One down, two more to go

Jarek was really impressed by Mir's vitality and endurance.

He could already picture how advantageous this law would be in long battles and situations where he would need to fight while injured.

In fact, if it were any other person in Mir's place, they would already have lost all their combat effectiveness after being on the receiving end of Eira's attacks.

The wounds were that severe, and yet Mir can still fight back in his current state.

It was truly remarkable.

When Eira saw Mir's current weakened state, she decided it was time to finish this battle. 'Let's end this.'

She rushed forward, aiming to deliver a final and fatal blow.

Her sword moved like light—incomparably fast.

Before her attack could land, a bright red glow coming from Mir's body caught her eyes.

They soon narrowed as she suddenly felt an increase in the vampire's aura, and suddenly, she was pushed back by a strong, unexpected force.

This change caught Eira and Jarek by surprise.

'His strength increased by a level.' They both noted in their hearts.

Mir was using an ability every blood law cultivator possessed. The ability to burn their own blood essence.

When a blood law cultivator is at the end of their rope, or when they are facing an overwhelmingly powerful opponent, they can burn their blood essence as fuel to temporarily increase their strength.

But this power boost comes with a cost.

After doing this, a person would be greatly weakened.

The degree depends on how much blood essence one has burned.

They then have to spend a lot of time restoring their essence.

And how long this power-up can last depends on the person and how they comprehend this ability.

It can be short but grant a sharp increase in prowess, or longer but with less combat power.

In Mir's case, it is the former.

He doesn't have much time left.

With no time to waste, and with his blood qi erupting all around his body, he moved to attack Eira with all of her strength.

She wouldn't be able to survive this time.

Seeing Mir's trump card on display, Eira didn't panic.

She was unnaturally calm.

She sees Mir's attack coming—his blood spear heading towards her.

She lunges forward, unleashing a precise strike—her sword qi slicing through the attack like a lightning bolt piercing a storm cloud.

Her sharpened intent pierces through Mir's defenses as her blade strikes his arm—disarming him—causing him to stumble.

She then cuts off his dominant hand.

"H-how?" Mir asked, shocked by Eira's sudden increase in strength.

Even after burning his blood essence and gaining an entire level of strength, she was able to overpower him effortlessly.

"Seeing that you are about to die. I suppose I can tell you." Eira spoke almost nonchalantly. "I just unsealed all of my strength. From the very beginning, I lowered my strength by three entire levels just to fight with you."

"Three levels? Impossible! You are a commoner, and you say that you have a prowess three levels higher than your cultivation base? Who are you trying to fool?!" Mir was furious, thinking that Eira was just a wolf in sheep's clothing.

What three levels higher prowess? She was clearly a Grandmaster pretending to be a Master.

He would rather believe this line of thinking than the bullsh*t coming out of Eira.

Even Penelope wasn't this absurd.

She had combat prowess two levels higher than normal when she was in the first phase of cultivation.

And unlike cultivation talent, which is decided the moment one is born, combat prowess is determined by the foundation one has set in the Apprentice stage.

Commoners tend to have the worst foundation imaginable since they lack experts to build it for them.

So, they have to settle for the weakest type, the mortal-grade foundation.

If one is lucky enough to be born in a low-class noble family, they would at least have a lord-grade foundation.

But Penelope's foundation was even higher than a lord-grade foundation.

The point is, one's foundation quality depends on the cultivation level of the one who helped set it, or to be more accurate, the level of energy that was used.

For Eira to claim that her foundation was better than Penelope's, who had the support of an Archduke in this dump, only a fool would believe her.

In fact, he even felt that Jarek was the same. To him, both were playing the pig to eat the tiger.

But his opinions on the matter didn't have any value whatsoever to either Eira or Jarek.

"Believe it or not, I don't care. To me, you are simply a nameless whetstone who just happened to help me sharpen my sword today. And that's how I'll remember you after you die."

As soon as Mir heard this, he immediately spat a mouthful of blood out of anger.

But in his current weak state after burning his blood essence, Eira's verbal assault on Mir proved to be fatal.

Yes, Mir had died.

Jarek had a weird expression when he watched Mir's tragic death, and he even wondered. 'Do you have to be so honest?' He asked Eira inwardly.

A vampire, the ultimate ruler over blood, died because he spat blood after being played with and angered to death.

Mir's death was simply too tragic for him to even wonder whether he would find peace after his death.

'If words could kill, then they would definitely be Eira's.'

Mir's minions shared similar thoughts, looking at Eira as if she were a demoness from hell.

Jarek's sword flashed as their bodies dropped to the floor, headless and lifeless.

