In a small, cobbled arena with dim lighting, Michael faced Alice head-on. Alice wore a set of simple combat clothing. It was dark and highlighted her shape and curves perfectly. However, Michael had no time to stare at her mesmerizing figure. He was too concerned about the deadly weapon that rested in her hands. It was Alice's Wintertusk Saber, a Tier-5 Artifact – a thin saber – embedded with a sapphire gemstone in the handle.
The sapphire gemstone decreased the consumption of ice elemental spells and increased the coherence of ice spells cast on the Wintertusk Saber.
Michael, on the other hand, wore the Spirit Armor Set, and the Legendary Ring Artifact while wielding Aethyr. He stepped through the arena trying to locate a flaw in Alice's regular stance. However, there was none. It was almost like Alice was ready to face her enemies at all times.
Two days passed since Michael procured Aethyr and many things changed. First of all, Michael experimented a little bit with Insert, and he learned how to use the Soultrait with his other Soultraits. Thereafter, Michael used some SoulStar Fragments to see how it would affect Aethyr. The result was surprisingly good.
His connection to Aethyr stabilized and it grew firmer. At the same time, Aethyr seemed to grow more powerful. The silver droplet on Michael's War Rune expanded a tad and faint lines formed around it, creating various symbols of tools and weapons. Michael learned instinctively that he could transform Aethyr into more than 28 weapon forms.
He kicked the ground to dash in Alice's direction. Aethyr changed into a pole and swung against her head. Alice inched closer and blocked the attack to her head by lifting Wintertusk Saber. The tip of her saber was just about to block Michael's attack when the quarterstaff morphed into a dagger. Michael didn't lose any momentum as the dagger whizzed past Alice's saber. He transformed the dagger into a spear and thrust forward, using the opening his feint created.
Alice lowered her body, and one of her legs lunged out to pull Michael's feet away, while her saber flashed through the air. The saber's pommel collided with the flat side of Aethyr Spear and pushed it aside. Meanwhile, her left foot reached Michael's right foot and hooked it to drag him down. But right before Alice was about to do so, Michael moved closer to Alice. The spear in Michael's hands turned back into a dagger. Entering close combat against Alice may not be the best idea due to her extremely high martial skills, but she couldn't use the length of the Wintertusk Saber to her advantage if her opponent was too close.
Wanting to utilize that to his advantage, Michael pushed forward as fast as he could without the use of his Soultraits. He weaved origin energy into every movement and sped up just enough to arrive in front of Alice. The dagger in his hands lunged out, ready to draw blood. Unfortunately, Alice wasn't a fan of injuries. She didn't even think of giving her students a sense of fulfillment. On the contrary, Alice desired to observe Michael's expressions up close as he realized in desperation that he had no chance to reach her.
Alice had already pulled her left leg back when Michael pushed forward. Her left leg lifted, and she kicked out with great force. But instead of hitting Michael's side as she intended to, Alice noticed with slight surprise that Michael had already reacted to her attack. He forcefully terminated his attack to transform Aethyr Dagger into a small shield right before Alice's kick impacted.
Her attack crashed heavily into the Aethyr Shield. The attack was strong enough to push Michael back and make him feel like he lost his right arm. His right arm was numb and he doubted that this sensation would go away quickly. To his misfortune, Alice didn't seem hurt. If anything she was surprised – a tiny little bit.
She expected Michael to respond a little slower, but that was a good thing. Alice trained Michael to strengthen his martial skills and unravel the hidden potential of his body. She hoped that he would grow much stronger, faster, and more responsive to her attacks in the next few days. That way, she could be certain that Michael would survive the Interdimensional Flag War.
Michael was not sure why she worried so much about him, and why she didn't focus on training Kaleb right now. In his opinion, Kaleb was in far more danger – except for the fact that Kaleb was in a team of ten Lords, and Michael was given a spot as a variable. Maybe, Alice held Kaleb in higher regard because she knew that he could survive or escape if the fight ended in a certain loss. Meanwhile, Michael wouldn't…or so Alice must be thinking.
At least, that was what Michael guessed.
