At the crack of dawn, Evangelina made her way down the long stone staircase. Her boots echoed in the dark expanse of the passage, and theirs was the only sound that could be heard in the underground stillness.

She had taken the time to prepare a tight schedule for Verity, and she intended to abide by it. When she reached the entrance, she fixed her hair, and opened the walls leading to the training room.

“I hope that wasn’t too difficult, kid.” She said, her voice calling out to her disciple.

Verity stood in the center of the room, his spear still attached to his hand. He was covered in cuts and bruises, blood dripping from multiple wounds on his pale skin. His breathing was uneven, though not erratic, and he’d only gotten three hours or so of rest.

When he saw Evangelina, a proud grin tugged at the corner of his mouth and he barely managed to push out a sentence in between breaths. “Didn’t even… huff huff…. Break a sweat…”

Evangelina smirked. “Fascinating, your stamina’s risen again…” She said, narrowing her eyes. “What a ridiculous amount you have… Perhaps I should increase the intensity?”

Verity grimaced at the thought.

He had already understood that his stamina was better than most. During the battles with Doll, he had been too consumed by the fight to notice, but how could he not after spending an entire night defending against flying weapons?

During the night, he had even gained some insight into the ‘Stamina’ stat. More than simply delaying exhaustion, it also made his recovery much quicker. While it did not heal wounds or injuries, Verity found that within minutes, he could somewhat recover from hours of physical exertion.

Most surprisingly, it even reduced his basic needs, such as sleeping, eating, or drinking. It was as if his body could function indefinitely, almost making him feel undead.

Of course, the last part wasn’t that major. He was still a little hungry after training restlessly with no food or water since the last morning.

Verity wasn’t sure how he’d managed to fight Doll for so long without supplies, but dwelling on it would not give him answers.

As Verity stretched his sore body, Evangelina looked him up and down. “How many hours per day do you think others train, kid?”

Verity shrugged. He thought highly of warriors from fantasy stories, so he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Twelve hours?”

Evangelina scoffed. “Not even close. Four for most, six to eight for higher level warriors, and ten for the crazy ones, and that can lead to more harm than good without the proper stats and equipment.”

She then stepped forward, approaching Verity and carefully gripping the bulging muscles of his arm. “But you, I can almost see you recovering in real time… Even if you mistreat it, your body can handle it.”

Verity raised an eyebrow, a skeptical look on his face. “Are you justifying this insane training regimen?”

A fist flew toward his cranium, much too fast to avoid.

“Ouch!” Verity yelled, rubbing his head.

“There’s nothing insane about it.” She said sharply. “You need to realize your advantage. You can push yourself much more than anyone else. If we account for recovery time, days of rest…. What you do in a day might take others a week.”

Verity nodded absent mindedly. “Yeah… that’s prett-”

“But even that’s insufficient.” Evangelina continued as she crossed her arms. “With your talent….Against geniuses, a week , a month, or even a decade of extra training means nothing.”

‘Ouch’

Was he really that terrible? Verity thought he had been doing quite well.

Evangelina reached for Verity’s shoulder and pushed him to the ground. “In the time we have, we need to go further.”

She placed her hands on Verity’s back. “Close your eyes.” She instructed. “I’ll teach you the Aura circulation method for the seventh stance of the Nine Hells Spearman ship – Violence.”

Verity straightened. ‘That sounds so cool…but…’

“...Didn’t I learn the first stance just yesterday? If my talent is as bad as you say, then wouldn’t that overwhelm me…?” He asked.

Evangelina scoffed. “Yes, and usually, Aura circulation isn’t even taught before the fighting style is mastered, but here we are.” She began pouring her Aura into Verity’s body.

“You’ll have to do things in parallel if you want any hope of catching up, and if you aren’t good enough to do that, then I’ll just beat it into you so much it won’t matter.” She replied with a smirk.

As his master’s energy slowly coursed through him, Verity’s curiosity got the better of him. “So… why the seventh stance, and not the second?”

When she heard the question, Evangelina simply shrugged. “They’re not in order of difficulty, except for the last one. Violence is just the simplest after Limbo.”

“I see… So then I have seven more to learn after Violence?”

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Evangelina paused, and her tone suddenly grew colder. “No, six. I won’t teach you the last one.”

Before Verity could ask anything more, a rush of Aura poured into his extremities, and he felt a surge of power gathering.

Skillfully shifting the subject, Evangelina began her explanation. “Violence is just that, a stance based on violence. It is centered around short, but fast bursts of power meant to be decisive. Next to Anger, Violence is the stance with the highest offensive power.”

As she continued the process, a bead of sweat rolled down Evangelina’s face. Unlike mana, Aura was not meant to be a depletable resource. Forcefully emptying one’s own reserve to guide another’s Aura was a gargantuan task that required surgical control and incredible amounts of experience.

Though Evangelina made it seem easy, it was anything but.

After another hour or so, Evangelina had implanted into his body all that she could. So she took a deep breath, and instructed Verity to stand up.

“Attack me.” She ordered him.

It was blunt, but as she had said many times before, there was no time to waste. Hence, Verity raised his spear without protesting, a determined look on his face.

He paused for a moment.

Of course… there was no time to play around, but surely no one would blame him for this.

Now that he’d come this far… he had to say it.

Verity took a deep breath, tightened his grip around his spear, and his lips parted.

“Nine Hells Spearman ship, seventh stance….Violence!” He mumbled to himself, an uncontrollable grin forming on his face.

