He felt like a pair of loose shoes tumbling around in the dryer on max power. Whenever he was finally starting to make heads and tails of himself, he was forcefully sent flying in another direction and faced with even more pain than before.

He had no choice other than to give up on any hopes of dodging her onslaught. She was keeping the pressure on him, giving him no room to even breathe, and he knew that he didn’t have the ability to escape with any conventional means.

So he took another approach. He gave up his futile resistance and shifted his focus to preparing himself for her next attack. He knew it was coming, and he knew it wouldn’t kill him. He couldn’t avoid it, but he could take advantage of his circumstances to the best of his ability.

When her fist made contact with his stomach for what felt like the 80th time, he grabbed her wrist with all of his might and pulled himself in toward her so that he could slam his own forehead against hers. The counter attack rocked his brain inside of his head, definitely giving him a concussion, and even split his forehead open a little bit to allow golden blood to trickle down his brown skin.

Juno’s face carried a mixture of what Amon assumed to be surprise and happiness. The attack didn’t hurt her at all, but it definitely threw her off of her rhythm. Or, at least, he felt like it did. Something in the back of his head told him that she could’ve done a million things to render his retaliation moot, but she simply chose to let him have it to boost his confidence. If that was the case, though, she definitely succeeded.

“Good job, little brother. We’ll end the spar here. You need some foundations so I’ll pass my martial arts on to you. My fighting style is an overwhelming one that gives the enemy virtually no room to think because of the constant onslaught, and the main forces behind it are momentum and control.”

“That’ll be good for me, I recently got an ability that allows me to teleport small distances.”

“Oh, that’s why the Blood Lotus hates you?” asked his sister with a knowing smile. “Good job taking their progenitor’s signature technique, it was tricky to kill him because of that.”

He wasn’t stunned to hear that she was the one that killed such a legendary figure, but he was a little surprised to know that she was alive in his time. He’d assumed that the man died hundreds if not thousands of years ago, but Juno looked like she was in her mid 20’s. Was it because she was a dragon, or was it just a magic thing?

“You’ll be able to better put it to use than he ever could. Your vestibular system is different from a human’s so your equilibrium is impeccable. Take advantage of that.”

He hadn’t paid it any mind, but now that she mentioned it, he definitely didn’t even feel slightly dizzy. At first, this void space was disorienting because he simply wasn’t accustomed to not having a proper sense of up and down, but after being smacked around by her he was starting to understand why she chose a place like this to train.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“You can’t use the skill while we’re training, though.” She sat down, the platforms that came into existence in response to their subconscious creating a seat for her. Her feet dangled over nothingness as she created a baseball sized golden orb in the air between them. “Your first task is to catch this.”

There wasn’t anything else said once he was given his instructions. He didn’t have any questions, seeing as it was a simple goal, so he reached out to grab the orb. It zipped away once he got close enough to it.

He knew it was never going to be an easy job.

If this is martial arts training, what is being trained here? My endurance? My ability to read my opponent?

He started off slow since he didn’t want to tire himself out before he devised a plan. At first, he jogged after it. It maintained a steady distance away from him, even when he gradually began to pick up speed until he was in a full sprint. It was just as fast as him, if not faster.

He thought back to what Juno had told him. Momentum was one of the main forces behind her fighting style, so this must have been training for him to develop that. He stopped dead in his tracks and the wisp followed suit. He knew it was just a ball of mana, so it didn’t have the same muscles that he had to take advantage of.

He gathered up tension in his legs, being careful not to apply any mana unknowingly so that he wouldn’t accidentally activate his Burst skill, then shot forward in a sudden lunge at the orb. He was able to close some of the distance between the two of them, but he still wasn’t close enough to grab it.

Once he came to a stop, he revised his plan. The beginning of it was mostly the same, but this time he didn’t jump directly at the wisp. No, instead he jumped at nothing and willed a platform to materialize in the empty space to the right of the wisp in front of him. He twisted his body in the air as he did so, causing his entire view of the world he was in to shift in the process. What was once down to him was now on his left, and what would’ve been the wall to his right was his floor.

This didn’t even disorient him. He landed on his new ground like a spring, absorbing the impact in his legs while also building even more attention and bouncing off of the ground to shoot at the wisp much faster than he previously had.

He missed again, but this time he didn’t allow that to stop him. If one rotation wasn’t enough, he’d just add another. Instead of hitting the ground and resetting, he twisted his body in the air and built up his momentum while the world spun continuously around him.

He was jumping at nothing in particular, intentionally avoiding the wisp while he built up his speed. In his eyes, though? He felt like he saw something more than the infinite nothingness that he was inside of. It was almost like an obstacle course. Or a trampoline park.

Wait a minute.

He had been imagining a solid ground, but what if it wasn’t? He envisioned something more elastic and, just like he imagined, the floor became something closer to a trampoline. This boosted his already substantial speed exponentially and allowed him to catch the wisp. Once he had it in his grasp, he skidded to a halt and turned to find Juno.

To him, it looked like she was upside down and slightly diagonal in the air and defying gravity while she sat.

“You did that much faster than I anticipated, little brother. You may just be Mother’s most naturally gifted child.”

He smiled, happy to receive the praise from her. He felt like he was amazing, but to have it confirmed by someone else was always a pleasant feeling. Especially when they were as powerful and prominent as Juno was.

“Thank you, eldest sister. What’s next?”

“Catch it again. It’ll be faster this time. Also,” the wisp shot out of his hand and split into two. Somehow, it didn’t get any smaller. “You have to catch them both within five seconds of each other.”

He nodded with determination and prepared himself.