We decided to let a different one of my tamed beasts spar with me, and it didn't go well.

Khan was next. Killing any of his bodies would activate [In Passing], triggering additional damage against his next target. I'll have to be smart with how I deal with him.

Khan isn't smart enough to pull his punches, he'll stop if I command him to, but there is no in-between for this guy. Khan will try to kill and eat me, maybe not in that order, until I tell him my metaphorical safe word. He probably won't be angry when he does so, meaning that he won't be at full strength. Regardless.

Plus, Khan can't really train beyond leveling his skills. He's a shark. He only attacks with instincts or with direct instructions. If I average his intelligence among all of his bodies, it's pitifully low. I don't know if that's how his stats work, but I digress.

Instead of sparring, I'd have to stand around and let the hundred twelve-foot sharks take a bite out of me, one at a time, hoping that chunks don't fall out.

Less of a sparring montage and a masochistic one. I'm actually going to skip Khan until last.

Yeah, sparing against Flash Gordon has its own issues. He's as lazy as a rock and won't take sparring seriously. Maybe it's beneath him. I don't know. Having him smash against my flesh to increase resistance or level skills is probably the best bet. I can almost train every resistance with Flash Gordon as well. He's just the best.

I look at Duchess. She looks back at me.

[Do you weigh less than 312 pounds?]

"Probably. I might have become heavier thanks to my training, but I'm not that dense yet."

She unceremoniously flings me as far away from her as she can. I travel over six hundred feet from her before I felt her telekinetic grasp let me go. I tumble against the grass until I find footing with my magic boots. They allow me to walk on any surface, but that doesn't mean they stick me to the ground like a dart to a pinboard.

Once I was upright and sliding to a halt, I got blasted with multiple rays. They deal no damage but would've hurt without my resistance being boosted by [Iron Hide]. They stop coming once their effectiveness is shown.

Duchess is up in the air. Her beautiful scales shine and shimmer. Her feathers get brighter as she casts spells. What to do now? I whistle to try and get her next to me, but she rejects the summon. I guess she can do that now.

I ran towards her, but once I was within her effective range for her [Telekinesis], I got flung up into the air. I smack against an invisible barrier I never knew was there before getting spiked back into the ground.

I dust myself off. Duchess can't keep handling me like this since this should be draining her mana.

Shimmering walls surround me and attempt to crush or constrain me in place. I crush the flimsy light constructs with one hand. I can see Duchess thinking about this. She's using me as a focus for her tests.

I could do the same, but my quires involve my healing skill. Healing the opponent mid-spar might be seen as good sportsmanship, but I don't think Duchess would let me near her. She would if I told her my intentions, but we wouldn't be sparing anymore. 'More like a mutual science experiments.

I don't think she can read my mind at this distance.

I look up at Duchess, but some things are a bit off. I look behind me and see a pair of giant eyes surrounded by glistening scales. Something pulls on my mind, but my mind is steadfast.

Then my mind gets bombarded with useless information. Mathematical formulas, every city I've ever heard of, grammar lessons from different languages. Concepts of magic, conspiracy theories, false numbers, made-up words, emotions, etc.

It's hard to filter out the bombardment and distinguish what's a thought of mine and what's not. I should give up. Was that me? Probably not. Was that one me? Who knows.

Another tug on my mind. It's harder to fight against while ignoring the thoughts. The illusion of Duchess above me shatters, and the floating pair of eyes shimmer until the real Duchess is revealed.

I throw my bone sword at her but miss completely, thanks to the mental bombardment. I run at her, but she takes to the skies. I [Battered Bones] and break my legs and jump after her, only to get telekinetically redirected away from her.

I use my ring's [Bramble Blade] to conjure a thorny vine and fling it at Duchess in a last-ditch effort to latch on. A shimmering construct of light appears in the way, but the whip-like vine shatters straight through it.

The thorns half-wrap and half-dig into her scales, attaching me to her. Before I could pull myself closer, she bombards the vine with her [Breath Weapon]. I fall from the sky and land harshly on the ground.

I thought I was practically immune to fall damage at this point. I landed on my pelvis weirdly, and now my hip hurts. The pieces of information stop as Duchess lands next to me.

[Thisss one ran out of mana except for the spare thisss one keeps in reserve for communication. Thisss one didn't make you surrender, so thisss one submits.]

I stretch my legs and arms out, letting the grass indent overtake me.

"Fighting a mage is annoying."

[Fighting someone tenacious is annoying.]

"I'll think of some anti-mage maneuvers, and you'll think of means of penetrating defenses or elemental resistances. You didn't use your wind magic at all, either."

[Useless at this stage, and thisss one believes that the simple element of wind is outclassed by the complexity of light and mental magics.]

"Maybe find a way to use it, like make yourself faster or make barriers stronger by adding a wind wall.

Eventually, creating storms with just a thought could be cool."

[The shark can already do that.]

