One week had passed since that day. Since then, Illyan had been very cautious around that girl, but fortunately, she hadn't done anything too outrageous.

  However, Illyan still preferred to avoid her if possible, as she was definitely bad news.

  Instead, he started focusing on the diagram on the door and his blood energy practice with Aurelia.

  Korin was who knew where, and Aziro and the other leaders had set off a few days ago for troll hunting.

  Only a few soldiers, meant to protect the logistics men and academics, remained, mostly zing around.

  But that gave Illyan the opportunity to fully focus on his training.

  With Aurelia’s perception, even Ezekiel or Vanda would be discovered in seconds if they got too close.

  And so, they could easily sneak out of the camp without attracting attention.

  Csh

  The sound of steel cshing against steel rang out deep in the ancient city as blurred figures moved at high speed, cshing with each other every second.

  One of them was fast and hard, while the other was fluid and precise.

  Both seemed to be equal despite their different styles, and neither was able to gain an edge over the other.

  “Not bad. You’re learning much faster than expected. Only your blood energy manipution is falling behind.”

  Aurelia, one of the blurred figures, retreated from her opponent as she panted slightly.

  She held her blood sabers in her hands before sheathing them in their scabbards.

  On the other hand, her opponent, Illyan, also stopped as he took a deep breath and felt a sudden shift inside his gut.

  He had been sparring with Aurelia for the st few days to improve his blood energy manipution.

  Blood energy was one of the energies that came from within the body, and thus it was easiest to train when using one's body.

  Since both Aurelia and he were adept at close combat, this was the best way to refine his control.

  However, Illyan used this opportunity to observe Aurelia’s bde combat as he borrowed some low-quality sabers from her.

  In the past, the only bded weapons he had used were daggers, knives, and a jagged bde he had taken from Triston.

  All of them were short and easy to handle, but sabers were not the same.

  Illyan noticed that swords and sabers were quite popur in the south and decided to learn.

  It was easy for him as he was adept in [The Way of the Body], but the sparring with Aurelia accelerated his learning even more.

  However, Illyan didn’t think about all of that as he closed his eyes in surprise and ignored Aurelia completely.

  Aurelia noticed his silence and curiously looked at him.

  Inside Illyan’s body, deep in his navel, he felt a sudden force.

  This force was subtle, and it hadn’t suddenly appeared as it might have seemed.

  Its embryo had been there for a long time, intangible and weak, waiting to slowly condense.

  Illyan didn’t hesitate as he sat down in the lotus position and started to feel this energy.

  For a normal person, this would be an extremely vague feeling, and the person’s talent would decide how far they could go. But Illyan, with his mental power, could feel every tremble of the energy.

  It reminded him of fluid, while his body was the vessel holding it.

  This was the flow—energy created through constant training and fighting in the breathing techniques of knights.

  He had finally condensed his first strand.

  It had only been about a year since he started training, but he had already condensed his flow. Only a few geniuses managed to do that.

  But he wasn't a genius. He simply had advantages others didn’t have.

  He could train longer than others and could ignore his injuries.

  He also used other unorthodox methods to speed up the process.

  Thanks to that, after the intense sessions with Aurelia, he felt that the st bottleneck in his flow had been broken through, and he had managed to become a Flow Master.

  While blood energy and flow were completely different, they were still powers that came from within the body. When he trained his blood energy, his breathing technique became smoother too, which caused him to make a jump in progress.

  “Congratutions… you’ve become a Flow Master,” Aurelia, who had seen all of this, suddenly said.

  Illyan opened his eyes wide and stood up.

  “You’ve trained for a long time too, right? Shouldn’t you be a Flow Master too?”

  Illyan was pretty sure that she used the breathing technique masterfully, but didn’t have flow or aura.

  Aurelia snorted at his question.

  “There’s no real reason for me to train in that incomplete technique.”

  “Hmm? Incomplete?” Illyan furrowed his brows. Was the knight's path defective from the beginning?

  Well, Illyan wasn’t too surprised, as he had thought so too, but he still felt there was value in learning it.

  Aurelia shook her head when she saw his expression.

