Maria nearly crashed into the canyon walls a few times as she moved at such an insane speed. She would almost always clip her wings onto the rocks whenever she made a turn and this caused her to involuntarily cry out in pain though she tried holding back her voice.

Odin’s first lesson tested her reflexes and decision-making in a super stressful environment. One wrong move and she might end up embedded into a wall and humiliating herself in front of the old Primal. Thankfully, she didn’t disappoint and although it was a little bit rough, Maria was able to get past the canyon safely without having crashed into a wall but there were many close shaves. By the time she exited the canyon, Odin was already waiting for her and they had arrived at a different place inside of the Void Realm. This place was actually filled with life as there were trees and some peculiar creatures in the surroundings.

“Are we still in the Void Realm?” Maria asked.

“Yes, this is part of the Void Realm where the Primal of Life, Ultima, resides.”

“...Is it okay for us to be intruding on her land?”

“It’s fine. However, the conditions here are actually much harsher than the previous place as everything here, both living and inanimate, is created by Void Energy.”

“I see…”

“Ordinary people wouldn’t be able to withstand the conditions here but you’ll likely be able to so we’ll begin your training here.”

“Okay.”

Odin gave Maria a break for a few minutes as he saw the small injuries peppered all over Maria’s wings. Although she had safely passed through the canyon earlier and didn’t crash, that didn’t mean she was completely unharmed. Most of Maria’s wings had some degree of injury while a pair were even bent and broken as she had to sacrifice them in order to quickly adjust her direction or she would have slammed into the canyon walls at one of the junctures.

Making large adjustments while moving at such speeds bent her wings out of shape and she sometimes got too close to the walls and injured them. It was certainly painful but Maria held in the pain and endured it. She quickly began casting [Cure] and [Heal] on herself as she quickly mended her broken wings and other injuries.

“Being able to move at such speeds during combat is sure to help me in a fight so I should probably train to be able to do that…”

Maria inwardly decided that in her spare time when Odin wasn’t giving her any lessons, she would race through the canyon from earlier with the goal of not getting injured like today. She’d start slow by moving only at subsonic speeds and once she got used to that, she’d then move up to supersonic speed until she got it down perfectly. Once she was finished with this canyon, she’d ask Odin if there was another one that’s a bit narrower and test herself again.

Odin could somewhat tell what was going through her mind and underneath that helmet, he smiled gleefully as he thought, ‘I surely found the right candidate to be my sixth disciple!’

“Alright, break time’s over. Now that you’ve mended your wings and injuries, let’s get down to business.”

Maria nodded and waited for Odin’s instructions.

“First of all, you’ll be swinging your sword until you obtain the [Sword Mastery] skill and rank it up all the way until it is on par with your other weapon mastery skills! Don’t worry, with me here, it won’t take very long!”

Maria pulled out her sword-form Calamity and held it in front of her. Odin nodded before taking out his Zantetsuken.

“Observe.”

He held the sword with both hands and raised it above his head before slashing down. Maria didn’t know why, but that simple down cut looked quite beautiful so she was momentarily entranced.

‘She saw it. Good!’

“What are you waiting for? It’s your turn now!”

Maria snapped out of her reverie as she immediately raised her sword and tried to mimic Odin’s sword cut. Of course, she wasn’t able to bring out the beauty that she saw earlier but she still wanted to try, so with that in mind, Maria was able to quickly adjust her form so that after a few mistakes, her subsequent slashes were determined by the game as ‘proper’ slashes. She continued doing this for a little over half an hour until finally, she heard a notification bell ring in her head.

*DING*

You have acquired the fundamental skill: Sword Mastery D

‘Eh? That was fast,’ Maria thought. However, that little bit of pride she had in her mind was completely deflated after Odin spoke up from next to her.

“Hmmm, that was a bit slow.”

“I-It was? Oh…”

Maria felt a little dejected but inwardly, Odin was praising her. ‘Hehe, this little one is quite the genius. She’s definitely had her fair share of battles, but let’s not get this success to her head.’

“Anyway, let’s move on to the next segment. This will be your schedule until you have the [Battle Sword Mastery] skill.”

