Chapter 112: A Small Step Forward [Part-1]

The next day, Neo woke up as the morning sun began to climb higher. The sunrays fell through the gaps of the curtain onto the bed, warming his palm, as he slowly opened his eyes and took a look at the seemingly unfamiliar environment, which was of course his own old room. After living in Veldra for months, he had become so used to that environment that these old surroundings felt new to him.

Neo sat up, stretching his arms and legs while yawning slightly and rubbing his eyes to clear the drowsiness. He forced himself to stand up from the bed and walked to the bathroom, where he brushed his teeth and washed his face with cold water, then wiped it with a soft towel, looking at his reflection in the mirror. The same silver hair and blue eyes were reflected in it, along with his shiningly handsome face.

Neo admired his look for a few seconds and then walked out of the bathroom to the bedroom, heading towards the closet, where he took out casual clothes suitable for training. He changed into them, moving his body a little to check whether they fitted him.

Thankfully, his mother had already replaced his clothes with new ones of about his size, as she had predicted his increasing height.

Neo then walked out of the room, closing the door behind him, and went through the corridor to descend through the main hall and walk straight towards the training ground.

While walking, he could hear the sounds of knights training in the different sections of the training ground meant specifically for knights. But Neo wasn’t walking towards them. He took a different way, towards the special training ground meant specifically for his own family.

Neo pushed open the grand door and stepped inside. The training ground was already lit up, and the light illuminated the whole vast stadium.

As he stepped forward, Neo’s gaze was suddenly drawn to a single figure standing on the training field, a girl his age with violet hair tied in a ponytail, wearing a training suit and holding a stick as she struck a training dummy. Several dozens of training dummies lay around her in broken, shattered forms.

It was the one person Neo hadn’t expected to see so early in the morning. He looked at Nora and walked silently, keeping his distance so that she wouldn’t be disturbed in her training, watching her from afar, wanting to know how she trained and how much stronger she had become since the past.

Nora stood calmly at the centre of the field, holding the stick. Suddenly, crimson petals began to swirl around it in rotation, and she lifted the stick and slashed it downward.

For a second nothing happened, and only a breeze swept aside the dust on the ground. But then a clean cut suddenly formed on the dummy, splitting it into two perfect pieces, which fell to the ground, broken, but perfectly so.

Nora pulled back and wiped the sweat clinging to her forehead. She also noticed him looking at her, and her gaze moved around the training ground, up to the upper level where he stood.

Neo met her eyes and began to walk down to the actual field. His gaze turned towards the dummy which had been split in two. He knew she had used some high-tier wind spell with that swing, and for her to do that without casting an actual circle for the spellcasting could only mean that she had successfully climbed to the Grandmaster Rank after forming her 6th Circle.

When any Awakener reached the 6th Circle, they didn’t have to form the circle specifically to cast a spell, as it was already imprinted in their instinct, and they could use such a spell without even forming the circle.

Neo knew he was also a step away from achieving that realm, but of course, it wasn’t as easy as it looked. In order to form the 6th Circle, he needed some insight, special knowledge, or understanding about his path, so that he could break through the bottleneck which had restrained countless aspiring cultivators for years.

He finally looked up at Nora and smiled softly at her. "Good morning. Do you always wake up this early?"

Nora read the movement of his lips and nodded without replying much.

"Hmm... So it seems you’re training here alone without even inviting me. That’s not fair, Nora."

Nora just stared blankly at him, as if fairness didn’t concern her.

"Sigh... You should also use your mouth to speak, Nora. I feel like I am the only idiot here who is trying to start the conversation."

"You came here for training... Then focus on your training... Don’t mind me."

Nora turned around, stepped towards another dummy, and resumed her training.

Neo watched her closely as she returned to her training, swinging the stick at the dummy from different angles. She tried one technique after another, each strike aimed at tearing the dummy apart. Her movements were precise and controlled, making it clear that she had spent a great deal of time honing her skills.

Neo finally exhaled a low sigh as he walked towards the weapon rack, picked up a wooden sword, and tested the weight of the weapon by swinging it once or twice.

He then turned towards another training dummy and walked over to it, taking a stance and strengthening his muscles and body. He wove a thread of his mana over the tip of the sword, and then another thread of mana to wrap around the training dummy, and his consciousness stretched out towards the dummy until he could sense its entire body. He pulled his sword back a little and then thrust it straight towards the centre of its chest. Neo had calculated the nearby place where the dummy’s centre of mass resided, and he concentrated gravity at the tip of the sword. As the tip hit the centre of its body, the core of the dummy suddenly exploded, chunks of wood bursting out from the centre as the whole body shattered into pieces and fell down.