The area they now found themselves in was basically a natural cave chamber about the width of a large gazebo. That was a bit of a strange analogy to make for the size, but it was the first thing that came to Zoe’s mind. It was essentially a roughly circular dead end with a high ceiling.

The floor was covered in sand. Zoe suspected that unlike the rest of the cave, the sand wasn’t natural. She guessed that it was brought in from outside for the purpose of making it a better and safer training ground.

A little lantern hung from a stalactite overhead. It was battered and broken, with a whole glass pane missing and part of the copper chassis horribly bent. Nevertheless, a warmly glowing crystal within gave off a decent amount of light.

Zoe wondered if they used a junky lantern for the training ground or if the condition was the result of the activities done here. Likely both.

The woman-who-would-not-give-Zoe-her-name departed without a word. One of the other pirates stepped up to the entrance. He still seemed disinterested, but he was clearly still going to do his assignment and keep watch.

Lily remained by the entrance as well. But instead of standing, or even leaning against the wall, she sat down, straightened her back, and assumed a rigid, extremely uncomfortable looking meditation pose.

Zoe was going to ask if she intended to spar at some point, but she caught herself at the last moment. The mage looked focused and probably didn’t want to be bothered.

Zoe hefted her spear as she turned to face Andric, who had now unbundled the wooden training knives. One by one they disappeared into whatever storage space he had. On a whim, Zoe decided to try to count them as he did so. Perhaps it will be useful to know how many he has?

She counted eight.

Once he was finished, he stretched and loosened himself in a rather ironically methodical and rigid way. “Alright, let’s go ahead and begin.”

Zoe dug her heel into the ground. She didn’t feel any hard ground beneath, so it was probably safe to assume that the layer of sand was decently thick. That was good. Probably.

The whole time, she kept her eyes focused on her opponent. Andric didn’t look particularly concerned, but he didn’t look at ease either. Then again, that was basically what his demeanor was always like.

“So, how to we do this?”

Truth be told, Zoe had no idea how it was going to work. She had chosen a spear because she thought that it would be easy, but now that she had a stick in her hand she was no longer quite so confident. Stick him with the pointy end, her mind supplied her rather unhelpfully.

“You try to hit me with the pointy end.” Andric spread his arms wide and slackened his shoulders. “Come on, try to get me. It shouldn’t be too hard.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

His arms and upper body might have taken on a laid-back posture, but Zoe was paying plenty of attention to his lower body as well. She had never taken any sort of martial arts or fencing or anything like that, but she had read or heard several times that footwork was extremely important. And one thing was for certain — Andric’s feet didn’t look like they were laid-back.

Quit staring at his feet. Let’s do this.

Activating {Kinetic Enhancement} and pumping mana into her muscles at the same time, Zoe dashed forward with inhuman speed. Or rather, speed that was probably somewhere close to the peak of human speed if you considered professional athletes. It still felt fucking fast, and Zoe barely had time to ready a {Kinetic Strike}.

She wasn’t aiming to actually stab him, of course. Even thought the tip was blunt, she knew that she could have done serious damage. No, she was aiming to have the spear go to his side and basically tackle him.

A fraction of a split second later, Zoe braced for impact.

It never came.

And then she impacted the ground. Hard.

Groaning, she forced herself not to curl up in a pathetic ball with the help of {Pain Resistance}. At least nothing was broken, but that would definitely have left a bruise — if she were still a human and not a self-healing demon thing.

Clutching at her spear, Zoe fought off the dull ache and prepared to push herself back up — at least until the tip of a wooden knife pressed itself against the back of her neck.

Straddling her, Andric gently lowered her back down. “You’re fast and powerful, but that can easily work against you if you don’t have the skill to match. Which you most definitely don’t.”

Fuming at how easily she had been defeated as well as the insult, she crawled to her feet as Andric pulled away the knife. Well, you do have to admit that you don’t actually know how to fight. Like at all.

“I could have set myself on fire, you know.”

Andric shook his head. “If this wasn’t practice, there’s a decent chance I would have just immediately shanked you instead of giving you that opportunity. And besides, even if I didn’t, it doesn’t change the fact that you need to get better. Why would you want to have to keep getting in the position where you have to throw off attacker by setting yourself on fire?”

Zoe groaned, and it wasn’t because of the ache and sting from her fall. “I fucking hate that you’re one hundred percent right.”

“I get that a lot.”

Zoe rolled her eyes, and she heard Lily snort. But Andric was right. Zoe knew that she was powerful — at least, she was pretty damn powerful for someone who was only level twenty three and had been at it for less than a week. And that wasn’t even taking into account that most people supposedly weren’t even awakened.

And yet she was woefully unprepared and underskilled for her power level. She had defeated a paladin over six times her own level — but it wasn’t because she was good. It was because she had the right abilities to get several thousand mana and dump it all into a brute force attack.

That’s it! She thought. Abilities aren’t skills. In many ways, this world felt like a game, and she would have expected to call the magic she had been using ‘skills.’ And yet the meaning in the local language more directly translated to abilities in English.

Zoe had the ability to use magic, but that didn’t mean she was at all skilled with it.

“I have abilities but not skills.”

Andric nodded. “Precisely. So let’s work on that.”

Adjusting her grip on the spear, Zoe assessed herself and her opponent. Andric honestly didn’t seem nearly as powerful as her, or even many of the people they had fought. And yet, he was incredibly capable and seemed to do almost everything with ease. He was ten levels higher with half the raw strength.

He was just skilled.

Zoe grinned. If she put in the effort, she could be just like him…

…but stronger.