  “Yes, I can feel it. It’s not bad, but it’s missing its essence. There were some rumors from acolytes that the knight's path is from a different continent where it flourished. Because of that, I didn’t practice too deeply. It would be more beneficial to focus on magic.”

  Aurelia said confidently.

  It was then that Illyan realized that despite her talent, she was clear-minded and wasn’t consumed by arrogance or greed.

  On the other hand, he, who was cking in most areas, was the greedy one, deciding to train in more paths.

  Seeing him fall into contemption, Aurelia giggled lightly, and as if to change the subject, she raised her saber once again and pointed it in his direction.

  “Condensing flow is great for your training, as it can synergize with blood energy, and it’s supposedly one of the easiest energies one could control. That’s also the reason why normal people without any magical talent can manipute it just fine. But in the end, the best way to refine one’s control is through training.”

  With a soft ugh, she lunged at Illyan, who was still listening to her words.

  Surprised, he quickly rolled away and took out his sabers before gring at her with his expressionless face.

  As they came to know each other more closely, Illyan came to realize that Aurelia had a mischievous side to her.

  She usually acted collected and calcutive, but in the end, she was a young dy at the start of her life.

  “Heh…” Illyan saw her attack as a challenge as he raised his sabers, only to stab at Aurelia from a difficult angle.

  While Aurelia was also a close-combat warrior, her main path was a magical one. Her body couldn’t keep up with someone like Illyan, who could wrestle with bears.

  However, because her proficiency was much higher than his and her ability to see through imperfections, she could break through his strikes and was overall a better fencer.

  But that was to be expected. Illyan had only recently learned the way of sabers and swords.

  However, when fighting, he didn’t look for excuses. Instead, he focused on his improvement.

  Since she could see the fws in swordpy, he would take advantage of it and learn from the mistakes.

  For normal people, this would be something extremely time-consuming to do, but for Illyan, whose eyes had mutated, this was as easy as walking.

  Whenever he made a mistake, a ssh would appear on his fair skin, only to quickly disappear.

  Aurelia wasn’t surprised at all. She didn’t know the extent of his healing, nor did she care.

  Now, the only thing in her mind was the fight they were going through right now.

  Several fast cshes resounded as Illyan was the one rushing at her.

  If he wanted, he could use his abnormal regeneration to endure her blows and end the fight from the beginning, but then the fight would lose its meaning.

  Instead, he imitated her swordpy while adding his already extensive knowledge of weaponry and battle awareness to fight in his own unique style.

  His hair was still tied up, so he looked schorly, but at the same time, he seemed ferocious.

  Because of that, Aurelia grinned as her sabers glowed slightly with a reddish hue.

  “Since you’re so comfortable, I guess I can expend some of my blood energy to teach you.”

  With that, she swung her saber at high speed toward the spot Illyan was pnning to step into.

  Illyan noticed too te and couldn’t evade.

  His instincts kicked in as he used his saber to deflect hers.

  But when the sabers made contact, Illyan knew he had to do something, as his saber was on the brink of colpse.

  The sabers he used were just random ones she took from her gang, while hers had been carefully nurtured by magic for years. There would be obvious differences, especially since she powered herself now with blood energy.

  ‘I’ll power myself up too, then!’ Thinking this, he mustered all his willpower to move the little strand he had just condensed right into the fight.

  He feared it would disappear if he used it too early, but his instincts told him it was fine. This wasn’t external energy like mana. It didn’t need to be harnessed every time for a long period to recover the lost energy.

  This was the flow of his own body—a part of him.

  Just resting alone would allow him to recover!

  Clink

  Just as he commanded, the energy moved without any obstacles and reached the tips of his fingers, where it entered the saber.

  This was when he finally felt some hindrance, as there was a lot of energy loss.

  But it was enough as he flicked his hand with the saber and disarmed one of Aurelia’s sabers directly from that one csh.

  “Ah?!” Aurelia yelped as she didn’t expect him to make such a move this fast and almost fell on him as she lost her bance.

  Illyan, seeing this, sidestepped and sshed at her with both of his sabers.

