"God damn…" Sero muttered to himself, still laying on the sand. "How strong are you?"

Enzo smirked as he stood up. "You noticed?"

Sero winced as he sat up, checking his body. His Recovery was still working, but Enzo’s singular attack interrupted both his efficiency cycles and his Iron Skin. On top of that, Enzo seemed to have done it with pure, raw strength, no energy efficiency included.

"Yeah… one of my skills informed me that it was just your own strength."

"Guess there’s some merit to what that old man was saying." Enzo gazed down upon him. "So, can you really copy anything you see?"

"Pretty much." Sero got up and dusted himself off.

"Even if some skills require certain passives?"

"Passives?"

Enzo frowned at him. "Don’t tell me you don’t know what those are."

"I don’t—" Sero recalled something. "Oh, I remember that testing orb saying mine was Rationality and Influence?"

Enzo regarded Sero for a moment. "Rationality I assume is something similar to logic-based passives. Old man guessed it helps your reasoning stay intact and protects you from mental attacks. But, I’m not sure what Influence does."

"Oh, Influence allows you to—"

"Wait," Sero raised his hand, cutting Aphiel off. "What are passives? Are they like… abilities in a game?"

"Ugh, he told me you were revived earlier this month, so that’s why you don’t know anything," Enzo sighed to himself. "Yeah, passives are the opposite of skills. They usually don’t require mana or for you to activate or cast them. They work in the background at all times unless you suppress it yourself."

"Oh." Sero slowly understood. "So, Rationality could be like me calming myself down and thinking things through?"

"Obviously." Enzo stopped himself. "I’m not gonna act like I know everything your passives do for you; it’s just something you’re gonna have to figure out yourself."

"Champion, I can explain them further later!"

"Thanks." Sero felt a rare sense of gratitude for the goddess.

"Run your skills by me. Your base ones."

Sero hesitated, but then gave a brief explanation of his Perfect Copy, Recall, and Analysis.

"That’s… interesting." Enzo murmured to himself as Sero finished. "Perfect Analysis would be incredibly useful for battle strategies. But," he glanced at Sero with a curious look. "You ever used it on yourself?"

"I- No, I never really thought about it?"

Enzo shook his head dismissively. "You can try that out later. For now, I’m gonna lay some groundwork." He took a hand out of his pockets and raised his index finger.

"So, from what you’ve shown me, your Perfect Analysis is a fuckin’ broken skill. But, its flaw in your case is that it only tells you information about your opponent or whatever and potential strategies. Am I right so far?"

Sero nodded, a little surprised that Enzo was able to glean that much off their skirmish.

"You got a supercomputer in your head. That’s amazing, but you don’t have the skills to utilize it completely." Enzo narrowed his eyes. "You don’t have the experience to back it up. In simpler terms, knowing everything from the rules and strategies of a sport is vastly different from actually playing the sport."

"Oh," It started to click in Sero’s head. "So, what you’re saying is—"

"You need to get beat up more." Enzo nodded sagely.

"Wait, hold on—"

"Get ready." Enzo took out his hands and assumed a fighting stance.

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

Despite his best efforts, Enzo continually pummeled Sero, knocking him down over and over again. Even with the goal of getting a feel for fighting, Sero began to lose motivation with every beat down.

When Enzo kicked him into the sand face-first, Sero laid there for a moment. His body was in pain, even with his Recovery and Iron Skin working overtime. A sense of shame and embarrassment washed over him, and Sero was reluctant to get back up.

"What are you doing?" He heard Enzo call out. "We’re not even halfway done yet."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"I’m tired," Sero responded, his voice muffled by the sand. "You’re just beating me up for fun at this point."

He heard Enzo crouch down next to him.

"You thought this would be easy?"

"After you punched me the first time, not really—"

"You are getting better. Not that it was an improvement in the first place, but I can see that you’re developing your battle sense."

Sero lifted his head in surprise. Enzo still had the same disapproving expression, but he seemed genuine about his words.

"Really?" Sero pushed himself up, spitting out sand.

"You still need more work, but I can tell you’re starting to consider other options instead of rushing in head first. It’s taking longer and longer to knock you down."

Sero wasn’t sure if he should take that as a compliment or not.

"To be fair, I’m much stronger than you. I’m not trying to boast or anything, but that’s the truth." Enzo stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I’m guessing you feel discouraged because you haven’t been able to really get some good hits on me, so you think you’d never be able to beat me."

Sero scowled as he stood up as well, but he had to admit that Enzo was right.

"So, don’t think that way. Focus on improving your sense of fighting. Don’t get used to thinking you have to beat me. Get used to being beaten up."

"Not sure how that’s helpful."

