A tall young man was sitting in the middle of a field. He had gray, almost white hair and a strong, muscular, but not overly large body. His almost fragile-looking body actually had steely muscles and bulging veins. He was like a fast, sharp, and strong sword that was ready to attack an enemy tirelessly. The gray-haired young man had tired blue eyes that still burned with immense willpower.

The young man took out his blade from its scabbard. A wind started blowing. It played with the man’s long, gray hair and azure-colored robes. The clouds embroidered on them seemed to float. Sometimes, bright stars appeared, peeking out from their white, fluffy embrace.

The sword was not inferior to the robes in any way. Its ink-black hilt contrasted sharply with its blue blade. On it, the white Quetzal bird soared amongst the clouds, reaching for the small stars shining at the very edge.

The young man stood up and waved his hand. Around him, over a hundred sticks were suddenly buried in the ground, appearing seemingly out of thin air. They formed eight loose rings around the center, where the young man stood. The farthest of them was 250 feet away, and the closest one was 30 feet away.

The young man closed his eyes and raised his sword in front of him. Wearing his blue robes and wielding his azure-colored sword, he looked like a hero who had materialized from a minstrel’s song about the great feats of the past.

Accompanied by a gust of wind, the young man took a barely-noticeable step forward. His sword arced out, swung around, and appeared behind the swordsman. He accelerated, then slowed down, swinging his sword all the while as he fought against an invisible opponent. A lunge was followed by a sharp thrust, a swing was followed by a parry. He moved so quietly that his clothes didn’t even rustle. It was as if it wasn’t he who was following the wind in its art, but the wind was following him. It was as if a light breeze was born not somewhere amongst the endless expanses, but in the very center of the circle of sticks, in the young man’s own heart.

All of this didn’t last long, only about a quarter of an hour.

Hadjar opened his eyes and, wiping his sweaty forehead, looked around. The first four circles had turned into a pile of woodchips. From the fifth to the seventh circle, there were only scraps stuck in the ground. Only the eighth row had remained more or less intact, although there were still obvious marks left behind by sword cuts on them.

“We still have a long way to go, old friend,” Hadjar sighed while looking at his blade. “It’s just a pity that we don’t have much time left.”

Hadjar was training with his new power. The Nameless level had given him access to his own element. In the case of an ordinary cultivator, this was expressed in how their Techniques would change. For example, Alba-udun’s Techniques resembled a fiery volcano.

Hadjar’s situation was somewhat different. He had been the bearer of the True Name of the Wind since his childhood, which meant that the element had always lived inside of him. Maybe it had helped him, someone who was devoid of any significant talent for the path of cultivation, move up the levels at such an incredible speed.

And now he had claimed his own Name from the elements, receiving it from Boreas himself. Hadjar wasn’t better at seeing, hearing, or feeling the Wind, however. It was as if he had simply become aware of some new aspects to it...

In these training sessions, Hadjar, who was weaving a new art into his Style and Techniques, was trying to keep the ever-playful Wind inside his sword and body, but it always strived to go beyond that. Because of this, the percentage of his potential that Hadjar could use was incredibly low, and his Techniques were much weaker than they should’ve been. Of course, he had still become incomparably stronger than before, but, nevertheless, he couldn’t keep his hold on the Wind within 250 feet of himself or wield it with true mastery.

As for the ‘Wind Warrior’ Technique, which Hadjar could use as if he were its actual creator, everything was much more complicated. Hadjar doubted that this gift, or rather, this bribe given to him by the Black General, belonged to the Techniques of the Mortal Lands, or even the Land of the Immortals. It was so complicated, so profound in its mysteries of the Sword, Wind, Warrior Spirit, and far more, that it was unlikely that someone who hadn’t devoted thousands of epochs to the Sword and hadn’t been in countless battles could’ve ever created something like this.

After he’d acquired the knowledge of the ‘Wind Warrior’ Technique, he had stopped calling his ‘Song of the Torn Sky’ Technique a Divine level one. It was unlikely that anything that was weaker than the ‘Wind Warrior’ Technique could be called a Divine level Technique. He knew that in both the Mortal and Immortal Lands, there was also another, higher level, the level of Star Techniques. However, he strongly doubted that even this level could compare to what was now in his mind, body, and soul.

His current situation was similar to his distant past, back on Earth, when he’d used a laptop. He’d had no idea how it worked, about how the electricity needed functioned exactly, or the Internet’s many intricacies, but, nevertheless, he’d still used it. According to the neural network’s estimates, Hadjar was using the ‘Wind Warrior’ Technique at about 0.001% of its full potential. Further calculations, as his neural network had already indicated, would be pointless.

During the month that Hadjar, Abraham’s squad, and the redheaded dwarf had been travelling through the Strange Lands, he hadn’t been able to make any progress in using the ‘Wind Warrior’ Technique.

“You’re training, aren’t you?”

Abraham, wearing his straw hat, was standing near a tree and chewing on a long blade of grass.

“That’s some commendable zeal, stranger.” Despite the fact that everyone already knew that Hadjar had never been to the Strange Lands before, he was still called that. “When I still had a chance to move further up this cursed path of power, I also trained.” The older man patted his harness that held all his daggers and short sabers. “Then I discovered that wine, smoking, and young girls are much more pleasant than constant sweat and blood.”

“What a lovely idea, Shensie,” Hadjar waved his hand and the splinters and marred sticks disappeared. “Alas, I can’t afford to indulge like that.”

“What’s stopping you? Your wife, your child? It’s all nonsense, my friend. They’re chains with which we bind ourselves, no more than that. A wife is a companion of the soul, not your body. And a child... One day, they’ll spread their wings and fly out of the nest. They might not even come back.”

“Like you?”

Abraham smiled a little, “Stranger, I have nowhere to come back to.” He said this with warm sadness in his voice. The kind that didn’t torment one’s heart like a sharpened knife, but rather, soothed it like a soft blanket. “Well, it’s all meaningless in the end. Let’s go back to the camp. Itia and Gustaf have returned from the city. They seem to have found the ravens’ trail. I hope it doesn’t turn out like last time.”

Last time, instead of one of the outposts of the Raven Sect, they’d found themselves in the middle of a brothel, which, in turn, had been a cover for a local gang. The ensuing battle had been difficult and bloody. Hadjar didn’t really want to think about it.