After about 2 days, 40 rounds, and 220 opponents, Mira finally made it to Stage 5 of the Abyssal Battle Ladder!
Through so many fights, Mira has learned many things and has improved her abilities tremendously compared to before.
Her Qi control has grown significantly over the last 2 days and is probably what experienced the most growth. That's not surprising, though, since Mira has never focused on controlling her Qi, as she didn't even know that was a thing.
She's always just been focused on her cultivation this entire time, and since she wasn't in an area where many people could kill her with a flick of their wrists, she was able to steamroll through any opposition with her experience of countless years of fighting.
However, it's only now did she understand how useful having a fine control over her Qi can be. Aside from using it to coat her body to improve her defense or coat her weapon with it to improve its lethality, there are many other ways to apply such fine control over Qi.
For one, she can better control the output and efficiency of her attacks. For example, if she were to create an Ice Needle, having a fine control over Qi would allow her to keep its potency while decreasing the energy needed to create it.
At the same time, she can better increase its penetrating power should she decide to put more Qi into it.
From what Mira understood, this was just the basics of Qi Control! However, even then, Mira hadn't been able to master Qi control. No, it could be said she was still far away from reaching the control the shadows have over Qi.
Nevertheless, Mira was a step closer to reaching their level, which brought her more confidence not only in the Abyssal Battle Ladder but in reality as well.
Mira also felt her battle experience deepen through all these battles. Her steps, decision-making, thought process, ability to read an enemy's attacks, and just her overall ability to read the battlefield all improved.
As for how much they had improved, Mira couldn't be sure, but she knew she had. Surprisingly, this actually increased her comprehension of both Martial and Scythe Intents.
Sadly, Mira still couldn't figure out how they were reading intentions. All she knew was that it wasn't limited to just her attacks. They could predict how and when she was going to defend, parry, counterattack, and dodge.
However, Mira also spent time trying to mask her intentions, which ultimately ended up improving her battle power.
After improving so much, it wouldn't be a lie to say that her current self is incomparable to her past self. If she fought against Zander and Number One now, she was confident in being able to kill them without having to almost die in exchange!
She'd probably still end up being injured, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad.
Finally, throughout the last 2 days, Mira hasn't used her tails even once. She felt like she'd be adding too much to her plate if she tried improving her control over her tails' abilities.
But it's not like everything she learned and improved upon over the last 2 days wouldn't help her control her tails.
'Now, it's time to see just how far I've come.' Mira thought.
Suddenly, a shadow with twin daggers at the 5th Stage of the Core Formation Realm appeared in front of Mira.
This time, unlike the shadows before, Mira's instincts were screaming danger. She could tell that their raw power was fairly similar. She was probably a bit stronger in that regard, but with how much the shadows are able to empower themselves, combined with their skill, Mira knew this would be a difficult battle.
Still, she was more excited than anything else.
She still didn't want to fail, but this was also probably her best opportunity to learn and improve. Against this shadow, she can go all out without worrying about overpowering it.
Without warning, Mira and the shadow disappeared from their positions and reappeared in the center of the arena, weapons clashing.
From then on, a high-speed battle took place! Mira incorporated everything she had learned over the last 2 days into play as the shadow kept trying to whittle her down with its twin daggers.
Mira had coated herself and her scythe in Qi while also using some of it to empower her bodily strength.
She made full use of her Martial and Hell Scythe Intents to keep the momentum going and used her elements whenever necessary.
Thanks to her practicing her Qi control, the power she's able to unleash with elements other than Ice, Yin Fire, and Darkness were much stronger without much more effort.
This also allowed her to weave together multi-element abilities faster and make them more powerful as well.
However, Mira didn't know any Techniques, so although she had been improving in all other aspects, her power actually fell behind the shadow whenever it used its techniques.
Fortunately, her body is extremely tough, her stamina is high, her regenerative abilities are incredible, and her Qi reserves are deep, so she can continue fighting as long as she doesn't get one shot.
But it's not like Mira spent the last 2 days doing nothing. Fighting against so many seemingly perfect beings allowed Mira to adapt to their fighting style.
If there's one thing she's learned over the last 2 days, it's that no matter how the shadows switch up their fighting style, there can only be so much variety.
For example, a dagger user only has so many options it can choose from if it wants to attack. No matter how perfect and unique its movements are, in the end, a dagger is still limited in what it can do.
The same goes for all the other weapons. While some may have more options, there can only be so many variations of a slash, stab, or cut.
Since Mira has properly adjusted to the shadows, she doesn't need to rely on a battle of attrition to win. While she is still having a hard time reading their attacks, she can put herself in a position where she can limit the number of attacks they are able to pull off.
The shadows can still read her intent even when she's doing this, but in a one-on-one scenario like this, there's not much they can do other than fall for it.
That's another thing Mira's learned over the last 40 battles. The shadows seemed to be 'programmed' to use the most efficient methods to kill her. Standing back and waiting for her to attack doesn't seem to be part of their programming.
In every fight she's had against the shadows, if they weren't attacking, they were trying to create an opening that they could attack.
It's this one simple 'weakness', if you can even call it that, that Mira felt might be her win condition when she's on the 10th round of the 5th Stage.
The battle continued to rage on until it almost reached the 1-hour mark before Mira suddenly got an idea.
'What if I've been looking at this the wrong way? So far, I've been trying to learn how to hide my intentions better. However, I've hardly seen any progress in this area. While I'm certain that I'm no longer telegraphing my attacks, I have no idea how they know what I'm going to do next. What if I stop trying to conceal my intentions and focus more on how many actions I'm able to make in a single move?'
'For example, what if I dodge an attack, but instead of only dodging, I parry the attack and throw a kick all in one fluid motion? These things might be able to predict my moves, but what if I throw in more variables in my actions? Even if they can predict my actions, will it matter? If they are in the middle of attacking, do they have the time to focus on other aspects of my body?'
Mira thought excitedly.
The idea was simple yet confusing at the same time. How is she supposed to dodge, parry, and kick all at the same time? In one fluid motion at that? Wouldn't she just be creating more openings by doing that?
Normally, yes, that would be the case, but the cultivation world wasn't normal. Just like how anything is possible with Qi, there are many more things she can do with her body than when she was just a mortal without any powers.
'It's worth a shot! Who knows, maybe I'm onto something, and if I am, then I might finally be able to face off against these detestable shadows on equal ground!' Mira thought and immediately began putting it into practice.
Of course, it was much harder than it looked, but Mira's foundation in combat was already incredibly deep, so it didn't take her long to understand what she needed to do and how she needed to go about doing it.
Unfortunately, the 1-hour time limit on the round ran up, and a second shadow appeared.
