“I’m ready to take my first step out of this door...” My message was to Rachel and sounded like a threat.

“Where to, Sir?” I opened my door the moment I sent the message, only to be scared by the person waiting right in front of it.

“Holy F-” I jolted away if ever slightly from fright. “Have you been waiting out here the entire time for me?”

“Who would do that?” Rachel stifled a laugh. “I’ve been waiting in there.” She pointed a thumb behind her to a door directly opposite the one I came out from.

“Did you occupy that room just to remain on standby? My voice was riled up.

“It's assigned that way to ensure the happiness of our precious clientele.” She returned a pretty smile.

“Is that all I am to you?” I chided in a joking manner.

“Precious?” Rachel teased. “You are one of the youngest individuals to have caught the attention of our higher-ups.” She made it sound like I was being watched the moment I applied for the events. The thing was it almost sounded like a subtle warning.

“I was promised fun, so what’s there to do around here?” I laughed at her response and gently pushed the direction of our conversation to another topic.

“Did you want a private tour, or do you have something in particular in mind that you wanted to do?” There were many play on words in her sentence especially with the way she controlled the speed at which she said them. I did my best to ignore it, even if it was on purpose. It was something I’d love to entertain with one of my slaves though I wanted to avoid things getting complicated with someone I just met.

“How about somewhere to train, I haven’t had the chance to let off some steam for the past couple of days.” My mind went to one thing. Training was my grounding mechanism and always managed to calm me down.

“Of course, Sir.” Rachel answered and turned to lead the way. I was glad she dialed back on the innuendos and kept it professional for now.

I had the opportunity and accessibility to do anything I wanted at this resort and chose to exercise. I’m sure Eris would be giving me a sidelong glance as a means to show her disapproval of my actions if she were here.

The spacious gymnasium that we entered made me forget about any silly thoughts and it wasn’t just me that had the same idea. There were many others currently training on weight machines and doing cardio on treadmills. It was a good mix of building up the body and honing their magic abilities. It made sense to see this place being used to near-maximum capacity when it was directly linked with the fighting pit. I was glad to see there wasn’t a lack of focus on both body and magic compared to Sage Kingdom.

People in the undercity seemed to understand the importance of having a strong foundation for entering into deadly fights with a monster. These kinds of mentalities would be my target audience for our new dojo. Rachel nudged my shoulder with her hand as I was distracted thinking about possible ways to promote our up-and-coming dojo.

“Is something the matter?” Rachel saw my obvious spacing out and tried to grab my attention.

“Ah, nothing.” I replied. “Just getting ideas for my dojo that's going to be opening up soon.” I figured it wasn’t a bad idea to bounce ideas off of her and a plus if she had any good ones. This was something I would save and go over together with Jade at a later date since she was in charge of publicity alongside Seric.

“I’m guessing it will be topside. What are you naming it?” Rachel showed interest at the same time as letting a small frown escape her face. There was something off and I couldn’t quite put a pin on it.

“I always wanted to name my very own dojo as North Martial Arts.” It was the closest thing I could think of to saying it was my no-mage arena when abbreviated into an acronym. I eventually wanted to spin it off as the no-mage style just to get back at everyone that treated me like crap as I grew up.

“Does that mean you’re from up north?” Rachel’s reply was pretty innocent compared to my thought process.

“Not at all, it was the only name I could think of.” I laughed it off, knowing the name was silly but all that mattered was the deeper meaning attached to it.

“What’s up with that?” Rachel giggled in return.

“It will make sense eventually, anyways why not come by for a visit sometime when it opens up?”

“Yeah, maybe one day.” Rachel smiled. “It looks like a blessing has fallen into my lap though. Would North Martial Arts’ dojo master kindly guide me in a private session today?”

“Of course! ...However, I won’t show any slack to those that seek my personal guidance, even if they are beginners.” I played along with her grandiose speech pattern. Only joking slightly when it came to going easy on newcomers. It was one of my pet peeves that developed after training the others. Asking for guidance when watching from the side was one thing but in the event, someone asked for a hands-on session via a sparring match, I couldn’t help but get flashbacks to breaking my arm from underestimating Tessa.

“Perfect, this way then.” She led me to an enclosed sparring room, away from the public.

“I’m serious, I won’t go easy on you. I could show you some pointers without the need for a sparring match.” I wanted to make myself as clear as possible that this could end up being traumatic for her.

“There’s no need to delay. Use this as a way to relieve some of that stress you mentioned.” Rachel’s center of gravity changed as she got into a practiced stance. We stood five meters apart and her actions caused me to instantly shift gears.

“Your move then.” I raised my guard and entered a ready stance, mulling over the possible magic she had at her disposal.

My reaction speed had heightened manifold compared to my time in the village and the flickering in front of me was still fast as hell. Some could state the palm strike I threw to my right was out of fear from an invisible spirit. Only to be proven wrong with an after image appearing and disappearing from the exact spot.

I kept both feet planted to the floor and repeated a strike at each location my eyes managed to track her movements to. I was doing my best at trying not to connect a blow. A single hit at these speeds would end up being a lethal injury.

That was until she took it a notch higher and escaped my sight, landing several jabs behind me onto my upper shoulder blades. The blows were light enough to ignore but pounding away at anything enough times would lead to damage.

She clearly told me to use this as a way to relieve some stress, so I decided to take her up on that offer even if things got a bit messy. I promised to keep it to a minimum, only a broken bone or two that could be healed by Eris later on.