After training with Alice for a while now, Michael learned that Alice's experience and martial skills were exceptional. Not that he did not know it before but fighting her head-on made him realize just why she was looked up to by many. Even by restraining her strength to the Peak of the 2nd Tier, Alice could easily deal with Michael. Of course, Alice's refined body, and heightened senses couldn't be restrained and dulled that easily, but the biggest reason for her superior combat prowess was her exceptional reaction speed and the way she fought instinctively. It felt like centuries of combat experience had been engraved into Alice.
As for her combat techniques, they were exceptional as well. She could weave origin energy perfectly into her body to unleash her hidden potential and overwhelm Michael.
Meanwhile, Michael struggled to use his creativity against Alice. The passive empowerment Michael received from some of his Soultraits was exceptional, especially his eyesight, but it felt like his body was always a quarter of a second too late. His mind could barely come up with a way to counter Alice's bombardment of attacks when Alice initiated a new attack. His eyes saw everything early enough but both his mind and body were still a tad too slow to react in time. And that was the case even though he'd reached the perfect state for the second stage of his body refinement technique and mind refinement technique.
Alice's saber sliced through the air with great velocity. Michael could barely jump back to protect his neck. He changed Aethyr's form into a pole once again and smashed it against Alice's leg, which was about to kick against the side of his head.
Aethyr changed into a longsword right before Alice's kick impacted. Michael grasped Aethyr's handle with two hands, but the force of Alice's attack was too strong. His hands went numb and Aethyr fell out of his hands. A good thing with Aethyr was that he could recall it at all times. Therefore, Aethyr returned back to his War Rune on command, giving Michael the means to summon it again.
Michael looked at Alice just to see that her combat suit had been scratched. The longsword formed by Aethyr was razor sharp. It could easily cut through Tier-2 and even Tier-3 monsters. However, Michael hadn't used the longsword to attack. Instead, he'd been hoping to cut Alice by utilizing her momentum and the force she'd applied to the kick.
That didn't work as well as intended.
Alice's clothes had been cut, but her leg was unscathed. There was not even a scratch. No mark at all.
'Did I grow too confident after I killed that Tier-5 war criminal? Why did I even think that I could pierce through her defenses?' Michael wondered, laughing at himself in his mind.
Killing the war criminals had hardly been difficult for Michael. If anything, the members of Dark Heavens had been served to him on a silver tray. They were no challenge at all. But Alice was on a different level altogether.
She was a Tier-5 powerhouse with extraordinarily high mastery of her Inheritance Technique. Michael didn't know much about the Zenovia family's Inheritance Technique but given that Leviathan Diffusion was only a small snippet of its true potential, Michael figured that the Inheritance Technique was exceptional.
He was a little bit jealous but also intrigued. When was he going to create his own Inheritance technique?
Unfortunately, Michael didn't really have the time to create a customized Inheritance Technique. He was getting beaten up way too much to even think about analyzing Alice's martial arts. How could he spare time bothering about Inheritance Techniques?
His spar with Alice ended after half an hour. The only injuries sustained on Alice's side were a small tear in the fabric of her clothes…just once. Meanwhile, Michael's face was wounded black and blue. The other wounds were hidden underneath his Spirit Armor Set and his clothes.
"That's domestic violence…abuse…" Michael complained silently.
"Do you want to continue? I doubt you need a break if you can still spout nonsense," Alice joked lightly, wiping a single droplet of sweat from her forehead. Her head flicked to Kaleb, "How about you join us for a spar?"
"I'm fine, sis. I rather watch Michael getting beaten up than being the one who's beaten into a pulp," Kaleb rejected Alice's 'offer' before adding, "I already trained with my team in the last ten hours. We're slowly getting somewhere. The team composition is pretty good. Our only problem is that everyone wants to be the team leader. It doesn't make sense for some of them to be adamant about becoming the team leader but they desire the fame and honor that comes with it. Some nonsense like that."
Kaleb shrugged as if it didn't concern him, but Michael noticed that his friend wanted to become the team leader as well. It would be highly beneficial if Kaleb became the team leader of a team that killed a dozen or more Tekur. That way, the Zenovia family's honor could be upheld and possibly increased, and it was also possible that their connections to the Tritan Alliance could be strengthened.
Kaleb wanted to help his family extend their connections and procure more wealth. He wanted to give them back what he received with interest…and without the need to marry someone he didn't love.
But that was difficult.
