For the past few years, Modus had been sending Will opponents in the form of beasts almost every day. Modus had not revealed himself to Will, and no matter how much Will asked he never got a response. They were all E+ and all quite powerful. Will had nearly been caught by the jaws of death quite a few times already.

At first, he had been quite reliant on bloodlust and radiant energy. Healing himself from life-threatening wounds every day. However, as his experience and yuan increased in quality so did his ability. Assuming a year has four seasons; Will estimated that it had been at least six seasons since he had last used bloodlust and three seasons since he had last used radiant energy.

Although he didn't need bloodlust Will still got injured, even till today, however, he wanted to avoid relying on the crutch that was radiant energy knowing he could heal himself from nearly any injury made Will careless in battle. Will did not want himself to get used to such a style of battle.

After all, his current objective was to achieve a perfect technique. If he got himself injured during the process, then it was a sign that he still had a long way to go, thus in order to motivate him to improve his movement skill

Will put a ban on the use of radiant energy.

This made his following battles much more difficult, because not only could he not fearlessly accept certain attacks, he would have to fight again the next day so he had to minimize his injuries as much as possible.

This somewhat Spartan training made Will improve by quite a bit. Not only his movement technique, but it also improved his ability to judge his opponents. Now to avoid further Injury, Will had to properly size up his enemies and choose the proper strategy to deal with them accordingly. With his Dual Mind skill, this was not too difficult to achieve even though

Will had no teacher.

This winter was also a milestone for Will because it was the first season in which he was able to escape from every battle without a single scratch. Will estimated that the season was almost up, so once it was over it would definitely signify that he had improved by quite a bit.

After defeating the Lion Snake Will continued his drills. As usual, he did not clear up the corpse and let the smell of blood permeated the air. Now, Will had gotten used to this and it was normal for him. He would only take care of the corpses once they started to disturb his practice by bringing flies and such.

As Will swung his sword continuously, numerous thoughts ran through his head. Such as when he would be able to perform his first true strike. Will believes that his technique was good enough. As for qi he had no clue how to bring it out of his body. After all the SSS manual was made for people who already had a rudimentary understanding of such matters. Will only knew the basics of the basics which Modus had graciously handed down to him.

The manual explained nothing about how to bring out qi and how to implement it. Not to mention Will was a person who had yuan, not qi. He hadn't the slightest idea how to separate yuan into qi and mana. Not to mention if they could be separated.

Sword intent was much easier for Will to understand. Apparently, it was a concept similar to bloodlust in that it was the conceptualization of will itself. Bloodlust had something to do with someone's desire to kill; Will was quite familiar with this because whenever he used bloodlust the urge to kill would flood his body like a never-ending wave.

So if sword intent works on the same concept, then what kind of feeling does it require? Do I have to imagine myself as a sword? Or maybe it's that whole one with the sword thing?

Will had scratched his head in thought many a time over, however, in the SSS manual, it expressly stated that some things could not he learned outside a life and death battle. So Will had hoped inspiration would hit him during one of his battles.

In some difficult battles, he felt like the feeling was on the tip of his tongue. It felt as if it was right in front of him but yet somehow out of his reach. The moment the battles finished the feeling would vanish into thin air, disappearing as quickly as it came.

As a result, Will would just go back to doing his drills and cultivating. While attempting to decipher the ridiculously hard to understand manual in his mind. Such was the current predicament the young man faced.

His only joy came from the fact that he was most likely going to finish the season without getting a single injury. Little did he know that a curveball was coming straight his way.

A day after his battle with the Lion Snake Will was once more doing his drills. Then a loud screech suddenly entered his eyes. This was without a doubt the sound of a bird.

When will looked up, he couldn't help but frown. A large bird that looked like a hawk made out of volcanic rock headed straight for Will at breakneck speeds. Red magma veins covered the creature's body. It looked like a giant airplane and it was headed straight for Will. Oddly enough it was covered in what seemed to be a mane of flames on its neck with its wings covered in fire.

[Helios Warhawk: A messenger of doom toward most creatures, it has incredible speeds and near impenetrable defense. Feeds on water-type creatures and has long range fire attacks. Is one of the rulers of the E rating and is the strongest E+ creature within the skies.

Rating: E+

Class: Sector Boss (Multiple)]