Chapter 20: Weakness

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Ever since the incident with Barbara, Diana had obviously been shaken. She put up a strong front, acting as if she hadn't been affected, but as the closest person to her, Edward knew how she was feeling.

On a lighter note, a couple of weeks after said incident, Edward and Peter managed to make the first generation of Web Slingers. First generation because Peter intended on improving them as time passed, but insisted on doing it on his own.

Edward had no problem with this of course, but it did make him think he could need something to improve his mobility in combat.

He had already mastered the use of his Sling Ring, he could travel pretty much anywhere on the planet, as long as he knew where he was going. He couldn't just wish to appear in England, for example, he had to have a mental image of said place, and be more precise.

However, it was already great as he could move as he pleased and without wasting time. Teleportation was in his opinion one of the best spells, and he was glad it was such an easy one to master.

But it demanded great focus from the user to create a portal, which is why it isn't really useable in battle, and his mobility was still limited to his legs while performing another task.

Something great for his mobility in battle would be the flying spell, but it was an extremely advanced spell that very few Sorcerers mastered through the years. So he would have to be relying on more original ideas.

As he was brainstorming with Peter in their lab though, Peter's phone suddenly made a sound. Peter ran to his phone, and said "Another super villain has appeared! A huge man in a rhinoceros-like armor is wreaking havoc!"

Edward took out his own phone and while he searched for those news he asked "You set the news special flash as an alarm?"

Peter replied "No, I connected my phone to the police's communications, and everytime they say particular codes, such as the one saying a super attacks, it sends me a notification."

Edward said "That's quite the illegal thing to do, but how so useful." As he said that his clothes changes into the Armor of the Ancients while the stuff in his pockets fell to the ground.

Then, he opened a portal and said to Peter "I will be waiting for you."

At that moment, Peter felt helpless, he had to put on his suit, and the fight could have possibly already ended by then.

Not caring about his assistant's feelings, Edward appeared on a roof from where he could see the super villain. As Peter said, a large man, maybe about two meters tall, and bulging in muscles was ramming against tons of cars, while carrying someone on his shoulder who was trying to get off.

Most interestingly was the costume the man was wearing, it really did look like the skin of a rhino. There was also the horn of a rhinoceros on his forehead, which was piercing through cars with ease.

It was obvious to anyone who saw him that he was a super human too, as his costume wasn't an armor, it stuck to his muscles, which were way too big to be human. His grey costume was more of a uniform than something that really made him stronger, except maybe for his horn.

Seeing the wreck the Rhino was making Edward knew he couldn't take any more time to observe, and he got closer to the charging Rhino, who was charging in his direction, and he jumped from his building.

His first thought had been to create a portal in front of the charging Rhino, to send him away or even into a dangerous location such as Mount Everest, but the Rhino had someone on his shoulder, a civilian. Moreover, if he could he preferred to keep his portals a secret, so he went for a physical fight.

The Rhino raised his head as Edward approached, but didn't react fast enough as Edward's foot hit him in the only area of his body that wasn't protected, his face.

The Rhino was stunned as he stopped, and tried to hit the general area around him. Edward used the opportunity to snatch the person who was kidnapped by the Rhino and retreating to put him into safety.

The man, as he was being saved, looked at Edward's mask with shock as he exclaimed "Serenity!"

Edward, who heard the man yell in his ears, looked at him and said "Try to keep away." The man did a salute, and said "John Jameson at your command!"

Edward nodded, and put him down before jumping back towards the Rhino. The later screamed like a beast when he saw Edward, and charged towards him.

Edward could feel the ground tremble with every step of the behemoth in front of him, and felt the power the Rhino had. However, he also knew where exactly the Rhino would attack, so Edward took a couple of steps back, and jumped as the Rhino approached.

The Rhino smashed into a pole behind him, completely obliterating it, but he also stepped on a manhole cover, which couldn't support the power of his stomp and fell, and so did his leg.

The Rhino's charge was abruptedly stopped as one of his legs fell in there, and as the Rhino tried to understand what just happened Edward appeared behind him and struck the back of his head with his feet.

Edward even took the Dragon Stance as he jumped, so the power of his kicks wasn't to be underestimated. However, the Rhino seemed to barely notice them as he didn't even pay attention to Edward and tried to get out of the hole.

It was only then that Edward understood that maybe the Rhino's costume maybe wasn't just a costume, but a true armor. Moreover, it didn't feel like a magical armor, but rather an experimental armor made by science.

If he had to take a bet, he would say it was made with a kind of polymer, but it didn't really matter, the point was that hitting anywhere else than his face was useless.

With a single step, Edward appeared in front of the Rhino, and before the other could react ram his fist into his nose.

The Rhino growled, and showed that it wasn't only his armor that was powerful, but his body as well. He finally paid attention to Edward as he tried to grab him, but his speed wasn't proportional to his strength, so Edward managed to dodge his strikes and grabs easily with the help of his Chi Sense.

