8 Practice

Ace stopped and saw his wife walk over with his son and he smiled at them.

"Yeah, Dad! It's so boring here. Can we play something?" Geo, who was still 5 years old, said.

"What do you want to play?" Ace asked.

Geo started to think, and after a few seconds, he said, "How about we pretend to attack each other?"

"Can you elaborate?" Ace squatted while smiling. As a parent, Ace had learned to listen to his son if he tried to suggest something.

"Mmm… It's like this," Geo tried to arrange his words.

Ace and his wife waited patiently.

"I will order Jumpy to attack you, but he isn't allowed to bite you. You will try to avoid him as much as possible. How's that?" Geo said carefully.

"That's a good idea, but can I add something?" Ace asked.

"Alright," Geo said.

"First, I want to ask you something. Can you see the red line above Jumpy's head?" Ace asked.

"Yes~," Geo said in hesitation. 

"Do you know what will happen if the red line is empty?" Ace asked.

Geo shook his head. It looked like he already had an idea, but he didn't want to say it.

Ace looked at Geo's eyes, "Jumpy will die!"

"NO!!!" Geo shouted at Ace.

However, Ace didn't budge, he just looked in his son's eyes, but a smile appeared on his face. 

"Do you want him to still be healthy and always accompany you?" Ace asked.

"YES!!!" A determination seemed to be burning in his eyes.

"Then you should listen to me," Ace said seriously.

***

"Remember! Heal him if his red line decreases to half of the bar," Ace said while running toward Geo. His distance was about 50 meters from Geo who stood next to Sofia. 

It should be an easy thing for Ace who had the highest agility. However, as Ace was at 30 meters, Jumpy leaped to him with tremendous speed. Ace wanted to avoid it by reducing his speed, but Jumpy had already hit him.

*Bam*

13

By high velocity, Ace was knocked a meter. Jumpy that was on top of him, with its front legs, locked his torso and arms. As it wanted to bite him, Ace drew a card on each of his hands, and without looking at them, flicked them to the spider.

8 

58

Although he was wounded, It still inflicted damage to Ace with its continued bites.

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26

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However, Ace also didn't stop attacking. 

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Feeling his health was reduced to less than 50%, Jumpy jumped forward, avoiding Ace's next attack. 

Just as Alex stood up, he realized that Jumpy's health was almost full. As for himself just had a third of his HP.

'That's not fair!' Ace said in his heart.

Alex then ran around again while drawing and shuffling his card, searching the queen card. It was something that he had found out while attacking the scarecrow. He could find his desired card by doing that without consuming his mana. Of course, shuffling in that context just sent the card back to the inventory, and then the system would do the rest.

However, doing so would take some time, but as he also needed time to recover his mana, so it was acceptable.

What he found first was a jack of heart. Then he had an idea. So he kept the card and then continued to draw and shuffle the card with his left hand.

The queen card hadn't appeared yet, but he got a joker as an alternative. So, after he recovered his HP with a joker card that copied the queen card's effect, he started to implement his plan.

***

Sofia saw Ace run around and tried to avoid jumpy. It made her chuckle. 

At first, she had agreed to accompany them in playing this game that had been suggested by Geo, just to make her son happy, but Alex's additional suggestion made this childish game interesting.

The target of this game was so everyone could train to use their skills and of course to give them a battle experience.

The game started when Ace got within 50 meters from Geo's and Sofia's location. Jumpy would try to attack Ace and Ace would try to approach Geo's and Sofia's location and touch Geo or Sofia. 

Ace was prohibited from attacking Geo and Sofia and could only attack Jumpy. As for Jumpy, he would do anything possible to make Ace give up or retreat from the 50 meters area.

"Jumpy's health hasn't recovered completely, should I heal him?" Geo asked.

"No, it will recover as time goes. Don't worry. You as his healer should maintain your mana, so you must always have enough mana to save him," Sofia said.

Geo could only nod. However, not long after that, he said," Oh, looks like Daddy wants to come."

Sofia then looked in front of them. She saw Ace was running towards them with a grin.

"Seems like your Daddy has a plan. Tell Jumpy to be careful," Sofia said.

"Yes, Mom… We will win!" Geo said with enthusiasm. 

'That's not what I mean…,' Sofia said.

Sofia then saw Jumpy leaped like before. Then what happened after that, made Sofia and Geo dumbfounded. 

Jumpy who was on the air suddenly seemed like being shot. His body was pushed in the direction he came and bounced a few meters.

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14

Then Ace threw two cards to jumpy.

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"No!" Geo then moved forward and tried to heal his pet.

Sofia while gnashing her teeth came forward and faced Ace who was only 20 meters from them.

"You! Must! Stop!" She shouted.

She then put her two arms forward and a clear mana ball with a diameter of about 30 cm was launched from them.

The spell moved very fast to Ace's direction, but it could be avoided by him easily by dodging sideways. 

Sofia didn't give up. She shot 2 more mana balls, but they could only delay him. 

Sofia bit her lips until she saw Jumpy could move again and leaped to Ace from behind. A smile then bloomed on her face, however, it must be frozen again by the scene in front of her.

Jumpy the spider was healed by his master, causing his HP to increase again above 70%. After the effect of the binding expired, He tried to attack Ace again. But an invisible wall as if created in his way made his attack was stopped again. Moreover, the sudden stop made him take damage.

*Bam* 

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Ace then arrived in front of Sofia and touched her hand gently, "It's my win."

***

Moon, Human Union headquarter, 29 December 130 A.R.

*Tok Tok Tok*

A middle-aged woman in a white Lab coat knocked on the wooden door. Two soldiers with a kind of automatic rifles in their hands that were standing at each side of the door didn't stop her.

Then an annoyed man's voice came from inside of the door, "Uh… Is it already morning? What!? still 5 a.m.?! Who wants to meet me this early?"

The middle-aged woman said with a slight smile, "It's me Mr. Michael, your humble servant wanted to report the progress of 'Desolate World'.

There was a moment of silence for almost three minutes. Then the man's voice was heard again, "Come in Nicole!"

***