This is the second bonus chapter for the week. It will have major elements from WuXia and XianXia novels, but rest assured this is because I've decided to bring forward the world building elements of this arc. Hope you enjoy.

“Huh…? Where am I?” The sparrowling looked around in a dazed manner, circling to get his bearing. “Natiria City? How did I get here? What happened to Elder snow!?” He began panicking as he slowly recalls the horrific memories of their encounter with the monstrous young girl. A single falling snowflake reflected the sun’s rays into his eyes and made him cower instantly, bringing back the memory of the rain of fire.

Unbeknownst to him, Kina, Isana and Kiefer had already left him behind at the border of the city and began wandering around within. Walking down one of the empty streets in the city, they have only come to terms with the sheer size of the city and hence the entirety of the floating continent. While Kiefer was still trying to crack the mystery of the gravity defying landmass, Kina was busy wondering how each of the various races would taste when roast, baked or fried.

“There are very few walking streets here. I guess as a bird race, they must use flight as the main form of transportation.” Isana commented as she looked at the houses packed closely fence to fence.

“Yea, these ‘streets’ don’t actually seem to fit the purpose of actual streets. They could be just a form of indication or separation between sections of the city.” Kiefer continued, looking up at the houses around them. They were built fairly high up, with perches sticking out of the doors. The building design oddly followed closely to ancient Chinese architecture, making Kiefer feel as if he had walked into an wuxia world.

“Why don’t we get a better view from the air? We are already within the city but have yet to see any other birdmen, or even sense the soul flower. Your spectrometer on the harrier is surprisingly sensitive, registering something even our mana pulse couldn’t,” Isana commented as she looked at Kiefer for affirmation.

“Yea, let’s do that. I’m personally more interested in how big this continent is and how exactly it is staying afloat.” Kiefer said as he took to the skies in his dragon form, carrying Kina on his back. Isana followed in her human form, soaring upwards quickly.

Moments later, after carefully avoiding air traffic of birds, Kiefer and co were hovering high above the continent. The air has already become so thin that Kiefer had to use his dome shield to store air from lower altitudes to make sure they don’t pass out. All 3 of them were dumbfounded by the sheer size of the continent which they had grossly underestimated.

The continent was a somewhat lopsided pentagon shape, with the city they were in located at the tip of the furthest tip which was elongated away from the other 4. There seemed to be cities located at each corner of the continent and on atop the highest point in the middle. Though Kiefer called it a city, the actual city centre was smaller, and the border encompassed a multitude of smaller towns and villages that crowded around the dense city centre.

“Holy fuck…” Kina uttered, looking at the spectacle below her. At their current altitude, she could see the horizon on all sides, along with the dim border of the empty black space. While the planet of Risea rotated below them, the continent of Yurza remained stationary below them, as if it was a heavenly entity separate from the planet. There were even various terrains ranging from lush green fields to stretches of sparse forest and even a barren mountainous region between 2 of the cities.

“How big do you think this continent is?” Kina asked, admiring the scene before her. Not even on Aioa had she gone to such heights before, having always wanted to take a shuttle trip to space.

“Let me check,” Kiefer replied, changing back to his human form and setting Kina down on his mana platform. He then proceeded to take out what resembled a speed gun and aimed it at the corners of the continent, measuring the distance. After some quick calculations, Kiefer was astounded by the answer he reached.

“It’s almost 5000km from east to west and 3000km from north to south. It’s actually bigger than Australia.” Kiefer uttered, rechecking his calculations to make sure he had not made a mistake anywhere.

“Our Mana pulses only cover 10km at most. How are we going to search through the entire continent? Why don’t you double check to make sure the harrier did not malfunction. I don’t want to waste time and effort over a false positive.” Isana suggested, sweeping her gaze over Yurza.

