CHAPTER 193: TRAINING WITH VON (2)

Master Von was still in shock over the instantaneous change in location, his sharp eyes scanning the endless, featureless white space.

He quickly decided not to question Adrian too much on the nature of his impossible abilities. Instead, he tracked back to the reason they were here.

"Okay," he said steadily as he turned to face Adrian. "Can we fight here?"

"Yes. I’m able to transform this space into whatever I can think of and create anything I need within it. So, it’s up to you to decide how you want it." He paused, adding the most crucial detail. "Oh, and yes. Whatever happens to our bodies here doesn’t reflect on us in the real world. We can feel pain, but after we leave, our bodies will remain the same, even if we die."

Master Von tapped his chin, a slow grin spreading across his face as he processed the implications of that last statement. "Hmm," he mused. "Alright. Take off that thing you’re wearing first. No armor is allowed in my dojo."

A wry smile touched Adrian’s lips, but he decided to oblige, knowing that he would need to do so if he truly wanted to improve.

The Power Suit was the deciding factor of his overwhelming strength, the only reason he had been able to go toe-to-toe with the King. Its flight ability and ability multipliers made him a truly formidable opponent.

Without it, he knew the massive disadvantage he would be at. His raw physical power was only that of a common 9-Star warrior, a far cry from the Transcendent level he appeared to be when fully equipped.

With a thought, the nanites retracted, flowing back into an unseen storage space, leaving him in his simple training clothes.

After Von ensured that the suit was gone, he nodded his head in satisfaction. "Good. Now, make this place proper. I don’t like the way it is without boundaries. It would be better if it took after the old Academy dojo, but with a much, much more spacious interior."

Adrian nodded his head. In the next instant, the endless white void dissolved. They were both standing on the familiar, polished wooden floor of the dojo he was so used to from his academy days.

"Wow," Master Von couldn’t help but mutter, his eyes widening as he took in the scenery change. It was perfect down to the last detail, from the walls to the scent of aged wood.

But the new dojo was impossibly vast, about the size of four football fields combined. Aside from the scale, everything was the same, even the soft training mats. Adrian had simply pulled a scene from his memory and expanded it.

He looked at Master Von. "Is this good enough?"

"Yes. But one more thing."

Adrian listened attentively.

Von’s eyes turned strict and cold, the look of the harsh instructor Adrian remembered all too well. "I just wanted to tell you. I don’t want to catch you cheating. I don’t know what you have in that bag of tricks of yours, but I want you to use none of them. Fight with your bare body, your mana, and your techniques alone. Nothing else. Understood?"

The command didn’t bother Adrian, as he knew he wouldn’t be helping himself by choosing to cheat. He gave an easy nod. "No problem, Master Von."

He could see Master Von’s smile curve into something cruel. The instructor gave Adrian some distance, walking several hundred meters away to the far side of the massive dojo.

"Alright," he called out, his voice echoing in the vast space. "We’ll begin with a simple spar. Come at me with all you’ve got. You have five seconds."

Adrian looked at the instructor, who stood perfectly still like a mountain of calm waiting for a storm. He took a deep breath. "Alright."

~WHOOSH!~

In the next instant, he sped forward at his maximum physical speed. His legs moved in a rapid blur, the wooden floor groaning under the force of his launch.

He executed Phantom Flow as he moved, his form flickering and creating dozens of after-images, moving sideways in an unpredictable pattern to evade any potential counter-attack while he closed the immense distance to the stationary Master Von.

Meanwhile, Von only had his attention on Adrian’s movements. He could tell that the boy had a good, instinctual grasp of the technique from how flawless his execution was. It was a fine movement art. But it was only that.

The moment Adrian closed in on him, he threw out a quick, powerful kick infused with mana, aiming for Von’s side.

Von acted. Extending his palms forward, Von didn’t try to catch Adrian’s kick directly, knowing it was moving too fast and was merely the opening salvo of a longer flurry.

Instead, he used his own mana-infused palm to meet the force of the kick, not the kick itself.

Rotating his hands in a fluid, circular motion, he directed the kinetic energy in a strange, impossible way, absorbing it and sending it right back at its source.

The moment his palm touched Adrian’s chest, the latter felt his own momentum slam into him, sending him flying several hundred meters backward, skidding across the polished floor like a rag doll.

Master Von didn’t give him a break. He launched himself forward in a similar, explosive burst of speed.

Adrian had already picked himself back up, his chest aching, and was trying to brace for Master Von’s attack.

With no real defensive technique in his arsenal, he was still able to form a basic block, crossing his arms in front of him, thanks to his base fist-fighting knowledge.

Unfortunately, blocking his front wasn’t enough.

~WHAP!~

He felt Master Von strike him from behind with a powerful kick to his back. Just as Adrian made a motion to twist around and catch him, he felt another kick from his side.

~CRACK!~

This one connected squarely to his torso, the force radiating through his ribs, filling him with a blinding pain. Before Adrian could make sense of where that one was coming from, he felt another from his front this time.

~THUD!~

Just in a matter of seconds, Adrian experienced hell. He began feeling attacks from all around him—

A punch to the jaw, a kick to the back of his knee, an elbow to his ribs. Each of them was perfectly placed, overwhelming him and leaving him utterly defeated. He felt like he was being attacked by a dozen masters at once.

Adrian could barely see anymore, his vision swimming with black spots. He stubbornly abstained from using [Omnisense], instead taking all the hits head-on, trying to learn.

Finally, when he thought he had some precious seconds of breathing space, Adrian coughed out a spray of blood.

"I-It’s... enough..." he stammered. "You... win..."

But those moments of chance wasn’t grace. It was Master Von preparing a final move. He ignored Adrian’s plea for surrender and sent one last, vicious, mana-infused kick whistling through the air towards his head.

Due to Adrian being weakened and stationary, the kick connected directly. It didn’t crack his skull; instead, the concussive force and the resonant mana bypassed the bone entirely.

Adrian’s brain and the interior of his skull felt it all as his entire frame reverberated violently from the attack.

His world dissolved into a harmony of white noise and blinding light. His senses shut down. He could only hear a single, detached, clinical voice in his mind before all things went black for him.

[You have died]