章 33: Book 2: Chapter 4 – Three Month Wager

"Sudden enlightenment?"

"It's an extremely rare state of mind that very few ever enter. In that state, you will comprehend whatever it is you're trying to understand hundreds, if not thousands of times faster than you usually would.

But after the enlightenment ends, your mind tends to forget how you did what you just did, but your body never does. With a bit of training, you should be able to turn that enlightenment into your true comprehension."

Understanding dawned when Ace heard his instructor's explanation. "When I was being enlightened, my glaive…

It felt like it was a part of me. Wielding it was no different from moving any other aspect of my body. That feeling was incredible."

Wukong nodded with a smile as he explained. "For warriors, there are different levels of comprehension that you need to achieve before you can think about becoming a saint. The first level, which you just touched upon, is 'one with the weapon,' or 'one with the glaive,' in your case."

"What about your ability to compress space around your target? What level is that?" Ace asked the question he'd been dying to know this whole time.

"That's called Impose. But that's way off for the current you. You should focus on spending the next year trying to truly grasp one with the glaive."

"Year? Isn't that a bit long?" Ace asked.

"Long? Did you think just because you did it once whilst under enlightenment, you'd be able to comprehend it yourself in a few hours or even days?"

Wukong could easily see from the sheepish expression on Ace's face, that was exactly what he expected.

"Only 50% of warriors comprehend one with their weapon. And of that, the average warrior might easily take over 20 years. To take one year is already frighteningly quick!" Wukong explained, hoping to prevent Ace from putting added pressure on himself.

"But I bet you managed to do it immediately using your [Monkey See Monkey Do], didn't you?"

"Yes and no." Seeing Ace's confusion, Wukong explained. "Someone this king deeply respects is a glaive user like you. This king was able to near enough instantly comprehend 'one with the glaive' by copying them.

Even though the staff and glaive are both polearms and share many similarities when being used, there are still some intrinsic differences that needed to be accounted for. In the end, it took six months of intense training before this king was able to use the understanding of 'one with the glaive' to comprehend 'one with the staff.'"

"What?!" Wukong asked, seeing the hint of defiance in Ace's eyes.

"Three months!"

"Three months?" Wukong asked helplessly, despite knowing what Ace was referring to.

"You knew it took you six months, so you gave me double your time. Now I've decided to comprehend one with the glaive in three months. That's half your time!" Ace said competitively.

Hearing Ace's declaration, Wukong roared with laughter. "Hahahaha. If you can do it in three months, this king promises to give you a gift that you'll love, but if you fail, you have to do my bidding for a year!"

"It's a bet!" Ace unhesitantly replied with a confident smile.

"Fine, but to give you the best chance at succeeding, we need to change your training schedule slightly," Wukong said with a chuckle. "Firstly, you'll only do the hunting twice a week."

"Does that mean we'll be able to eat the beasts you bring back?" Ace asked as he salivated at the thought of eating those high-ranking beasts.

"Not a chance. On the five days you don't go hunting, Alissa will do the hunting."

"Can she even hunt rank two beasts?" Ace asked dejectedly at the thought of the quality of his food dropping.

"You shouldn't underestimate her. She's maybe young, but she's a genius-level assassin!" Wukong replied.

Ace nodded as he remembered the few times they sparred. In Alissa's eyes, there was a huge difference in ability between them, as she couldn't even come close to touching his clothes, but Ace knew the truth.

'If it weren't for me being of a higher rank and having observation haki, I would probably struggle, and as an assassin, she doesn't even specialise in frontal combat. I honestly don't understand how Kil was able to survive longer than a few attacks against her.'

"As for the other five days, you'll focus solely on your glaivesmanship. You'll do 10,000 thrusts, 10,000 slashes, and 10,000 chops."

Ace's eyes widened at those ridiculous numbers. The glaive he was using wasn't too heavy, but under those sorts of numbers, it'd be a struggle to lift his arms, let alone his glaive.

"And you can start now!" Wukong said as he walked off in the direction of their makeshift camp, not seeming to notice the look of pleading in Ace's eyes. An amused smile suffused his lips as his mind wandered. '3 months, huh?'

Over the next two months, each of the children saw drastic improvements under Wukong's guidance.

Alissa had broken through to become a warrior of the second rank, and like Ace, she was still seven when she did it. She had also proven her talent as an assassin time and time again. Whilst she was still a peak rank one warrior, she was easily able to hunt rank two beasts, and it was clear from looking at the wounds that they were all killed in one clean attack.