“Well, an acquaintance of mine told me that most major cities are usually built around the flower. We might as well give this city a search. If worse comes to worst, we can always threaten and extort the city leaders, but I’d much rather use the peaceful approach first. No sense in wiping out an entire civilisation and risk the leaders using the flower to stay alive.” Kiefer concluded as he began the freefall descent upon disabling the mana platform that he and Kina were standing on.

“DAAADD!!!” Kina yelled over the howling wind in her ears, falling quickly downwards while enjoying the thrill of skydiving. Isana remained floating above, sighing at the rash father-daughter pair who were plummeting to their destination. “We can start at the small village just beyond the border walls!” Kina continued to scream, pointing towards a small village that barely made a dot from their altitude.

Kiefer nodded and steered his freefall along with Kina towards the small dot while Isana floated down slowly behind them. She had never understood Kiefer’s obsession with freefall ever since they were on Aioa. Even before he could fly and control his altitude at will, that had always been his choice of movement from a high place down.

[[In the town of Highwind]]

“Next! Fighting for the spot in the quarter-finals, the 2nd son of the Hew family, Kan Hew! And the 3rd daughter of the Lim Family, Jielin Lim! We have all watched their fights in the preliminaries; they dispatched their opponents with only a single move! How will they fare against each other!?” The enthusiastic announcer was yelling at the crowd from high above, overlooking a stone arena the size of a football field. Wind magic amplified his voice and carried it to the stands where family members of various participants were watching eagerly.

As the two contestants took up their respective staring positions at each end of the arena, the crowd grew silent. Jielin’s father was especially nervous, not having anticipated that his hot-blooded youngest daughter would register herself in the tournament. Once registered, they could not back out without paying a heavy fine which their small family definitely could not afford.

Despite having seen his youngest daughter’s skills in her previous three matches, he was still worried since she would be facing the young genius from the Hew family. He was a full five years older than her, standing at 1.8m tall and a full wingspan of 2.3m. She was only 13 years old, barely gaining her human form a year ago. As his wife watched with nervous eyes, she clutched her baby birds even tighter. Jielin’s younger siblings were only 3 and six years old respectively, both still only in small bird forms; the two hawks were jostling around in their mother’s tight embrace.

Just as the announcer was about to start the match, the tension in the air grew to its peak. This has been the most anticipated match today, between a well-known young genius and an unprecedented dark horse from a small family that appeared out of nowhere. At this point in the competition, Jielin’s fame had been more prominent than her fellow competitors as she bulldozed her way through her opponents with ease, shocking judges and family patriarchs alike.

Without warning, just as the announcer was about to begin speaking, a loud whistle attracted the attention of everyone present. All the birds tilted their heads up to look at the source, only to find two blurred bodies plummeting to the middle of the arena. With a loud crash, everyone used their hands to shut their ears and shield their eyes as stone shrapnel shot out in all directions, leaving behind a dust cloud so dense no one could see through it despite their acute eyesight.

Both Jielin and Kan did not move an inch, swatting the flying pieces of rock away with the arms, both already on high alert against the intruders. This was an important competition and the winner would get to represent their village in the main tournament three years from now to determine who could leave Yurza for an adventure.

“So how many layers did you break?” a voice rang out from within the dust storm. It seemed to belong to a young child.

“Agghh… The impact broke through 3 layers. But I still can’t stop the momentum and dampen the inertia. I’m still a little dizzy from the sudden deceleration.” A female voice replied through the silent arena. Everybody present was now guessing who those voices belonged to.

Jielin could not believe her ears. The voices seem to be chatting at a leisurely pace, giving no consideration at all to the disruption they had caused to an important competition. With a quick wave of her arms, she kicked up a gale which quickly swept the dust away up into the sky, revealing a sight which elicited gasps of disbelief from the audience. Even she herself was utterly shocked and couldn’t hide her surprise. Kan was no different, frowning at the sight of the decimated arena.

