Mortal Realm, Capital Planet of the Hoborg Empire, Main Continent, Cloudmount City, Divine Fate Mansion. The result was a long one-handed spear with a similar look as the shield: classy and discreet. Which did not decrease its lethal power, mind you. It may even take one by surprise as the two items did not look very powerful, since she also used a rune to hide their power fluctuations. Was it really necessary? “I guess it's a force of habit. Oh well, I can't wait to see his adorable face when he'll see those two. I'll go now!” She muttered before putting the two in her ring and take off towards her student. She only took a few seconds to reach the second floor of the pavilion. However, as she did not want to disturb him, in case he suffered some harm from mana deviation, she instead opted for sitting in silence by his side and close her eyes in meditation, syncing her breath with his, allowing his cultivation to speed up by multiple fold. The two stayed in this position for the whole night. Only when the rays of dawn tickled their eyelids did they choose to wake up from their meditative trance. Once the two opened their eyes and looked at each other, a similar smile appeared on their faces, reflecting the dependent feelings they had towards each other. After basking in their mutual presence for a few seconds, Bai Yue said with her beautiful voice. “Little fox, I finished your weapons already. Do you want to see them?” The boy could feel the anticipation from his teacher through their link, and despite his unwillingness to kill, he was still very attracted to any kind of fighting equipment. He did not know if it was his bloodline, or his recent decision about doing what he needed to gain the power to protect his closed ones, but the result was the same: He could not wait to see his new 'toys'. As she felt the same anticipation from his mind as hers, she proceeded to take out the spear and shield duo from her ring and put them down on the floor. When he saw the two greatly crafted weapons on the floor, Guang Yang open his mouth wide and stars seemed to appear in his eyes from the amazement coursing through his mind. “They look so cool!” He said while reaching for them to observe the two more carefully. Hearing his praise, Bai Yue's heart flutter slightly from happiness. “As long as you like them, then it's fine.” As the boy was engrossed with playing with the two items, he failed to notice her thoughts, which she also tried to hide under a facade of calmness. She thus discreetly took some deep breaths to calm her turbulent emotions, finding herself silly. “It's only a small compliment and I felt uncontrollably happy. Is it how a mother feel when they pamper their child?” She thought. Amused at the idea of having a child at her age, she sufficiently settled down her unruly mind to add out loud. “Let's eat breakfast before you try them, alright?” He nodded with a big grin on his face, looking impatient to try them already. It did not take long for them to finish eating and go to the Environment Room to do the testing. When they arrived there, Nung appeared almost instantly close to them. When he saw Guang Yang taking the weapons from his dimensional ring, which was a gift from his parents, he could guess what they were planning, but he still asked. “I see that Young Master has new weapons. Do you want to try them now?” The boy nodded with great enthusiasm and replied. “Yes, Uncle Nung. Teacher made them last night, after I chose which weapons I wanted to fight with. It was so hard to choose, since there were so many items to choose from. Eugh!” The fake expression of despair painting the boy's face stole a few chuckles from the always respectful tall man. “As I have access to the whole training area, I already know about it. I am not surprised that it was hard for you to pick the right ones. However, it's also a chance for you, young master. After all, not everyone is lucky enough to have so many weapons to peruse at their leisure.” Guang Yang nodded and said to clear the misunderstanding. “I know Uncle Nung. I just feel a bit better when I complain.” The smile on his face turn mischievous when he added the second sentence. When she noticed that their banter was over, Bai Yue took a shield and a spear which were of the same type than the boy's own, from her own ring. She then took a bit of distance from the other two and said. “Let's get started, shall we? I'll first show you the basic stances for those two weapons. Note that they are only general stances and you will have to adapt them to your style of fighting. After all, it's not a one sized fits all. It's more similar to spells in the sense that you can copy someone else's spell, but because you are different from that person, your spell will ultimately be different from them. Otherwise, it would be greatly weakened compared to what they could do with it. Anyway, I'll stop digressing and get to it instead.” As she knew that the boy was right-handed, she proceeded to show him how to hold the kite shield in her left hand while hiding her body behind. She also showed him a few simple defending, attacking and movement maneuvers that used the advantage of the tall shield. She kept her spear vertically in her hand and by her side, since she did not want to flood the child's mind with too much information. When she had repeated the maneuvers a few time in a row, she asked her student to imitate those movements, which he promptly