*Thuck* *Thuck* *Thuck*

The sound of wood hitting wood echoed throughout the dark tunnels under the great plain. To the tall and pale-skinned undead's relief, no one was lurking in the darkness to witness as she was beaten again and again by the shameless beast woman with long white hair and piercing crimson eyes. Without the element of surprise and unrestricted by Nakatei's presence the nekos was able to win decisively against the undead. Iris would say Shiro was cheating a little as the agile cat constantly jumped in and out of combat. She couldn't really complain to the demi since there was no such thing during actual combat but her tactic did infuriate the risen for the first time since her second birth. The warrior tapped the very end of Iris's shaft, leveraging an opening and prompting the undead to jump backwards to avoid being hit. In a blink of an eye, the cat pursued Iris, not allowing the opening in her guard to be closed. Letting one hand off her spear, Shiro gained the reach she required to stab the flat end of her spear against Iris's stomach before spinning around and sweeping the elf's right leg from under her.

"I'm not used to getting tired while my student isn't." The high-level warrior leaned on her spear and shook her hand at Iris, indicating their training session had come to an end. "At least my strength might go up."

"You have an annoying style of fighting," Iris commented as she stood up from the ground and brushed off the dust sticking to her body. "I think there were many opportunities for you to take the fight further and win. Why didn't you do that, are you mocking me?" She pointed out with a cold voice.

"At least you are still asking dumb questions as a student should." Shiro forced a smile to appear on her face while she flashed her teeth at the elf in a show of amusement.

"I don't understand?"

"It's better to beat dumb ideas out of students before they fight in a real battle." The demi said while her tail swayed from side to side. "Firstly, I'm not perfect neither are you or anyone else in fact. Fighting is a chaotic thing where you take split-moment decisions and sticking to a strict set of moves is a sure way of losing. I'm sure there were mistakes in my spearmanship, it's just a fact of life. Secondly, it would be very nice for your opponents to attack you the way you prefer. I can see that your entire build is made to lock an enemy in a fair fight and drag them down through attrition. Most of these opportunities would take too long for me to execute, allowing you to force me into a fair drawn-out fight."

"I get that but why are you jumping so far backwards for no reason?"

"Just because you can't see it doesn't mean there isn't a reason," The nekos explained. "The funny thing about combat precognition is that people who have it over-rely on it. Can't blame them it is an incredibly powerful ability and I had never known a person who had it levelled past the D rank."

"I had an inkling you have the ability to counter my combat precognition." The elf snapped her fingers in realisation. "But you said not to use active abilities and also that doesn't answer why where you jumping like mad when we fought."

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

The cat seemed to find something amusing and confusing about the undead elf. "Not everything is about abilities and levels. Tell me what does combat precognition do?"

"It causes me to predict my enemy's moves and makes my body move accordingly." The damestar raven unknowingly tilted her head to the side reminiscent of how Kia often did as she stared at Shiro with an uncertain frown.

"And when does it activate?"

"While I'm in combat? I don't understand where you going with this."

"True but what does being in combat mean?" The old nekos swayed from side to side not minding the elf's frown.

"Why would it matter?" Iris replied but Shiro's smiling eyes showed they were not content with such a response. "I think being in combat means when I'm attacked by someone or I'm attacking."

"You would think that but the system doesn't think so. The system counts being in combat as being aware of an enemy and who is also aware of your presence in a roughly four or five-meter circle around you. He or she has to be aware of you because otherwise, you are making a sneak attack against the opponent." Shiro explained as she turned around and walked away from the elf until stopping about the same distance away from Iris she would jump away during their sparring. The warrior said something but noticed that the elf staring blankly at her. She walked over to the undead and closed her open mouth. "I know I'm irresistible but you're making me blush."

"I'm sorry, I thought I got used to having my mind blown on the regular." The tall risen ignored the suggestive cat with a well-toned body which gleamed in the orange light. "Why are you telling me this?" An icy frown reappeared on Iris's face as she stared down at the demi.

"Self-preservation and boredom, primarily."

"What if I use your training to go on a rampage? I'm undead after all."

"Then I'm a bad judge of character," The woman replied. "Also, I don't want an ancient spirit who is clearly interested in your girl to be pissed off at me because I indirectly killed you two by not beating the shit out of you. I walk these tunnels quite often you know?" The beast woman wagged her finger at the taller undead before kicking the tip of her spear causing it to flip around. "I think our clothes are dried now."

"How did you learn that information about how the system determines when a person is in combat?" Iris asked unable to keep herself quiet before the two dressed themselves.

She had heard of people trying to outsmart the System, the stories always ended in a rather gruesome depiction of the person's death. Clearly not everyone who finds a clause dies as the cat woman standing in front of her hadn't been turned inside out.

"My master or rather my uncle was a retired male shaman and he took me under his tutilage... after I pestered him for a year and had my ribs broken a couple of times but he did crack after a while," The forked tail of the woman coiled around her arms as she relished in the fire's warmth while wearing a smug smile. "Okurimono has better things to do than teaching any pup who comes to him especially when he wasn't just any Okurimono but also a famous slayer who specialized in killing high-level monsters. Such a job is in rather high demand with few people who can do it and is the reason why a pink-skin from the south even dared to visit our village in the first place. He had the same ability as you but ranked D- and it is ridiculous. Fighting him was a nightmare which could also read your mind and dodge before you even moved. After a couple of years of being his student, he trusted me enough to start experimenting with something he had experienced when fighting a high-level vampire somewhere in the south. Without telling you everything we tried before finally finding a technique which allowed someone to mess with that broken ability. I never managed to land a hit on my uncle before he died in his sleep even knowing how to avoid it. I hope the spirits will allow me to fight him one more time..." Shiro hyped herself up and began to hit the air in front of her before realising the elf was still patiently listening beside her. "...And that's it I think. Tomorrow you better wake up early."

"What will I learn tomorrow?" Iris couldn't completely hide her excitement as the nekos overshot any and all expectations she had for her as a mentor.

"The very basics."

"Huh?"

"What? Without your ability, you can't match your strength to anything which is exactly how powerful monsters get defeated. They either have too much this or this." Shiro flexed her arm and tapped her biceps before lifting her finger and tapping her skull. "You have to be rested for our training to absorb my lessons."

"Don't worry I never tire. I can take the watch for the entire night without a problem."

"No, no, no. As your mentor, I order you to go to sleep or you can forget any future lessons."

Iris felt a natural desire to not obey Shiro who authoritatively raised her voice, she decided that she would listen to the older warrior and take her order and advice to heart.