Kapitel 20: Training With a Partner

Amelia thought about his question and she had two answers.

"Will you help me with what I want to do?" If he wouldn't help then she would prefer to just follow him.

"I'll help with whatever you want help with. It's my job to protect you anyway," Mark answered.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing, just that I'm going to protect you, so ask away."

'That's good, I thought he would leave after healing me,' Amelia thought. "I want to get my mother's pendant back."

"When did you lose it?" Mark questioned.

"Right before you met me," she said.

"Is that what your allies took from you?" he continued asking.

"Yes, that's right."

"Do you know where they might be?"

"It doesn't matter where the people who directly took it from me are, but the people who ordered them to. I don't know where they are right now, but I know where they will be in a few months."

"Oh, and where's that?"

"The Tournament of Races."

"Why would they go there," Mark continued on with the Q and A.

"For the rewards. They are from the royal family of Fallen Embers. The person who took the pendant should be a male from the younger generation. He sent his lackies all over Fallen Embers to gather supplies that could increase his strength. My mother's pendant had the ability to increase the power of fire spells, so they took it after pretending to be my allies," Amelia explained all about her enemy.

"So how will we get your mother's pendant back?"

"The only way I can think of is to beat him in the Tournament of Races."

"Hmm, how strong is he?"

"From last I'd heard he was rank 3, almost rank 4, so he should be rank 4 by now," she said.

Mark spoke honestly, "I don't think we could beat him even if we teamed up if he's that strong."

Amelia looked at her feet. She too knew that it wouldn't be easy, but the pendant was too important to her.

"So let's get stronger on our way to the tournament," Mark flashed a smile to Amelia, making all of her worries disappear.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Now tell me how we get to the tournament," said Mark.

Amelia couldn't help but laugh from the difference in his attitude, "*giggle*, we'll need to sell more potions, so that we can earn enough money to teleport to the Imperial city."

"Okay. How much more time do we have until we need to go to the Imperial city?" He asked.

Amelia counted on her fingers, "One, two, three. We have three and a half months left until the Tournament starts, so we need to be at the Imperial City in three months."

"If we have that much time, then we should increase our strength for the next to months," stated Mark.

"How do you normally train?" Amelia asked so that she could do the same training.

"I wake up in the morning, do exercises while simultaneously using Body Refining until I'm sore, heal my body, and then repeat the process three more times. After that I practice my spells until I run out of Mana, and then I Meditate until my Mana is full. I continue that for the rest of the day, rest early, and repeat," explained Mark as he tried not to leave out any details of his training.

"That's… quite harsh. I don't know if I can do that," Amelia said with a meek voice.

"Don't worry, I'll help you," Mark said with a smile. That very smile is what deceived Amelia into a very painful two months.

......

"*Huff Huff*, can we *Huff* take a break *Huff*, " Amelia complained the very next morning. They had left Ventus and traveled a ways away from the temples to train outside.

"What do you mean? It hasn't even been thirty minutes yet," said Mark.

"These thirty minutes have been thirty minutes of Hell! Who told you that it would be a good idea to exercise and Body Refine at the same time?" Amelia question him, preparing to place whoever's name came out of his mouth on her strangle list.

"It hasn't been thirty minutes, and it was self taught," Mark answered.

"How come you don't look tired?" Amelia asked. She was going through so much pain, yet he made it look easy.

"Well, I normally train harder on my own, and I have an ability to increase my muscles healing speed," Mark answered.

"That's cheating!"

"No it's not. In fact, this increases the effect of my training."

"Then isn't that something you should share with me?!"

"You didn't ask," Mark said.

Amelia looked at him for a moment, her eyes turning dull. She started walking closer to him.

"What is it now. We need to continue trai-" His words were choked out by Amelia strangling him.

"Hey, Hey! Stop!" He yelled.

He looked at Amelia like he had been wronged, but she just glared back. "Fine I'll teach you. No need to strangle me," he said.

"All I do is move my Mana into my body and it increases how fast it regenerates," Mark explained, although he didn't think there was much to explain.

"Doesn't that just make your Mana leak out?"

"Hmm, at first it did. But somewhere down the road it stopped leaking out. That was when I started Body Refining and exercising at the same time."

"I never tried putting Mana into my body after it just leaked out… guess I was missing out," Amelia tried what he said and her body did indeed feel like it was healing faster. "How come this knowledge isn't shared with everyone by now?"

"Well, that's probably because they could get healed better by a healing spell. This ability, Regeneration, doesn't require a specific type of Mana, and it can be used on oneself, but its effect is worse than a healing spell. Oh, but when I use water attributed Mana the ability works better, " Mark found more to explain as Amelia asked what he had taken as common sense.

"That's not fair," she complained.

"Every element has its own benefit. The water attribute's benefit is healing, so I think it's perfectly normal for it to make anything related to healing stronger," countered Mark.

"Fine then, at least the training isn't so horrible now," Amelia spoke and then glared at Mark again, "You better not leave something out that makes training easier next time."

"Okay, all you had to do is ask. It's not my fault," Mark said, which caused Amelia to blush a little.

......

Their training continued as it slowly got harder. Mark taught her all of the abilities he used to train with and how he used them, such as spinning the Mana in his soul to Meditate.

After two weeks of training, they could finally both train at the same difficulty. Before this Mark had to lower his normal training so that he could help Amelia, but now they were both training their hardest to increase their power.

Another two weeks passed and they started sparing with each other. Amelia was a close range fighter, while Mark was mid to long range, so the sparing challenged both of them to overcome their weaknesses.

Amelia had to learn how to dodge attacks while also putting pressure on her enemy. Her dodging naturally increased over time, and she learned a spell that would coat her legs in fire, similar to her Fire Gauntlet, which increased her speed and gave her a more diverse attack pattern.

To put pressure on her enemy, she learned a new mid ranged attack. Now she could dodge while punching out blasts of fire with her Fire Gauntlets.

Mark on the other hand had to learn how to keep a steady distance from his enemy. He could fight close range, but his power wasn't nearly as strong if he did that. By fighting while trying to control where his enemy went, he gained a passive ability.

Whip Mastery(Rank 1 0%)- Increases the control one has over whips and how much damage they can inflict with them.

They both also learned how to change the output of Mana into their spells. This allowed them to either rapidly fire spells, increase the spells speed, or make the spells more powerful.

Their battle style and technique grew better and better as they improved at a rapid pace. They each had to improve, or the other would be left in the dust. This pushed both of them to work as hard as they could to improve.

Strangely, by being around Mark, Amelia felt like her efforts were yielding better results than they used to.

......

The two months of training didn't pass quickly for either one of them, but they had fun training together.

Mark thought it was much better to train with someone rather than train alone. Instead of the grueling process it used to be, it felt fun. He could learn from Amelia, and Amelia could learn from him.

It had a type of synergistic effect, Mark thought. He improved more far more than normal, and his improvement wasn't linear, but exponential. So too was Amelia's. He also didn't grow stronger in just power, but in every other area as well. Technique, control, and analysis all improved by training with Amelia.

With two months of training under their belt, they could relax and sell potions for the remaining time. They would only need to do a little training to keep their bodies in shape.