maria's Seven Stars Strike which was her combo strike. In the end, Maria got beat up quite badly due to Mira's 'teachings' and lost the fight.
Alexa also had a hard fight with Jax, but she had learned quite a bit about him from their previous fight and used that to her advantage. Jax did the same, but Alexa was just a bit more tactful and ended up taking exploiting his weaknesses and won the fight.
After this round, Jax and Maria ended up having a match for third place, but the results weren't too surprising.
With Jax's superior cultivation and his superior sword skills, it wasn't too surprising that he'd win, at least in Mira's opinion. Though Maria put up a fantastic might and showed just how potent her instincts were as she was able to predict and dodge a lot of attacks. Maria even got a few good hits in thanks to this, but in the end, she was just not as skilled, talented, or strong as Jax.
The last match was between Mira and Alexa, but truthfully, they didn't even need to fight. They were part of the same Sect after all. But both of them decided to fight and it would be something like an Exhibition Match for the crowd to enjoy. Mira was also looking forward to sparring with someone like Alexa.
The crowd went crazy when they heard that the two of them would be fighting as they've been looking forward to watching Mira fight, but her opponents became so meek in front of her. Even Alexa was rather submissive in front of Mira. She could still remember Mira's overwhelming killing intent and every time she thought back to that she'd shiver.
"We'll now begin the final match between Mira and Alexa from the Battle Maiden Sect! Fight!" The City Lord announced and both of them immediately charged at each other.
This is Alexa's first time fighting against someone using a scythe and if there's one word to describe how she felt it'd be 'annoying'. She would've never guessed that a scythe could be so useful in battle as it's a very unorthodox weapon, but Mira uses it seamlessly and without gaps.
The length of her scythe is the same length as a spear, but instead of stabbing or slashing like one might do with a spear, Mira twirls that thing around at an insane speed that is barely noticeable to the naked eye and is able to perfectly block and counterattack every hit. To make matters worse, each strike from the scythe seemed like it was backed by the weight of a mountain. This is because Mira's scythe weighs several thousand kilograms.
Alexa felt like even if Mira just stood there and twirled her scythe around she'd still be able to win as she wouldn't even be able to get in range of her.
The battle lasted for a short while as Mira wanted to experience fighting against a skilled swordsman for as long as possible before she felt like she got what she needed out of it and quickly ended the battle. With her winning of course!
Needless to say, the Battle Maiden Sect was now in first place with a total score of 168 points which was a little under double what the 2nd place Sect has.
"This brings an end to the Inter-Sect Tournament Duels! We will allow the disciples to have a break and recover for the rest of the day before beginning the Group Battles tomorrow! Thank you for showing up and watching the Tournament and don't forget to come back tomorrow!"