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Public Training Grounds

A sizeable crowd of combat personnel gathered around the public training area for soldiers and guards. Between them, they made space for the more prestigious onlookers, like the Cold-Snouts and Nine-Fire visitors, with a dryad beside them.

They all talked with each other, looking at two notable figures preparing for a spar inside the training field. One of them was Alexander, who barely sparred against their military people, but when he did, it almost always ended in nearly killing them. Thus, nobody except Cross or some personal guards asked for a round. The other was Bartholomew, nicknamed Monster, and they knew nothing about how he fought except one.

The Monster came over to the crowd, to the exception, who looked surprised and joyfully at him, "Oh my! Bart, how are you?"

Bartholomew smiled at him amiably, "Hey, Ipe, long time no see. I am fine, and you?"

Ipe nodded excitedly, "Very much so. I heard that you were visiting, but what is the reason? Is everything fine?"

Bartholomew shrugged, "I'm just doing business, but I am more confused about what you are doing here."

Ipe smiled at him nervously, scratching his cheek, "Hm, I am Mr. Alexander's personal healer for now."

"Oh? Why so?"

He shook his head, "Can't say sorry."

While stretching, Alexander became annoyed listening to this obviously awkward exchange. Ipe didn't want to say anything, like Lili, who was still invisible walking around him. For better or worse, his Grandmother forbade them from telling anyone why they were there.

While Lili was with him for protection, Ipe was helping him until now as a healer in general, for when he experimented, sparred, like now, and with his gradual body strengthening, which was far from finished.

Alexander did it every couple of days to increase his body's robustness. The potions that would kill, at this point, every Tier 3 warrior without much hindrance became weaker, and finding stronger ones was something Scarlett did herself, sending them to him.

Besides poisoning himself, his Mother also reconstructed his body with her demonic energy. It wasn't, fortunately, only a way to increase his power as he would feel terrible stealing so much time.

However, since his resistance towards demonic energy increased, his Mother also gained a lot, increasing her ridiculously high control over such volatile energy even more.

As such, it became addictive how much his attributes and skills increased, but if he was honest with himself, it was a drag on his psyche. Every time his body began to hurt, he panicked, wanting to go through another round immediately. He couldn't wait for his legacy to end all this torture.

For now, though, he wanted to see what his Grandmother's trainees were worth. While his Mother could beat him to a pulp, she never went overboard, always being a little faster, a little stronger, and a little more clever in her combat strategy. She was an excellent teacher, but it was also annoying since Alexander wanted to see what it looked like when she went all out.

As such, he had someone similar for now, "Done chatting? I really want to see what it means to get trained by my Grandma."

Bartholomew looked at him confused, "Didn't you spar with your Mother? She is my senior and went through far worse than me."

Alexander shook his head, "She is too soft on me, but you look like..." He licked his lips, "...really fun."

After Lorient left, Alexander had no real sparring partner left. He pummeled the Tier 1 and Tier 2 soldiers without problems, and his family was relatively soft on him. While Sarah was brutal in the beginning, she somewhat mellowed out after she started her ridiculous physical training. Linuel was, while pretty good, not really that strong in a one-to-one fight. Her strength was clearly on a battlefield, as she loved to use AoE attacks. Then there was Lili, who never answered when he wanted to fight her, always going invisible.

Bartholemew raised an eyebrow but smiled mischievously after contemplating, "Fun, huh? Wanna bet?"

"Sure, this will make it more fun."

"If you can draw blood even once, I will grant you a wish."

"And if not?"

"You need to be nice to me while I am here. How does it sound?"

Alexander's smile widened, "Deal, but under one condition."

"What?"

"I want you to go all out."

He sounded irritated, "Little pup..." Ipe interrupted him, sounding concerned, "...Bart, you should really do what he says, trust me, but don't go overboard."

Bartholemew frowned, looking at Ipe, only to sigh, "Fine..." He turned to Alexander, nodding at him, "...are you ready, pup?"

