After I made my contract with Diana, I started living a more exciting life than before. Because now, with Diana's help, she's helping me in controlling her powers and my quintessence. For real though, every single day, I get to see her naked whenever we're alone in the night, but I can't do anything to her which bothers me a lot—It pains me to say, but my urges to release all this frustration on my crotch has almost reached its own limits.

Right now, I'm outside trying to control my newly-founded powers. Concentrating gazing upon the branch of the tree, imagining myself relocating unto that place, I then scattered my quintessence around my body.

[Shifting Point]

In a blink of an eye, I'm standing at the branch of the tree with a smile on my face. A glance at my old spot, there's a violet mist emitting right there—It's a teleportation skill for evading and surprising enemies. I've been practicing it for about a week now. The success rate of this skill would be 20% if my math is correct. Yes, it sucks. But I've got no choice, it's really hard to do.

(You're quite getting used to it, Claude)

(Yeah, thanks, Diana.)

Diana started talking to me, through my mind as she's keeping herself within my soul to focus on creating her body. While I focus on my practice, she can still see everything I do outside that's why she's been helping me with almost everything.

It's only been a week since I got Diana. But, the rate of my progress drastically changed from my strength, speed, and everything. Although, I'm having a hard time holding back which is my primary problem right now. Clara and Master Irene haven't talked to me ever since that day, they kept ignoring me. And, it's been bothering me for quite some time now. Therefore, I just focused on training myself.

During all of that too, I started mulling over the goals and what I really wanted to accomplish in this world because every training and hard work I'm doing right now will be for naught if I don't have any goal in my life. I'm not an altruistic guy who wants to save everyone, but I'm a selfish guy who wants to do everything for my own selfish gains and satisfaction. In the end, I came up with my own answer.

I wanted to be a free person who could explore the world with my own eyes like the birds I saw flying outside the hospital window, freely exploring the world. I want to be like that. Spreading their wings, to explore various parts of the world with challenges that they need to overcome. It may sound like a cliche line for anyone, but that's what my desire is telling me to do, despite everything I can do like capturing beauties... Well, I can still do that while adventuring.

Anyway, I'm still waiting for Master Irene about that matter of me going on a journey, that she said last time. I have no clue anything about the outside world, as the old Claude is a noble who's naive about the outside world like me. But I remember that guild exists here, and I don't know what they do.

After my training, I'm quite sweaty, so I went into the mansion to take a bath. I went head inside the mansion, removed all my clothes, and soaked myself in the bathtub.

"Haah..."

"You've been training hard continuously for days now. Can't you just take a break?" Diana appeared above me floating, concerned about my well-being as her eyes worried-looking eyes are fixated on me.

"It's fine. I'm just excited to test new things out."

"If you say so..."

"Anyway, I've got a question."

"Yes? What is it?"

"Our souls became one, right? Does that mean we share the same power? And once you got your physical body, that means our power will be split in half?"

"Ahhh~! You're so cute when your hardest on trying to figure it out." Diana embraced me.

"So, what is it?"

"It's not simple as you think. You're the dominant soul and my soul is the auxiliary which means, you have complete control of everything while I'm on the side line supporting you. Think of it this way, I simply surrendered all my powers to you. Simple as that. I can still control a few of my powers, but not to the full extent of what you can. What's the reason? Your soul is way stronger than mine, that's why instead of forcing your soul to merge with mine; I simply became submissive and surrendered it for us to merge with each other. Souls are a complicated thing to understand. Even in Avalon, no one has ever fully understood the nature of our souls."

"I get it now... I thought we'll get to do fun things."

"Like naughty things? Fufufu~"

"And that one..."

I became tight-lipped after her last statement. Diana came to know me well, during these days, which scared the wits out of me. She immediately picked up my habits and other stuff. Likely because of our soul? It's a probability so, I can only guess for now.