“5 hours of sword practice, 1 hour of rest to eat food followed by another 4 hours of sword practice. As for the rest of the day, you’ll have time off to do whatever you want though I expect you to rest when needed and do something productive during your free time.”

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“Y-Yes!”

“Now, get to it then!”

Maria thought that this schedule was alright since her previous schedule was actually much harsher as she spent half the day just practicing her techniques and forms before logging off to rest. There came the problem where she would have to log out, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that. She could only hope that Odin wouldn’t get too angry with her for disappearing for too long. She could worry about that later since now, she had to focus her mind on the task at hand.

While she was practicing her sword swings, Odin would occasionally speak up and tell her to correct her posture and be mindful of this and that. Thankfully, Maria was a quick learner so she was able to contemplate on his words before quickly adjusting herself in accordance with his advice. Underneath the helmet, Odin was smiling from ear to ear as he saw her rapid progress after he only said a few words to her.

Maria’s days inside the Void Realm continued like this. In her free time, she would run the canyon course repeatedly until her wings gave out after exhausting her SP. She still wasn’t at the level where she could pass through the canyon at supersonic speeds safely, but she was getting there so all she had to do was continue practicing. She acquired the [Battle Sword Mastery] skill in 2 days and spent another 5 days to rank it up to the same level as her [Battle Axe Mastery] and [Battle Scythe Mastery] skills, but compared to her other weapon mastery skills, Maria had spent only a fourth of the time to accomplish this and it was all thanks to Odin who was guiding her throughout her training.

Thankfully, when it was time for her to log out, nothing in particular had changed when she logged back into the game. Odin wasn’t even skeptical or angry about her disappearance and would only tell her to continue practicing. Maria was glad she had taken Odin’s offer since she could tell that although her stats, level, and other abilities and spells hadn’t leveled up, her overall power had increased by many folds.

“Alright, now that you’ve acquired the skill, we can finally start the real training,” Odin said one day after Maria had logged back into the game.

Upon hearing that the ‘real’ training would start, Maria was quite surprised to hear that so she asked, “Uhm, so this wasn’t the training?”

“Of course not, this was just the warm-up!”

“...Eh?”

“Follow me, we’ll get started on the real thing.”

Maria followed after Odin and stepped past the boundary between the empty Void Sea area and the lush area that was created by the Primal named Ultima. She had been practicing at the peripheral area of the place and hadn’t truly stepped into Ultima’s domain but once she did, Maria finally understood what Odin meant by the conditions there were harsher.

“!”

*DING*

You have discovered the domain of the Primal, Ultima, the Lightbringer

Once her foot had stepped into Ultima’s domain, Maria felt the void energy invade her entire body and mind as she began feeling pained and disconcerted. It was like something was crushing the inside of her body, turning her brain and other organs into mush. This feeling persisted even after she cast an enhanced [Barrier] and [M. Barrier] on herself. Maria couldn’t push away this feeling as she collapsed onto her knees, but still desperately tried to resist the domain’s effects.

She felt like throwing up and fainting as her vision began to distort before it went black. Despite losing her sight, she still hadn't fallen unconscious just yet as the domain’s effects were still impacting her body and she could feel every bit of it. Maria began to heave as she started to feel a little scared. Tears began forming in her eyes, but she prevented herself from crying. It wasn’t out of humiliation or pride, but she felt that if she allowed herself to cry, she would immediately succumb to the domain’s effects and instantly lose consciousness.

Maria dug her fingers into the ground as she desperately persisted, unwilling to give in.

“Ultima, that’s enough. Don’t you think this is being a little too harsh?”

Her hearing was a bit impaired with everything being muffled, but she could partially make out what Odin was saying.

‘Ugh, is this some kind of sick test?’

“Ultima!”

“...Fine.”

