The first twelve hours had been a brutal cycle of failure and correction. Because of his Infinite Stamina, Aethel's muscles never burned and his lungs never gasped for air; he could exert peak output indefinitely without his heart rate ever spiking. However, the true strain was mental. His Superior Comprehension (B) functioned like a high-speed processor, cataloging the construct's weight distribution, the angle of its shoulders, and the precise timing between its lunges. By the midpoint of the day, Aethel had ceased tracking the mannequin's hands and began anticipating the way its "Void" core shifted before an impending attack.
As the second half of the day progressed, constant repetition triggered his Supreme Adaptation (SSS). Since his physique never faltered, he was able to execute thousands of "pocket" dodges in a single afternoon—shifting only a few inches to let a strike graze his ear. This allowed his muscle memory to crystallize at an unnatural pace. By the twentieth hour, the clumsy version of Aethel had vanished, replaced by a combatant who moved with a terrifying, quiet economy. He wasn't just guessing where the next blow would land; he was simply existing where the hit wasn't.
Seeing that the hand-to-hand portion had reached its plateau, Aurelia offered no praise. She simply adjusted the flow of the 'Void' within the dummy. Its motions grew heavier and its velocity surged to match Aethel's peak output, forcing him to sharpen his focus just to maintain the stalemate.
"You're comfortable with your hands now,"
Aurelia said, her tone flat and practical. She waved her hand, and the blunt training tool shifted. A long, matte-black blade—also forged from the Void—extended from the dummies right arm. Simultaneously, a weight manifested in Aethel's own grip. He looked down to see a standard training sword. It lacked an edge, but possessed the heft and balance of a true weapon.
"Don't just swing it," she added, stepping back to grant them space. "The dummy knows three basic forms. Figure them out before it takes an arm off."
The construct didn't wait for a signal. It lunged, the black blade cutting a vertical arc through the air. Aethel raised his steel, the vibration of the parry ringing through his entire frame. Thanks to his lack of fatigue, his grip remained as firm as it had been at the dawn of the day. The sound of clashing metal replaced the thud of fists, and the training intensified once more.
The transition from fists to steel shifted the gravity of the room. Aethel felt the weight of the practice sword—a cold, dense material that felt like a natural extension of his own limb. He didn't possess a formal mastery skill yet, but his Superior Comprehension (B) was already dissecting the way the dummy wielded its own Void-blade, breaking down the physics of the grip and the geometry of the edge.
The dummy didn't just swing; it operated with a haunting, mechanical precision. Its first strike was a heavy overhead chop that seemed to vacuum the surrounding air into its wake. Aethel didn't attempt to block it head-on. Instead, he relied on Transcendent Reflexes, stepping into the dummy's guard and using the hilt of his sword to redirect the momentum. Because he possessed Infinite Stamina, his muscles didn't tremble under the pressure of the heavy impact. He simply reset his footing, his breathing as calm as when he had first entered the dimension.
As the hours stretched on, the dummy's behavior evolved. It began to exhibit something deeper than programmed routines—a sharp, cutting pressure that felt like Sword Intent. Every time the black blade whistled through the air, it left faint, jagged lines in the atmosphere, as if space itself were being wounded.
One such strike caught Aethel off guard. The dummy performed a deceptive feint, retracting a thrust only to pivot into a low, horizontal sweep. Aethel jumped to evade, but the "intent" behind the blade extended further than the physical steel. A thin, invisible line of force sliced clean through his forearm.
His hand, still clutching the practice sword, hit the marble floor with a dull thud. Aethel stared at the stump for a fraction of a second, but there was no panic. Void Reconstitution (A) kicked in instantly. With a wet, crystalline hiss, the bone rewove and the flesh knit back together. The process took a moment longer than usual—a delay barely noticeable to anyone other than Aurelia Voidweaver—but in less than a heartbeat, he scooped his sword off the ground with a fully restored hand. He didn't feel the agony of the severing; his Supreme Adaptation had already dampened his pain receptors to a dull hum, allowing him to focus entirely on the lesson.