Killian had also recently broken through to the second rank as a warrior, and even though he was eight when he did it, he would still be classed as a top-tier elite talent wherever he went.

After his breakthrough, Wukong, who was finally happy with his basic axemanship, had him go on hunts with Alissa several times a week. Although he was nowhere near comprehending one with the axe, even Wukong had to admit his perception was well above average.

The thing that made both Killian and Alissa ecstatic was that they both recently broke through and became rank-one mages. Killian first and then Alissa a week later. Wukong told them they had to wait till they arrived at the pavilion before they learnt any spells as he had no spells of their element or level for them.

Despite feeling slightly jealous, Ace was still happy for them, especially Killian. He had watched Killian develop over the last few years. He grew in confidence and ability with every day, especially over the last couple of months during their travels.

Ace was also happy with his own improvements. Although he hadn't made any definitive breakthroughs, his gains were still very noticeable. His [observation] had reached a bottleneck after reaching 1500 meters when normal and 15 meters when compressed. From this, he guessed that with each breakthrough he made as a warrior, his new limit would increase by 250 meters.

He could even feel his armament haki increase as his strength did. But he was most proud of the improvement in his glaivesmanship.

His whole fighting style had gone through a metamorphosis. He went from copying Whitebeard's 'one shot kill' style to a more fluid fighting style which still showed hints of an untamed wildness. With his new understanding, he could see that while his new fighting style wasn't necessarily better than whitebeard's, it was better suited to him.

It had gotten to the point where most rank three beasts could no longer injure him in their fights. Under Wukong's guidance, he could find a beast's weak spot at a glance. And despite being slower than most, he could control the flow of the battle, giving him the chance he needed to put them down.

At the moment, though, Ace seemed to be struggling against a four-armed sloth with an emerald-coloured skin-tight aura coating its body.

Other than having four arms, the odd thing was that, unlike what one would expect from a sloth, this one was anything but slow.

If it weren't for Ace's [observation] allowing him to track its attacks, Ace would've definitely lost by now. In fact, even though he hadn't lost yet, Ace was still steadily being suppressed.

The sloth's attacks were all fast and deadly. Forget counter-attacking; Ace was struggling to block and parry. There had been several close calls where Ace had to shift his body at the last minute so that the hits he couldn't avoid weren't fatal.

But even with his less-than-ideal situation, his face remained completely calm as he focused on the battle.

As time passed, Ace found it easier to block and parry all of its attacks. Eventually, he even found chances to counterattack. From the outside, it looked as though either Ace was speeding up or the sloth was slowing down, but neither of those was true.

The truth was that as time went on, each of Ace's techniques began to flow smoother into the next.

As the sloth slashed at his neck, Ace calmly spun his body out of the way. Using the momentum of the dodge, he smoothly transitioned into a [slash], aiming to cut the sloth in two from the neck up.

Sensing danger, the sloth jumped back to avoid Ace's attack, but it wasn't fast enough.

Seeing the deep gash on the sloth's chest, Ace knew now was his chance to really apply pressure. His glaive pierced through the air like a bolt of lightning, aiming to pierce between the eyes of the beast.

The sloth was fast enough to dodge, but not without losing part of its ear.

Having suffered two injuries in a row from an opponent it had been dominating till now, the sloth let out a wrathful screech, but its situation didn't change.

Ace refused to let his building momentum go to waste. He forced his opponent into a corner with his constant barrage of flowing attacks. The way he went from thrust to slash, back to a thrust, it was almost as if he was dancing.

And the more injuries the sloth picked up, the slower it became. It barely managed to dodge another one of Ace's slashes when it launched itself out of the way, but in doing so, it crashed into a tree.

Ace refused to let this opportunity go to waste. Using the momentum from his slash, Ace lifted his glaive into the air and brought it down, aiming to bisect his opponent. The four-armed beast once again managed to barely dodge, but Ace's glaive still managed to take both its right arms.

Ace remained utterly indifferent to the beast's pained and heart-rending screech as he thrust the black blade of his glaive into his opponent's heart.

"I know, I know. Fast Rank 3 Magical Beasts are still a weakness of mine." Ace said between breaths when he sensed a powerful presence steadily walking towards him from behind.

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P.atreon.com/AceInCoilingDragon: Book 2 - Chapter 10