Chapter 146: 1000 word-I mean, 1000 seconds. [REWRITTEN Chapter]
The Crown Prince stabbed his training sword into the ground and placed his palms atop the hilt, while he spoke.
"You can use all five forms even as you’re still in the Grandmaster Realm, as it is one that grows with you, and has no realm constraints.
As your Existence realm increases, so does your damage output and efficiency as well."
After a little bit more introduction, brushing up on things Edward already knew, the Crown Prince began the real teaching of the technique.
First, he executed a ’Cresent Moon’ for Edward to see, releasing a curved horizontal slash of white lightning that sliced through the air and near-sonic speed.
The attack could go faster but since it was a display for Edward, it had to be done at a speed he could see.
Seeing the slash cleave through the magic dolls at the edge of the training ground, a round of applause rang out, accompanied by a comment from the applauder.
"Damn, that was clean."
"Silence Arthur, you’re distracting his training."
The silver-haired boy ignored Layla’s chiding words and jumped into the arena where the two brothers were, running up to them while calling out to the older one.
"Yo! Edward’s Big bro."
"Is there a problem, Your Highness?"
"Nothing really. Just that I did a bit of research on your family..."
As he spoke, he held his hand up and Lute appeared and placed a file atop it before disappearing like the wind.
"...and I found out that you guys have this technique called ’Hazy Style’."
"You’re well informed, I see."
Flipping through the file, Arthur casually posed a question to the Crown Prince.
"Can you teach that to Edward as well?"
Silence pervaded the area after Arthur spoke, but the boy acted like he wasn’t the cause and kept on searching for something in his file.
"Ah, there it is. Hazy Style: Rumblings."
He muttered to himself after finding what he was looking for, before looking up at the two brothers and noticing the slightly reluctant expression on the older one’s face.
"Hmm? Ah! If you’re worried about our presence here, don’t be. I understand that there are some things you’d rather keep secret.
Besides, we planned to leave anyway; we have another destination to head to today."
"I see..."
"Yeah, yeah. So, can you teach Edward that? He’s one of my closest guy friends so it’d be nice if he was even half as strong as I am."
"The heck’s that supposed to mean, dude?!"
Naturally, Edward didn’t take Arthur’s subtle diss silently, flaring up his aura as if trying to intimidate Arthur, but the silver-haired boy only tilted his head to the side and replied matter-of-factly.
"Exactly what I said."
Edward’s brow twitched multiple times, and though he knew Arthur was obviously provoking him, he still willingly fell for it.
"Let’s duke it out now, you’d see if I’m really only ’half as strong’."
"I said you’re not up to that. Besides, it would be a pointless fight scene which would take up unnecessary pages and make the readers spend a lot more coins."
Arthur placed a hand on his chin and sunk into his thoughts for a few seconds before continuing.
"But since this Chapter is supposed to be about how you get stronger, guess I have no choice."
Silence pervaded the area after Arthur spoke, and while the Crown Prince had multiple question marks floating above his head, Edward deadpanned at Arthur and spoke.
"Dude...you’re not supposed to say that."
"Leave aside that fragile fourth piece of paper and let’s get on with it."
Arthur moved his hands to his watch and tapped it, navigating across the menu as he continued.
"I’d end this before 1000 word-I mean, 1000 seconds."
The boy went on to set a countdown timer for 1000 seconds while Edward facepalmed and spoke with a sigh.
"Mehn, you’re killing my vibe to fi-?!"
**WHOOSH!!!
He had not even completed his words when a semi-transparent blade sliced through the air, beelining straight for his head and forcing him to dodge it with pure reflexes.
White lightning crackled across his legs as he bent his upper body backwards, before dashing to the side to avoid the follow-up diagonal slash that came right after.
"Oh, now you’ve done it."
Edward tossed the training sword he was holding aside and pulled out his real weapon, coating it in his white aura and kicking off the ground with all his might.
The boy blitzed towards Arthur with lightning-quick speed, releasing a slash filled with crackling energy towards Arthur’s head.
Edward was fast, even for inferior grandmasters. But all that speed meant nothing if his opponent could slow down his time.
"That’s cheating!"
Arthur did not reply and simply struck back, forcing Edward to temporarily overclock his speed just to cancel out the effects of Arthur’s Time slow.
He jumped back to avoid the three-pronged aura slashes Arthur launched at him, clenching his left fist and generating a magic circle in front of it before punching forward and sending multiple bolts of lightning flying towards Arthur.
However, Arthur slashed with Celestia and cut down all the projectiles, before activating his own magic, causing tendrils of dark lightning to snake around his arm.
"You’re using lightning against me?!"
At this point, Edward felt like Arthur had taken things too far. His face turned blank and he created a foothold of aura in the air which he kicked off on and blitzed towards Arthur.
With his sword coated in lightning, Edward dashed towards Arthur faster than the latter could even use his magic, slashing at him with full power.
Though Arthur blocked it, the force behind the slash knocked him back a bit, with another one coming a second later, before he could regain his balance.
Following up right after the second was a third, with Edward moving so fast he carved the ground where he stepped foot, and with each consecutive slash, the power and speed of his attacks were augmented
But even so, Arthur still silently blocked all his strikes, whilst keeping the black lightning surrounding his arm.
Right before Edward launched his eighth slash, Arthur’s pupils suddenly darted in his direction and the boy felt all his speed and momentum vanish.
’Fuck!’
He exclaimed internally, surprised at the strength of Arthur’s Time magic that even his aura coat could not protect him from.