"The blade is an extension of the will, not just the arm," Aurelia's voice echoed, though she hadn't moved from her spot. "If you only watch the metal, you've already lost."
Aethel treated the hit as a data point. His comprehension factored in that invisible reach, calculating the "aura" of the sword alongside its physical dimensions. He stopped retreating. He began to maneuver within the jagged lines of force, slipping through the gaps in the dummy's intent like a needle through cloth.
Seeing his progress, Aurelia offered no reprieve. She snapped her fingers, and the single dummy fragmented. From the swirling void mist, three more constructs emerged, encircling him. One held a long spear, another carried dual daggers, and the third remained unarmed but moved with a predatory, low-slung stance.
The pressure in the room quadrupled. The spear-user lunged first, a piercing thrust aimed at his throat, while the swordsman initiated another heavy chop from behind. Aethel's mind felt like it was catching fire, his comprehension processing four different attack vectors simultaneously. He didn't just parry; he used the flat of his blade to slap the spear's shaft, redirecting the point into the path of the swordsman.
He was no longer just a student repeating forms; he was becoming a part of the battlefield's geometry. Thanks to his Infinite Stamina, he maintained this state of hyper-focus for hours without his movements slowing or his grip loosening. He played the dummies against each other, baiting the daggers into clashing with the spear, turning the crowd into a chaotic shield that protected his blind spots.
The training became a blur of clashing steel and silent, focused movement. Aethel wasn't just learning how to fight; he was learning how to survive in a world where the laws of physics were merely suggestions. By the time the dummies finally dissolved back into nothingness, Aethel stood in the center of the pristine white expanse, his sword held loosely at his side. He wasn't tired, but his gaze had changed—the uncertainty was gone, replaced by a cold, sharp clarity.
Aurelia, who had been watching from the periphery with her arms loosely crossed, finally stepped forward. With a casual wave of her hand, the training dummies were instantly pulled apart, their dark forms dissolving back into the void-mist. She moved into the center of the expanse, her heels clicking rhythmically against the pristine marble as she closed the distance.
The transition from the dummies to Aurelia was a silent shift in the fabric of the dimension. After a day and a half of dismantling those mechanical constructs, the atmosphere in the white void sharpened until the air felt thin. Aethel didn't lower his practice sword; he stood his ground, his stamina keeping his heart rate level, though the space between them now felt charged with a different kind of electricity.
"The toys are finished," Aurelia said, her voice dropping its playful lilt. "Now it's my turn."
She moved with an efficiency that bypassed the need for a dash. One second she was ten feet away; the next, she was in his personal space. Aethel's reflexes fired, and he threw his blade up in a frantic parry. It was a feint. She shifted her weight, her leg sweeping out to take his balance with a motion so fluid it looked effortless. Aethel's mind processed the shift in her hips a microsecond before he hit the floor. He tucked his shoulder, rolled against the cold marble, and sprang back up as her palm whistled past the space his head had occupied.
He didn't wait to breathe. He stepped in, swinging the practice sword in a tight, punishing arc. Aurelia swayed her shoulders, letting the blade miss by a hair's breadth. Aethel stopped chasing her body and started attacking the space she was moving into. He threw a horizontal slash, and as she leaned back to avoid it, he let go of the sword with one hand for extra reach, thrusting the point toward her.
She caught the flat of the blade between two fingers. Aethel immediately used the sword as a pivot, swinging his entire weight to drive a knee toward her ribs. She released the blade to block, the impact of his knee hitting her palm with a dull thud.
That first day was a brutal wake-up call. Every time Aethel used the "perfect" forms he had drilled, Aurelia dismantled them. She didn't just block; she occupied the space he needed, her shoulder bumping his chest or her hip checking his balance to kill his momentum. His Superior Comprehension worked at a fever pitch, recording how she moved so little yet accomplished so much.
While his mind mapped the data, Supreme Adaptation worked on his frame, refining his nervous response time so his body began to move before his conscious mind could even issue the command.
The fight continued without a second of reprieve into the second, third, and fourth days. Time stopped existing. There was no sun, no moon, only the white expanse and the woman who seemed to be everywhere at once.