Standing before them, were two children. One a human girl, and the other an elf boy. What was even more unbelievable was the sheer destruction to the stone arena, which despite all the previous battles barely had a scratch on them. However, with the arrival of the two intruders, the stone arena had been completely smashed, with two large craters in the middle. The children tough, seemed unharmed, dusting their clothes as they continued to chat.

“Hmm?” Kiefer took a glance around after dusting himself. He himself had only one mana armour layer broken through from the impact of the fall, proving that there are differences between the quality and hardiness of different mana armours despite the same structure. “It seems we have landed in the middle of some sort of ceremony.” Just as he had spoken, several hawkmen experts had already surrounded them on all sides, pointing their various weapons at Kina and Kiefer.

“You! How did you get up on Yurza!? How did you make it past the walls of Natiria!?” A particularly muscular hawkman asked as he stepped forwards, his sword was drawn and pointed at Kiefer.

“We flew, duh! What a stupid question. Dad, are all birds this stupid?” Kina retorted, looking at the thin glimmering sword in the hawkman’s hands.

“Kina, be nice,” Kiefer reprimanded before turning to face the daunting hawk. “Hello. My name is Kiefer. I’m sorry for the intrusion. Could you tell us where we are right now?”

Seeing Kiefer’s polite attitude, Jielin lowered her guard a little. Being the same age as Kina, and raised in a poor family with strict standards, she was naturally courteous, if not a little naïve, especially when facing a child with even better manners than herself.

“Look kid. You are very deep into territory that you don’t belong in. This is the Highwind town of Natiria District. I don’t know how you got here, but I suggest you go back where you came from quickly.” The hawkman replied sternly, almost as if growling at Kiefer.

“pfft… hehehehe… Dad, I like how everyone thinks you are a kid…” Kina giggled.

“For now, could you kindly please leave the arena? We are in the middle of a very important competition,” Jielin interrupted, clearly a little displeased by the disruption.

“Oh? Competition? What’s the prize?” Kina asked, now intrigued.

“Once again, please leave. This isn’t a place that the likes of you children should be messing around in,” the burly hawk repeated, signalling for the rest of the hawkmen to inch closer.

“Hey, if I beat all of you, can I join the competition?” Kina asked, grinning from ear to ear.

“Child. I’m not going to repeat myself. Leave this land at once or prepare to face the consequences!” the burly hawk bellowed.

“Oh shut up you stupid bird. Your squawking is distracting me.” Kina yelled in an annoyed tone, raising her arm and pointing her palm out towards the hawkman. . With one word, Kina executed a spell, causing multiple dull grey stone poles to extend instantly from the ground, all slanted in varying angles to trap the hawkman’s neck and arms.

“Hey hey…” Kina called out as she skipped to Jielin. “You said this was a competition. What’s the prize?”

Still stunned by the rapid magic casting from Kina, and her sudden movement, Jielin took some time to register Kina’s question, only recollecting herself after a full 30 seconds of stunned silence. “We get a personal weapon forged for us and a chance to represent our village in the upcoming Wanderer’s competition to be held in 3 years.”

“Ok then! That settles it. I’m kinda interested in fighting others in that whatever competition you mentioned, but more importantly, I want a weapon.” Kina announced. Turning to the man she restrained, she stared straight through his eyes and asked, “I’ll be joining this competition. Is that alright?”

“What!? That’s absurd. We can’t even let outsiders step foot on our land, much less allow them to take part in - “ he was cut off mid-sentence as another stone pole extended from the ground. This one was different, being sharp to a pin point at the protruding end that drew ever closer to the man’s eyeball.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch what you said. Can I join the competition?” Kina asked menacingly once more, this time imprisoning everyone else present on the arena as hundreds of stone spikes shot up from the ground.

“Ye – Yes of course!” the hawk quickly replied, not daring to not his head for fear that the spike will puncture his eye.

“Good!” Kina exclaimed in a jovial tone. “Who do I fight first? And what are the rules?”