"The difference between mastery and actual skill with weapons has to do with how the system works with your skills themselves." Xerxes started as Owen began his attack. Owen's slashes began to pick up speed, each one whizzing through the air. "The system places importance on what you can accomplish with your mastery rather than tracking your real mastery of the weapon itself." Xerxes weaved through every attack, and gave Owen a light flick on the forehead, every time he over extended.

"If you had a dagger mastery skill at level one, but had the strength to destroy a boulder in a single strike, the first time you would do so with the dagger, you would gain several levels in your mastery. The best way to think of it is that the higher level mastery, the easier it is to inflict that much destruction on average. Your dagger mastery will begin doing more work, so less stats are required to accomplish the same thing, but it is a very slow practice."

Owen made a large sweeping slash as he formed his two blades into his zweihänder. Xerxes felt the air shimmer, but took a half step back just out of the weapons range. "What I hope to teach more specifically is how to use your weapons more efficiently without the system, it will still boost your mastery faster than anything else you could practice, but you need to actually know how to use the weapon in combat. So, even if you have a higher level of mastery for all weapons, you will still only be good at using the one you train the most with."

Owen was beginning to hate how easily Xerxes was able to dodge around all of his attacks while at the same time lecturing him about the difference between mastery and actual skill. Actual skill hadn't felt very important to him, as once your stats began to grow, your stats would overwhelm the other fighter, without requiring incredible skill. Xerxes seemed to pick up on his thoughts as started laughing. "I don't think you understand what I mean at all. Here is a demonstration."

A silver sheen of energy split off from Xerxes's body and began to shimmer in the air as small bits of mana began to cling to it faster and faster. It slowly began morphing into the shape of Xerxes, while mana continued to cling to it, giving it color and life. It still looked like a faded out version of Xerxes, but a quick keen eye told him everything he wanted to know.

*Jeweled Monkey Emperor Xerxes Echo - Level 5*

Owen almost scoffed, but barely managed to dodge as the echo swung the staff in an arc, before tucking it back under one of its arms. Owen looked surprised, not at the echo's speed, but at the ridiculousness of the fight, he had beaten a level fifteen version of the echo back when he had first started his life in the system. Xerxes just smiled and raised an eyebrow at him as the echo began to advance on Owen.

Owen wasn't having a tough time pushing back the echo's blow, but they started to pick up speed as each attack blended into another and Owen felt himself start to get pushed back for real. Feeling frustrated, Owen began his own barrage of attacks back, but despite having a strength stat that should've easily surpassed the echo, each of his blows were still turned aside as the echo slowly backtracked its steps.

They continued fighting and the real Xerxes sat down at the table and began sipping his tea before giving any explanation. "If you take into account everything you know, it shouldn't be possible that a level five is fighting on equal terms and of course they aren't. Eventually they will tire and you will pull out a victory, but that isn't what this training is about. This is a level five echo with a staff mastery at level one. Or at least it was at the beginning of the fight. Are you curious at all what it is now?"

Owen was curious, but he didn't want to spread his attention too far from the fight, the echo stopped its attack to let him look over at the real Xerxes, so Owen gestured for him to continue. "Its mastery is level 52 right now and will probably continue to climb until it reaches the same level mastery that I have. Has that made it any stronger than it was at the beginning though?" Xerxes asked, taking another sip of his tea. Owen shook his head while turning in surprise to the echo that seemed to also be listening to Xerxes words.

"This is my point, while there are short cuts to power, you are level," Xerxes paused and he could see him identifying Owen. "You are level 41, wow, your speed is not to be underestimated." Xerxes said with an impressed expression on his face. "But my point is that you cannot truly compete with someone of the same level, with the same amount of skill in their weapon." The echo began to shift and its color seemed to saturate a little bit more, but it was still a much more faded copy of the original.

Owen used keen eye and nodded his head.