"Give me a second..." Alexander pushed his mana into the anti-mana collar around his neck, an upgraded advanced version given to him as a present from the Cold-Snout girls. It clicked when he took it, suddenly feeling as if his senses were weirdly distorted and needed a moment to orient himself. Cracking his neck, he slowly adjusted and threw it to the side.

Afterward, he deactivated his new weight increase artifacts, making himself 12 times lighter. His muscles started aching when no pressure was on them. The pain increased, but without the handicap, his body felt many times better and more unrestrained than before.

He immediately straightened up and could suddenly stretch into positions at least half as extreme as Lorient, a professional in acrobatics and stretching. He also learned most movement techniques from her but couldn't replicate her insane moves.

However, as he did a split, or at least tried while standing, he couldn't concentrate as he heard Vanessa, Emma, and Matilda talking from the sidelines. Their stares almost pierced him.

Matilda sounded excited, "Did he get taller?"

Vanessa was confused, "His smell is so much more like Dad's now, right?!"

Emma, though, was only weird, "Oh, I liked the collar, though..."

Alexander tried to ignore them and concentrate on the guy before him, who was almost the same size as his Father, with over 2m (~6.6ft) in height, bulked up like a bodybuilder.

"Isn't it too much what you do for your training?" Bartholomew interrupted his thoughts.

Alexander shook his head, "Nope, and I have my reasons for it..." He exhaled strongly, trying to get a grip on his body, taking his martial arts stance, "...ready."

Bartholomew shrugged, "Fine, so let's first warm up a bit."

After he said it, Alexander was initially annoyed, as Bartholomew didn't take him seriously but opened his eyes widely in unbelief only a moment later, 'Holy moly...'

What was the [Divinity Line] of the Silver-Tail household like? He knew that it had something to do with monsters, but this was something he didn't expect, 'I need Ripley...'

Bartholomew slowly transformed into a giant monster in front of him. He grew, his body gradually breaking and contorting like snakes wiggling under the skin as if something wanted to burst free. The aura he suddenly emitted was one of horror and terror but obviously chained as it suddenly decreased.

When Bartholomew was done, the monster snapped its head toward him, making Alexander back up a step in fear, "Shit..."

Before Alexander stood a grotesque monster, towering over him to a point where he wouldn't even know how to attack it. Five meters (~16.4ft) in height, covered with blackish-red razor-sharp scales, which didn't even glint as the sun shone on them. Adorned with enormous horns on its head that swirled around themselves to the top as if laughing at any deity. The head, or rather maw, was terrifying, one meter in length, with dozens of beedy reddish eyes glowing as it stared at him.

It took a step with its ridiculously long legs and inverted knees while its lanky arms swung lifelessly, scratching the ground as its claws touched it. The ground vibrated, and to intimidate him, it also swung its massively long tail once, making a dust cloud appear behind it.

It stood before him, bent forward, slowly turning its oval-like maw-head into a horrific smile, sounding like something descendant from hell. The air vibrated with pure viciousness, and saliva dripped out, eroding the ground beneath the horror.

"Continue?"

While he was scared shitless, for some unknown reason, Alexander smiled. It was a chance to learn a lot. Fighting under such uncommon pressure was rare for him. All he always felt was blood lust and killing intent, to unbelievable degrees. As such, even staying in the vicinity was already worthwhile.

Alexander readied himself and immediately cast his targeting spells on it: "Let's go..." As he said it, the monster disappeared, making his instinct scream. He stretched his back backward, feeling an enormous gust of wind appear before his face. The ground cracked, and he saw the monster before him as if death itself was looking down on him.

'Close!'

He knew what a transformation was from his training with his Father, but this was entirely different. His Father transformed into versions of animals, pushing his power to the max and using his forms for their various powers. Spiders and snakes had potent venom, cats were fast and flexible, and rats were stealthy, for example.

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Yet, Bartholomew transformed into demons and monsters, which was no joke. He could barely resist the aura alone, which made him already a little skittish.

