(Oct 13)

We ran for less then 5 minutes until we arrived back inside of the city walls and reached a large track field.

Cornelia was a lot faster than me and arrived earlier, but when I got there, Cornelia was already in a chair relaxing and waiting for me.

“Tsk tsk, that took you quite a while. You’re too slow. What happened to all that confidence from before?”

I wasn’t tired, but I was running as fast as I could and yet she was that much faster than I was.

The stronger I get, the more power I gain, the more I realize how large the gap between me, and A rankers are.

Becoming B rank from C rank was relatively difficult, but the gap between B and A ranked is even wider.

Then how wide is the gap between an A rank and S rank…?

Cornelia stood up from her chair and started stretching her body and warming up.

I could feel her magic aura surrounding her entire body and envelop her.

“Anthony, you are strong. In fact, you have more chakra and magic than I ever will due to your dragon essence.”

“More than you?!”

She nodded and explained.

“To be honest, I’m one of the weaker A ranked. I have very little magic and even you have more magic than I do. Because of that, I had to learn to use my limited magic efficiently. But in terms of actual power, I am quite lacking compared to you or any other A ranker.

Don’t get cocky though, I could whop your ass any day. Pure strength and power isn’t everything in battle, how you use your powers is just as important as having power and the fact I’m an A ranked while you are not, is proof of that.”

What she says makes sense.

But then it happened.

Suddenly, the air froze.

Cornelia lifted up a toothpick and pointed it at me… but all the magic in the area was being gathered into the toothpick Cornelia was holding.

I could visibly see the magic bursting from it, and it looked like the world was revolving around that single toothpick and space itself was bending around it.

I was so shocked that I took a step back. If I got stabbed by that toothpick, it would’ve torn a hole right through me.

But just as soon as it happened, it disappeared. All the magic I had felt just now, completely vanished and leaving only an ordinary toothpick in Cornelia hand.

“That was me simply gathering all my chakra and magic around me into the toothpick as a demonstration of what I can do.”

“B-bullshit! I’ve done it before, and it’s never been that powerful before!”

“Yea, because you suck. Your control over your magic is mediocre at best, you’re basically wasting your powers by not using them properly. You’re no different from a kid that accidently gained too much power.

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The reason the toothpick just now looked powerful was because I was able to properly gather all my energy into it without wasting any of it. When you do it, you release most of your dragon essence into the air and lose most of its original power.

I don’t mean to flex—actually I do—but my control over my own magic is one of the best in entire city. In fact, despite me being human and having chakra, my control is on par with fairies of my level.

Now… imagine you, with your dragon essence being able to control magic as well as me… that result would be amazing. You understand?”

Basically, I have lots of magic, but I can’t use it well and waste a lot of it.

Thinking back, whenever I used my dragon essence, it does tend to be quite unnecessarily explosive when unneeded. Like when I gathered all my dragon essence into my legs to run as fast as I could and boost myself forward, I tend to explode the ground underneath me which comes from releasing excessive amounts of dragon essence.

On the other hand, when Cornelia ran, I noticed she too had gathered her magic into her legs, but her magic was kept inside without being release and strengthening her speed while still not wasting any energy as well.

She ran nimbly but quickly while using a lot less magic than I do.

It’s true, I waste a lot of my own dragon essence when I try to use it.

Whenever I gather my dragon essence into my weapon.

Whenever I use dragon essence in my spells.

Whenever I boost my body with dragon essence.

I always waste most of my magic.

For example, let’s just say I had 100 magic.

A normal spell would cost around 10 magic.

But for me, when I use that spell, I use 50 magic instead. I waste around 40 of that magic and only 10 of it get used.

“So now that you understand, this will be your training. You could take it slow and meditate to slowly gain control of your magic and yada yada yada, but that’s fucking boring and takes too long. Instead, I’ll force you to gain control of your magic by putting it to the test and straining you constantly.”

Cornelia once again lifted her toothpick and poured a portion of her magic into it, not as much as before but still intimidating.

“When I count to three, run as fast and as far as you can, away from me.”

HM?

Run?

“1…”

“Wait, what do you mean?

“2…”

“Uh…”

“3”

I didn’t know for sure what was about to happen, but I wasn’t going to stick around to find out and I instantly bolted away as far from Cornelia as possible.

When I looked back, Cornelia has disappeared from her spot and appeared right next to me.

I could sense her magic moving but I wasn’t fast enough to react and with her magic infused toothpick, she stabbed me right into the rib.

It hurt a lot more than being punched due to the fact I was being stabbed with a literally magic toothpick with enough destructive force to destroy a boulder.

Of course, Cornelia was actually trying to kill me so she didn’t stab me all the way through but it still left a hole in the side of my rib, which I gathered a bit of my dragon essence to heal it quickly.

It still hurts now…

I was sent staggering back and it hurt like hell.

“I’m sorry about this Anthony, but William told me not to go easy on you. In fact, he told me to make you suffer as much as possible as it will lead to faster growth!”

Fuck you, William!

I will get you back for this!

I gathered my dragon essence into my legs and jumped back several meters away from Cornelia.

“Anthony! What did I just say?! You’re wasting too much magic!”

She zoomed in front of me and stabbed me three times before I could react. I decided to be serious and transformed my hands into dragon claws and then countered with my own attack.

Control my dragon essence.

I was chanting that inside of my head repeatedly.

I jumped at her as quick as I could and roared loudly as I threw my fist forward.

She simply dodged me, spun around in the air and then jumped onto my shoulder.

“That’s quite the powerful attack, but it’s meaningless if you can’t hit me. However, if you control your energy, it’ll be harder for me to predict your attack. Skilled fighters can predict your attack by looking at your magic flow and how it moves, but if you learn to control it, it’ll make it harder to predict.”

Cornelia casually gave a brief explanation while still standing on my shoulders until I punched at her to get her off.

Of course, I missed.

She did a backflip as she jumped off me and landed perfectly on her feet.

There was only one thing left for me to do when fighting someone like Cornelia, which was to…

RUN AWAY!!!!