*Jeweled Monkey Emperor Xerxes Echo - Level 41*

Owen prepared for combat again and they were off, however the more that he continued to fight an opponent with similar strength to him, the more he began to fall behind. A millisecond to slow to block, slowly compounded overtime, until his weapon was knocked far enough away from his body, that the echo could've easily landed a killing blow. Owen turned his head towards the real Xerxes who had a look of satisfaction on his face. "This is the other aspect of the training gauntlet that you didn't get to explore now that you have access to resonance. But my hope is to still begin your training in technique."

Owen understood now and thought back to the scythe wielder he had fought before coming here. Quinn had been his toughest opponent to date and if not for his friends tanking some hits for him while recovering they couldn't have won. They had been truly skilled with their weapons and the only reason they had lost, was because Owen had managed to blow them both up. Owen communicated this to Xerxes who nodded. "The toughest opponents you will face when you return to earth is other humans, and while you can use resonance, you should continue to train it, but only use it inside of gates or as a last second measure. Keeping that power in reserve is much better when trying to build up skill."

Owen nodded, he had already gained several mastery levels during the fight in his intermediate weapon mastery. But something else Xerxes said caught his attention. "There will still be gates?" He asked in surprise and Xerxes looked at him confused. "Yes? There still will be gates to clear, and more than likely, you will unlock gates all the way up to level 7 upon your return." Owen couldn't help his growing excitement, more gates meant more loot and more time he could spend looking through the guild shop to finds things of use.

Xerxes nodded as he saw Owen growing excitement. "You will still want to watch out for a few things. You will have a number of system events of earth that will no longer involve any of the rest of the multiverse, at least until they are finished, which means until the last of the events are finished, I will not be able to speak with or contact you in anyway, which is why it is important we make sure you survive until then. The Polymath has placed a lot of trust in me to keep you alive and Lucas is my heir so it is doubly important that I make you both as strong as possible."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Owen nodded seriously, but could feel his attention beginning to slip and Xerxes sighed as he noticed as well. "Instead of going down the mountain, you will continue sparring with my echo throughout each day and go back to clearing out monsters, but only during the evenings. The goal is to get the system to recognize your ability with whatever weapon you choose. Hopefully, then you mastery will begin to skyrocket for that weapon, which we can use to try and track your ability against others, though it will be hard to actually quantify it."

Several hours passed as he continued to spar, he hadn't ended up choosing any weapon in particular for their first day of training. He just didn't have any strong feelings towards any specific weapon. He liked using the sword as it was easy to use instinctually, but he had used the spear for a long while as well. Even though Xerxes probably wouldn't like it, he decided to train with both. Against fighting monsters. he used the spear, while he would train with the sword against the echo for the last two weeks of the sponsored training.

The next several days flew by as Owen's mastery began to climb. His level climbed slowly but steadily as well. Xerxes extended Owen's training to fighting against Lucas. Owen wasn't too surprised that Lucas was better skilled than he was. His stats let him gain just enough of an edge against him, but Xerxes quickly fixed that issue by creating another area that worked similarly to the training gauntlet, so Lucas and Owen could fight at level one without skills.

That ended up being a lot more in Lucas's favor, but Owen was starting to get better. They continued sparring against each other on and off throughout the week until finally they had one week left. Owen was within arms reach of level fifty, having gotten to level 48 the day before and his mastery was looking just as impressive.

*Intermediate Weapon Mastery has gone up to level 34*

Xerxes had everyone gather at the beginning of the last week and Owen shot quick glances to both Briar and Lucas. Neither seemed to have a good idea of what the conversation was about, but they hoped it would be good. They hadn't seen Xerxes this serious in a while, as more and more frequently he had left them to their own training. As he stood in front of them all though, he let out a big grin.

"It is time we talked about essences and what you would consider magic. You might think of it as spells and other such things. But it isn't like any of that. Mana in its base form is a malleable substance we use to power our bodies, skills, and we can use it to shape. Now shaping mana isn't something any of you have likely done yet, but if you have elemental skills or gear, you have been exposed to what is called elemental essences."