After avoiding getting his head almost chopped off, he let himself fall slightly. When he was nearly lying on the ground, he pushed himself backward while flashing and using the propulsion spell simultaneously for as much distance as possible.

When he was far away, still in the awkward position of almost touching the ground, he saw the monster behind him, looking down at him, about to hit him right from the top, 'Holy shit!'

Alexander immediately used his propulsion spells on his hands and feet, rotating and pushing himself to the side, seeing how the claw crashed into the ground, almost turning him into a pancake, 'How is he so fast?!'

Yet, before he could contemplate his next move, his other arm came from the side, flinging at him like it was made of rubber from below. He quickly used another propulsion spell on his back when he looked up, flinging himself upward, feeling the massive airstream under him and how the ground cracked by the pressure alone.

'Okay, I always wanted to try this! What better time when I am about to get bedridden again?'

He tried to regulate the power of the propulsion spell on his shoulders and lower back, which made him stand up straight again and slide slightly away while always trying to sense where the monster was so he could avoid its next attack, 'Wait...'

Alexander suddenly got an idea, smiling widely, 'Come on, you bastard.'

He didn't need to wait too long as the monster appeared behind him, now trying to hit him with its rubber-like arms in a hugging manner, obviously, so he couldn't dodge anymore. He, though, pushed mana into his soles, building a strong propulsion spell construct and using flash upwards, 'Let's see if you can fly!'

After a moment, the monster looked confused around, while Alexander suddenly appeared at least eight meters (~26ft) in the air, looking down and being scared shitless, 'Holy shit! I can actually fly!'

Alexander always wanted to see if he could fly, but because he had his weight gain artifacts, he only tried it once, giving up practically immediately and putting it to the back of his mind. Now, though, he knew he could do it.

As he was in midair, he looked down and saw how confused it looked at him. He had no time to mock it or test whether he could fly Iron Man style around. He needed to gain distance and then injure it quickly. As such, he used his [Parallel Casting] and [Parallel Thinking] skills to the fullest, conjuring anything he could.

Yet, in this short moment where he had some time to breathe, he saw how the maw was closing on him, elongating like a fluid that, if touched, would not let him ever escape from everlasting darkness. However, as he felt death and horror closing in, his killing intent exploded, producing a cloud of transparent reddish will to kill anyone who would come close.

Fortunately, Barthelemow stopped and fell again, looking confused. This bought him a moment, enough to bombard it with various spells. Alexander smiled and chanted, making stone spikes appear from below, hitting its maw and body and knocking it away from him.

"Urgh!"

Alexander fell on his knee, immediately regretting the hero's fall as he felt his kneecap being dislocated. Ignoring the pain, he immediately cast many more spikes from all sides, trying to pierce any place he could aim at while standing up. Yet, when they rammed into him, they shattered and stopped moving.

It stood there, letting itself hit, but suddenly smiled, as if agony itself descended, "Hm... I see. So, the gossip was even underestimating you."

"Go fu..." As if all his being screamed to dodge, Alexander did so quickly to the side using flash.

Crash!

Alexander saw how Barthelemow crashed his giant arm into the ground where he was before, breaking the whole ground, 'Fuck it! Time to go balls to the walls!'

He didn't want to use everything since he feared some of his spells were too strong, but he had enough. Bartholomew was clearly trying to cripple his ass. As such, he would reiterate. He instantly conjured multiple metal contraptions, putting a good chunk of mana into the propulsion spell while still flashing from side to side.

Bang!

They flew toward it, and Alexander expected to hear them crash into it, but nothing happened. It was gone, "What the..."

He jumped, and like clockwork, his fine-tuned instinct, which was their family's sure way to fight against much stronger enemies, a tail swept under him.

All his senses warned him that another hit was incoming, but Alexander only glared at Bartholomew, smirking, "Gotcha."

Boom!

Multiple metallic bullets, which he shot and missed, made a round and came from behind the monster, hitting its back, head, and limbs with enormous force. Better yet, after they hit, they acted like fragmentation grenades. Alexander did not know why, but they exploded into multiple tiny parts and scattered around the training area, also hitting the monster numerous times.

