They quickly continued the training. This time, they used the Body Enhancement technique from the start. Why did they only decide to use such an obvious solution after many failed attempts?

Were they stupid, slow-brained morons?

Of course not. They had their reasons.

It was meant for training not strictly for shinsu control but their overall ability so they wanted to train their physical capability as well.

Also, from their experience of controlling shinsu until now, to control the flow of shinsu in their own bodies and creating bangs, and maintaining them at the same time was much more difficult than simply doing one of them at a time.

Liu Guanyi presumed that it had something to do about controlling internal shinsu in the body and external shinsu as bangs.

Since they were two different types of shinsu control, doing both of them needed the shinsu user to have the skill to be able to use both types of shinsu controls at the same time. And to say the least, with only three years of experience, Liu Guanyi was obviously hardly able to pull that off.

He was not some kind of a prodigy, wave controller freak that could learn that in just three years. Liu Guanyi was only somewhat better and greater than the average standard of the descendants of the ten great families.

Xin was also unable to do it. He was young, and the Tu Perie family wasn't exactly expert and focused on shinsu control skills and techniques. Plus, he didn't receive much training and education and added with his lacking talent, he obviously couldn't do it as well.

Probably the only descendants of the ten great families that could master it within mere three years were the Eurassia family. Though they had a great weakness as they were born with an extreme laziness trait that held them back from achieving their true potential in shinsu control.

That was why most of them slept almost all day in every single day. Moreover, those from the main branch of the family were rare, only those from the branch family, the Phonsecals, were often seen.

Hence, the main branch family members' true capabilities weren't well-known publicly. Not that Liu Guanyi knew all of these at the moment, of course.

'Good, they finally use it. It's a bit ridiculous but they only decided to use the technique after failing repeatedly. With this, they will finally make a progress.'

'I wonder how much of improvement they will have after a couple of years.' Locke thought after seeing both of them engaging with the wooden robots again.

The training was designed like this from the beginning.

To get the best efficiency they had to keep using the Body Strengthening shinsu control to avoid the wooden robots and the arrows, then after finding some gaps in their defense, they would create bangs to destroy the targets.

To keep the shinsu body strengthening and creating bangs to shoot them accurately at the same time was really difficult. With the addition of the harassment and instant failure if they received any hits from the wooden robots, the pressure they had to endure in the training was immense.

Locke intended to use this pressure to sharpen them. If they had an unyielding spirit, they could improve not just by a lot, but by many leaps and bounds.

To destroy all of the targets, they had to be able to use both types of shinsu control with ease under the pressure from the wooden robots with the weights and the hindrance from the shinsu field.

For E-ranked regulars, something like this was a nightmare level of difficulty, yet there was still a slight possibility to beat it for Liu Guanyi and Xin. They were beyond normal E-ranked regulars after all.

They continued to train until the sky began to darken.

The result was not surprising, they didn't manage to succeed even once since then. However, they did manage to destroy half of the targets after trying many times. Not bad, not bad at all. Even surpassing the horned Ranker's prediction.

'These two are really talented, especially that black-haired kid. His strength and agility are incredible. Is he truly a bastard of the Ha family or was he merely born blessed with incredible and monstrous physical abilities?'

'It doesn't matter. As long as they owe me a favor and connect me with the princess, it's all good.' Locke thought as he observed their progress.

"Sigh… it's going to be a long year ahead. Hopefully, this is going to be worth the trouble." Locke let out a deep sigh and looked into the horizon.

. . . . . .

Three people stood in an open plain. It was full of tall yellow-greenish grasses and some red flowers here and there. A tall man with two horns on his head and his hands on his back was facing two young men. One had long black hair and black clothes and the other one had short yellow hair and gray clothes.

The black-haired man was positioned within the horned man's eyesight, meanwhile, the yellow-haired boy was lurking behind him outside his line of sight.

The stalemate continued as they maintained the standoff without anyone making the first move.

The black-haired man shrugged his shoulder and dashed forward using the ground to gain velocity, creating a crack it where he had been previously standing.

He delivered many quick punches and kicks as the horned man responded deftly, blocking all of his offensive attempts with apparent ease.

The yellow-haired boy used this opportunity to attack from the back, he stabbed his needle at his leg, trying to disable his mobility.

He sensed it and was about to react when the black-haired man launched four transparent balls in close range. The two of them aimed at both his eyes and the rest at his crotch.

Seeing the quick and lethal barrage of attacks from many directions, the horned man didn't panic and smiled instead.

A rectangular shinsu barrier was suddenly created in front of him, blocking all of the shinsu attacks as he turned around and kicked the yellow-haired boy, knocking him away.

After dealing with the yellow-haired boy, he swiftly turned back to fight the black-haired man. Defending from his close-ranged attacks and shinsu attacks.

After a few rounds, the horned man managed to stop his barrage of attacks and countered with a straight punch on his solar plexus, knocking him back and disorienting him for a while.