"Anna, you should be able to control your Spiritual Energy to cover your entire arm with Hard Approach, right?" Jonathan asked after calling Anna.
Anna nodded before releasing her Spiritual Energy around her arm. That Spiritual Energy created a lightning spark and eventually turned into a dragon. "Like this?"
"Yes." Jonathan nodded while explaining it to Noel. "This is what I'm going to teach you. If you master this technique, you should be able to give more power to your abilities."
"That's true. For example, this Bouncing Spirit Slash we've learned." Anna agreed and waved her sword, releasing the sword strike forward. The sword strike began bouncing around the tree and hit it multiple times. "This is the usual strike, but…"
She released the Bouncing Spirit Slash again, but this time with the hard approach. There was no difference in the bounce, but the moment it hit the tree, the sword strike exploded, crushing it.
"There you go. You can see the power yourself, but there is one thing that I have to warn you about. There is a reason why the technique is called complete, even though it can be used through either the Soft or Hard Approach.
"When they created their technique, they should have foreseen this situation. Yet, they still choose to go with Soft Approach like this Bouncing Spirit Slash. The Bouncing Spirit Slash focuses on your control to make the sword strike hit the enemy as many times. In fact, you can even make it not attack your enemy just to confuse them. It's not meant to be shooting your enemy like what I did earlier.
"If you want another example, let's go with a spear thrust. If you thrust your spear and use the Hard Approach, the energy will explode, right? Then, what if you use that thrust to create a hole in your enemy's body? At one glance, there is nothing wrong with both of them. But in the second case, you should add a spin into your thrust, making your Spiritual Energy like a torrent to increase its penetrating power. But with this, it has become a different kind of technique.
"Thus, the reason why the technique doesn't need to be used in both ways. There is another technique that fixes the mistakes.
"I haven't told you anything about this method because your body has naturally changed the approach when using your abilities, so there's no need to add another information that makes you doubt your sword," Anna ended the explanation with the reason she never mentioned anything about Spiritual Energy.
Of course, Noel didn't have any right to demand it from her. That was why he took this information carefully.
Jonathan was impressed by Anna's knowledge. Despite her age, her knowledge was vast, making him wonder if she had started learning from her mother's womb.
Anna had a huge secret. This was clear in his heart, but whether he wanted to get involved in that secret or not was another question.
"I think you have explained enough. I'll deal with his training." Jonathan waved his hand, asking Anna to go back.
Although he agreed with Anna's opinion about Noel's strength, he still chose to teach Noel about it. In his perspective, Noel wasn't someone that brittle. He believed Noel could overcome his doubt and grow even stronger.
"There you go. I think you have learned the basic knowledge about the approach, so I'm going to ask you again. Are you planning to learn this?"
"Yes. I know that there is a reason why we use only one approach. If that's the case, can't you say I'll be able to wield my power better because I've mastered both approaches?" Noel smirked excitedly.
"…" His motivation was indeed amazing. Jonathan even thought this was the reason why Noel could reach this level within a year. He agreed with him and began teaching him the details about the two approaches.
Meanwhile, the rest was finishing their own tasks so that they could leave this place as soon as Paul and Ben had done with the hand over.
It took them an hour before Paul came back. It seemed that the soldiers of this fort had come out as well to take care of the corpses. Their Demon Crystals could be used as an initial fund for the restoration of the fort and the body could be used to feed the people. Hence, the soldiers happily received them and felt thankful for the Demon Relief Squad.
They even saw the squad off while waving their hands and only started working until the two carriages had disappeared into the horizon.
The Demon Relief Squad was heading straight to the neighboring fort to give their report while the soldiers began to bring the corpses inside.
They didn't realize that the fort was going to experience another tribulation, but this time it didn't come from the outside.
The lord had gotten the report about the work completion by the Demon Relief Squad. The soldiers had seen their figures, but they didn't know anything about them because no one ever mentioned the Demon Relief Squad.
This was where the lord began to claim their deeds.
The lord smiled and said to the butler, "We're going to make a festival for the restoration of the fort by using the meat we've got from them. And inside the festival, I want you to bring all the merchants together to make them feel grateful to me who has used my personal connection to solve this problem. Don't ever let them know this is the work of the Demon Relief Squad.
"Those foolish bastards. It's your women's honor to be picked by me, but they refused. Since they weren't known by the people, this would be a good time to take the credit from those barbarians." The lord smirked.
Little did he know, Paul was saying the exact thing. "…Or so he would say in this situation. Ah, I love it when people think we're barbarians. We can completely be let off the hook because our brains are just brawl and use that to our advantage to hit the bad nobles. Let's see what will happen next…"