In that same instant, Arthur’s palm glowed and he shot out multiple panther-shaped constructs of black lightning, each one dashing towards Edward with jaws wide open.
Each one slashed at Edward with their claws, containing enough energy that Edward knew better not to be hit by.
He let out a battle cry and released a burst of pure energy that broke the effects of Arthur’s time magic, before snapping his fingers and creating a three-ringed magic circle in the air.
’Light Magic: Light Rain’
Arrows of blinding light descended from above, piercing through the heads of all the panther constructs. The energies ignited and what followed was an array of explosions that blasted apart the earth beneath their feet.
"...! There!"
Edward identified Arthur’s position in the smoke, dashing towards him while releasing five arched slashes accompanied by lightning in quick succession.
In response, Arthur stabbed his sword into the ground and used the technique of the Northern Emperor of Phirex, causing the ground to shatter and a mighty aura-powered shockwave to surge forward.
There was a difference though, as if the Northern Emperor made aura surge like a fountain, then Arthur made it surge like an avalanche.
In the face of this surging aura, Edward remained calm, taking note of Arthur’s position and generating a ball of lightning which he tossed up into the air.
As the lightning orb released arched lightning strikes that moved through random trajectories at Arthur, he took a stance with his sword and remembered what his brother had shown him earlier.
Taking a short, yet deep breath, he unleashed a powerful horizontal slash of white lightning that flew towards the incoming wave.
The thick slash of lightning exploded upon collision with Arthur’s attack, releasing shockwaves that pushed even Edward who released it backwards.
’Given how close he was, that should have dealt a lot of damage to him, but...’
Edward’s senses alerted him of incoming danger and he quickly raised his blade to block the translucent sword that slashed down on him.
"I knew i-?! Just the sword?!"
The instant he realised it was just Arthur’s sword that had slashed down on him, he realised he’d been had.
Arthur’s body ’materialised’ right beside Edward, his fist pulled back and coated with his silver aura as he sent out seven lightning-fast strikes in quick succession.
Edward’s body was blown through the air, but he regained his balance mid-air and landed on his feet, holding up a hand to his side while gritting his teeth to ignore the pain he felt.
He saw Arthur pick Celestia up, turn towards him and then—
"?!"
—Arthur was suddenly beside him.
"Sword of Victory."
The young progenitor’s calm voice rang out as a golden pillar of light surged from his sword, colliding with Edward’s body faster than he could react and sending him flying into the wall of the training area.
**BAAAAMMM!!!!
The force with which his back slammed into the wall was enough to crater it, and just when he fell to the ground, he felt a cold blade land on his neck.
"937. I win."
Arthur unsummoned Celestia after stopping the countdown timer, before holding out a hand to help Edward get up.
"Making me have to use trackless step, guess you did hit the half mark."
"...that was the stuff you did during the entrance exams, right?"
"You remember?"
The young progenitor asked as he pulled the other teenager up, before turning to the Crown Prince and asking.
"How was that? Enough for you to know his current level?"
The Crown Prince was silent for a moment as he stared at Edward with appraising eyes, before nodding and answering.
"Indeed, it was. He’s a lot better than I expected. I’d adjust my lessons appropriately."
"Good. He’s all yours."
Arthur ended the conversation with that statement and walked up to Layla and Nicole who were waiting on the sidelines, slinging his hands over their shoulders and speaking.
"While he’s having his training arc, let’s go explore.
Lute, bring up the records of that Strange Planet."
"Which of the Strange Planets?"
"Let’s go with Number 3."
Edward was about to call out to the trio walking out of the training area while talking about exploring strange planets when he noticed a strange gaze coming from his side.
He turned to meet his brother’s gaze and in that instant, he had a very bad premonition.
’He’s not... right?’
◇ ◇ ◇
Long story short, Edward’s premonition unfortunately came true, and his brother turned out to be a spartan teacher.
For the next seven days, he spent 18 out of 24 hours in the training area, to the point where he gave up on going back to his room after the fourth day and just slept in the training area.
Meanwhile, Arthur, Layla and Nicole were exploring the list of strange planets, with them (mostly Arthur) getting embroiled in various situations daily.
Layla had come to the realisation that she underestimated how much of a trouble magnet Arthur could be when he wanted to.
"Seven Planets, Seven days, Seven strange situations. You are NOT picking our next destination, Arthur!"
"But! It’s a world where they have people with guns for heads! How do YOU not wanna go there?!"
"Because we’re going to end up dealing with some strange bullshit when we do. All for the reason that you’re the one who picked it!"
"Hey! The last one was partly your fault! Don’t put all the blame on me!"
Nicole silently sipped her juice as she watched Arthur and Layla argue about which place to go next.
She set down the glass and turned her gaze to the table beside her, where the reports of Lute’s investigations were and browsed through the papers with the images of various planets on them.
Eventually, she picked a random one and turned towards her two arguing friends who were shoving other papers in each other’s faces and spoke.
"How about we go to this one?"
The instant her voice rang out, Arthur and Layla went silent, then turned their gazes towards her. They looked at the paper in her hands, and then at each other before nodding simultaneously.
Without hesitation, they squeezed the ones in their hands and tossed them to the trash bin before speaking.
"We’re going to that one."
"Yeah, set course for wherever that is."
This scene left all the ship crewmen dumbfounded, but they quickly snapped out of it and took action, having learned and understood something new about Arthur and Layla today.
If you wanted to handle them when they went overboard, then bring Nicole into the equation.
