Yale attacked immediately once the chief spoke.

Awat was someone that he couldn't beat, but if he didn't take the initiative, it wouldn't even be a battle despite Awat restraining himself.

Lar's Sword was swung towards Awat, but the later stopped it with his own sword, which was a part of his own body.

Expert weapon spirits could materialize a replica of their true form while being in human form, but Awat had a true form that could take the form of any weapon, so everything he created wasn't a replica but completely original.

He could be in human form and weapon form simultaneously, which was something that not even the chief could do.

At the third clash of weapon, Yale felt that Awat was a liar because he wasn't adjusting his power to be at the same level as Yale, he was always a step ahead.

Awat didn't like to lose even if it was because he was restraining himself, so he did it to ensure that nothing unexpected would happen.

He was a weapon spirit, but he still had his pride when it came to battle against others like any other expert who liked battling.

However, that didn't change that Awat was going easy on Yale because he had reached the Minor God threshold in swordsmanship long ago, which was still far ahead of Yale.

Weapon spirits couldn't advance to Minor God without a proper master to aid them, so even though the chief and Awat would have advanced long ago if they were humans, they were still stuck at the ninth level immortal.

On the other hand, that let them a lot of time to train, so they had reached the Minor God threshold with a lot of weapons and elements.

In fact, rumored in the tribe said that the chief even managed to reach God's threshold instead of just Minor God threshold, but the chief never spoke about that topic.

Although reaching thresholds superior to one's level was far more difficult, it wasn't impossible, and some old experts that hadn't advanced due to different matters had accomplished it.

Tofesh's grandfather was one of them. He had been restraining himself until his family and country were strong enough without him before he decided to try to advance to Minor God. Thus, he had a lot of time to reach God's threshold on his favorite element, but others would prefer to advance to Minor God first since it would make reaching the thresholds far easier.

In Yale's case, ice was the only thing that was useful for the battle that had reached the Minor God threshold. His swordsmanship could be considered to be extremely good compared to others, but he hadn't even reached the bottleneck before the Minor God threshold yet.

The same applied to Yale's control of time, it hadn't reached the bottleneck before the threshold, and when he tried to use it in battle was also perfectly countered by Awat, but what Yale didn't know was that Awat was at the same level on his control of time, so he wasn't restraining himself at all in that aspect.

It wasn't that Awat didn't have talent or that he didn't focus on controlling the time, it was just the opposite, it was the one he focused the most, and he was very talented, but time was special because on the whole multiverse no one even survived to the breakthrough to the Minor God threshold and very few reached the bottleneck.

Although most people would think that the level of Yale and Awat's time control was already just before the threshold, that was just because they never experienced the true bottleneck. Reaching that bottleneck from the point Yale was at that moment was indeed very difficult, but it couldn't be called a bottleneck when comparing it to reaching the Minor God threshold.

Awat's master was one of the few who reached that bottleneck, so Awat himself had more knowledge about it than most people of the world.

In fact, the master of the chief was the same, and the chief himself was at the same level as Awat regarding the control of time.

Their masters were both people that Great God Kroh had been watching a long time before Great God Kroh discovered Alrein.

Great God Kroh had a control over the time far superior to the Minor God threshold from the start, so it hadn't faced the bottleneck.

Thus, that bottleneck was tagged as impossible to surpass even for Great Gods, but Great God Kroh didn't believe it and thus tried to find people capable of overcoming it.

However, of all the compatible people he found, no one managed to advance, but he had high hoped on Yale and Alrein.

Alrein was someone that as a mortal managed to travel through time even if it only worked with his mind, while Yale was someone that Great God Kroh didn't believe that couldn't do it.

The reason was simple, there had been one person who surpassed the bottleneck and yet didn't do it at the same time because on the middle of the breakthrough he used that energy to go the past instead of advancing to the Minor God threshold on control of the time.

Great God Kroh knew that the breakthrough was going to be a success, or the time travel would have failed completely.

That person was Alter Yale. He knew that he could reach the Minor God threshold regarding time control, but he was already a Great God and a member of the Council of Gods, so a mere Minor God threshold wasn't important to him.

In fact, that threshold wasn't enough to travel to the past at all, and Alter Yale knew it. However, he also knew that reaching higher heights was impossible for him, and the reason was that he was still chained to the past.

He had too many regrets in the past to manage to control it. A person with too many regrets in the past couldn't advance any further.

Thus, he sacrificed the breakthrough in exchange for that time travel and prevent that Yale would have the same regrets as him. He really wanted to save the universe from its disaster, but he was also selfish enough to want that his past self was free from those restraints that blocked his way.

However, Yale didn't know about anything regarding those topics, so he still felt that Awat had stronger control over time than him but was restraining it, although he felt strange that he adjusted it to exactly the same level instead of a bit ahead like the rest.

Yale was a bit frustrated by how he was always on the losing side in that battle, but he also felt that it was a good training method, so he continued.

Awat really wanted to ask if Yale had been just warming up at the start or was really improving so fast while battling because as the one battling against Yale, he knew better than anyone else that Yale's swordsmanship was improving a lot.

Of course, the fact that Yale and Lar got experience battling together after Lar awakened as a sword spirit mattered in Yale's increase of strength, but Yale's own swordsmanship shouldn't be affected by that, so Awat was sure that Yale was really improving while battling or had been playing at the start.

Yale hadn't been using just swordsmanship, but anything he used was used better by Awat, so it only made the difference bigger. Thus, he decided to focus on pure swordsmanship since he would only be surpassed in one thing.

The truth was that Yale didn't know that his own swordsmanship had improved because since Awat was always a bit stronger, he didn't feel any difference.

As for Lar, she was extremely happy, and just hoped that the battle would last for more time.

The people seeing the battle had different reactions. Those as experienced as the chief noticed Yale's improvement, so they nodded satisfied, but others just felt jealous of Lar for having a skilled owner.

Of course, they just remembered their own masters, and it wasn't like if they wanted to follow Yale or something. They were still completely devoted to their original masters; it was just that they missed the feeling of being used by them.

A week later, Yale was still battling despite his disadvantage. Lar hadn't told him to stop, and Awat seemed glad to continue, so Yale didn't find any reason to stop.

Yale wanted that Lar accomplished something on her first battle, but since winning was impossible, Yale wanted to land a single hit on Awat's body, but that was still very difficult.

However, after a week, Awat was already without restrains in swordsmanship since Yale had reached the bottleneck before reaching the Minor God threshold.

If Awat restrained himself, he would be on a similar level to Yale, so he needed to use his true power to be at a superior level. Of course, he was just using swordsmanship, which was a little part of his true abilities.

He wouldn't have obtained the nickname Demon Weapon for just using a sword.

Awat wasn't restraining himself, but he wasn't really putting any special effort either.

He wanted to see how much Yale could improve while battling, so he didn't want to scare Yale away, which could easily happen if he put some effort without being restrained.

The swordsmanship of Yale and Awat was just a step away, but there was a huge difference of power in that step.