The two took their positions facing each other. Rather than leaping into the air to challenge each other as they would in a real battle-the rear garden had nowhere near enough room for that-they used a flowering tree between them as their target, to see whose flying sword could pluck its most brilliant blossom without harming the garden's flowers and plants.
At their realm, their control over flying swords had already reached the finest detail, letting them rein them in or release them at will. Though a contest like this could not entirely replace a real battle, it could give a basic measure of their ability with flying swords.
Battles between Sword Cultivators were simply too dangerous, the difference often no more than a hair's breadth. In the same exchange of swords, if my sword struck you first, yours might only arrive an instant later, a difference of perhaps several yards or feet. Holding back compromised their strength, while letting loose inevitably risked injury, so unless circumstances forced them, Sword Cultivators rarely crossed swords with one another.
Both wanted to test how far the other's swordsmanship had progressed over the years, so both gave it their all.
The two flying swords contested the space above, below, and around the flowering tree, like two butterflies circling it. Through all their rises, falls, and turns, neither so much as touched a leaf or petal. Whoever touched one would lose.
The art of the flying sword was just such a process of control: first came proficiency, followed by the pursuit of maximum power, speed, and variation, and then the drawing in of those abilities, until control followed the heart. That was the stage they could now reach.
Further down the road, elemental powers and understanding of the Great Dao would enter into it,