"Take notes or something. Speaking of. How are those grimoires I gave you way back when treating you?"

[One was useless to a non-human like thisss one mentioned. Thisss one used the other two to boost thisss one's knowledge, but thisss one would require more. Perhaps thisss one could utilize the fire tome more since thisss one's affinity grew from the evolution. But thisss one wants to level all thisss one's magic to thisss one's current ranking first.]

"Conversations would go twice as fast if you used self pronouns while talking."

[Perhaps.]

I got my combat experience for the day, so I let my beast wail on me as "training." The day I get a title for this behavior is also the day I adopt alternative means of getting stronger.

I've read the books master Wang gave me front to back multiple times, regardless that it was uploaded directly to my brain. The effects of the art have created their toll on my body. One of which is even pumping in my chest.

After filtering the trash and useless skills, I'm down to four more skills in the manual. Most skills are just different flavors, so taking them wouldn't be worthwhile. One skill is like [Battered Bones] but just for the legs. They don't stack with each other, so it's a worse skill than I already have.

One skill in the discard pile is dubbed the [Broken Fist], which is also master Wang's moniker. Its description is brief, and at first glance, it's like the leg example for [Battered Bones]. Either master Wang didn't want me to have the skill he was named for, or he gave me a better/well-rounded version of the ability. 'Could be both, could be neither.

The four skills are two passives and two actives. [Broken Mind], [Shattered Soul], [Dig Deep], and [Traumatism]. These four are the most difficult to learn but the best skills left in the manual. The one master Wang loosely told me to aim for is [Dig Deep] since that's practically the only healing skill.

It's a modified version of a commonly known warrior skill dubbed "[Second Wind]" that gives them a brief respite and some self-healing from battlefield wounds. It's a must-get for front liners or duelers since it can lend a new surge of energy.

[Dig Deep] differs as the other skill only stimulates that feeling while triggering the natural healing of the warrior to quicken. [Dig Deep] will lend my future health and well-being to completely refresh me. Mana, my health bar, skills, abilities, almost everything.

When I mention "lend," I don't mean that the skill will come knocking once I'm already old and feeble. Immediately after my body exits a combat state, the martial ability will start collecting. It could kill me, it could just send me to have to recover for a while, or it could do nothing. I'm resistant to becoming exhausted, after all.

[Traumatism] is my capstone skill. To start learning it, I need to complete a precise understanding of my body. Genetics, hormone levels, the number of blood cells, everything. I should be able to identify the cell replicating by name and number before starting. Stringent conditions, but without that knowledge, I could instantly kill myself. 'Apparently.

I don't know what the skill does or the steps after that. Some poetry at the end summarized to "you will know when the time comes" or "ask your master."

I hope I'll know when the time comes since I'd prefer not to ask master wang.

'Back on topic. With [Dig Deep], I might really be unkillable. I max out my health bar in 200 seconds thanks to the [Second Heart] beating in my chest. I can heal wounds quite efficiently as well. But, [Dig Deep] will be valuable in combat when I'm all tuckered out on resources, even with the drawbacks.

First, I'll need to locate my life force. I'm over halfway there, thanks to my stat prestige. I wanted to fight or get injured to stimulate it while meditating.

~

I spent a week doing nothing but getting hurt, spamming my skills, and sparring. I put my hand out and stopped my beasts from attacking. I'm this* close to grasping my life force, but I want a break.

[Resistance: Slashing 520 > 699 (799)]

[Resistance: Piercing 465 > 699 (799)]

[Resistance: Ice 250 > 499 (599)]

[Resistance: Acid 200 > 499 (599)]

[Resistance: Lightning 310 > 699 (799)]

[Resistance: Radiant 200 > 499 (599)]

[Resistance: Necrotic 89 > 499 (599)]

[Resistance: Mental 243 > 260]

It was the worse period of training I ever went through. I didn't have Duchess train my mental resistance. It just grew on its own.

Khan bit me or used his augmented elemental attacks on me until they reached a level where they still hurt but wouldn't grow anymore. I lost pounds of flesh. I lost gallons of blood. Getting eaten alive slowly over a week got numb after the first few days, but it wasn't fun.

The rest of my resistances, barring mental, was thanks to Flash Gordon. He'd bash my flesh with necrotic energy until the flesh died and peeled away. He'd hit my exposed meat with frost so cold it froze my blood vessels and caused a different kind of necrosis. Once my skin grew back, he'd melt the new skin until it slopped off.

The ground around me is drenched in blood. Scraps of missed flesh litter the land like confetti. I wanted to stop after the first hour, but that thought changed once I saw the first set of resistance changes. I gave in. I was too weak in a different manner of speaking.

My gui is once again stained with so much blood it turned black. I clean my body and leave the mansion, hoping that master Giles is back since I'll volunteer to sit through another week of training otherwise.

[Master, thisss one managed to learn another spell.]

Please talk to me later.