Chương 91: Sharpening Wheel

Julian began his training in earnest, firstly throwing his very basics skill with the sword at Reid. Needless to say, the man was not at all impressed in the beginning. But at the end of the first day, it changed as he saw the signifiant progress Julian had made.

"Well, you're not too thrashy at learning the sword. A couple more centuries of that and you'd force me to use my other hand."

Grunting, Julian shrugged. "You've seen nothing. Anyway, see ya in the past."

"Eh, wha-"

Julian rewinded himself to the start of his training and began the grinding anew.

Like that, a year went past for him training swordmanship with Reid. Making the man acknowledge him as 'barely passable' at the end of it. Even when his skill with the sword now significantly eclipsed his one with daggers.

Truth was, Reid wasn't a very good teacher. He didn't know how to explain how he did things and when he tried it was gibberish worthy of the corniest Xanxia. So he taught by exemple and sparing, which Julian learned, seems to be a notable weakness for him. He had always been a monster at applying and converting theory to practice, as well as working through things on his own. He was less so at mimicking and converting what he saw, very much so when what he saw was of a level he couldn't comprehend, which was what Reid was doing, as he was utterly unable to lower his level during demonstration.

Julian dared say Elsa was a way better teacher than Reid. However, he was still satisfied with his training, as their constant spar and fights with the First Sword saint made him exponentially more tricky and annoying to defeat to more skilled opponent.

On another note, his sanity was surpisingly still pretty stable. Even if more and more, he would have sudden 'sinly' urges rise within him and halucinate image of people. Mainly members of his family back home, as well as Rem, Ram, Emilia, Koneko and Priscilla.

But then, shortly after these urges and hallucination would appear, he would feel himself cool and calm down. Reid would also comment on his eyes shifting color when these episodes happened, but he would also inform him that they always settled on a grey color in the end.

It hinted at something deeper to his power over Sins and Virtues, and that the abilities they were showed to grant him when using EV was not everything there was to them.

It was with the thought to investigate this concept deeper at a later time that he went back to training for the equivalent of two months with his daggers this time, so that he was got almosy as skilled with them than with a sword.

After that came his martial arts training. The thing he was confident he wouldn't lose out to Reid at all.

—————

"So, you want us to throw hands?" Reid rose an eyebrow.

"Yeah. You better not hold back and show me what you got, old man. Cause you may beat me with a sword. But If there's something I don't think I'm lacking in its that." Julian said, a smirk adorning his face.

"Oh? interesting. Comes at me then." Planting his broken sword in the ground, he made a lazy 'come on' gesture.

Grinning, Julian obliged.

Starting simple, he closed in and threw a jab that crackled like lightning at the man's face to test his reaction.

To his half-surprise, Reid didn't move at all and simply let his fist impact his face. Julian had the impression to have struck a mix between rubber and a sponge as he felt the force of his punch simply disperse through and around the swordman's skull and the rest of his body, making the ground under them explode and the air blow wildly instead.

Reid's revenge was immediate, as in a split second his palm met Julian's jaw in what would seemingly be a crushing blow. Yet, in a strange turn of event, the strike had no true obvious exterior impact, but Julian wished he had as he inexplicably felt his entire skull and brain vibrate almost enough to make turn them both to mush.

But in a moment of almost sureal inspiration and understanding, the scene and the feedback of his fist during his punch replayed in his mind once, then twice, and then countless times in a split second. His 17 years understanding of the styles and schools of martial arts he had forged in his life and of his own body combined with the flashback to instinctively make him move his head back minutely and the rest of his entire body back and then down. From the root of his feet to his neck, every one of his muscles dropped down imperceptibly, they were so in sync with each other that they expelled and carried a bit of the latent kinetic energy rattling his head down into the ground like a surging wave.

*Crack*

The ground fractured beneath his feet in a weaker replica of Reid's own impact diffusion. Taking a step back, he dispersed the rest of the energy in his head with a bit of time magic and rubbed his jaw. "I may have underestimated you a bit, Reid-San. You're not half bad."

Reid snorted and then squinted. "You just learned that by watching me, didn't you?" He asked rethorically and smirked. "You're not as full of shit as I thought then. But... Let's see if it was just a fluke." With that, he took back a loose, yet a bit more guarded stance.

"With pleasure." Julian smiled widely and took a quick step closer, his other leg raising to whip the swordman in the neck.

As soon as the fight began anew, the two could be seen exchanging a blurry of masterful blows. In the first few days of these intense exchanges, Julian lost every single exchange since his strikes were just dispersed and rendered innefective by the man's mastery of momentum.

But after a week of it, it all changed. Simply said, Julian finally learned how to affect Reid, if only just a bit with every punchs and kicks. As he learned to concentrate the force of his blow and pushing it a bit deeper than skindeep. Thus forcing the man to actually start to dodge. Problem was, Julian rather mishmashed fighting style that he wielded as a result of the very diverse and different martial arts he had leanred in his life got shapened after grinding itself against the razor sharp edge that was Reid's experience and own mastery. As such, the glimpses of his fighting style changing into a coherent and enhanced whole appeared.

For now, it was but a shadow of a shadow of what it could be, but it proved enough. In term of pure technique, he was indeed the better martial artist than Reid. So after that first week, Reid began to lose his superiority and lose once every few exchanges. And after the second, the First Sword Saint stopped winning altogether.

