Chapter 20

The 'training' with Emily completed with her not being able to land even one hit on me but with me leaving los of wounds on her body. Our training used to be normal, you know like the usual, you fail at this then I take a minute to explain - type thing, but that annoying for the both of us, Emily hated the abrupt stop in the fight for an explanation while I just hated stopping her and getting back into the mood of fighting.

So, we compromised and just decided for me to do the explaining during the fighting while we continue the battle, this saved us a lot of time and Emily's growth became faster than before, but we then ran into another problem where Emily didn't fully understand the weight of her actions during a training session. Because every time I attacked her I did it with the intention not to hurt, she would always just rush in and take the attacks head on.

This led to her decision-making becoming trash and detrimental, so I asked her father, Flake, if I could actually damage her. At first he was against it, but I explained why I proposed the idea, understanding, he decided to ask for Emily's consent first before agreeing himself. Once he agreed Emily realized how stupid she was acting before and improved once more.

Of course, more problems arouse but we dealt with them. On a side note, Emily helps me to. Mainly she just gets me used to the darkness element but since she has been fighting me for so long, I end up creating new attack patterns or just completely make up a fighting style. The end of our sessions is usually bloodier than just a lot of wounds but since none of us are sure that we shall actually get healed after fighting.

"Haaaa…How did I do this time?"

Emily asked with a sweat and blood running across her body, she wrapped some of the wounds with shadows to reduce blood loss. Not going to lie, she really did look seductive with her figure drenched in slight blood and sweat, the thought may be weird, but Emily always looks good whenever blood gets on her, be it hers or her enemies, and it gets on her a lot because she loves the sight of it. Even when she asked that I could see the slight psychotic smile on her flushed face.

"Well, in regard to what you were trying to improve, quite horribly and amazingly so." Being honest with Emily isn't something most people should do if she doesn't even register you in her eyes. But she can't do jack to me, and she recognizes me anyways. She looked hurt by what I said but I didn't care and continued.

"Your reaction time to an attack is better than most, but you tend to only defend once you notice it, this is good but not what you want, am I right." Pausing and waiting for her response, I continued when she gave me a small nod, "Before you try to increase how much damage you can deal when you counter, try to learn how to counter first. Since you have little experience in parrying and close quatres combat, due to focusing on your element as of now, your counters are trash, and if you want to maximize damage during a counter, it must be instant. Watch."

Signaling her to attack me, Emily rushed me with her bare fists, 'I guess she to offense to the CQC comment.' I made a sad smile at this.

Stopping a step away from me, Emily sent a straight punch to my face, with no rush, I tilted mt head to the right. Emily fist missed me with space to spare but she didn't look bothered by it, she the leaned forward and bent her arm, sending her elbow to face once more.

I simply jumped back. Emily continued to use only her arms and then her legs to assault me, but I kept dogging, this made her frustrated at a point, since she was tired, she decided to give one attack with all her strength.

Rushing at me again, Emily placed her foot some distance from mine, she then pushed with her back foot and punched at me withal the strength she had towards my solar plexus. Her form wasn't very trash but still trash, well I can't blame her since I haven't taught her martial arts yet or weapon arts, the only reason she was able to make sch a posture was because she tries copying my fighting styles, she doesn't admit it, but I find her trying to copy them with the recordings of our training.

Giving her a small smile, I lowered my stance just a little bit, I then rose my left hand, extending it and placing my wrist to the right of hers, I pushed her fist to the left while rotating my arm to then grab a hold of her hand, then with my right hand I formed a fist and punched towards her stomach while taking a step forward, raising my body and pulling her arm, that I grabbed, further away from us and towards me and finally I delivered a powerful punch to her stomach.

Well, not really, I stopped just short of it. Releasing her arm and taking a step back I spoke, "Parrying isn't complex for someone like you, your fast enough to follow your opponent's attacks, you also have great reaction time. I'll just have to teach you how to do so, you will become proficient enough to begin parring with your element."

To be honest, Emily had the chance to learn martial arts earlier, but she wanted to perfect her element and mana control more, so she focused on that and since I'm not one to force my ideals and methods onto someone else, I went with her wishes.

And because of that Emily has the finest mana control and accuracy compared to all, including me even though I train to improve precision, well it's probably because I'm lazy. Anyway, after that Emily sat on the floor and I did the same, cross legged, we both have an addition to flexibility by the way.

"As for the flexibility with your element during battle. It's not lacking but your creativity is, you always mainly just create tendrils and shadow blades, this makes you very predictable and you also limit those to only attacking not supporting you or even defending." I continued my analysis on her.

Though Emily is creative, it's only when it comes to topics like torture and the like, she got the habit from her parents. A weird childhood she had. "You asked me why I went with the support course on our walk to the assembly, and I told you it was to broaden my horizons. Let me give you an example, if you're using your tendrils, can't you layer them on top of each other to create a barrier? Or wrap yourself like a cocoon and confuse the enemy while you appear from their shadow? Or layer your tendrils to make a sharp part like a needle and attack the enemy? You lack creativity in your attacks and battles."

This seemed to kill her as she looked depressed, 'such a rare sight, if only I could take a picture.' My thoughts ran astray again. Anyway, she looked like she was contemplating life, I was about to leave for my duel that's in 20 minutes, but it seemed as though she has a revelation and grabbed my hand then looked at me like I owed her something.

"Hey, remember when we were younger and you said, 'I'll be the final brain cells'?"

To be honest, I said when she failed at the anatomy test her father gave us, I passed btw. And yes we learnt human and monster anatomy when we were younger, at 7~13, that's when she got her blood fetish.

"Yeah, why?"

"Then just be creative for me, you'll be giving me the ideas as well as how you came you with them and I execute, it may sound unfair but if you do this you'll be able to witness the limitations and capabilities of the darkness element." At this point Emily rapped with an embarrassed smile on her face, she always finds it hard to ask for help in specific areas and tends to speak faster while she looks away the more she talks.

The idea is actually in favor of both of us since I have multiple ideas and seemed desperate to improve her capabilities. I mulled it since I'm not sure about my classes but I like to keep busy so I eventually agreed to the idea which made her sigh in relief, but I also made it clear that if she needs something from me she should just ask, since I'm being paid more than enough for my services.

After that we went over the details of how I'm exactly to help her, since we did different main courses and we still have sub-courses to choose from, we decided to make a rough plan for now while we wait for our class schedules to come out. She's in the attack course with Nobe.

So essentially, I'm going to write down the ideas and give them to her, this was decided because just in case I'm not there she can still try it without my presence. What I write in the book shall be detailed to help her understand the complex ideas a bit better. If I'm present then we shall train but with her using only that idea and perfecting it during the fight.

Since I had 10 minutes till my duel we decided to finish this after I was done, "I was planning on taking the fight slow, but I guess I'll have to hurry it up." I sighed while I got up and stretched.

"You were just going to bully the guy, finishing it fast would be better for his pride."

"Meh."

"Teleport me to my room, I want to shower first."

I really didn't know her room, so I just teleported her to the girls side of the dorms while I teleported to mine, Since I wasn't going to sweat much during the fight I decided to shower, I then took a quick shower, and wore something light. Nobe was still in the room, and he seemed over what I did so we walked together to the arena.