Just as promised, Zaos's group met with Cohnal and the others in the middle of the next day's morning. Although they looked exhausted, Cohnal could tell that the mission was a success.

"I assume things went well, and no one got hurt. Good work, Captain," Cohnal said. "Some people noticed your absence, but they bought the story you made up."

"Good, let's return and rest for a few days until we confirm the results of this mission," Zaos said.

"You didn't confirm it?" Melisse asked.

"The right way to ask would be: you didn't confirm it, Captain?" Cohnal asked. "Geez, how are the others supposed to respect the Captain if we don't set an example?"

"Well, we didn't have time," Zaos replied. "I am pretty sure that they lost some horses and stables, though. Since not many horsemen followed us. As for their supplies, if they were fast enough, perhaps they managed to save half of a big warehouse. Even from afar, I could smell wheat burning."

  Zaos and the archers were also hungry, so they hurried to return to the western base. Once they got their breakfast, Zaos told them to rest as much as they could until the next day, and Zaos did the same. Fortunately, Cohnal greeted him with some good news the next day.

"Your plan worked, Captain," Cohnal said. "Late in the night, a messenger appeared, and he brought some information that made the commander pretty excited."

"Is that so… he isn't stupid, so he will connect the dots," Zaos said. "Still, we should act like nothing happened. While our actions might have improved the situation a little bit, not one likes a flashy newcomer. Anyway, let's train with everyone outside the base for a while longer. Until the real battle starts, we should make everyone sharpen their fangs."

  After dividing the group into three again, Zaos made melee fighters, archers, and mages spar against each other. While archers and the mages could cause too much damage while attacking, Zaos asked the archers to use melee weapons, and the mages used low-level spells like Earth Stone. Meanwhile, Zaos decided to train with the melee soldiers.

"I will join you guys today, so why don't we train some evasive maneuvers and your parrying skills?" Zaos asked.

Everyone wanted to see Zaos in action, but not like that, not to mention, Zaos's sword could break any normal-sized sword in pretty much a single strike. Thanks to that, no one volunteered.

"I guess I will take one for the team and break my sword again," Cohnal said.

Sparring against Cohnal would actually benefit Zaos more. Still, he didn't propose that to show that he was willing to spar with everyone. Regardless, even though Zaos was above him in terms of skill and speed, he still ended the spar with his bones and arm muscles aching all over.

Everyone found some partners to spar, but then Zaos noticed that Nyana was looking at him. It seemed that things were progressing very well with the mages.

"Is something wrong?" Zaos approached and then asked.

"Captain… This group knows each other quite well, and that is why we are having a hard time firing spells," Nyana said.

"I guess that is to be expected, but you didn't have to take my words at face value," Zaos said. "It is not like you are going to face an army of mages anytime soon, so you don't have to train to face other mages. Instead of attacking at the same time, you can divide into pairs, and the one focuses on using defensive spells like Magic Barrier and the other attack. The goal here is to improve your skills in one way or the other."

"That makes sense…" Nyana said.

"Don't feel obligated to follow every single one of my commands when it comes to training," Zaos said. "If you think you have a better way to improve your skills, focus on that. Still, you should strive to improve your skills every day because, from today onward, your lives depend on it."

The kids nodded, that was only obvious, but since they followed the teachings of someone for the last four years at magic school, they needed to hear that from someone's mouth.

"Hey, Zaos," Nyana's tone changed since she was whispering. "Can you show us that technique you used in the tournament?"

"Which technique?" Zaos frowned.

"The one that you fired a lightning bolt to the sky with your sword," Nyana replied. "Pretty much everyone here has been looking forward to seeing that again."

Zaos sighed… kids will be kids. They were treating one of Zaos's killing techniques like it was some kind of attraction. He could understand the appeal of an attack like that since few people could pull it off, still, wanting to see just out of curiosity was…

"Please?" Nyana asked.

"... All right," Zaos said after a long sigh.

  In the end, Zaos couldn't say no to his little sister. Besides, he could do a demonstration like that now and then to motivate his soldiers. It wasn't like there was some enemy nearby that could see his technique. Even if there were, they wouldn't be able to counter it. Only a mage with lighting reflexes would be able to pull that off.

Since Zaos would do it, he decided to make a good impression out of it. He chose a certain rock as a target and then drew his sword. After concentrating for a while, the sword became enveloped with electricity. With all his might, Zaos pointed the tip toward it and sent the energy flying. Zaos imagined that he would at least crack it. Still, as it turned out, the two meters wide rock actually exploded… small rocks flew around in the distance, and they even emitted some heat.

  After Zaos turned around, he saw that all his soldiers were looking at him. It seems that he will need to train their discipline a little bit.

"That was a good demonstration, right?" Zaos asked. "If you train hard, I might teach all of you how to do it."