Bartholomew jerked toward Alexander while he landed again, which made him see the only chance to injure it with something he had worked on for a couple of weeks. He was unsure if it worked, but he would love to risk it nonetheless.

In Alexander's right hand appeared an iron dagger made of magic. He used a spell that could conjure it briefly, usually used for cooking or self-defense. An ignition construct was laid over the dagger, heating it to a ridiculous degree.

The spells he could learn dried up a little. While he knew more than fifty, most were lifestyle spells that were unsuitable for fighting. As such, he started experimenting with tuning his combat spells.

It was tedious. Alexander mainly used the trial and error method to change the constructs of spells he knew, seeing how they would react. Most of the time, nothing happened, as they couldn't be cast either way. Rarely, though, did he see some surprising effects. Even better, because it was his mana, nothing would've happened to him, as spells never injured their own caster.

Inventing and changing spell and chant structures was usually the realm of mages far above what he could do, but that didn't mean he couldn't jerry-rig the hell out of the current structures he knew.

As such, Alexander played around with many spells, trying to determine what part of a construct could do what. After weeks, he found the no-fun part of the ignition spell and immediately removed it. It now had no limit on how strong it could get, but it was also much more unstable and ate his mana away like Sarah ate his kitchen clean after a workout.

It was a shitty jerry-rigged construct, useless for everyone but Alexander, who let his mana stream into it, barely holding it together, while heating the dagger until it started glowing in a bright red, catching fire.

Alexander was fully concentrated, looking at him with eyes wide open. Knowing it couldn't flee anymore, he stabbed the monster, but as his scorching hot dagger almost reached, Bartholomew brought its arm between the dagger and its body, barely able to defend itself in time.

Alexander clicked his tongue and decided to cut its hand off. With Ipe here, the worst case would be Bartholomew staying for another week so he could go overboard.

After stabbing through the arm, smoke came out, smelling of sulfur. Alexander's eyes teared up as the steam flew toward him, burning them. So he quickly cut upwards and jumped back, dissolving his ignition spell as it was draining his mana.

'Damn it!'

Alexander immediately used the first aid spell but could only see hazily. His eyes were clearly damaged from the steam of whatever fluid ran through Bartholomew's monster form, 'How is this fair?!'

After some seconds of trying to fix his sight, which didn't help, he looked at Bartholomew, seeing everything cloudy. Still, he could identify that its arm just hung lifelessly, dangling around gruesomely on some muscle tissues while yellow blood flew to the ground, making it dissolve and create poisonous steam that almost blinded him. However, when it looked at its arm, it only smiled horrifyingly. It moved its other arm and chopped the injured one off.

Alexander looked at the monster in fear. Before he could say anything, he became even more mortified as another arm started growing out of the wound, 'This...'

First, its energy appeared, slowly making bones, skin, and blood materialize. Then it gradually coalesced into an entire arm while Alexander slowly came back from the shock, 'I can't believe this fucker can regenerate itself.'

Alexander decided to give everything he had. He took his stance, using the [Body Overload (Mana)] skill and conjuring multiple earthen bullets, going for a more rapid-fire approach.

However, Bartholomew suddenly looked toward him, sounding like a horrifying trauma had come to life, "You won, haha!"

Alexander raised an eyebrow, but before thinking further, he felt how close death was, making him push down using a propulsion spell. A gust of wind almost cut his head off, seeing how the tail flew over him, 'Did he get insane?!'

However, as he was squatting, he put another two propulsion spells under his feet and flashed toward the side of Bartholomew. He conjured the jerry-rigged ignition spell over the dagger again, feeling how his mind slowly melted away, and his mana veins constricted from the lack of mana.

More alarming, two of his senses were basically destroyed. His eyes became worse by the second, and his sense of smell was also heavily flooded with the smell of sulfur and acetone, which still lingered in the air, making him a little disoriented.