He really did feel cool, but as he pooled Aura to his arms, much less than attacking, Verity screamed and dropped his spear before he could even use the accumulated Aura. “AHH!!!”

Evangelina brushed a strand of hair backward and rolled her eyes. “That’s what you get for acting like a fool. Focus, kid.” She said coldly.

His arms were suffering, but Verity bit his lip and picked up his spear.

‘So much for that…’

It wasn’t hard to tell what he had done wrong. He’d allowed too much Aura to gather in his arms, causing some sort of backlash. If not talented, Verity was at least a decent thinker.

Once more, he gathered Aura to his arms, less, this time. The process was slower, more careful, but at least there was no pain.

Following what his master had taught just moments ago, Verity held the Aura in place, and he rushed toward Evangelina.

He definitely felt more powerful than he had before, to the point that he believed if he had used this against Doll, he would have beaten it much faster. Surely, even his master would have to defend against this properly, or so Verity thought.

Unsurprisingly, when Verity’s spear reached Evangelina, she sent him flying with a kick as if swatting a fly away.

Disappointed, she crossed her arms. “Are you made of glass? Do it again.”

Verity stood up, spitting droplets of blood. As Evangelina said, the amount of Aura Verity used was safer, but also much too low to be used for a proper attack.

‘Damnit…,You can do better than that man..’

Without uttering a word, Verity adjusted and tried again.

With more Aura than the second attempt, but less than the first, he flew toward his master with a downward swing of his spear.

This time, Evangelina’s heel dug into his side before he could even bring his spear down. Once more, he was repelled.

His timing was wrong. The Aura had already been depleted by the time he reached Evangelina, something that was common for combatants who were unfamiliar with circulating their Aura.

With a sigh, Evangelina lowered her stance. “Watch.” She said.

In a blur, she appeared before Verity. The poor young man believed he’d be struck without knowing what hit him, but against all odds, her next movement was easy to track, almost slow.

Verity had more than enough time to raise his spear and so he did, placing it in the way of Evangelina’s strike. However, as soon as her foot came into contact with it, it was almost as though an explosion of force took place.

BOOM

Verity crashed into a nearby wall and desperately gasped for air as he reeled from the impact. ‘I should thank the system for [Painkiller]....’

Evangelina stood over him. “Your turn.”

Verity grit his teeth. “Yes, Master!”

—

The suns had already fallen by now.

Evangelina planted her spear into the ground. “That’s enough.”

Verity fell to his knees.

Training with Aura was different than simply exerting himself physically, especially with Evangelina’s methods.

Using Violence was like torturing his own body again and again, and that was without counting the times he’d almost burst his own arms or feet open by using it clumsily.

His muscles burned, screamed in pain, and they would certainly take more time to recover from the abuse he’d put them through this time.

Assessing her disciple’s condition, a sharp exhale came from Evangelina. “A runt like you training with Aura for almost an entire day…ridiculous.”

She tossed him a pouch of water and another filled with nutrient pills. “I’ll give you half an hour to recover. In the meantime, I’ll get some tea.”

As she exited, Verity fell onto his back, not even touching the pouches he’d been given. ‘What I wouldn’t give for the food Thragnuk gave me…’ He thought nostalgically.

This was the perfect chance to resume his analysis of his status wind-

‘Screw that.’

It could wait. The status window wasn’t going to run away.

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Verity’s eyes widened. That was something he hadn’t heard in months.

‘And here I thought I hadn’t heard from you in a long time.’ He closed his eyes as he lay on the ground. ‘Got anything to say?’

It felt weird thinking that he was speaking so casually to what was probably some sort of god, or higher being, but Verity was too exhausted to consider that. ‘I have some time to chit-chat if you want.’

…

‘Guess not.’

Even though she hadn't made her presence known in quite some time before that, Verity was not too concerned. Who knew what Vera was up to. In the first place, applying his own logic to her actions was pointless. She’d talk when she felt like it.

With a sigh, Verity strained himself and he reached for the pouches of water and food. In any normal conditions, he’d have devoured the contents, but he was much too tired. Plus, nutrient pills didn’t taste like anything, something he’d learned in the two months with Doll.

‘Shouldn’t a noble have all the food she could ever want? Why is this the only thing she eats…?’ He thought as he flicked a pill into his mouth.

“Are you ready?!” A voice echoed from the entrance

Very straightened. “It hasn’t even been ten minutes!!”

A smirk formed on Evangelina’s lips. “Seeing how full of energy you are, looks like it was more than enough.”

Before he could react, Evangelina had already grabbed his waist. “We’re going out.”

And they vanished from the training room.

They traveled a long distance, traversing multiple sceneries Verity did not recognize. Though, in all fairness, they were going much too fast for Verity to recognize anything.

When they finally reached their destination, a flat mountain peak with a small wooden fortress standing in its center, Evangelina threw him to the ground.

Verity groaned as he stood up, and tried to hold back what he’d eaten. “...Should I ask why we’re here?”

Evangelina pointed to the wooden fortress. “Over there resides an especially vicious local bandit group. You have the entire night to take care of them.”

Verity blinked. “....What?”

She tossed him a mask. “Ah, put this on.”

Then, she picked him up, and launched him toward the flimsy gates where two bandits were standing guard.

Unsurprisingly, Verity crashing into the ground near them attracted their attention, and a wide-eared bandit was the first to lay his eyes on him as the dust cleared.

“...The hell?”