Xerxes paused to let his words sink in before he continued. "Take this for example," he said, slightly moving the mana in the air around him. It took Owen a second to realize that Xerxes had managed to make it visible for all of them, rather than require something like his mana manipulation skill. The mana shifted in the air until it began to follow a specific pattern. Despite every effort and all of his increased perception, the pattern seemed to shift and bend every time he tried to look at it, but he didn't have a lot of time before Xerxes activated the mana in the air.

A large burst of flame appeared out of nowhere, but quickly dissipated. Despite it disappearing so quickly, Owen head began to spin with all of the possibilities and Xerxes smiled at him knowingly. "All of you now should now practice by watching me, until you can create a burst of flame on your own."

----------------------------------------

Peggy opened her eyes to the blackness of the void all around her. She tried to maneuver her body to see if she could see anything, but everything was black. As she shifted around she came to another startling realization, she didn't have a body at the moment, or at least, she couldn't see it. The void had consumed everything including her.

She wasn't sure how much time passed, but it was long enough that she felt like she was beginning to see things in the dark. She thought back to being a little kid and shuddered, reminding herself that there wasn't anything that lived in the dark. She chose not to remind herself that she was living in a world where the system now existed and that very likely there were things that lived in the dark now. Ones that could destroy her whole world and existence with nothing but a thought.

She shivered and the world around her began to melt into the scenery of a forest. She could see the sun for the first time in what felt like forever, its light drifting down through the tree tops. Everything around felt lie it was charged with mana and she started frantically looking around for whatever brought her here.

"So, you also despise the cults and their ways." growled a deep voice that cause the forest to shudder. Trees began shifting back and forth as the voice shook everything. Deciding to put her best foot forward, Peggy smiled towards where she felt the voice coming from and nodded. "Yeah, everything about it felt weird. There was already religion on my home world and I was never a big fan, though now I am beginning to have second guesses for some of them now, since gods are real I suppose." Deep laughter echoed through the forest as she spoke and several tress toppled, before they somehow righted themselves, roots digging back deep into the soil.

Seeing as the voice seemed nice so far Peggy decided she would try to get to know it, since she wasn't exactly sure where she was yet. Before she could speak the voice rumbled through the world again. "Gods are indeed as real as you or I, but their presence in the mortal world is almost nonexistent. So, worshipping them is worthless. The only honor one should give them is through respect of their achievement or in respect to the path they have left behind for others to follow."

Peggy had to find something to hold onto, to keep herself from being flung away as the power in the voice was incredible. "Who are you, or is that rude to ask. Sorry, I am not quite sure what the etiquette is for someone rescuing you from a cult." Laughter once again shook the world, though this time it was much softer. "My title is known as World Father throughout the multiverse. You can think of me as the world you are walking on and breathing in right now."

Peggy opened her eyes in shock and jumped back from where she had been standing, only to realize that anywhere she went, she would technically be on this being. Soft chuckles still boomed through the air. "Don't worry about you stepping on me, one moment." Everything began to shudder and shake as the world itself seemed like it was about to break apart, then everything stilled. Slowly, nearby where Peggy had been standing, a whirlpool of mana formed and the world around began getting sucked in, but less than a second later, a man appeared where the whirlpool had been.

He was dressed in fine robes, though they looked like they had somehow been made out of tree bark. His hair looked like it had been made of leaves and they went form green on one side to slowly going through the life cycle ending at brown on the other side of his head. "So, will you take me as your new sponsor. I am not too far from the path you're already walking, but I can other you something better than what that cult wanted to give you."

Peggy thought about it for a long moment before she nodded her head. "As long as the cult stuff is over, I wasn't ever really attached to them anyways." The man nodded and instantly the world around them both began shifting into a house, not too dissimilar to some of the ones on earth. Something that looked like an outdoor gym appeared. More and more appeared as it was created out of the forest around them. Once the man was finished her turned to her and smiled. "Call me Mundi from here on. And let us begin your training, there is much we need to go over in the next week."