The level of the sparring battle between Yale and Awat was enough to become a legend on everywhere else it happened, but what happened inside of the tribe remained on the tribe, so no one outside the tribe would know about that battle.
No one, except for Great God Kroh, who was always observing Yale's journey, no matter where he was.
"His progress in reaching the Minor Sword Divinity is very good, but it would be better if he focused on reaching the Minor Time Divinity that is more important."
Minor Divinity was how the Gods called the Minor God thresholds, but most people didn't know about that name. Even some Gods didn't know about it because although the name was decided by the Council of Gods, it wasn't something they did to force others to use that name.
They just felt that the standard naming was too confusing, so they created a new one for themselves.
Before reaching godship, most people would have difficulties in obtaining a single Minor Divinity, so the naming wasn't truly a problem, but Great Gods usually had a lot of Minor Divinities, Divinities, and Great Divinities, so the ordinary naming wasn't good for them.
Great God Kroh wanted that someone reached the Minor Time Divinity, which no one had reached before since Great God Kroh was ahead of that level form the start, so he was hoping that Yale would focus more on it, but it also knew that it was extremely difficult.
The battle continued with Yale focusing purely on swordsmanship regardless of Great God Kroh's wishes. After all, Yale didn't know what Great God Kroh was thinking.
The battle lasted for two additional months, in which Yale had been struck in the bottleneck before obtaining the Minor Sword Divinity, so he hadn't improved, but the combat experience he obtained was still very valuable.
However, he had been unable to land a single hit on Awat, and after those two months, he was already on his limits.
He could battle for thousands of years against someone who was at his same level, but it was already worthy of praise that he endured two months against Awat.
Yale's legs trembles as he started to fall to the ground, which made Awat smile.
"You did it well."
Just after finishing to speak, he had a bad feeling and immediately covered his whole body in a heavy armor that was also a form of his true body.
Less than a second after that, Lar's sword hit the heavy armor.
Of course, Yale was wielding Lar's sword. Immediately after starting to fall, he manipulated the space to appear in the air behind Awat and land his last hit.
However, Awat still managed to block it with the armor.
"I lost."
Yale fell to the ground at that instant. His control of space had been incredible, and he even made a breakthrough reaching the bottleneck before the Minor God threshold, but Awat's intuition was just too good.
"No, I have lost. I activated my armor when you weren't using any. That is breaking the rule I imposed for myself in this battle, so I lost."
Awat was just too prideful, so he would rather lose than winning due to skipping his own rules. Losing was bad, but not being able to follow the rules he made for himself was even worse.
Of course, in a real battle, the means didn't matter, but in a real battle, Yale wouldn't have lasted even a second against him, so Awat wouldn't be at ease thinking that as he won that battle, the means didn't matter.
"No, I am really not your match. This is my loss."
Yale couldn't accept a victory even after his last attack failed. If it had hit, he could have accepted it despite being a sneak attack, but he hadn't even been able to land a single hit on Awat that wasn't blocked, so he didn't feel that he had won.
The chief sighed when seeing the two stubborn opponents that refused to admit victory.
"Alright. Liye was unable to hit Awat even once, but Awat broke the rules he set for the match. Those weren't official rules, but since he acknowledged them, I declare this battle a tie."
The chief felt that it was the best option since neither of them seemed willing to admit victory.
Yale and Awat considered that they had lost, but they decided to accept the chief's words and publicly consider it a tie.
Of course, in their minds, both considered that they had lost.
Yale just returned to his room in silence without knowing the impact that his battle had on Jika and Dan.
For them, the battle had been something unbelievable and hadn't been able to stop watching it. If it hadn't been because there had been people giving them water and food, they could have died.
They wished to take a humanoid form to wield a sword and ask Yale to teach them.
Back in his room, Yale sighed while lying on the bed.
"I am sorry, Lar. I haven't been strong enough."
After teleporting behind Awat, Yale believed that he would be able to hit him. After all, he made a breakthrough when teleporting, so he believed that Awat hadn't noticed the teleportation because Awat was also with his guard down, but it had been useless.
The Minor Space Divinity wasn't easy to reach, and the same applied to reach the bottleneck before reaching it, which Yale had just accomplished, but although it wasn't easy compared to most Minor Divinities, it was too easy compared to the Minor Time Divinity.
After all, even the chief and Awat reached the Minor God threshold in space, so it couldn't be compared to the Minor Time Divinity, which no one reached before.
"Master is strong enough. Your opponent broke the rules."
Lar said that, but she also felt that she lost. Those words were just because she didn't want to admit it openly.
"Rules doesn't matter in a real battle. If we had been facing someone with this strength in a real battle, it would have been our end."
Yale hadn't used all his power in the battle, but that was because it was useless as Awat would have countered it perfectly.
That had been the first time he had felt so powerless after ascending, but it also helped him to understand that he still needed to train a lot to reach that level.
Awat was far older than Yale. In fact, he had lived for far more time than Yale's universe existed. Even Alrein counting all the time he spent looping due to the curse wasn't enough to match Awat's age.
Yale had lived a lot of years, but in front of people like Awat and the chief, he was still like a child, which was very frustrating.
Knowing that, Yale made a decision.
"System, organize my strength regarding this universe. Anything too weak to be used practically here can be omitted."
Yale hadn't relied on the system since he felt that his power was high enough to not need to evaluate it like he did when being weak, but after that battle, he knew that he had been overconfident.
He felt that he measured his strength correctly, but he couldn't truly be impartial when evaluating his own strength, so he decided to use the system that didn't have any bias despite being created by him.
[True Name: Astel.]
[Used Names: Yale. Liye.]
[Membership of the Council of Gods (unusable).]
[Immortal Level: 8]
[Minor Divinity: Ice. Reincarnation.]
[Pre-divinity Bottleneck: Crafting. Sword. Space.]
The new menu showed by the system was quite short since everything that wasn't already on the bottleneck before obtaining a Minor Divinity wasn't shown.
Against people of Awat's level, anything weaker than the bottleneck was completely useless. Time was an exception, but the system omitted it to standardize the information.
"Minor Divinity? Wasn't it called Minor God threshold?"
Yale was somewhat shocked by the name, but after thinking how Alter Yale modified the system, he stopped worrying because he was sure that the change in name was due to some information Alter Yale gave to the system.
"Master, what are you saying?"
Lar didn't understand why Yale was speaking alone.
"Nothing, don't worry."
Yale completely forgot that Lar could hear him. After all, she was in sword form, and Yale never worried about speaking with a sword present.
It wasn't until a week later that Yale left his room. Awat had also spent that time in seclusion thinking of how careless he had been to be forced to activate his armor.
He knew that after seeing Yale fall, he had already thought that the battle was over, and thus, hadn't expected the last hit. If it hadn't been because his intuition the attack would have hit him. Of course, that would be a scratch at most, but it still hurt his pride since he knew that the same could have happened with an opponent far stronger than Yale.
In a real battle, he knew that being careless at the end of the battle could have ended up with serious consequences, so he was grateful that Yale had shown him that one could never lower the guard.
Awat left his room the same day as Yale, but neither of them said something about the battle they had. Both of them had that battle in their mind, but neither wanted to speak about it.
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