Also, every morning, she would often have this dejected face whenever I see her first thing in the morning for the last few days. The reason? She doesn't tell me and said. 'I need to learn a lot of things and to satisfy you...' Then she would storm off by going inside me—I don't know what's going on in her head. It's been like that ever since I started living here; I got a feeling that I'm always horny all day for some reason but brimming with energy.

Afterward, I dried myself up and put a towel over my lower body. It's only been a week, but I saw drastic significant changes in my body, as I started getting quite taller because I grew 2 cm since last week from 165.34 to 167.56. And yes, I have a height measuring chart in my own bathroom—That's how obsessed I am about my height.

What's more, my pale white hair had some changes, as there are darkish purple streaks mixed with my white hair. At first, I thought it was from the shampoo. However, Diana explained to me that the reason for it was because of our merged soul. Honestly, I'm not even mad by it; I actually dig it.

Dressing myself up, I picked my usual clothes and went head down to eat dinner. However, an unexpected visitor caught my eyes, the last person whom I wanted to meet right now. Lily, the elven princess of Askar Kingdom, sitting alongside Master Irene and Clara at the dining table.

"Claude, you're here. May I introduce you to Lily Blanch, who'll be training with you from now on, and essentially your partner on the job I'm about to give you next year. You two have known each other, so take care of each other from now on." Master Irene said, smiling.

"Hello, Claude. Please take care of me from now on." Lily stood up and bowed respectfully.

"... Excuse me what?" I locked my gaze at Master Irene.

"What? I accepted Lily to be my disciple since she said she wanted to beat you, so I thought it's a better way for you to improve with each other by being rivals."

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And, why are letting in a murderer—! Oh, wait...

"Is this payback? Master? I don't know why you've been upset with these past days, but please, don't mess with me..."

"What?! Since when did I get upset with you?"

"Aren't you and Clara had been ignoring me these past few days?"

"A-A-Ah... T-That's..." Master Irene's eyes averted her gaze away from me. "... Don't worry about it."

"Huh?! Why not?!" Then I shifted my gaze on Clara and she only did the same as Master Irene.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I called out Diana.

(Diana.)

(Yes?)

(Have any idea why they're acting strange?)

Took a while, before Diana responded to me.

(I-I have no clue, Claude...)

Suspicious...

"Haah... So, why did you decide to pick up the princess, Master?"

Upon changing the topic, Master Irene went back to her usual self. "Of course, you need friends."

"Really now...? How thoughtful you are, Master Irene..." I said with a hint of sarcasm.

"Yep, that's let go eat now. You don't want to eat cold food, right? Let's go eat and sleep because I need you two to wake early in the morning for your lesson."

"What?! You're only teaching me right now?! I've been here for a year, but I've never been taught by you or Clara once! Where's the justice on that?!"

"No-no, you didn't understand the meaning of your sparring at all. If we went into basics, there's a chance you'll get absorbed in doing that, instead of honing your battle instincts and focus in battle. Plus, swinging your sword a thousand times is the basic of sword training."

"I fought Clara without any prior knowledge on fighting, footwork, and stances. And, I get blasted off every single time. Clara wouldn't even correct me and will just leave me on the flooring, gasping and grunting in pain—"

"Now, look at you. You can analyze the battle clearly while being calm and collected and you can fight head-on because you adapt."

"Not even correctly."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean it's not bad. Fighting instincts can't be honed by doing the basic sword swinging or stances all the time. You'll get too engrossed in perfecting it without taking any consideration that experiences are key factors too."

"But, what about the crucial parts of fighting?"

"You learned through understanding Clara's movement and why she does that, right? If you didn't make any progress, logically we'll stop and start your basic training; however, we didn't because you're showing signs of improving. "

"Yeah..."

"Every time you fought Clara, you learn how to use your keen eyes, and understood Clara's simple movements, yet delicate with clear intentions behind it. By doing so, you started getting progressively better as the day goes by. Am I right, Clara?"

Clara nodded.

"Okay then, let's eat and proceed on tomorrows lesson."