Coming to an enlightenment, her spiritual energy underwent an expansion. It's level started increasing rapidly. The life energy inside Janna's body started to become frenzied. Carrying with it mana. Uncontrollably raving into every bone and muscle fiber in her body. Into spots where there was previously never any mana.

Unlike mages who required hours to understand the next level of concept in their study of magic when going up a rank, martial artists go up ranks in a matter of minutes. Some even taking less than a minute.

It was a fundamental difference in the way they used mana. Mages stored mana in their body to use outside of their body later. Martial artists absorbed the mana as they trained their body daily. And use it to strengthen their body.

Mages have to realize the concept of mana to store more mana of higher purity. Until they can store the purest form of mana of nature.

For martial artists, the physical body becomes stronger gradually because of repeated training and absorption of mana. But before going up ranks and crossing the threshold to a next level, they hit a wall that prevents further progress.

People will spend their whole lives stuck in front of this wall, like a poor man looking at a mansion's steel gate. Able to look through the gaps in the main gate to the mansion on the other side but never being able to step inside. Many people hit their peak at these walls.

It requires a strong push to step into the next level. All the accumulated effort from training doesn't just go away though, it gets released like a dam and comes rushing in.

It was mostly related to the level of spiritual energy. In fact, spiritual energy was the key to developing further. It was the measurement of a person's soul. Some factors like how fulfilling their life is, their desires, passion, mind, will and overall emotions determined it's level. But it wasn't really understood.

But what was known was that it only took a moment to gain new heights in spiritual energy. A moment of peace. A moment of despair. A moment of strong emotions.

Janna had come to the enlightenment that she wanted to protect the happiness of the villagers, not just the people and houses. Her spiritual energy followed suit and expanded. She was now nearing the level of four star martial artist. The same as Jeanne.

Starting from her abdomen, a dark blue color aura started to emerge. It was different from the red aura she used to fight against demons before. The red aura before was murky and dark. It was the body strengthening magic of Thea that made the majority of bright red color before. It hid the murky dark red aura Janna had with the clean bright red magic.

Now the aura was turning a deep blue color like the deep ocean. Or a dark metal. This suited Janna's black hair and silver eyes much nicer. It also radiated with it a sense of strength and spirit like the vast ocean. It weighed down on the people around Janna.

"This?"

Janna felt the change in her body. It felt like she had been reborn. Her breath felt sharper. Her hand holding the sword felt firmer. Her head felt clearer. Her body was flowing with vigor and vitality. It was a wonderful transformation.

It felt like this transformation would only continue for the next few minutes.

"Now I feel like I can win."

Janna gripped her sword tighter and looked at Jeanne who was in shock.

"...you reached four star?"

"I did, thanks to you."

"Then...I will now fight you with my true power."

As Jeanne said that, she put her longsword to her side. Being held with both hands, the blade tip was pointing at Janna.

"Blade of red fire."

Starting from the guard, a red veil covered Jeanne's longsword. Slightly fluttering upwards like fire. But it was mostly a condensed red layer on top her longsword.

It released a wave of heat outwards. Clearly it was high in temperature.

"Fire cover."

A red shine also covered Jeanne. It covered her armor and her entire physical body. The ground was getting slightly charred by the aura covering her. The air around her was getting warmed up by the release of energy.

"I will fight you with my full power too."

Janna took a similar stance as Jeanne. But there was no special technique that she knew. However, when she channeled her life energy to her blade to put her aura around it. She could feel an effect created by the aura on the blade.

But she wasn't sure what it was. It was her first time using this new aura she had just acquired after all. But it was surely a good effect.

"Here I come!"

Jeanne shouted and stabbed her sword forward. A blade of red fire went forward at Janna.

"Hah!"

A sound of something tearing into flesh and a sound of sizzling. The side of Janna's stomach was stabbed by Jeanne. The blade had been too fast for Janna to fully dodge it time.

The damage had been reduced by a lot as Janna had become stronger through reaching four star rank. But the blade was made using a technique. And without a defensive technique of her own, the blade did a ton of damage. Or it should have.

Janna had instinctively covered her body in the deep blue aura. It acted as a barrier around her body. Strengthening the defensive capabilities of her skin. She was able to counter most of the damage by consuming the aura.

Jeanne continued to stab and swing her longsword at Janna. Aiming to seriously injure her and win the fight.

After ten attacks from Jeanne, Janna started to become familiar with the speed of her burning sword.

"Wave of red."

Jeanne did a slash movement in a half circle towards Janna. A red burning wave flew out from her sword and attacked Janna. A special technique that focused the power of the sword for a moment and shot out a condensed wave of fire towards a target.

Feeling the danger in the wave, Janna knew she had to do something to dodge the attack. She focused her aura to her legs and jumped. She was able to jump to a height of one and half meters. Avoiding the wave of fire.

