Red stood up and stared at Aurelia, who grinned at him.
“What is it? I know this is not the first time you have trained like this.”
“How was there so much power behind your swings?” He asked.
It was not surprising he lost. Aurelia was a legitimate Spiritual Awakening cultivator while she was alive and was more experienced and talented than him in her time. Rather, what puzzled him was how she could gather so much strength in her attacks using no Spiritual Energy.
“You shouldn’t be so surprised.” The woman, like always, seemed to revel in any opportunity to flaunt her knowledge over Red. “I was a Grandmaster in saber arts and it was the basis for my ascension into the Spiritual Awakening realm. You, on the other hand, haven’t even mastered sword arts yet. The difference is not something you can understand even if you tried.”
It wasn’t the first time Red learned about mastery. To reach mastery in an art was to reach a level of skill most people couldn’t even dream of, and above that still stood the realm of Grandmasters. Reaching grandmastery in an art was one of the requirements to advance into the Spiritual Awakening realm, though that was as much as he knew about it.
“I still don’t understand how proficiency allows you to do something that defies common sense.”
“Even if I tried to explain it, you wouldn’t get it. Achieving a certain level of understanding in something does not mean you only get more skilled at something. Rather, you gain a new perspective into the world and its laws, as well as how to use them.” Aurelia said. “Let me ask you this - you have reached mastery over wind arts, correct?”
Red nodded. This was the only art he had mastery over, though he felt he was approaching a similar breakthrough with his Arcane Scripture as well.
“Then you must have noticed how easy it is for you to master and use wind spells and arts. Your wind blade spell, for instance, if you wanted to, do you feel like you could modify to make it stronger or faster?”
He thought about the prospect for a second and nodded. “With enough time, I could.”
“Then with those modifications, do you feel like the average Lesser Ring Realm cultivator could still use that spell as efficiently?”
Red was taken aback by the question. “…No, I don’t think so.”
When he thought about how he could improve the wind blade spell, a lot of possibilities came to his mind. Without him noticing, though, his ideas were all using his innate understanding of how the wind element worked and his superior control, which not a lot of cultivators would have.
“This is what mastery over an art can afford you,” Aurelia said. “Basic spells like fireball and wind blade remain unchanged even from my time because they are meant to be learned by any cultivator. A master of an elemental aspect could improve these spells by instinct alone, but the transformations behind that would be beyond the comprehension of your average cultivator. Of course, their time would be better spent learning stronger spells instead.”
“Then mastery can allow you to improve Spiritual Arts through innate understanding,” he nodded in understanding. “Then what about being a grandmaster?”
Aurelia gave him a wide smile. “That allows me to tap into the laws of the world directly...”
Red frowned, but didn’t say anything.
After seeing he wouldn’t ask a question, she snorted and continued. “It’s impossible to explain how this works in detail, but think about it this way: the saber is above all a weapon for attacking with unwavering momentum! I can use that understanding I have of a saber as a weapon and dictate to the world: my attacks are powerful and unstoppable, and they will be so without me using a shred of Spiritual Energy. This way, even a kitchen knife can become a deadly saber.”
“That’s fascinating.”
Red couldn’t help but express his wonder aloud. This was an aspect of cultivation he never knew about, and it made him more acutely aware of how important comprehension was to one’s strength as well.
“Is there a limit to what this skill can do?” Red asked.
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“There are a few. If I were to use a sword, my mastery wouldn’t be able to achieve the same effect, even though there are a lot of similarities between them. It is also not a replacement for Spiritual Arts, but rather a complement that allows you to reach a new level in strength.”
“I see. You also said that the saber is a very aggressive weapon, but what if someone saw it instead as a defensive weapon? Would they also be able to reach the Grandmaster level or use their comprehension in the same way?”
Aurelia frowned. “That’s… an astute question. Sects, and even cultivators inside the same sect, have different interpretations of this. Technically, someone who used the saber as a purely defensive weapon could reach the grandmaster level the same way as me, but a lot of my elders would say they were following an unorthodox path that would lead them to a dead end in cultivation.”
“And what do you think?” He noticed she claimed the opinion as her elders’, not her own.
