"Alright, that's enough, Maria. We won't get anywhere just by daydreaming. We need a plan! What should we focus on? What are Mira's weaknesses? How can we progress in the shortest time possible without ruining our foundation? These are things that we need to know."
Celaine cut off Maria from her fantasies.
Maria blushed a bit after she realized that she was lost in her own world, but then started to seriously consider what Celaine said.
"I think our cultivation is the most important thing. Even if we mainly focus on our weapon skills over the next 2 years, we won't become substantially better unless we get lucky. Not to mention that even if we do make substantial improvements, we'd probably only be a bit more skilled than Mira in the weapon department. As for Mira's weakness… Well, as far as I can tell Mira's main weaknesses are her lack of creativity and long-range attacks. Her ice skills are also rather lackluster compared to her cultivation."
Maria thought seriously.
"You'd know her better than me so I don't really have anything to add on that front. But I understand that my cultivation is my weakest point. I think as long as I go through plenty of life or death battles then I'll be fine. I doubt I'll be able to make decent improvements to my Wind Dao during this time so unless I find something that can help improve that, I'll just be fighting and cultivating."
Celaine already knew what her weaknesses were and what she needs to work on. Originally, she wanted to focus on improving her Wind Dao before her cultivation and saber skills, but her talent with the saber is already abnormally high so she doesn't need to do anything other than fight to stimulate her talent.
Her Wind Dao is essentially useless if she were to fight against beasts or people at the same stage or higher as her. She mainly uses it as an auxiliary tool to assist her in fights rather than it being one of her main attack/defense methods.
Her fighting style is very reminiscent of Mira's except Mira has higher cultivation and is more experienced in combat than her. It's no wonder she can't even come close to beating her or even putting up a decent fight against her.
"Well, unlike you two meatheads, I actually focus on improving my Light Dao and incorporate it into my fighting style. Hehe~"
Maria teased Celaine knowing full well she's barely put any effort into improving her Wind Dao over the years. The same goes for Mira, she'll only focus on improving her Ice Dao when it's convenient or whenever she's not cultivating.
"Yeah, yeah. Anyways, it looks like we'll be traveling together a bit more seeing as we have the same training goals. Plus, this world is a great place to train your Light Dao!"
"Yes! Let's gooo!! Wash your neck, Mira! We're coming for you! Hehe~ I always wanted to say that…"
Maria yelled and ran off in a random direction while giggling. Celaine just face-palmed and followed after her idiot friend.
***
Elenei was listening in to everything that the two of them were discussing and was relaying the information back to Mira since she found this whole scenario quite entertaining.
Surprisingly, Mira wasn't angry, no, she seemed a bit amused when Elenei finished recalling what just happened. Still, even though she was amused and knew that what they said wasn't wrong, she couldn't help but sneer.
"Heh. So the two of them think I'm not that skilled with my scythe and I'm essentially useless with my Ice Dao? I suppose they aren't necessarily wrong. I heavily rely on my combat sense and brute strength for most things. BUT! Will getting a bit stronger or having higher cultivation really be enough? NO! I have crawled my way out of the deepest depths of hell leaving a sea of blood in my wake! Was I ever stronger than my opponents? No! Yet, they still died under my hand! Those two won't be any different. At the end of the day, they will still fall under my blade." Mira proclaimed in disdain.
Elenei was a bit stunned by Mira's words since she didn't fully understand what Mira was saying other than she was better than them and there is nothing they can do.
"You know, you should really take their words to heart. Your scythe skills are fairly average and the only reason your Ice Dao is useful is, strictly speaking, because of the Dao you chose. If it weren't because of that, your Dao would be useless right now. As long as you improve your comprehension of your Ice Dao, your strength will skyrocket! You won't even need to use anything other than your ice to fight!"
Elenei decided to advise Mira since the stronger she is, the better things will be for her. Plus, as long as she improves her Ice Dao comprehension, her other auxiliary elements like Yin Fire, Yin Magma, Yin Lightning, and so on will improve with it as well, albeit they won't be nearly as strong as her Ice element.
"Sigh… I know. But there's only so much I can do and these things take time. From where I come from, nobody uses a scythe, so finding someone with the same weapon type as me to spar against is pretty much impossible and there are also no Scythe Manuals for me to learn and study. My Ice Dao, well, you can probably guess why that one is so weak. It needs tons of rare resources if I want fast and stable progression and if I don't have those then I either have to hope I get lucky and enter some sort of enlightenment or just spend a long ass time comprehending it. The faster way to improve my strength, at least right now, is to cultivate."
Mira explained her circumstances with a neutral expression. She wasn't complaining or trying to gain any sort of pity. She chose this route all the while understanding the downsides. These are just the facts.
Sure, she has the Extreme Overlord Yin Physique, but that can only boost her comprehension so much.
Naturally, Elenei understands this as well.
"I know what you're trying to say, but this is just advice from a humble Frost-Fire Phoenix who was birthed by two Immortal Phoenix. Your Dao Comprehension and weapon skills will be astronomically more useful than your cultivation the stronger you get. It's best if you start early or else forget becoming an Immortal, you probably won't even make it past the Core Formation Realm."
Elenei gave Mira her last piece of advice before closing her eyes and going silent.
Mira was a bit surprised to hear that since she figured that cultivation is everything. Her thoughts were fairly simple on this matter. There probably aren't a lot of people who are more skilled than her in battle so why does she need to improve her weapon skills? As long as she gets stronger, she can win pretty much any battle.
But Elenei reminded her that she isn't living among mortals anymore. Sure, battles among mortals, she is unrivaled. But how much individual power do mortals truly have? A few hundred kilograms at most.
Cultivators can split the seas, destroy countries, flatten mountains, or rain hellfire. At a certain point, they can be considered gods!
Right now, she's still at a point where people haven't truly grasped the elements and are still relatively weak. Close quarters combat is the general trend among Qi Condensation and Foundation Realm experts so the battles aren't that different from mortal battles, they are just on a bit larger scale.
But Mira has never truly experienced a battle among real experts. Battles where the only time the opponents get close to each other is just to make sure the other person is dead.
This was a wake-up call. A very important one at that.
"Tha-"
Mira tried to say 'Thank you' but it got stuck in her throat. She's not sure when the last person that helped was, but it was probably years and several lifetimes ago. At some point, she stopped trusting other people, and even if they did help, she could never know if it was some scheme to destroy her.
Over time, she has not only built up a wall around people, but she's able to take a certain pride in it. She hasn't needed anyone to help her and she's gotten to where she is by herself.
So right now, she's having an internal struggle with her pride, but it seems her pride and stubbornness won out as she just let out a sigh and continued trying to comprehend the Yin Fire Element.
Elenei cracked a subtle smile at that and went back to observing Maria and Celaine.
