By the time Executioner Leywin returned, an hour later, Stella was able to make the cube float two millimeters over her hand for around three seconds, a slight improvement. Even though she had barely moved in those two hours, the effort and concentration required to manifest the dark energy still left her drenched in sweat and breathless.

“You’ve made good progress,” Executioner Leywin said, then she looked at Stella’s surprised expression. For Stella, her progress had been almost non-existent. “There’s a reason why so few people can use this technique. Even when training every day there’s no guarantee that you’ll actually be able to make any progress. Remember what I told you yesterday about the importance of being able to grow in combat?”

Stella nodded.

“Energy manifestation is a technique that can only truly be learned in combat, by putting your life on the line. Learning the technique is even considered a type of awakening or breakthrough. I’m only going to teach the basics until you are able to create an extremely weak manifestation. After that, whether you progress further or not, will completely depend on you.”

Executioner Leywin supervised the rest of Stella’s training, but it wasn’t long before Chase and Isaac arrived, and the morning training began.

In the following days, Stella continued training with Executioner Leywin, making small progress each day. Executioner Leywin seemed satisfied with Stella’s training, she was progressing just as she had expected, not more, not less.

On the other hand, Stella couldn’t help but feel frustrated. With each training, her progress became less and less visible, until, on the sixth day of her training, she stopped making any progress altogether.

“It’s pointless,” Stella said in frustration as she stopped channeling the energy out of her palm.

It was late at night, and Stella hadn’t made any progress at all since the previous day.

“Looks like that’s as far as meditation will take you. It’s time to change to a more practical exercise,” Executioner Leywin said as she approached her.

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She picked up the cube from Stella’s hand and took out four lightweight, small balls made of a foam-like material.

“I’m going to throw these balls at you and you will try to block them by manifesting dark energy in front of your palm,” Executioner Leywin explained while Stella stood up.

“Ready?”

Stella nodded as she extended her right arm.

Executioner Leywin softly threw the first ball as Stella started channeling the energy out of her palm. However, the ball didn’t stop until it bounced off of Stella’s hand.

“Again,” Executioner Leywin threw another ball, and at the same time, she picked up the one she had thrown before.

This way, Executioner Leywin continued throwing the balls at Stella, each time they bounced off her hand. Without waiting for Stella to adapt to the initial speed, Executioner Leywin started throwing the balls faster and faster.

At some point, the speed of the balls started hurting Stella’s hand on impact. She stepped back after each throw as Executioner Leywin closed the distance.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The sound of the balls hitting the palm of Stella’s hand resonated through the surroundings, and to avoid taking damage, Stella reinforced her entire arm, channeling energy all over it. However, the reinforcement soon proved to be insufficient as her hand kept accumulating damage, and for a second Stella considered asking Executioner Leywin to stop the training.

“Keep that hand up!” Executioner Leywin demanded before Stella said anything.

By now, Stella’s hand was completely red, and if she didn’t do something quickly, she knew it wouldn’t be too long before one of the throws eventually broke it.

In a desperate attempt, Stella tried to concentrate in her palm all the energy that was covering her arm. It was easier said than done since it required a higher control over energy. Slowly, the energy distributed all over her arm started flowing until it was all concentrated in her hand. This alone reduced by a lot the damage taken by her hand, however, due to the increasing power of Executioner Leywin's throws, Stella knew it would only buy her a small amount of time.

She closed her eyes, increased her concentration, and tried harder to concentrate the energy in her palm. She put all the pain aside as she worked to further compress the energy so it would only cover the palm of her hand.

Executioner Leywin’s eyes widened in surprise as a red glow started appearing in front of Stella’s palm. It was a faint red glow, barely visible, however, it was the same glow that had appeared in front of Delta’s hand during his spar against Isaac.

Seeing how Stella was approaching a first breakthrough, in order to push her beyond the breakthrough, Executioner Leywin increased the power of her throws even more. She hadn’t expected Stella to be so close to the first breakthrough on the first day of practical training, however, if she wasn’t able to achieve the breakthrough now, she would never be able to learn the technique.

Executioner Leywin hadn’t told Stella an important detail so as not to scare her. There existed some techniques like Energy Projection and the State awakening for which, if the esper was interrupted during the awakening/breakthrough, he would never be able to learn the technique. For these techniques, the awakening/breakthrough wasn’t a precise moment in time, but rather a mental state that led to the understanding of the technique.

For the first time, Stella had entered an understanding state.