The downright horrible feeling that had enveloped Maria quickly began to die down to a more tolerable level after Odin raised his voice and called out to the Lightbringer Primal. It was still harsher than it was outside of the domain, but at least it wasn’t enough to bring Maria down to her knees. She quickly tried to get up but stumbled a little bit until she found her balance again. Her senses were slowly restored and she quietly wiped the tears away from her eyes and didn’t show a face of aggrievance. She remained ‘calm’ but inwardly, she was fuming. Maria’s heart was racing and she quickly moved behind Odin after seeing something materialize nearby.

“Ultima, weren’t you being a little too harsh earlier?”

“Hmph, is this another one of your so-called disciples, Odin? I must say, you have pretty bad taste!”

Odin clicked his tongue and said, “Are you upset that she’s a Fallen?”

“...If you already know, then why did you bring her here to my domain?!”

Maria stared at the being who had materialized nearby and was confronting them. This was naturally the Primal, Ultima. This Primal took on the shape of a flawlessly beautiful woman with 12 pairs of resplendent wings on her back and was sitting on a machine-like throne. There was a large mechanical halo floating in the air above her back much like the tainted halo that was floating behind Maria. From her appearance, Maria could definitely say that Ultima was an angel, and counting the number of wings she had, Ultima was a High Seraph.

With Maria being a fallen angel, it was no wonder why Ultima was being so unwelcoming. However, unlike the typical angels that Maria knew of who appeared to be just a human with wings and a halo, Ultima was completely different. Her appearance was completely white as her body was only in the form of a female humanoid.

Maria couldn’t tell what kind of being Ultima was since she was different from the angels she knew from the game. Though Maria was frightened by Ultima since she felt a negative disposition towards her, she still couldn’t help letting out her admiration of the female Primal’s beauty.

“Beautiful…”

“Hm?”

“...?”

“S-Sorry!”

Odin began laughing after he heard Maria’s heartfelt expression of her admiration towards Ultima since he could feel that his disciple was actually incensed from being subjected to her earlier torture that was doled out by said Primal.

“She may be a fallen, Ultima, but I’ve seen how pure her heart is. I bet she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time so she fell from grace! Can’t you be a little lenient this time? There’s no other place in the Void that has such a perfect condition to train her!”

“...” Ultima frowned before she began scanning Maria up and down. To her displeasure, Ultima did see that Maria was pure of heart despite her everything else being Tainted.

“...I will let this slide, but only just this once because what you say about her heart is true. However, if you dare bring a wicked character into my domain, I will immediately kill them. You best remember that, Allfather.”

“Yes, yes. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you this time, Lightbringer.”

Ultima was just about to go away but she turned towards Maria one last time and said, “Child, learn to relinquish your attachments to that power. Although your heart is pure, I can feel that your soul isn’t the same. If you continue down this path, I pray that you do not fall further into the darkness.”

Ultima turned around and vanished in a flash of light but Maria couldn’t understand what she meant by her last words. This was only a game though so she didn’t think too much about it and just waited for Odin to say something.

“Alright, little one. Now that we’ve gotten permission, let’s head further in. Please don’t bear a grudge towards Ultima, that’s just how she is ever since her brother fell into that so-called darkness she told you about earlier.”

“Oh? Ultima has a brother?”

“Yes, at one time, the two were known as the Twin Primal Seraphs but Ultima’s brother wanted to pursue something else as there was already a Primal of Light and there was no Primal of Dark.”

“...So that’s what she meant by ‘falling’?”

“It’s not falling or anything. Ultima just says that because she feels betrayed since her brother separated from her when in fact, he had only swapped alignments. There was no falling or ascending.”

Odin then leaned down to Maria and whispered, “To put it frankly, that bro-con is just upset that her brother left her.”

“Pfft!”

Maria almost laughed when she heard Odin say that but she quickly stifled her laughter and covered her mouth since they were still in Ultima’s Domain. It wasn’t a problem if Odin made fun of her but if she, a mere mortal, dared to laugh, she might experience that suffering from earlier, and Maria didn’t want that to happen. She already felt a little traumatized by it.

“Hahaha, anyway, let’s forget about her and just focus on your training!”

“Uhm, Odin, may I ask, but who is Ultima’s brother?”

“He’s known by many names actually. Dragon King, Dragon God, but to us Primals, he’s simply called Bahamut.”