On the fourth day, Aurelia introduced Intent. It wasn't a physical strike, but a mental weight that flooded the air. Aethel felt a wave of Killing Intent hit him like a physical wall, making his body want to flinch. His comprehension identified this as a tactical trick—realizing she was projecting a strike to the left to force him to move right, straight into her real attack. Once his mind understood the "logic" of the intent, his body stopped flinching. He began masking his own intent, making his swings feel "empty" until the last microsecond so she couldn't read him.
By the fifth day, something deep inside Aethel began to slip. He had been subconsciously suppressing his Sovereign's Aura since he arrived, holding back that innate, predatory weight. But under the absolute pressure of the week-long grind, the restraint snapped. The aura didn't manifest as an explosion; instead, the very air around him grew dense and cold. It was a weight that demanded submission, a silent authority that began to permeate every strike.
Aurelia noticed it immediately, her nebula-eyes narrowing, but she didn't falter. She was far too powerful to be suppressed, yet the tempered aura now surrounding Aethel was undeniable. If anyone of a lower rank had been standing there, the sheer, unbridled pressure radiating from him would have forced them to their knees. Aethel didn't even notice it. To him, the aura was just another tool his body had unlocked to survive the exchange.
By the sixth day—the final stretch of the 168-hour marathon—Aethel was no longer a student repeating lessons. He was a creature of pure, Basic Instinct. His comprehension had been pushed to the brink, turning the world into a blur of grey where only the "lines" of combat existed. He was matching her rhythm now, his sword clashing against her palms in a rhythmic cadence that sounded like a heartbeat. He lunged one final time, his Sovereign's Aura flaring with a sharp, jagged edge, his eyes spinning with a cold, golden light that seemed to pierce through the void. He forced Aurelia to move, to parry, and to actually exert herself to keep him back.
Then, with the suddenness of a snapped string, the world went black. His physical body was in perfect condition but his mind was simply too overwhelmed. His Superior Comprehension has been running in full throttle non-stop for the past week. The only reason he hadn't passed out yet is because he had the soul of a Voidborn so his will is extremely high for a C-rank. His mind has gone up and beyond the limits of his will.
Supreme Adaptation doesn't work on will as it is an ethereal concept that cannot be 'adapted' to, atleast not at the SSS rank.
His mind had finally shattered under the mental toll of a week of hyper-focus. His stamina kept his body standing for a heartbeat longer before he finally collapsed, hitting the marble floor with a heavy thud.
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Aethel woke up with a violent snap, his body jerking upright as if he were still mid-swing. His eyes were wide, the 'Void' in his pupils spinning frantically, and his Sovereign's Aura surged outward in a raw, uncontrolled wave that rattled the furniture in the room.
"Easy," a calm, familiar voice said.
Aethel blinked, the blur of combat slowly fading. He wasn't in the white dimension anymore. He was in his dorm, and Aurelia was sitting in a chair next to his bed, watching him with an unreadable expression. She looked perfectly composed, as if she hadn't spent the last seven days in a non-stop brawl.
"Your mind gave out before your body did," she said, leaning back. "A week of constant combat tends to do that. But pull that aura back in. You're going to crack the walls."
Aethel's breath hitched as he felt the structural groan of the room. He was genuinely stunned; he hadn't realized his subconscious pressure had become heavy enough to physically fracture stone.
Aethel took a ragged breath, forcing the cold pressure of his aura to settle back into his skin. His body felt stronger, more coordinated, as if every muscle had been forged in a furnace. He looked at his hands, then back at his master.
"How long?" he managed to rasp out.
"You've been unconscious for a day and a half in my dimension, and I brought you out when you were about to wake up," she said, her voice cutting through his confusion. "That's roughly five hours in the outside world."
Aethel heard her words and was baffled. He had been asleep for a day and a half !! Well, he knew that his will was being overworked. He had almost fainted multiple times during the exchange but was pushing through it with shear will power.
"I have to say that I've got myself a good disciple "
"Huh?"
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