Juno smiled insidiously. {What a fool! Heaven must have sent him to me to clean my keys and turn him into my toy for eternal tortures! It was so easy to twist him around my little finger!} - She thrust her hand and released three water balls at high speed. Each of them sparkled with electricity.

However, Kyon just waved his hand, and a gentle gust of wind fended off the attack. Not a single drop had reached him.

«The… the element of the wind?!» – Juno's eyes widened in shock.

Kyon launched a decisive attack with green adamantium that had grown on his hand. He gave Juno a heavy blow in the gut.

Juno retreated reflexively, moaning in disbelief:

«The… the element of the earth?!»

Kyon released a stream of steam enveloping the space between them, but Juno defended herself with wind flows without hesitation, dispelling the steam curtain.

«The water and the heat?!» – Juno could not believe her eyes.

«Stop wetting your panties, girl. Your master has been bending the nine elements for a long time.» – Kyon said impassively and waved his hands. A hail of dark icicles flew at Juno, black smoke oozing all over them.

Astonished and astounded, Juno tried to dodge, but one of them broke her ether barrier and began to destroy it like a hungry caterpillar eagerly eating leaves. The next icicle pierced her shoulder.

«А-а-а-а-аа-ааа-ааh!» – Juno screamed suddenly, clutching her hand at the injured place as if she was bitten by a poisonous spider.

Kyon remembered the bug turn into a jelly-like mass from a droplet of the darkness attribute. Juno must be suffering from unbearable pain. He never minded beating and humiliating her, but now was not the time. He had just learned that darkness was effective against the ether barrier and that it inflicted excruciating pain when getting into the blood.

Kyon quickly approached Juno.

«Take off your hand. Now!»

Juno immediately obeyed, still screaming in pain. An inch wide wound from the icicle gaped on her shoulder. The skin around it was turning into disgusting yellowish-red jelly mass under the impact of darkness. It looked like pus, increasing in size with each passing second. Apparently, some of the dark energy hadn’t disappeared yet.

Kyon licked his finger and touched the injured place. He poured Synergy as well as the element of light that looked like fog sparkling with gold. They would heal the wound soon. The remnants of darkness would dispel, the decay would stop spreading.

Juno trembled as she watched the master with awe. He was the master of the light element! The hellish pain had instantly disappeared. She felt a cold soothing effect like that of the healing ointment. By the way, right at that moment, the servant took the tube of it out of his spatial ring.

Kyon squeezed some of the ointment into the wound, applied a band-aid on top of it and said in a harsh voice:

«You will get better soon. I'll have to punish you another time. Now go to your chambers and have some rest.»

Suddenly, Juno nervously grabbed his sleeve.

«Master… Who are you?»

«Alpha and Omega, your dream and nightmare. Go to your room at once or I will create a new icicle and stick it up your ass.» – Kyon sent Juno away in a rude voice, throwing off her hand.

«Master…»

«I order you to have a rest for a couple of hours in your room.»

Juno slightly moved her lips, unable to take her eyes away from the mysterious black-haired boy. Meanwhile, Juno’s body rose against her will, and she headed for her chambers.

When Juno entered her room and fell on the soft bed, she whispered in a trembling, almost crying voice:

«How can he possibly bend all the nine elements? It’s impossible…»

It defied any logical explanation. Her servant had used all the elements before her eyes, starting with pure energy and ending with the light and the darkness. People who could bend more than five elements didn’t exist, and even if they did, they were called heavenly geniuses. But he could bend all the nine... What should he be called? A god's envoy?

In the morning, she thought she would beat him in a couple of seconds because her key of pure energy was clean enough. Accordingly, her blows were going to be stronger and her movements faster. But she was in for a bitter disappointment. His development had already increased two stages...

For the sake of victory, she had revealed her new talent, the water element. She was so eager to rub his nose in the dirt, proving who of them was talent and who was mediocrity. How naive she was... He showed her who and what she was. He crushed her as she was a child. Who was she compared to the master of all the elements with perfectly pure keys and a legendary level of the battle fist? She was nothing but mediocrity, not worth the slightest mention. She was dust under his feet. Juno wallowed in self-pity that was followed by intolerable envy burning her inside.

She used to take him for a slave whom she wouldn’t give a second glance. Then she changed her opinion of him. He became a useful but still insignificant servant. Now her attitude towards her “master” had completely changed. Juno still hated him, but she no longer dared to underestimate him. She had to admit that she was less talented than he, but still, her position in society was higher. Juno involuntarily recalled the days when her sister had not escaped yet. Day after day, she had similar feelings, watching Elsa get stronger and lagging behind her. Juno was perfectly aware of her helplessness and mediocrity... It was unbearable.

{And yet, he is nothing but my servant!} - She convinced herself completely and irrevocably. Kyon could be a thousand times more talented, but he was a low-life scum. He would never be a true noble master. His status would always be lower than hers. It was rather reassuring. The immense jealousy enveloping her mind was subsiding bit by bit. Her anxious, still confused soul was gradually calming down.

She remembered the warmth she yearned wrap herself in when their adventure in the tomb was coming to an end. It turned out to be the element of heat. Juno felt chilly all over. She completely surrendered to the pleasant feeling back then, and it was nothing but the work of this hated parasite. How disgusting...

Soon, her composure and sanity returned to her. She was willing to do anything to get the key cleaning, and when she became the master of all the elements, she would get freed from her shackles, surpass her servant in development and crush him with her power just to prove to herself that she was better than him. Everything would return to square one because she was a noble lady of the powerful family, and he was nothing but a miserable commoner and a slave.

Kyon had been practicing the advanced grade of elements for three hours when he heard the creak of the gate he knew so well.