But this was concerning for Janna. All she had been doing was trying to dodge and avoid as much damage from Jeanne's fast strikes. She hadn't had a chance to counter attack.

And even if she did succeed in connecting a attack, there was no guarantee it would help in turning the battle. She had to come up with a better way to fight.

"Right!"

Janna realized that she had something that could help. In a lesson from Rennet, he had explained to Janna how to correctly use aura.

"Aura is a manifestation of your life energy."

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Janna was barely paying attention at the time because she was tired from sitting in one spot for hours and channeling the mana according to the Berserk King's method.

"Listen!"

A fist to Janna's head from Rennet.

"Ow! Why did you do that?!"

"Because you're not paying attention."

Janna had nothing to say back to him.

"As I was explaining, life energy can temporarily be used to enhance parts of your body. For example, if you focus it in your feet, you'll be able to jump twice your usual jump height."

"I already know that...wait, did you say twice the height?"

"With a complete aura, it is possible to do so. But with your incomplete aura, you're probably showing a ten to twenty percent increase, aren't you?"

And then it became session of Rennet laughing at Janna for not being able to use true aura. And Janna boiling with anger and annoyance.

But Rennet did teach her some things.

Just now, Janna had instinctively focused her aura to her legs and jumped a height of one and a half meter. This was an increase to what she could do before by a lot. It was also the result of reaching four stars.

Janna could feel it. If she focused her aura to her legs, using all of it at once, she might be able to jump to two meters.

What was more important was that this could also be applied to her other body parts. She started to focus her aura around her eyes.

It seemed like Jeanne had slowed down a bit. It was what Janna needed. Some time and space to move around. Time to counter-attack. And space to avoid taking damage.

The battle started to take a turn. Less of Jeanne's fast attacks were landing on Janna and Janna was starting to swing her sword at Jeanne. Eventually, it became a struggle of equal speed and power.

Their swords would clash and a clang sound would fly in the air. With Janna's transformation fully finished, there was no way for to overpower Jeanne in the next few minutes due to it.

It had brought her to Jeanne's level, and that was it. She also focused her aura to her eyes and upper body. Eyes for the slowed down movement to see Jeanne's attacks. And upper body to swing her sword fast to counter Jeanne's sword.

Jeanne was also doing the same. Both were desperate to win for their people.

Janna was fighting for a cause. But what was Jeanne's reason for fighting? She also could've killed Janna earlier, but didn't.

A loud sound of swords clashing reverberated and both were pushed back. They stood their for a few seconds to catch their breath.

"Why didn't you kill me earlier?"

It was Janna that opened her mouth first.

"...what do y-"

"You had the chance and power. So why didn't you?"

"...I can't...lose here. But..."

Jeanne was reminded of her life in the Zatiax Empire. She was born into the high ranking society, as she was one of the daughters of the Leblanc family. One of the five core families that ran the empire.

"But you don't want to kill anyone?"

"How?!"

Janna had nailed the reason.

"But you're a captain, aren't you? Of the army."

"I am..."

"If you're not serious in winning this fight, then I will win. And you'll be my first...human kill."

It was true. Janna had killed monsters and demons. She had also witnessed humans killing each other when she was stationed at Idavoll Kingdom in the north. But she had never taken a life herself.

But now it was needed to give the people of the village a future.

"Janna!"

It was at this moment that Thea had finally arrived. The fight between Janna and Jeanne had already gone on for twenty minutes. Both were exhausted but only Janna was injured.

Sophily had used her fastest movement technique to track down Thea in the forest. And inform her of the battle. Thea escorted the villagers out of the forest before rushing to the fight.

The villagers were joyous. With Thea here, the battle was basically won.

The enemy soldiers stared at the villager's happy expressions with despair. The battle seemed to already be over. The advisor from the empire was nowhere to be found. The battle between Rennet and Lusan was over. But they had moved some distance away to have a uninterrupted fight. The soldiers didn't know that Lusan was already dead.

And Rennet had passed out from using the Berserk King's techniques.

Jeanne was also staring at the newly arrived mage. She saw Thea raise her finger.

"What?!"

A hundred beads of water formed in the air in front of her. This looked like the four star fire mage spell that formed fire bullets in the air to shoot at enemies.

She had seen it in a battle. Although from afar as she wasn't a captain yet at the time. But the spell that time was blocked by enemy mages. Here, there was no mage to block it.

It was doomed in her mind.

"Stop!"

It was Janna's shouted that interrupted everyone's train of thought.

"Thea, stop!"

And everyone was shocked. She was telling Thea to stop when she was going to end the battle in one attack.

"What are you saying?"

Thea equally felt the shock of the villagers. She asked Janna in confusion.

"I promised a one on one against her. Don't interfere."

"..."

