Miles arrived at the palace-like-looking mansion. It was at the opposite side of the capital from where Cross Mansion was, so Miles had never been in this area. The palace was quite famous actually and many influential families lived around here. One of which was the Lemaze family. As far as Miles knew, Holmes, Orril, and Kai families also lived there.
“Welcome to the Mus Mansion.” Hassan invited him in. The interior of the mansion was as luxurious as one could predict. There were expensive-looking rugs, some famous paintings Miles could swear he had seen before, and crystal housewares.
“Nice place.” Miles praised.
“Haha, my mother loves shiny things.” Hassan laughed awkwardly. “Let’s go to the training room.”
The interior of the house was gigantic. The first floor was a living room on its own, and there were stairs to the underground. There, there were several rooms. Hassan led them to a room at the end, which was a fortified training room.
Miles looked at the 200 meters square room with 4 meters height. It was big enough to fight for people of their powers. Of course, this distance wasn’t worthy of note for higher-tier people. After all, his father, for example, could step from one end of the room to another in less than a second.
Hassan walked to one side and touched lightly. A closet opened behind the wall filled with many weapons. Be it real weapons or just their wooden counterparts. “You can use any weapon you like, and behind that wall, there are practice uniforms.” He pointed to the opposite wall. Each picked a set of gear to don them, except Hassan. He was weaker than anyone in the room without superpowers, so he wouldn’t be joining them for the day.
“Alright, how do you wanna practice? 2 v 1 or 1 v1?” Miles asked.
“Let’s go 1 v 1 first, if we can’t cope, we will attack you together,” Suchiru said. He was a lazy person when he was stronger but proud and competitive when weaker. He didn’t like to bully the weak, so would mostly avoid fighting, but now that he was on the weaker side, his eyes were sharp.
“Alright, come at me.” Miles wanted to add ‘bro’ at the end of the sentence but decided not to. Suchiru dashed to Miles with a sudden shot. The distance between them was short, but Miles had great reflexes thanks to his physical fighting experience unlike people with the superpower. People with superpowers relied on their powers, so wasn’t as practiced as Miles when it came to hand-to-hand combat.
The punch traveling to his ribcage was stopped by Miles’s hand, and he touched Suchiru's forehead lightly. Suchiru looked at Miles, like looking at a monster. He wasn’t weak even before using the first serum and had capped his potential. But he wasn’t allowed to use the serum before awakening energy.
And now he topped the first serum as well and could be said to be a monster among humans. He was twice faster and stronger than the fastest and strongest person before the invasion. But his, in his opinion, monstrous fist, swatted away like a pest with Miles's halfhearted swing of his hand. And Miles was able to touch his forehead without he even realizing it. If Miles wanted, he could easily punch his head and injure him greatly.
“You are a monster!” Suchiru said with a smirk.
“Thanks.” Miles accepted the praise. He was already beyond the second serum, so he was a lot faster and stronger than Suchiru. Without his superpower, it was like an adult bullying a child. “So, 2 v 1?”
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“Yeah, it seems like it is only fair if we come at you together, of course, that is when we are not using Energy.” Sina also stood against Miles and looked at him carefully. He was an assassin, so his mannerism was as such.
As an assassin master, he was used to observing and stalking his prey to find an opening and finish them in one attack. So, Miles could see his brain computing pretty fast to find a flaw to exploit.
‘He is good.’ Miles thought to himself.
Miles wasn’t unfamiliar with assassination arts. He was weak when he was small because of his lack of superpower, so most of the time he would prey on his targets when he was last expected. He didn’t have any other choice, so he had great instincts when it came to the assassination.
Carl once said, he could hardly feel his presence when they were together, but that was a disadvantage too. Similar to how Miles felt that Sina was an assassin as soon as they met. It was thanks to his umpteen battles, but there were many people with equal or more experience. Every soldier stepping foot into the battlefield had at least some sort of perception, so having the mannerism of an assassin was a downside as well.
It was like a dark spot in white canvas. An assassin’s absence would be felt in the picture by trained eyes.
After Carl said that, Miles worked hard to change his mannerism, so he would be the perfect assassin. An assassin, without giving the deadly feeling. He never achieved that, but he would get there at some point in time.
Suchiru once again attacked him, and Sina was behind Kai running to Miles. He was hiding behind Kai with great mastery, and normal people could hardly see him. Unfortunately, he was against Miles this time. When Suchiru arrived, he aimed at his chest once again.
When attacking a stronger and faster target, aiming the biggest part was essential. Otherwise, the chance of dodging the attack would be bigger. Miles grabbed the Suchiru’s ankle this time, and by controlling his strength to its utmost, he twirled him around himself. Sina at this time appeared out of nowhere and his open palm was aiming at Miles's neck.
“Great stuff!” Miles laughed and threw Suchiru to Sina. Because of his flying ally, Sina could only cancel the attack, and try again. Suchiru also found his footing and prepared to attack once again. This time, they chose to curtain each other by screening each other by traversing and approaching Miles. He pretty much figured out their aim with a glance.
As he expected, Sina was the first to arrive this time, and his fingers were pointing at his head. Miles punched the assassin’s fingers, which were like a piece of the dagger, and clashed with his sharp fingers. Unfortunately for Sina, Miles's bones and muscles were much harder so he could only cry in pain while backing down.
While they were clashing, Suchiru appeared behind Miles to grab his body. He wanted to throw Miles back to the ground, but after circling his arms around Miles, he couldn’t even lift him. It wasn’t anything about weight, but footing. Miles wasn’t easy to push or lift.
Miles grabbed Suchiru’s arms and threw him in front of him instead. Suchiru Kai crashed onto the ground with great impact and vomited foam.
“Not good enough.” Miles shook his head. They were too used to their masteries and powers so couldn’t fight at all. Compared to them, Merlin was a fighting artist despite having one of the strongest superpowers. This was the difference of upbringing. Cross Family would never neglect physical training.
Miles left the Mus Mansion at night with new experiences and payment of the day. He practiced with Suchiru and Sina for close to 6 hours and earned 600k UD which was a great payment and scheduled another fight for the next week. The Grader Competition was closing and they were also eager to try their hands.
Miles was also expecting to fight in the competition, but unfortunately, he wasn’t able to make it to the top tier. He had just used the third serum and he was far from the peak of it for the time being. So he could only pass for the year. He would probably be in F-Tier for the next competition, and wouldn’t be able to reach the peak of it for the next one either, so he would miss the competition again.
“Bad timing! I guess I am not a protagonist destined to come upon every tournament and win them by fluke.” Miles sighed to himself.