10 - Improvements!

"Haaa..." Arthur exhaled, rushing towards Elijah. He was incredibly fast, slashing at him as soon as he closed the distance. Elijah countered by blocking the slash with his own sword, using his left hand to punch Arthur in the face. 

Arthur quickly dodged under the punch, stopping the sword clash and instead going down, slicing from below. Elijah stepped back, avoiding the slash by mere centimeters. He then sent a flying slash towards Arthur, which Arthur quickly dodged to the side. His incredible speed allowed him to close the distance within a single moment, instantly jumping above Elijah and performing an overhead slash!

Elijah blocked the sword with his own! In a split second, Arthur used his feet while being in the air and kicked Elijah's face. Elijah turned to the side, narrowly dodging the kick. "You have gotten better." Elijah praises Arthur. 

Arthus smiles and steps back. "Thank you, but that wasn't all you taught me yet." Arthur disappears, only black effects visible for a split second. He reappears right next to Elijah and slashes horizontally. Elijah quickly dodges out of reach, only to see the slash being sent flying and coming towards him. He counters it by sending a much bigger and stronger slash himself. 

Elijah's slash went vertically through Arthur's slash, while also ripping open the entire ground that it traveled over. Arthur smiled upon seeing that and once again disappeared with black effects behind him. He appeared behind Elijah, who reacted quickly and kicked the sword out of Arthur's hand. 

"Oh." Arthur said, receiving a punch straight onto his face. He got sent flying, crashing into one of the trees and causing a massive dent with his impact. "Cough! Agh...that hurt." Arthur said, slowly standing up and recovering from the attack he just took. Looking up, he saw a kick coming from the side! 

He quickly blocked it with both of his hands, the sheer force of the kick despite being blocked still sent him flying again! This time, however, he recovered himself mid-air and landed on the ground. He saw Elijah had put away his sword and was now testing Arthur's hand-to-hand combat!

Arthur smiled upon seeing this. He preferred fighting with swords, however, nothing beats the raw fights of hand-to-hand combat! This time Elijah went on the offensive, leaving behind black effects and appearing right next to Arthur. Arthur knowing he was about to attack went even closer, dodging under Elijah's punch and hitting Elijah on the jaw! However looking up, he saw that Elijah had blocked that punch with his other hand!

Elijah looked down grinning from ear to ear, not affected at all by the punch. He kicked Arthur with his knee in his stomach. "Uoagh!" Arthur grunted, almost throwing up from the kick. Before Arthur could react, Elijah delivered a right hook to his face! 

Arthur fell onto the ground, ragdolling for a few meters. He was now beaten and bruised. Suddenly his nose started to bleed, signaling that Arthur was getting close to his limit! "Had enough for today kiddo?" Elijah asked. "Not yet." Arthur said, once again appearing next to Elijah. Arthur performed a series of punches and kicks, hoping to hit Elijah. Unfortunately, Elijah was way too fast and dodged or blocked every single hit, not giving him any opportunity. 

"What did I say kiddo? Your mistake is thinking you can win against a stronger opponent by sheer force. When you encounter a stronger opponent, you need to fight dirty!" Elijah advised while dodging every one of Arthur's punches.

"Who says I wasn't?" Arthur said, stopping his punches and grinning towards Elijah. He then appeared above him, using a roundhouse kick downwards onto his head. Elijah blocked the kick, the ground under him cracking! A great amount of sand fell down from Arthur's pants, landing on Elijah's face and eyes! Temporarily blinded, Elijah quickly disappeared and reappeared further away. 

Arthur didn't relent! He quickly got close and- BOOM! Arthur ate a punch straight to the face, getting ragdolled once again into a tree! "Argh!" Arthur said, spitting out blood from his mouth. His nosebleed had gotten more severe and the headache was getting worse. "That's enough." Elijah said. 

"I can still go on!" Arthur said, trying to stand up again only to fall over. Elijah appeared next to him with lightning, catching him before he fell face-first into the dirt. "It's okay kid, you need to learn when to stop. You made massive improvements in the last 2 months since you awakened your Essence. Especially your 'Gradus' has improved a lot!" Elijah praised him. 

