1 Not all Geniuses Tell Tales

The sun shone on the training grounds. Young boys of all shapes and sizes stood underneath the sun with their swords in the air. A second passed, the boys eyes were closed, beads of sweat dripped down some of their faces.

The elder monitoring the group of boys shouted and the swords came down. One of the boys collapsed, the training with the weighted swords was to hard for him. Another fell down and then another, until only one boy remained. He had greasy black hair, two dark bushy eyebrows. It was not simple bushiness, there was a complexity to the bushiness as if a monster was hiding in the curves of his eyebrows. They sat there like mountains on his face, any drop of moisture would be eaten by the monstrous brows.

He sat in the middle of the crowd of fallen boys without a bead of sweat on his face. The genius of the Falling Sword Sect, the man before the heavens, the man with the bushiest eyebrows under heaven, Alastar Bushybrows.

He came from an illustrious line of cultivators who dated back to the Primordial Era. Scholars of the family had once found a document describing a powerful cultivator in the Epoch Era with the same distinctive brows as the family currently had today. He was the first of many brothers and the favorite of the patriarch of the Bushybrows clan.

"Brother Bushybrows, marvelous as always your strength astounds even the patriarch." A servant said handing Alastar a cold towel.

"It is nothing compared to my seniors even you."

"Ah yes but I am nearing a hundred years old and you are nearing fourteen give yourself some credit"

"No credit is due unless I surpass myself and the older generation this is a pansy show"

Innerly a different story was told. Alastar Bushybrows had a problem with arrogance not arrogance that was unjustly due, he was plenty strong in the 5th level of Body Strengthening and with the addition of his achievements in the family's secret technique he could fight a fighter in the 8th level of Body Strengthening.

No the problem with his head. He believed he was unkillable, unconquerable, and undestroyable, a common flaw of teenagers and geniuses and he was both a teenager and a genius so the flaws were magnified. The patriarch of the family knew of this flaw but there was nothing he could do but wait and hope that he would come to his senses.

Alastar was walking back with the servant to the family estate, a sprawling palace filled with even its own restaurants. By the time 10 minutes had passed he had made it to the steps of the main house of the estate. He walked in through the front door and entered into a dimly lit room with only a single candle in the middle which really wanted to put out. In the room sat the patriarch of the Bushybrows family, Saint James Bushybrows, an honorable cultivator of the Saint class. Capable of flight and the manipulation of the mortal realms.

"Alastar the tournament comes tomorrow are you prepared." Alastar shuffled a bit before planting his face down before the patriarch.

"I am as prepared as I will ever be last night I even broke through to the True Darkness stage of the family technique."

"Your talent is truly incredible I hadn't even broke through to that level until I was 16 and even then it was only because of the Absolute Shadow room."

"This humble junior of yours cannot even compare to a single hair on patriarchs head." Though as he said this in his mind he was gloating. He, Alastar Bushybrows, was better than even the patriarch, who could compare to him, the greatest, the best!

Of course the Patriarch knew what was going through Alastars head and sighed. The patriarch had been through enough of life to know that geniuses existed everywhere and to every degree and to think yourself better than anyone was useless but at least Alastar didn't take it out on anyone but still the patriarch wish he could teach Alastar a lesson.

The patriarch beckoned Alastar away and Alastar left with a smile on his face returning to his room in the top of the family mansion looking out onto the Sea of Ghosts. There he sat in meditation sensing the energy around him. It came to him with a snap and soon the Qi in the room converged into him and revolved for 99 revolutions before settling in his Dantian.

Alastar loved Qi, loved its feel, loved it's ideas, loved its power he wished sometimes he could cultivate all day, every day but there is more to the martial path then cultivation. Otherwise he knew it would ruin the idea of Qi to him if he did it to much.

After cultivating Alastar got up, feel right into bed, closed his eyes, and fell asleep. It was a good sleep but not one that lasted forever and he was sadly woken up at the break of dawn. It was the day of the tournament.