did. Unfortunately, as it was his first time learning methodical fighting techniques, he failed miserably in his imitation. Every time he made a mistake, his teacher never failed to find it and pointing it out to him, before explaining how to correct himself. It was frustrating for the young child, since he felt less 'in sync' with the fighting techniques than with Law manipulation. Of course, it was not that the latter was easy. On the contrary, he also failed repeatedly. However, it felt right to him. If he had to think about a metaphor, it would be swimming down a stream with a strong current. The effort needed to reach the end would be minimal. Although you would still need to be careful not to drown, the difficulty would not be too high. However, what he felt while learning those techniques were more akin to swimming up river, while the flow worked against you. It did not feel like a torrent of water restraining you, but it was still a lot harder. He internally sighed. “It seems that I'm not very talented in fighting. But I still need to do my best. Otherwise I won't be able to protect my family!” As she perceived the tinge of disappointment in his mind, his teacher asked him what was wrong. To which he explained. “Teacher, I feel very clumsy. When I was training my Law manipulation, it felt a lot easier than training those fighting techniques. I'm not saying I want to give up. But I don't feel like I'm very good at it.” When the two adults heard his reason, they both chuckled slightly, and in front of his puzzled expression, they explained to him what they found amusing. “Don't take it the wrong way, young master, but if I didn't know your personality, I would think that you were boasting by being falsely modest. A disgusting practice, in my opinion.” Guang Yang then asked. “What do you mean?” He replied. “What I mean is that, it's not that you're not talented in combat. It's just that you're too abnormally talented in Law Manipulation. Just the fact that your Concept is literally about balancing two Laws that can normally not be comprehended together, shows that your affinity with that practice is off the chart. Obviously, compared to that, your affinity for combat seems lackluster, but worry not, as you're still 'good at it' as you said. You are just not a supreme genius.” Bai Yue then added. “Remember that, when we talk about combat or fighting techniques, we're talking about the physical aspect. However, using spells is also a kind of combat technique, and since you have a great affinity to it, it won't be a problem for you in the future. Only by using your strength to overcome your weakness, will you become stronger. As for the reason why I want you to learn how to fight in close combat? It's simply to be prepared for any situation. There are many special places in the three Realms where the usage of Laws are restricted and you can only use your body strength to do anything.” When he heard the two's explanations, he immediately felt better and pushed himself to master the maneuvers that his teacher showed him. Although he failed again and again, he gritted his teeth and kept going. Bai Yue inwardly nodded at his tenacity. After all, she knew that the worst was not falling repeatedly, but it was when you fell and did not get up afterwards. So many talented cultivators gave up after a few setbacks with the excuse of “It's too hard”, “It's impossible” or “I'm not good enough”. The worst were those that did not even try because of their fear of failure. “Sigh... If they don't even try, how could they be sure that failure was a given? And even if they did fail, at least they wouldn't have any regret. Thankfully, little fox is strong mentally and does not give up easily.” Guang Yang kept training the whole day while only taking a break around noon for lunch. When dinner time came, he was exhausted but also strangely satisfied. Indeed, he noticed that when he exerted himself physically, he felt a sense of accomplishment stronger than when he cultivated normally, despite the slow progress. Although it was probably psychological, he would not complain about it, since it helped him stay motivated for the whole time he was practicing. The week went by rapidly as his days and night were filled with combat training and mana cultivation respectively. At that time during the night, Guang Yang was seated in the lotus position when he felt his bottleneck collapse under his continuous assault using his internal mana. As it broke, he could feel his soul, body and energy becoming stronger. All his cells were evolving to become superior to what they were previously. When he felt the changes with his internal sight, he noticed that his skin, muscles and organs contained more energy than previously. Which made sense as only that way could he be faster, stronger, have more stamina, improved reaction speed, etc. When he finished observing every improvement, he decided to test it, since that would be the best way to understand and master the increase in power. As soon as he made that decision, he opened his eyes and stood up. He looked at his teacher and said to her. “Teacher, I want to test my new powers. Can we go to the environment rooms?” She nodded and said. “Let me bring you there.” After which she put her hand on one of his shoulders and used her Law of Space to teleport them directly to the entrance to the one of the room. The door then automatically opened for them and they then entered through