The last two months since Arthur had awakened his Essence, he had been training daily and making improvements day by day! Elijah was surprised at just how determined Arthur was with training. Unless Arthur's Zeal ran out, he would not stop! And even then, once it ran out he would go meditate to recharge it and get right back to it once he recharged enough!

Due to this, his power increased by leaps and bounds! However, he also tended to go overboard. Simply not knowing his limits and overdoing a lot of things. Despite that, his increase in power wasn't deniable prompting Elijah to teach him a universal technique besides the very basics. Arthur learned 'Gradus', a movement technique capable of temporarily boosting your movement speed for a very short moment, only leaving behind black streaks for a split second. It took him about 3 days to learn it and 2 weeks to become proficient enough in it to use in combat. His speed which was already doubled through his Essence became even faster!

After that, it was a lot of honing his already learned skills. His sword fighting had probably improved the most, now even being able to send slashes through the air! His basics don't even need to be talked about, it is probably the thing he can do the best currently. Elijah made a mental note to teach him how to infuse Zeal into his sword next. 

His body reinforcement had also improved by huge margins! He was now capable of breaking solid ground through his reinforced punches! He can also keep it up infinitely in normal scenarios, the amount of wasted Zeal being below his natural Zeal regeneration. In combat, he can keep it up for a few hours now! 

If you include everything else like using Gradus, body reinforcement, and using his Essence, he can probably keep up fighting for about 30 minutes just based on his Zeal alone. However, he can only keep up his Essence for about 10 minutes before his brain overloads and he needs to take a break. Despite it sounding short, that is a massive improvement from 2 months ago when he could only keep it up for about half a minute!

Claire seeing all this had become more motivated and began training harder as well! Claire and Arthur now spent a lot of time together. Especially training together. 

'They should be ready.' Elijah thought. 

"Go rest kid. Tomorrow I'll have a surprise for you guys." Elijah said, Arthur's head instantly perking up. "Sir, yes sir!" Arthur joked, earning a chuckle from Elijah. 

Arthur got home and washed up, cleaning all the dirt and blood off him. Once he was done he wrapped a towel around him and opened the bathroom door. ""Oh!"" Arthur and Claire said at the same time. "I didn't know you were in there." Claire said. "Uhh, yea had to take a shower after that beatdown I received." Arthur said.

Both of them laughed at that. Then it quieted down and both of them simply looked at each other. Arthur towered over her, looking deep into her grey eyes. He was only in a towel covering his lower body. The water dripped down his slicked back hair. A moment of pure silence passed with Arthur lost in her eyes. It felt like he had lost something in them and now he was searching for it, looking deeply in them. "So uhm, can I go through?" Claire asked after the silence, bringing Arthur out of his trance. "Oh yeah, my bad." Arthur said, shaking his head and getting out of the way. 

'What was that?' Arthur asked himself, before deciding to ignore it and go to bed. Claire was in the bathroom, a smile on her face. 'It worked.' She thought. 

~~~

"Okay kids, listen up. You both trained with unwavering determination the last two months and made much more progress than other people in years and years. It's time for you both to experience real combat. Don't worry, I will be there and watching over you guys. However, I will only step in when it's the last possible resort. Until then, Arthur, listen to everything Claire says. She will be leading this as she has more experience. 

We will set out in one hour. Pack up enough for 3 days of travel." Elijah said. 

"It's really time?!" Claire said, looking at Arthur and both of them smiling. They had hoped to test out their powers against real opponents soon, so they were happy about this opportunity. 

They both rushed home and quickly readied up a bag of supplies, taking it with them. They had packed enough ration bars and water to last a week, just in case. As well as some other essential things such as a map of the surrounding area, a change of clothes, a first aid kit, knives, a sword and other weapons, some tinder, a flint fire starter, and much more.

Arriving back in front of Elijah, they looked at him with determined expressions. "Are you guys ready?" He asked, matching their seriousness. After all, this was going to be the first time for them in an actual life-or-death battle! Well maybe not quite, since he will be watching over them. 

""Yes."" Both of them replied at the same time.