CHAPTER 74

Shia cultivated diligently, and so were Alphonse and Anna. They all learnt battle from Rachel and cultivation practices from Arata. Alphonse learnt many techniques from Rachel about battle. Rachel's techniques were not orthodox but easy to understand unlike Arata's which mostly required mental strength and reaction time. But Rachel decided to completely rely on Arata to train Shia.

"Big Brother, I am about to reach the Bronze Rank !", Shia said. Arata had taught her advanced techniques in cultivation and with her extraordinary mental strength, it wasn't a surprise she was about to break through Novice Rank in three days. Alphonse and Anna were surprised but Shia was one special prodigy.

Arata taught her to collect the energy from cultivation veins into the brain to form it into the sphere. It was easy for her. Arata gave her the Assassination scroll, as that is what she wanted, to become like her big brother. Arata decided to test her now.

Shia was in the middle of cultivation of Assassination scroll. She was deeply immersed in it. Arata decided to attack her after covering his movements to check her reaction. As soon as Arata was about to attack, she turned around and looked at him with fierce eyes. Arata didn;t stop his attack, though he was surprised.

She blocked his attack. She did not dodge it or attack back. She just blocked it reflexively. Arata now thought that Frontline would have suited her better instead for strong defense. But her next action surprised him. Her block was actually an attack ! It looked like a block but it was actually a counter-attack. She slid her short hands through Arata's attack and struck him. Arata naturally dodged and retreated but was satisfied. It seems that her decoy block has to be developed !

"Due to your mental strength, it is really hard for anyone to predict your moves. I will raise you into a chaos master.", Arata said confidently after the exchange.

"What is a chaos master ?", she asked with her innocent smile.

"It is... ", Arata was left expressionless. He did not have a perfect explanation. "Basically, no one will be able to guess what you are going to do and what you have done. You will be an ultimate mystery.", Arata tried to explain.

"Hmmm.. I don't really don't understand but ok !", she said. She was excited to become strong like it was her inner will.

Arata decided to teach her only some deadly moves which she could use. Counters were the most effective for her, but unexpected movements after a certain orthodox movements can also be an ultimate strength. The brain usually finds patterns in things it is doing and so it will just follow it unconsciously. This can be used as a trap to launch unexpected attacks to throw the person off balance and win over.

The day before the duels started, the group had arrived at a local inn which was close to the arena. Arata and Rachel were going to be coaches for Shia and Alphonse who were participating in the duels. The arena consisted of many grounds on which participants fought. There were 103 participants so each participant had to atleast win 10 matches out of 20 matches to move to the next round. Arata decided to keep Shia from the matches until last because she does not have much strength yet and let Alphonse scout the matches first to see what type of people were participating. SHuri had told them in most of the practice matches there were silver and gold ranked people but they had many weird techniques which she couldn't explain.

"I still haven't found a way to regain your life back. I talked to some spirits in the spirit world, they knew about resurrection but not lifespan gaining.", Misty said. Arata had asked her to research about that but she still hasn't found any clues.