After finishing his morning preparation, talking to his parents and saying goodbye to the patriarch he went straight to the sect. Teenagers from all around the province were there. Teenagers from other sects, rogue cultivator teenagers, even some ferocious barbarian looking teenagers. It was still a gathering of teenagers and majoritively male ones at that and so the various amounts of hormones and other ungodly things were about on that day.

This competition was the first one in a millenia held in the Falling Sword Sect and as such the rewards put out by the sect were major. 1st place would receive a ticket to the capital to join any of the Three Divine Kingdoms.

That spot was Alastars, everyone knew, the sect knew, the rogue cultivators knew and Alastar knew. He was greeted by some of his friends from the sect upon his arrival at the waiting area for the competition. They were all sitting in a circle laughing and joking and he quickly joined in on their festivities.

"What do you think your chances are at winning Alastar." Alastar let out a great big bellow and said, no he shouted,

"If I lose I'll bite my own arm off." His friends laughed uproariously at what was a not particularly funny joke. A couple of people gave Alastar mean looks but what could they do, he was Alastar Bushybrows the greatest genius the heavens had known and he was going to win this competition. Soon it was time for the events and Alastars first opponent was one of the few females at the event.

She was pretty but not to pretty, she was smiling but it looked like she was doing it to intimidate not to actually smile. They both walked up to the martial stage and bowed before the ancestors of the sects.

"Ah a Bushybrow not everyday you get to see one of those," said one of the ancestors in the top of the tower.

"You'll be astounded by this one, I give him a 99% chance of winning this," said the ancestor of the Falling Sword Sect.

They bowed to each other and took their stances. Of which Alastar didn't take one which seemed to make the girl more tense. The referee shouted "GO" and the match began. Alastar took a deep breath in and lunged forward. He was fast deceptively so, the girl could barely react before he was before her his sword in the air preparing to cut down on her.

She made a hand seal a wooden shield appeared before her.

"You think your puny wood spells can harm this daddy think again!" Alastar said as his sword slid through the wood and hit her sending her out of the stage and knocked out. The spectators all clapped, this was expected of him, winning was expected.

The leader of the Falling Sword Sect laughed and said "Magnificent sword play, better then even some of my elders. That sword slice may have looked simple but the amount of power generated was definitely not the power of Body Tempering Level 5."

"Agreed he must've used an ingenious method of energy transfer, simply magnificent from one of your students," said one of the ancestors.

Alastar left the stage and went back to the waiting area to talk to his friends, not even pausing to help the girl up.

Soon an hour had passed and it was Alastar's turn again. This time on the stage was a boy in all black trying to look all mysterious. Alastar was laughing trying to even get up on the stage the boy glared at him. Soon the referee shouted go and again Alastar didn't take a stance but neither did the boy.

"Ah seems like you think you have a bit of skill, let me correct that notion" Alastar started running towards the boy with his sword drawn. The boy didn't move an inch. He jumped to attack but out of nowhere the boy pulled out a knife and thrust it at Alastars face. Alastar tried to dodge but the knife was to fast and to strong. It hit Alastars forehead even though all the weapons were blunt it still hurt.

Alastar was stunned for a second and his attack missed. Alastar landed on the ground with a splat.

"You may have a little bit of skill."

"That's for Wind!" The boy in black shouted out.

"Wind? Who's Wind?" Alastar said.

"You don't even remember her?! She's the girl you just beat does your arrogance know no bounds?"

"Why would I bother to know her name, it's not like she's my friend or anything!

"Inexcusable! You must be punished"

"Try me!" From behind Alastars back came a black mist which quickly formed into a pair of jet black wings.

"The True Darkness stage of the Bushybrow family, my god he has mastered it at such a young age," said the Falling Sword sect head.

With even more speed than before Alastar launched himself at the boy. The boy smiled and before Alastar could notice dodged out of the way. As soon as Alastar passed him the boy took out his sword and swung down onto Alastars back.

Alastar hit the ground with a bang and never got back up.

"Arrogant pricks like you deserve nothing. Not even your genius." And with that the boy took his hand and pressed against Alastars back and extracted some sort of divine essence from it. With it gone Alastars face immediately grew pale.

Before the ancestors could notice anything was wrong Alastars future was gone, his talent, his abilities, his life, his dream, everything was gone.