Everyone was flabbergasted.

"Are you sure?"

Thea asked Janna.

"Yes, I don't need your help."

Words that Janna would never had said before. She always relied on Thea to be there to support her in her fights and she would also do the same for her.

"I will win this with my power alone. Only my power."

A firm decisiveness could be heard in Janna's fight.

"Alright."

Thea could only agree to Janna's demand.

"I won't help. You better win."

Speak so, the beads of water in the air transformed. The water beads stretched thin and a dome like structure appeared around Janna and Jeanne.

"You can use your full power now."

"Thanks."

Janna said to Thea as she concentrated her aura on her sword.

Up until now, Janna hadn't used her full power yet. There was the Blue Dragon Swordsmanship of Janna's family. She couldn't use it until now because the swordsmanship was too slow and hard to control. At three star, she used it to cut an ogre in half by concentrating in into a wave of aura.

But the technique truly unlocks upon reaching the four star rank. The Blue Dragon Swordsmanship was a fully offensive art. There was no defensive technique in it. Which is very weird for a high tier sword art. Maybe the creators of it thought that if they can kill their enemy immediately, then there was no need for defense.

Abandoning the defensive capabilities, the Blue Dragon Swordsmanship exceled in attack power. Its attack power rivaled the supreme sword arts of the world. It put the Everlotte family in the top echelon of the world.

"Blue blade stream."

Janna's blue aura covered the blade fully. All the aura on her body disappeared with it. The blade became a glassy opaque blue blade. It almost looked like a sword made of water.

"Scorching vermilion."

Jeanne blade was covered in bright red flame. Unlike the previous fully red blade with flickers of flame rising, this blade was red and orange like a burning blade. The flames were rising every second. And a heat wave was released outwards.

It was water vs fire. Janna's blue aura vs Jeanne's red hot aura. They started exchanging blows. Each attack carried huge amounts of aura. Janna's swing transformed into waves of water. It was like several water blades flying out.

The technique seemed to also have increased her attack speed. The blades of water flew at Jeanne like a constant stream of water. But they never touched her as she also released waves of red flames.

These two abilities countered each other. Turning into steam mid air, which was then cut by the next attacks from the two.

The grass was burned and the ground was wet. Many attacks were simply dodged by the two. It hit the water barrier that Thea had made. The barrier was able to eat up both of their powerful attacks.

Janna's water blades were sharp and would be able to cut open Jeanne. It was water concentrated into the shape of a blade after all, it had enough power to slice through her skin. While Jeanne's red flames were high temperature. Even though Janna had tough and durable skin, she didn't want to find out if her skin would burn or withstand the flames.

Both of them were quickly burning through their aura. These were their two best techniques and both required huge amounts of aura as fuel. With their firepower being around the same, it would be decided by who could last longer.

It all came down to a single attack. The both took a step back after a clash of their sword. They stood there for a moment. Both their aura's were almost empty.

As if they were on the same wave length, they both started to gather their aura to the blades. Two final attacks. Janna used the technique she used to kill the ogre. A blue wave of light flew out. It was much bigger than Janna's body.

"Vermilion slash!"

Jeanne released all her remaining energy in a powerful slash.

The two slashes met in the center. There was a struggle of the energies, but in the end Janna's energy won. With no aura to defend herself, the remaining blue light hit Jeanne.

After the steam and dust settled, Jeanne lay on the floor.

"...you...won...keep the...promise..."

With those last words, Jeanne fainted.

It was a hard fight, and Janna had come out victorious. She walked up to the sleeping Jeanna. She raised her sword.

"Janna?"

Thea didn't understand what Janna was doing. She watched as Janna stabbed her sword down at Jeanne. Thea and the villagers were shocked.

"...With this, I have won!"

Janna shouted at the enemy soldiers.

"I promised your captain to spare you if I won."

The soldiers of the Zatiax Empire were trembling.

"If you want to live then go back and tell your superiors of the promise I made. If you want to keep fighting then you're in bad luck because we have a powerful mage that can wipe you out in a second."

With Janna's final sentence and threat, the enemy soldiers started to run away. They dragged their unconscious comrades and left to the horizon.

As they left, Janna fainted too. She landed on top of Jeanne. The fight and transformation of the body had been too exhausting.

Thea walked up to the two.

"Oh?"

After a moment of staring, Thea put her right arm around Janna's waist and picked her up. She then put Janna on her right shoulder. She also did the same to Jeanne. Jeanne had a sword stuck her armor's side.

Thea was able to pick both of them up with no effort. She walked with them on her shoulders towards the villagers. They were all wondering how a weak and feeble mage like Thea was able to carry or even just pick one of them up with no signs of struggle.

But no one dared to ask her as she made her way through the crowd of people. Pretty soon, everyone scattered and found the people in the village to relay the message of their victory.