The large metal gate was pushed open, and Reith could hear the loud yells of some people.

It sounded like it was truly a battle of life and death.

"Do you think this place is truly the right place for me?" He arched a brow and looked at Milly.

"I watched your skills, remember? It's the best place for you. Let's keep moving," Milly harshly said.

She did not even bother to consider the boy's feelings.

They stepped into the room, but the other guards remained outside.

There were pillars carved with old runes that reached toward the glasslike ceiling. The sunlight in the room gave it an ethereal feel.

Who would have thought that this was a place where men shed both blood and tears?

All of a sudden, a man flew toward them with immense speed. Reith and Milly stepped to the side, and the man instantly crashed into the wall and skidded down.

"You didn't catch him?" Milly turned to Reith, her brow raised.

"I can't match that speed," Reith confessed. If that person's body had hit him, then they both would have been crashing into that wall.

Milly lightly chuckled. "Then I hope you don't die. These guys are trained under the royal instructor." She paused for a while. "I was also trained by him." Her voice was almost a whisper.

Reith did not say anything. He did not think he had to.

They both walked forward and came to a lifted stage.

A man was stretching his limbs and walking around the circle.

"Hi, Pax. This is Reith. I want you to fight him, but be on the defensive and slightly on the attack," Milly ordered.

Pax turned to Milly and simply nodded. He did not even spare his opponent a glance before instantly getting into a fighting stance.

His fingers moved, and lightning crackled in the air.

"He has lightning also?" Reith widened his eyes, then realized what Milly was doing.

She wanted him to learn from someone with experience using the same element.

Then his heart started to beat faster. He was going to focus on this fight.

"Thank you for your—" Reith had climbed onto the large stage, and he was not even done talking when a current ran through his body, sending him flying.

"Pax! I said on the defense!" Milly slapped her forehead. She could only hope that Reith would survive that hit.

"He'll be fine. It wasn't very powerful." It was a move she had seen before, so she knew when Pax was trying to be light.

But still, she had told that man to rarely attack. Anyway, she knew he would still do what he wanted. The only person who could truly order Pax around was the instructor.

Reith slid down from the wall, leaving a charred black spot.

He coughed out smoke.

A large gulp of oxygen rushed into his lungs, and he tried to stand up, but he could not even feel his legs, causing him to fall back down.

"Hurry up, Reith. You will have to leave soon," Milly yelled.

Reith slowly raised his hand. "I'm on way, please," he said, a fit of coughing escaping his lips.

He glared at the human called Pax. If Reith had not had prior knowledge and understanding of the lightning element, that attack would have done far worse.

Without much delay, Reith moved forward and released the hana energy in his body.

It was time to start forming those energy balls and then begin firing his lightning rods.

Then he looked at Pax. The move that had driven him a step back was not a spell. It was raw energy from this man.

Reith widened his eyes. How would a spell from this man look, then?

Anyway, he would think about that later.

A lightning rod shot from Reith's body and launched toward Pax, but the man dodged in the next heartbeat.

"Predictable." Pax snorted but did not say anything else.

It seemed as if his eyes held so much indifference that he did not even care what Reith was doing.

This practice was actually a waste of his time, and he wanted to break through to the Spirit Refinement Realm, but the princess had stepped in. A vein bulged in Pax's head but he had no choice.

Although he looked young but he had been trying to reach the Spirit Refinement Realm for forty years and now that he had gotten somewhere, he just couldn't wait.

Pax knew that if he did not listen to Milly, she would go to that brutal instructor.

Reith frowned and fired his whip strikes again, with more force than the first.

These ones moved in a zigzag direction, but unsurprisingly, Pax was able to dodge them.

"Slow," Pax scoffed again.

Reith came to a stop, breathing harshly.

He had been moving and firing while trying to dodge the lightning that shot from Pax's mere aura.

What was he doing wrong?

Then he looked at the way Pax's lightning moved. Was there a way he could make his energy move in such an unpredictable way and shoot faster than normal?

A lightning strike shot forward, but Reith was too slow in dodging, and the rod struck his cheek, drawing fresh blood.

Reith gulped. These rods were dangerous.

"Reith, slow down." Ruach's voice echoed in his ears.

Reith nodded slowly. He had been starting to think that Ruach was awfully quiet these days, so he was glad when he spoke up.

"You don't have to form those energy balls. You can sense the hana lines around you, and you have mastered that combat technique, so you should be able to fight using only hana lines," Ruach's soft voice came again.

"What?" Reith did not get it at first, so he tried to look around him.

Then a light bulb went off in his head.

He could see hana lines. Why had he not thought of it before?

The hana lines were already flowing around him, but it had been his choice to wrap them into a ball, just like a thread of yarn is wrapped into a ball.

But Ruach was saying this...

"A triple-braided cord cannot easily be broken," Ruach said in his ears as he dodged another lightning strike.

"There was no need to wrap it into a ball." Reith nodded.

He instantly unwrapped the ball of energy, and that was his epiphany.

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