Alexander felt he could beat Bartholomew, even though he knew it didn't use any energy. It was like a high, and he ignored his instincts that warned him to jump back. He decided otherwise, seeing how its arm descended right before him. He stopped, using the momentum to spin while keeping the scorching dagger close to him, cutting into the arm.

Boom!

After the arm crashed into the ground, he jumped back, barely avoiding the descent of the other one. As he tried to gain some distance, he hardly saw the wound, clicking his tongue, 'Shallow.'

Alexander's fighting expertise was in martial arts, not dagger arts. As such, he had some problems attacking it at the right angles, but it was enough to injure it, 'Argh!'

As he felt a headache, he stopped the ignition spell immediately. His mind burned away as the spell consumed an enormous amount of mana while his concentration slowly sapped away. Unexpectedly, his common sense kicked in, which was a rarity for him, 'I should stop.'

He decided it was enough since he had won the bet and still had a day full of chores. If he continued, he would need a couple of days to recover, but if he stopped now, he would need an hour or two of healing at most.

While Bartholomew healed his wounds, Alexander looked to the side, wanting to know how others reacted.

Everyone was in awe, at least he thought so, since everyone was a bit foggy. Nila stood stoically, staring at him as if he were the monster. Matilda blushed heavily as her tail rotated wildly. Her sisters, though, looked shocked, eyes wide open in disbelief.

Alexander liked this reaction, knowing he would only have to reject Matilda now. There was always some kind of barrier when someone was too strong. Maybe they would feel it and leave him alone after this spar, only trying to build up a friendship.

Still breathing heavily, Alexander was trying to calm down when he heard Bartholomew, who smiled when he turned to it, "I see. My senior wasn't lazy when it came to her puppies' training... hm..." He looked at Ipe, "...get ready."

Alexander wanted to scream that it was enough, but what he saw fascinated him, making the whole spar far more interesting. An enormous amount of demonic energy entangled Bartholomew, making it look like a cocoon, only to dissolve as quickly, making Alexander raise an eyebrow in confusion as to what he saw, "What the?"

In front of Alexander was a small snake with bat wings flying slightly above ground. He could feel nothing from it, and its aura was almost nonexistent, which made him smirk.

However, when it spoke, all the hair on Alexander's neck suddenly stood up. It was a voice of eternal darkness, horror, and grace, echoing through the area, "Never underestimate how anyone looks, pup."

A small amount of energy condensed in its mouth, and before Alexander knew what was going on, all his instincts screamed to run, but it was too late—a beam of condensed and overwhelming energy flew at him.

Boom!

It was impossible to avoid, like a laser flying right at him. Yet, it went past him, exploding when it hit something behind him. It indeed was as if he looked at death itself. He didn't dare to turn around, staring at the small flying snake before him.

"This is the puppy of a demonic Lord, which I ate after killing its parent. If you can injure me in this form, I will give you something far greater! I promise this by my name of Bartholomew A. Silver-Tail!"

The voice was full of enthusiasm, as if Bartholomew had gone crazy. Suddenly, it smiled horribly and looked down at him, flying upwards. His purple-colored eyes glowed like beautiful gems in the moonlight, fully entrancing him, as an aura of obedience and fear invaded Alexander.

"Many don't know that we are related to wild demons. With our energy being part of us, it means that being the one who can control lower demons can also control us. So, can you break free?"

Alexander suddenly heard voices in his head.

'Follow.'

They became louder.

'Kneel.'

As if someone was right above him, pressuring him down.

'Beg for your life.'

However, while entranced, Alexander wasn't too perplexed, as his skills made him resist the mental pressure he was feeling. It was nothing compared to what he felt inside his skill test when he went insane, which resulted in him deciding to do a demonic baptism.

"Strong mental fortitude skills? Kiki, let's disable them, shall we?"

The voices from Bartholomew's skill suddenly disappeared, and from deep down, like an ethereal being emerged, speaking to him, 'Do you want to endure this shame?'