Give up on mana

"Come on, Talia, you can do it! Resist, resist!" cheered Alex as a relentless barrage of fists and kicks collided against Talia.

"You f*cking-"

"Just as she was about to curse at Alex, Lilia's fist connected with her jaw, sending her stumbling back.

Not wanting to give her time to collect herself, Lilia pressed on and resumed her barrage of attacks.

"Don't give up, Talia! You can do it; you will beat the record if you continue like that!" cheered Alex, while Grace next to him sputtered into laughter.

'I wanted to win, not beat the f*cking record!' shouted Talia in her head.

'I should have listened to Amelia and not fought this woman!' regretted Talia.

At this point, Lilia had defeated more than half of the participants, though 'defeated' didn't truly capture the state they were in after facing her; it was more accurate to say she had utterly destroyed them.

"One after another, all the participants were falling, and the most absurd thing was that the strongest among them were defeated the fastest. They also came back with the most injuries.

They couldn't even resist a few exchanges before falling. It reached the point where a record system, mostly managed by Alex and Grace, was implemented to see which participant would last the longest.

Despite that, the fights barely lasted a few minutes at best. Seeing that if it continued like that, the whole mini-competition would end in an hour at best, Alex instructed Lilia to make the fights last longer.

In his words: "You are mostly defeating them by overpowering them with your physical attributes, or we are here to see if you have the skills necessary to teach our soldiers. Instead of ending them with brute force, show us your skills!"

At first, the participants agreed with him, thinking he was right. But they quickly realized it was actually better for Lilia to defeat them just by overpowering them with brute force.

Before, when she defeated them, she targeted specific body parts, like Jonathan's cheeks, for example. However, now that she fought while showing off her skills, Lilia targeted every part of their bodies. This made the fights last longer, but it also meant that when the fights ended, Lilia's opponents' whole bodies ached.

Seeing that, some participants decided to give up before the fight even started. But would Alex let them?

"You all decided to challenge her; no one forced you. So, man up and go on stage. We don't tolerate cowards in this branch!" said Alex with a serious expression.

Of course, by this point, they knew it was just a front, and he just wanted to see them wincing in pain after his wife had finished beating them to a pulp.

'That was his plan all along, what a psycho-'"

Due to her wandering thoughts, Talia only registered Lilia's kick approaching from the left of her head at the last moment. She tried to block it with her arm, but unfortunately, it wasn't enough.

Lilia's kick sent Talia hurtling toward the wall of the training ground, colliding with it and causing a cloud of dust to rise.

"Oh no, she was almost there. I bet you're glad, Ector; she hasn't managed to beat your record," said Alex, eyeing Ector.

Ector grumbled but remained silent.

A few minutes later, while limping, Talia managed to leave the center of the training ground and approached Alex.

"You did—"

"Just give me the damn potion!" exclaimed Talia as she extended her hand.

"So grumpy," chuckled Alex as he handed her a bottle containing the healing smoke.

Talia snatched the bottle from his hand and went to sit where all the other participants who had lost were, staring daggers at Alex.

Alex pretended like he couldn't feel their gazes and concentrated on the next battle.

"You can use your sword if you want," said Lilia to Zo, who had come to fight her after Talia.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, use it."

Zo didn't ask further questions and extracted his longsword from his space ring.

The instant the signal was given, Zo enhanced his speed and charged at Lilia. A split second later, he was upon Lilia and swung his sword in a vertical slash.

Lilia gracefully moved and evaded the slash by taking a step to her right. Surprisingly, she didn't counterattack, giving Zo enough time to create distance between the two before charging again.

He thrust his longsword toward Lilia, attempting to stab her, but she dodged.

Not discouraged, Zo continued to thrust his longsword in a deadly and unpredictable way. Yet, Lilia managed to evade the sword each time with ease.

Understanding that he wouldn't be able to get her like that, Zo distanced himself from her and was about to charge again when he heard Lilia suddenly speak.

"I'm sure you have heard it many times, but you should abandon the sword; it's not made for you."

Zo suddenly froze in his place.

If Lilia had said those words to him a few hours ago, he wouldn't even consider her opinion. But after witnessing her skills, he knew that she wasn't speaking nonsense. Nevertheless, he wasn't ready, or rather, didn't want to stop using the sword despite what people said.

"Don't be stubborn; your ability doesn't align with the sword. If you continue like that, you will just be hindering your progress and wasting your potential," said Lilia.

Lilia knew that Alex needed the strength of the branch members if he wanted to succeed in taking down the Fiore empire or any of the organization that would soon come after him, so she couldn't sit tight and watch one of the branch members waste his potential.

When she learned of Zo's ability, she thought that it was really good, but upon discovering that he was using the sword, she could only shake her head.

Zo's ability didn't pair well with the sword. It's not that it couldn't work with the sword, but the sword couldn't bring out the full potential of his ability. Zo himself knew this, but he remained stubborn for some reason.

Seeing that Zo clearly had no intention to listen to her advice, Lilia sighed and said:

"If you are so serious about the sword, then give up on mana."