Edward began raining hits onto the Rhino's face, but much to his dismay, the Rhino wasn't anywhere near stopping. It was as if Edward's hits didn't do anything to him, the Rhino just shrugged them off and tried to attack Edward.

After a whole minute of Edward hitting him, the Rhino was still awake, and trying to hit him. He tried many times to get himself out of the manhole cover, but although Edward's hits didn't knock him out or really injure him, they did incapacitate him to some extent as his head swung in all directions. However, he had already dragged this as much as he could.

As Edward was growing frustrated, he felt another familiar Chi approach, and seconds later a voice came from the sky "We've got one big boy stuck in there! You should stop struggling if you really want to get out of there!"

Then, the next instant, the figure known as Spider-Man swooped in and kicked the Rhino's face. Straight knock out.

Feeling the Rhino's Chi calm down as he went unconscious, Edward couldn't help but sigh. Life was unfair.

He patted Peter's shoulder and muttered "Good job kid." before he ran off. He found a small alley, and he couldn't help but smash a wall with his fist. And get hurt.

The pain reminded how weak he actually was. Sure in the eyes of the average people he looked like a great superhero, but he knew that it wasn't anything.

The worst thing was that training wasn't proportional to strength. Peter attained his strength because of a spider bite. A spider he created himself, by the way. Diana has her strength because of her blood.

For sure the two did train, but to them it was icing on top of the big cake their genetics or mutation was, while for him the icing was all he had.

He knew it was useless to envy them, complaining wouldn't solve the problem, but it wasn't really something he could control. Moreover, he had a key to strength even if his training didn't bear fruits, although even then it felt unfair.

The Mystical Arts was to the other schools of magic what Chi training was to god's blood or a mutation, only more advanced.

Edward trained Chi to match the naturally gifted as a mere mortal, and the first sorcerers were exactly like him, creating a magical art for the mere mortals to match the greatest magicians or interdimensional monsters.

But to reach the status of 'higher' beings, a price had to be paid. For Chi, it was hours, months, years, even decades of training. For Mystical Arts, it could be a much steeper price, depending on the contracts one signed to earn power.

"Hey Serenity, time to go?"

Edward was stopped in his thoughts as he heard the young voice of Peter ring behind him. A rule he had established with Peter was that they could only address to each other by their hero name while they wore the suits.

Well, Edward would prefer to simply not talk as anyone who knew Peter could probably recognize his voice, but Peter was quite the chatterbox when he turned into Spider-Man, so Edward fixed the rules as he could.

Edward opened a portal, and Peter entered first before being quickly followed by Edward.

As they got back in the lab, Peter took off his mask and said with a wide grin "The web slingers are so cool! After you left I used them to…"

As Peter went on, speaking excitedly, Edward couldn't help but smile under his smile. Despite his rant from earlier, he wasn't actually envious, just a little frustrated.

But he knew deep inside him that even if some cosmic being appeared before him and proposed him a power that rivalled the gods with no price to pay, he would refuse. He had long grown used to pay a price for anything he got, be it worldly possessions or power.

In the end, it was nothing more than an inner rant. If there weren't so many stronger beings, then there wouldn't really be any point in breaking through his limits either, and getting stronger wouldn't provide him any sense of achievement.

And so with a renewed motivation, Edward went back to his training. That day, Edward trained all day, and then all night. And he did achieve something incredible.

His brain seemed to be in a state of hyperactivity for the entire day as he made more progress with his training than in the past couple of weeks.

He had managed to complete the first step toward ADC, or Automatic Discontinued Cultivation. As a reminder, this would allow him to practice cultivation, that is circulating his Chi around his body, constantly, and without having to focus to do it.

And the first step to that goal, which had been achieved today, was finding another way to breath. Common human beings relied on their mouth and nose to breath, but Edward had been searching for a new way to breath.

And thanks to the help of his Chi, he managed to find a way to open all the pores of his body to absorb air so he would become able to breath without using his nose. This sounded quite impossible, and it actually was, for now.

Edward managed to find this theory thanks to his knowledge of his own body and of everything he read in the books he got from Kamar-Taj, which weren't all about pure magic, how to cast spells and the such, but also on the energies of the body and the potential of the human body.

Anyway, the point was, even though Edward wasn't capable of doing it already, he would be able to once he found a way to make his breathing the switch to his cultivation. Then, his constant circulation of his Chi all around his body would absorb the air from his pores and disperse it all around his body through both his meridians and his blood vessels. And not let it get stuck anywhere it shouldn't.

Edward was sure that this would also allow him to get more air than people who breathed normally, and more importantly being able to extract it from, for example water, so it should be able to allow him underwater breathing.

But he wasn't as certain about this theory as he was about the one allowing him to breath from his pores, so he would have to see by himself in the future.

Author's Note: Thanks a lot for the Power Stones, you are doing a great job!