The house was full of dead bodies, and the stench of blood was particularly strong.

Surprisingly, nothing in the house suffered any damage.

Jarek had reinforced the entire room with his qi, ensuring no harm was done to Eira's house.

He produced a flame and used it to burn all the dead bodies until they were nothing but ash.

He then switched to the wind element as he produced a gust of wind, blowing the ashes through the window as they scattered in the wind.

Eira was also at work as she used water laws to clean all the blood.

When Jarek walked to the window and looked outside, what came into view were the common people going about their day, completely unaware of the battle that had just taken place.

He had used sound laws to prevent the sounds of the battle from spreading outside.

This was why Jarek wanted to lure him here.

He didn't want to cause a commotion in the town.

It would have been inconvenient for him.

It would have made the future storms he had to deal with even harder to deal with.

'One down, two more to go.'

---

Two months later—

It has been four weeks since Mir's attack, and everything was once again back on track.

Everyone was making progress in their cultivation, whether it be Jarek, Eira, or Jarek's classmates.

They were all striving for growth.

Jarek's classmates have all advanced to the Master stage.

Jarek was now a peak Master.

He was now one of the strongest people in the academy and Arvenca town.

He was now sure that there was nothing that could threaten his life.

With his continuous breakthroughs, he gained a lot of points.

[

{Status}

Name: Jarek Jensson

Age: 18

Race: Human

Cultivation: Master (Late)

Planet: Mystiflor (Supreme Tier Planet)

System Points: 2,054,150 Points

Items: Adamantium sword (Nameless)

Skills: Cultivation Camouflage

]

By now, he had already spent most of his points on medium-tier laws.

Though, with how expensive they are, he could only afford five law diagrams.

And he had a lot of options to choose from.

[

{Law Diagrams}

-Mid Tier

(Price: 50,000 System points)

Elements

[Light] [Darkness]

Common

[Charm] [Poison] [Curse] [Bless] [Seal] [Blood] [Devour]

Special

[Space] [Time] [Karma]

S.N: Once you buy a law diagram, the price for the next purchase will double.

System points: 2,054,150 points.

]

He had spent two weeks of his time cultivating these laws.

His progress was a bit slower than when he was comprehending low-tier laws, but that was to be expected since they were medium-tier laws.

Laws at higher tiers will always be superior to those of lower tiers.

But this doesn't mean low-tier laws can be underestimated.

Each law has its own strengths and weaknesses.

For example, Earth is the most powerful defensive element across all tiers.

But if one were to leave the planet, where would one find earth to manipulate in outer space?

This is one of earth law's major weaknesses. And this applied to every law.

There is no perfect law, and therefore, there can never be a perfect cultivator.

Everyone has weaknesses.

Though a certain black-haired woman would disagree with Jarek.

---

One week ago—

Eira was breathing heavily, and her hands were shaking as she held her sword tightly.

'He really wasn't joking.' Eira inwardly thought as he looked at a calm and collected Jarek who didn't appear as tired as she was. 'Monster. Do you have any weaknesses at all?'

Twenty minutes ago, before the situation unfolded like this, Jarek had decided to switch things up a bit in today's sparring match.

"From today, we will be sparring not to improve a single ability but our entire skill set." This change took Eira by surprise.

Jarek then continued, "In battle, you won't just be relying on a single ability, and the same could be said for your enemy. Every ability serves its purpose, whether it be offensive, defensive, or movement-based, just to name a few."

"You need to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of your abilities to maximize your advantages and minimize the options others could exploit from your weaknesses."

Eira was listening intently but became dumbfounded by Jarek's next words. "In this spar, I will be using all of my abilities, but to keep things fair, I will keep my strength two levels lower than yours."

Even though she didn't show it, she felt that Jarek was looking down on her.

After cultivating for months, she had developed what one might refer to as a cultivator's pride—confidence in her own strength.

She didn't believe Jarek could bridge that two-level difference so easily.

Noticing her doubts, he then said. "You will see what I mean."

And see, she did.

She would fire ice spears at Jarek, and Jarek would calmly defend against them by using a strange force she couldn't perceive.

When she saw long-range attacks were useless, she adopted a close-combat strategy. Jarek's attacks with the sword were somehow almost as fast as hers, and he continuously used his abilities against her like Shadow Bind.

The battle continued until...

"I admit defeat." She saw no chance of victory. Jarek seemed to have no weakness.

Strength, speed, defense, offense—he displayed them perfectly.

Jarek would then give Eira some pointers, who listened keenly as Jarek explained areas she could improve on and the abilities he used against her, along with how to counter them.

After this battle, Eira's combat ability grew by leaps and bounds.