She hesitated for a second. “…I think every aspect of an art is an aspect that can be mastered. There are multiple types of sabers, some heavy and large, and others thin and light. So, while someone might choose an unorthodox and difficult path to follow, it does not necessarily mean they are wrong. Of course, as far as a sect is concerned, though, they don’t want to waste their time teaching a disciple who doesn’t mean to follow their tenets.”
Red felt as if there was something else she didn’t want to say, but he wasn’t interested in prying, either.
‘Viran was also a Spiritual Awakening cultivator once, but I never saw him display this type of strength…’
If he could fight like this back then, would he have died to the insectoid? The only guess Red could make was that his mastery wasn’t something he could take advantage of without the use of Spiritual Energy - such as a natural element rather than a weapon art.
“I can understand why you are so strong now, but this doesn’t seem like an advantage I can surmount,” Red said.
He knew his own skills, and how much they lacked compared to someone who could manipulate the very laws of the world to their advantage. While he was not afraid of being on the receiving end of a beating, it was pointless if he couldn’t learn anything out of it.
Aurelia, however, snorted at his comment. “That’s because you’re an idiot. The intent was to train your sword arts, not just your combat skills. If you don’t use your Spiritual Arts, then you don’t even qualify as a sparring partner.”
Red frowned and looked around. “Use my Spiritual Arts here?”
It was one thing to swing his sword around - thing could be cut and damaged, but it wouldn’t cause too much destruction. His sword arts, however, could tear the entire manor apart and even damage his workshop.
“Take it as a challenge,” Aurelia said. “For weapon arts, I find that control is much more important than raw power at your level. You barely know how to form a sword arc, so learning how to do that seamlessly in combat while limiting its strength should be the first thing you learn.”
“Is this what they taught you in the sect?”
She glared at him before laughing. “Me? Hah! I never needed help in learning how to control my saber energy.”
For some reason, he doubted that very much.
…
As expected, Red suffered no small amount of wounds in their training session. Perhaps knowing about his passive regeneration abilities and sturdy physique, Aurelia didn’t hold back in cutting him, though she was never heavy-handed to leave behind deep wounds. It was a much bloodier and intensive affair compared to his training sessions with Viran and Domeron, and unlike in those, Red wasn’t receiving useful feedback either.
It wasn’t that Aurelia didn’t want to - even though he doubted she was as good of a teacher as his previous instructors. Rather, she didn’t know sword arts, and while there were many similarities between a sword and a saber, she didn’t want to cloud his understanding with her own.
“You are setting your foundation. If I told you about what I think you’re doing wrong, then you’d start using your sword like a saber instead.”
Red agreed with her rationale, though he found that figuring out the intricacies behind swordplay by himself was much harder than he expected. Not only that, but he also needed to circulate his Spiritual Energy and form sword arcs at the same time - a task he continued to fail at.
Yet, despite all that, he didn’t find the training session nearly as mentally draining as the ones he had when he was younger. Perhaps it was because of his increased experience, or the fact he could see Aurelia smiling while attacking him as she let out all her centuries of frustration, but the entire ordeal was rather relaxing to him. It was an opportunity to improve in combat without the fear of death.
It wasn’t until a few hours had passed that Red finally succeeded in creating a sword arc under Aurelia’s relentless attacks. It was small, unstable, and it barely left his blade before the woman redirected it towards the ceiling.
A small explosion ensued, as wood splinters showered their heads. A shrill scream came from above, and the imp peered down at them from the hole that had been formed from the sword energy.
“M-Master, what happened?”
“Nothing,” Red said as he sheathed his sword. “We were just finishing our training.”
“Already?!” Aurelia asked with displeasure.
Red looked at her, surprised by her reaction.
“It’s been two hours already, and there are other things I must do.”
“Tsk, just two hours and you’re done?” Aurelia stabbed her saber into the ground and crossed her arms. “We would have sparred for days on end if we were back in my sect.”
“You had the privilege of time back then. Right now, we have someone we need to kidnap.”
“…You mean that girl.”
Red nodded. It had been some time since he had checked on Yrsa, and after learning of the rumours about an imperial takeover, he was worried that delaying action any further could cause unforeseen accidents.
“I have a plan, but it depends on if you’re able to help.”
“Me? Help with what?” Aurelia stared at him in confusion.
“Can you use your undead energy to help fake someone’s death?”