And with that, Julian was satisfied. Now was the time to hunt a divine dragon. But before that, he had to finish Reid's modified test.

—————

"It's time. After this, I'll have to go say hi to Volcanica."

Reid rubbed scratched his stubble. "I hate time sheanigans, they're confusing. And unfair. Anyway, if you think you're ready to fight that old Lizard. Good for you. Just know that you're probably not and never will be."

"Yeah, right. You're one to speak about fairness. And I find your lack of faith disturbing. How about a last spar then? This time, we give our all to defeat the other. Alright?" Julian proposed with a smile.

"Eh, why not. Been a fucking long while since I've got a good stretch. Don't come crying to me when your ass get owned though." Reid said with a shrug.

"Okay. We begin at 3 then." Crossing his arms, Julian grinned.

"1..."

"2..."

"..."

"3."

[Gate Overflow.]

"Unnamed sword strike."

The world crawled to a stop as a massive crescent of white light froze an inch before Julian's face. He had seen nothing, yet he had almost been bisected.

Fascinated, he raised his arms and touched the light with his finger. It was a bad idea, however, as the moment he touched it seem to bring its speed to his own realm. As such, the very next instant he was cut in two piece. But that wasn't all, as the very concept of his conciousness seemed to have also been split in two.

In normal circumstance, he would have been knocked out instantly. But as time was relative right now, instantly could as well be never.

Bringing back his conciousness to a state of 'before' being cut. Julian boosted himself with the most powerful Yang Spell in his repertoire and reappeared besides the frozen figure of Reid.

Right now, he was speeding up his own time so much the world appeared frozen. But the truth was he couldn't affect Reid' own time at all. His magic just wouldn't take a hold of the space and time around the swordman, as if nothing in his proximity could be affected if he didn't wish to.

Slowly, but surely, this sort domain was expending.

Thing was, just now. If Reid had wanted him dead, he could have cut the very concept of his life or even of his presence just now.

This was the pinnacle of swordmanship the man held, the power to cut through even concept.

But now that his first attempt had failed, the victory was...

Just as he thought that, Reid's sword twitched. And he began to noticeably move. His sword twitched again, and like he had finally emerged from a heavy liquid, Reid's entire body suddenly snapped toward him and his eyes zeroed on him.

Seeing him send another white crescent toward him. Julian's face became solemn as he coated his hand with four-fold magic and the densest PoD he could make. Then, he threw his fastest and strongest punch toward the white crescent, and released the magic.

The world simply began to vaporise in an ark around him, the shockwave and magic of his attack pulverising anything in its path in an explosion of multicolored light and dark red fire. As the white crescent met his attack, it lost in brightness but continued to fly toward him nonetheless. However, the unnamed sword strike may have survived his attack, Reid and the world around them did not.

Frankly, his attack look like a big bang, but instead of creating everything, it destroyed everything.

So instead of being responsible for possibly destroying the world, Julian went back in time to the start of the fight.

"3..."

[Gate Overflow]

"Unnamed sword strike."

Then, instead of touching the white crescent. Julian boosted himself with Yang magic and casually stepped before Reid and flicked him on his right peck. Then he resumed time.

Let me tell you, being flicked at relativistic speed is not to be taken lightly. As can be attested by the missing right side of Reid's upper body which included the arm he was wielding his sword with.

It wasn't even transformed into mist, it was just gone. Banished to the shadow realm, as was a small part of the tower and a straight line of the desert outside of it as far as the eye could see.

Repairing the tower, he threw a look at the very much alive Reid's who did look pretty surprised, but otherwise appeared uncaring of his own state and even just pissed off.

"I want a rematch."

"No. I've spent enough time on this already, and I've hot something else to do. Plus, you might not be aware, but I already got you beat once before this." Turning away, Julian shrugged and waved, then went to ascend the stairs to the final floor.

Behind him, he heard the swordman curse as he dematerialized into blue particles. "Fucking time manipulator, I swear."

—————

Ascending the last step, Julian squinted from the harsh glare of the sun. The wind ruffled his hair as he took in the sight of the open aired

ast floor of the tower.

Being 100 metter wide and supported by 6 enormous pillar, the floor had all the look of a boss room. And with reason, as the silhouette of a pristine white beast more than a dozen metters tall lurked at the far end of the room between two pillars.

That figure was Volcanica, the divine dragon who was the true strength of the kingdom of Lugnica.

The dragon in question looked blankly at the intruder, only the tiniest spark of sentience could be seen in the golden slits of his eyes.

Despite that, the beast presence was incomparable to anything Julian had ever felt. Kass didn't count, as feeling a fraction of a fraction of her presence was already overwhelming.

After looking around for a while, Julian settled and lifted an eyebrows at the dragon. If it was possible to get its heart through diplomacy, he didn't see why he wouldn't try. "So, what's your challenge?"

However, to his surprise. Volcanica blinked once at his words, then his draconic face warped in anger and he growled out. "Anomaly. Impure. Unbalanced... Abomination... threat to the seal, to... Lugnica."

As the dragon slowly brought itself up to its full height, Julian was striken by every qualities he had been branded with. Since it was not making a judgment that the dragon had done, but merely stating observations. After all, this current version of the Divine Dragon supoosedly acted on instinct, it couldn't make judments, only react.

Normally, he wouldn't be very affedted by the mumbling of a senile Divinity. Yet, Julian wasn't sure why himself. But the last term the dragon had called him, Abomination.

It made him see red.