Enzo smirked. "I’m being honest here. If you start tunneling on the idea of beating someone leagues above you, you might ignore the important basics of learning their move set or exploiting their weaknesses." He nodded at Sero. "You notice that my hits aren’t as hard anymore?"

"Now that you mention it," Sero thought for a moment. "Yeah, they aren’t."

There was a hint of approval in Enzo’s expression. "I haven’t actually reduced the strength of my attacks. You’ve just gotten better at anticipating and rolling with the hits." He took out a hand and extended a fist towards Sero. "For that, I’ll reveal three pieces of information: a skill, a passive, and my class."

Sero’s face immediately contorted with a wicked glee as he began to salivate. He had almost forgotten that Enzo was an S-rank as well.

"Now that’s what I like to see," Enzo grinned at Sero’s expression. "Endure the training, and I’ll reward you properly."

"Yessir!"

"First off, my class is Demonic Judge."

"Huh?" Sero was momentarily taken aback.

"Surprised? What do you know about Demon classes?" Enzo had a knowing smile.

"Uh, that people who are Demons usually have evil traits or personalities." Sero recalled what Amaya had said earlier. "Or something else that caused them to ascend as such."

"Something like that, yeah." Enzo verified with a nod. "In my case, I murdered some very bad people before the apocalypse."

"Wait, what?"

"So, I ascended as a Demon. From there, I advanced into a Demonic Judge."

"Champion," Aphiel sounded both in awe and terrified. "Unique classes don’t usually have advancements due to how powerful they already are. The fact that he advanced such a class means that he’s extremely powerful."

Sero’s mouth opened slightly. "Damn.."

"Moving on, one of my passives is Relentless." Enzo seemed prideful at the impression he was giving Sero. "Relentless keeps my stats consistent, no matter what. Even if I get wounded, get my limbs chopped off, or have something restrict my body, my speed and strength will always remain the same, with unlimited endurance. I can also raise or lower the consistency at will. In the most basic example, I can always punch you at 50 percent strength no matter what or run at whatever speed forever. The only drawback is that it’s useless if I take too much damage to handle."

Sero nodded understandingly. It was a pretty strong passive skill, and it helped explain how Enzo was able to counter Sero’s explosive skills with pure raw strength.

"And last but not least," Enzo matched Sero’s sudden unhinged grin. "The first of my skills is called Fairness."

"Oh?" Sero licked his lips eagerly.

Enzo’s hands swirled with red mana as he raised a palm at Sero. He clenched his hand into a fist and lowered it. Sero’s body buzzed with power as he copied the skill.

"Wait," Sero frowned as his Perfect Analysis quickly processed the skill. "You can’t use it on me?"

"So the old man was right about your copy ability," Enzo was mildly impressed. "Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know what you’ve learned, but Fairness is a skill that allows the user to forcefully balance the strength between themselves and their opponent. You steal your opponents’ stats until the both of you are evenly matched. The two main drawbacks are that it only works on people stronger than you, and that the bigger the strength difference, the shorter the balance lasts."

"That’s still pretty good." Sero could feel his heart pumping with excitement.

Enzo chuckled, reminding Sero of a Doberman. He splayed his hands out invitingly towards him.

"Go ahead. Test it out on me."

Sero didn’t need any more encouragement as he mimicked Enzo’s earlier movements, casting Fairness on the Demonic Judge.

Almost immediately, Sero felt an overwhelming power crash upon him. He nearly fell to his knees as he quickly adjusted to the new surge of strength.

"Holy shit!" Sero gasped as he adapted. He casually threw a jab, watching in awe as a shockwave blasted out from his action. "Just how strong are you?"

Enzo laughed for real this time, akin to a low barking. "What’s funny is that you seem to forget about Relentless."

"Huh?"

"I’m barely using a sliver of my strength, and that’s what you absorbed from me. But Relentless keeps my stats consistent, remember? I haven’t lost anything at all."

Sero stared at him in shock. "Wait, that’s way too fucking broken."

Enzo shrugged. "You’re one to talk. But, if you think that’s incredible, then wait till you learn about the old man’s profile. It’s not something I’m proud to admit, but he’s even stronger than I am. And he’s the only one I’ve ever lost to."

Sero was speechless. Here he was, marveling at his strength as an A-rank when the S-rank in front of him was in a completely different world. He began to think about the enormous gap between the ranks and slowly felt nervous about the S-ranks in the upcoming tournament.

"Wait a minute," Sero suddenly remembered something. The strength he had stolen from Enzo disappeared as the duration ran out. "You wouldn’t happen to know an S-rank named Liam, would you? He’s a Demon class too."

Enzo tilted his head curiously. "Know him? He’s my little brother."