Juno looked at Kyon with meek eyes. There was no trace of arrogance or contempt in them.

«Master, tell me, please…»

«I won’t tell you a-ny-thing.» – Kyon interrupted her.

Juno pursed her lips in frustration.

«Then... May I practice with you, master?»

«You may, but I will severely punish you each time you show weakness.»

Juno nodded uncertainly.

«It’s totally worth it if I learn to fight against masters of many elements, and also raise the level of my battle fist.»

Kyon was quite satisfied with her surprisingly logical answer. However, beating her up seemed to lose its appeal. One good thing about joint training was that the speed of development could increase significantly. Besides, he had to master the advanced grade of the elements (in addition to the light) and come up with a technique of movements, which he planned to do the next week.

They began sparring.

The wind, the water, and the earth elements allowed Kyon to maneuver during the battle so unpredictably as if he had nonexistent 13 battle fists. At the tenth second of the fight, he knocked Juno down before she even pulled back.

She quickly tumbled to the side and tried to get up, but Kyon roughly pressed her with his foot, knocking out a painful moan from his slave girl.

«You’ve just died. I could have created a stone spike in my foot that would have pierced your rib cage.»

Juno rose to her feet. She was on the brink of tears either with pain or anger.

The battle continued.

Another ten clever and swift movements and Kyon managed to grab Juno by her neck and knock her on the floor again as if she were a frail child fighting against an adult.

«It’s the second time you’ve died. I could have incinerated your neck, freeze it, or make you rot with the attribute of darkness.»

Juno stood up with difficulty, her knees trembling. She seemed to be fighting an invincible monster.

And the battle started again.

In just five movements, Kyon did a little trick. He created a little bump under Juno’s foot. She stumbled, lost her balance and fell.

Juno wanted to stand on her feet but the entire surface of the floor was icy and slippery, so she lost her balance again.

At that moment, Kyon put a long, sharp adamantium sword to her neck.

«It’s your third death. I could have killed you by creating a thorn in the ground or piercing you with the stone. Rise, you piece of shit!»

The slave staggered up. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks.

Before the next round began, Kyon said impassively:

«You may as well crawl to the cemetery.»

His dismissive voice and rude phrase made Juno shudder. She looked back and saw a green cloud with a pointed end of the adamantium sword poking into her back. The servant had teleported it behind her.

Juno collapsed to her knees, looking at the floor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was incredibly sorry for her mediocrity. Not so long ago, she was proud of her four elements. Now her arrogance was being dragged through the dirt. She felt like trash. The familiar all-consuming envy was emerging again. She wanted to be as talented as the master who looked like a cunning, invincible warrior. She couldn’t comprehend how he had mastered all the nine elements. When did he manage to do that? Why did heaven allow that? He also learned to create a strange shimmering green stone that she had never heard of. Besides, he used the mind-bending element of space with such ease as if he’d been doing it all his life! He was a genius among geniuses, even Juno could not deny it.

None of her tricks or attempts to resist worked against him as if she banged her head against the wall. She was infinitely jealous and ashamed of her weakness. To lose in an instant... They were at the same level after all!

Kyon clenched his fingers into a fist and delivered Juno, who was sitting with folded hands on her knees, a heavy blow right in the chest, sending her flying back.

«Who let you wallow during the fight? The enemy will gladly take advantage of your unstable emotional state. To use the emotions of the enemy means to defeat them!»

Juno rolled on the ground. She was experiencing things that she had never had to face before, especially cruelty from her own servants. Yet, she rose again, her hands on her hips. She really wanted to give in to weakness and cry out loud for the first time in many years, but she dared not. Her gaze turned to Kyon. There was only anger and hatred in her eyes. And then she attacked him with a loud scream.

Kyon smiled to himself. The training with the stubborn, never surrendering cutie was promising to be interesting after all. He would give her a really hard time. His revenge was for the distant future, but Lovr had no intention to treat her kindly until then.

Over and over again, the young lady tumbled across the floor, collecting the dirt. Her thin, fragile body was getting heavy blows, but she never showed any weakness of character. She always got up again. Her enemy took advantage of her hundreds of defeats, he used thousands of tricks, suppressed her with his power, played with her emotions using harsh words and gestures. He played with her weakness to get an undeniable victory and pleasure, which was written all over his face. He was the highest mountain and she was too naive to try and rise above it. The ruthless monster did not miss a chance to humiliate or beat her, but she took every punch stoically.

Three days had passed.

Kyon was getting more and more annoyed. He failed to master the advanced grade of the elements. He didn’t think it would take more than a minute, but it wasn’t that simple. The new grade of elements had a completely different pattern. It was much more complicated. There must be a trick to confuse heaven and make it lift the restriction on the element.

Kyon decided to focus on the earth element to master at least this one before the party started. He wasn’t sure he had enough time for that, though.

In addition to mastering the earth element, Kyon focused on the movement technique. He was making impressive progress. He found out more and more methods on how to use pure energy to accelerate his body, but all of them were significantly inferior to the ideal that the tireless perfectionist had already made in his plans. He picked up the best of the methods that he discovered experimentally and kept on trying. In fact, he already could create a technique that was much superior to the one the Stones had, but he knew he could do even better... He continued his attempts trying to explore all the possibilities and find the best among them.

Full awareness of the neural connections in the pure energy allowed him to be the creator, the inventor of the movement techniques. All the current masters were significantly inferior to him. One minute of his experiments was equal to a month, or in some cases a year, of time that any other master would spend trying to create a legacy for his family. Besides, Kyon never forgot what he learned. He operated the information like a super-powerful computer.