  Aurelia kicked one of the sabers away, and using it as leverage, she retreated by doing a somersault.

  Her fall was just a little trick that Illyan could see from miles away.

  Both of them panted lightly as they circled around each other.

  Clear battle intent shone in their eyes as they waited for the opportunity to lunge at their sparring partner.

  This time, Illyan rushed at her with a flick of his legs. Because of the flow, the speed he could achieve was astonishing, and he reached Aurelia in just a second.

  But she, like grass in the strong wind, evaded in the most efficient manner and counterattacked, aiming for his neck with a thrust.

  Illyan blocked the attack by redirecting it and sshed with the second saber at her legs.

  She jumped to avoid the swipe, which he took advantage of as he took a step forward and threw a jab with his elbow into her stomach.

  A loud thud resounded as his elbow embedded itself in her gut.

  But feelings of accomplishment didn’t come, as she suddenly moved her legs to lock his arm, disarming it completely.

  With his arm disarmed, he could only use his second saber to deflect her two attacks.

  There was already a look of victory on her face as she smugly grinned at him.

  ‘This girl really changed after we gave our vows, huh…’

  Illyan grumbled in his heart, but in fact, he felt a vitality flowing inside his body. Not physical, but spiritual.

  Before, only strong stimuli could make him feel strong emotions. The example could be his interrogation of Caleb. The cries of pain made him feel a certain etion. He became even more distant from others.

  But now, he felt enjoyment after a long while.

  ‘It’s like with Zers.’

  With that, he gave her his genuine smile as he pushed the st bit of the flow into his legs.

  She was too light, so there was no need to support his arm with flow.

  Aurelia, seeing what he was doing, let out a mocking ugh.

  “Hah, you can’t run away—Huh? Hey, stop—Aaagh?”

  With a rough ugh, he flicked one of his legs and started spinning at high speed.

  Hearing her screams of terror made him feel sadistic satisfaction as he ughed loudly.

  “You! Stop it!”

  In the end, she couldn’t endure, as she let go of his arm, forgetting to attack him, and jumped away in retreat.

  Unfortunately, Illyan could see that the nding wouldn’t be smooth.

  “Ugh!” With a sense of imbance, Aurelia fell right on her butt with a groan.

  She gred at Illyan, who was looking at her strangely.

  After a while of silence, both of them burst into ughter.

  ‘This feeling is kind of liberating,’ Illyan and Aurelia thought.

  Both of them had closed off their hearts because of their experiences and weren’t used to having much fun.

  But since they now had someone who had made oaths with them, they could let go of their guard.

  Even if the contact could be broken, Aurelia was sure that Illyan, who was a novice in magic, knew nothing about it, nor did he look like a person who would repay kindness with evil.

  On the other hand, Illyan was sure that the more Aurelia helped him, the less chance there was for her to win in the duel.

  The biggest example was blood magic. If she hadn’t told him about it and kept the knowledge for herself, she would have had leverage against him. But she didn’t hide it.

  He also saw her sincerity. Literally ‘saw.’

  At first, he thought he could just understand people, but with his closed-in personality, he soon realized that was a wrong assumption.

  However, recently, he noticed that Vanda’s words were hiding ulterior motives. He tried to listen to her in detail and realized that he could feel—or rather ‘see’—when she spoke the truth or lied.

  His eyes were the eyes of a powerful entity. They were something he put his trust in.

  With such reassurance, he chose to put a little bit of trust into this red-haired woman.

  Not to mention that Zephyr also didn’t say anything to persuade him not to make the oath with Aurelia. That meant he had gauged Aurelia's character even deep in his mind…

  Thinking about this, he felt jubited that he finally had a companion…

  Unfortunately, his joy didn’t st long as his ugh got cut short…

  His logical mind reminded him that he had reason to avoid companionship.

  He looked at Aurelia. In the end, he could still be very well alive while she might turn into a pile of bones in the future.

  ‘Sigh… No reason to think about it. People come and go. That’s life…’

  Thinking so, he decided that contempting the future was futile.

  What he didn’t know was that Aurelia had a simir expression on her face when she looked at him…