it. They kept walking for a bit until they reached a sufficient distance from the entrance so that the boy would be able to do anything without being bothered. As they reached there, he closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths to put his mind in an optimal state, ready to observe every changes brought upon by the Level up. When he felt himself ready, he opened his eyes and took off running suddenly. As he was not used to the power that his legs could exert, he fumbled a bit, almost falling after a few steps. Thankfully, with the added strength, came the reaction speed and coordination increase. The two helped him get used to new 'parameters' he had to work with. It only took him a few minutes to be able to reach the same control he had with his previous cultivation base. At least when it came to running. After all, the action of pushing on your legs to move your body was pretty simplistic. The only difficulty being how to control the amount of pressure you applied with your legs and how to adjust your gravity center to not fall by leaning too much on one side. Once he was done with mastering the 'art of running', he decided to focus and refresh his close combat knowledge. For this one he decided to ask his teacher for help, since it would be difficult for him to spot his mistakes and even more difficult to know HOW to correct them, since he was still a novice in this field. When he received the approval of Bai Yue, he took his spear and shield from his dimensional ring and moved his body into the basic fighting stance that his teacher taught him. Then he started to practice. What he felt from the initial training set was contradictory. On one hand, he had even more trouble following the pattern demanded of him. On the other hand, he felt like his movements became more fluid, more flexible. As if he was going along a kind of rhythm that felt a bit muted to him previously. Of course, it was only comparatively to his earlier sensation. While he was going through the motion, he pondered about the explanation of this situation. “It seems like when I think too much about the movement I want to perform, I mess it up since I'm still not used to my new strength increase. However, the Level up seemed to have increased my whole body coordination, making my learning speed of close combat increase with it... This is scary when I think about higher Level and even higher Rank...” He thought. Being curious, he stopped practicing and turned to his teacher and asked her. “Teacher, what are the benefits of ranking up? Because, what I got from just Leveling up is already enormous, so I was wondering about what differed from a Rank up.” Hearing his question, she smiled mysteriously and answered simply. “Let's just say that the two are incomparable. A Level 2 and Level 3 are the same 'kind' of being, despite one being stronger than the other. However, a Level 4 Cultivator, character not included, is superior intrinsically in every way to a Level 3. The flaws that one can find in the latter are massively fixed and a lot of improvement is made to your three aspects and to your mind.” She paused a few seconds to let him digest that information, before adding. “But it's useless thinking too much about it. When you get there, you will understand my explanation much better.” He found what she said reasonable and thus did not continue pondering about it. Instead he focused on his training set. He kept practicing until dawn, after which they took a break to eat breakfast. Seeing his tired face, his teacher told him. “Why don't we take the whole day off. It will help your mind and body relax. Especially after a Level up. Otherwise, you might waste time if you can't focus properly during training.” He nodded, glad that he could enjoy some reprieve from the intense training. Wanting to make the most of his day off, he went to the Lake to play with the fish in it and the small animals around. As the boy emitted a peaceful aura, the numerous animals around the property enjoyed being around him. That delighted him, as he felt a bit lonely without anyone his age to play around. It was even more complicated for him since at not even two years old, he matured a lot faster than the children of his age group. While he was seated on the Lake's bank and petting the two fluffy animals at his side which looked like young wolves, he kept pondering on his life so far. He felt a bit down, when the voice of his teacher suddenly appeared in his mind, letting him know about the next part of his training regime. When her voice fell silent, a big smile replaced his previously gloomy expression. He even jumped in the air while shouting his glee. The sudden movement coupled with the shout scared the two young animals running, but the boy did not pay attention to them. Instead he mumbled. “Teacher probably noticed that I want to make friends. That's definitely why she changed her mind. I'll definitely meet a lot of new people this time.” He knew that this period was essential to prepare for the outside world, since if he did not train, he would be in grave danger if he wanted to go out. Thankfully, this boring but mandatory period was almost over. He then proceeded to check on the Holo-Net about the place he was supposed to go next. After a few minutes of browsing he raised his head up and his smile became radiant. On his Holo-Bracelet, one could see written in bold letters: “Immortal Pillar Academy”. End of Arc 2.