The Almighty Ring

“I see,” Domingo said, with a slight tone of dejection. Even so, he recovered quickly and said, “Your training here isn’t finished. Sir Ottogackt said you have to stay with me for the duration of three missions. We have only just been through one.”

Domingo thought that Jiang Fei was being hostile toward him because of the incident on the unnamed planet. He was hoping to have Jiang Fei stay longer with him, not by force but by his own will. To be fair, the longer he stayed with Domingo, the more “favors” he would be raking up with whomever was supporting Jiang Fei.

“Very well,” Jiang Fei hummed. He kept quiet and accepted Domingo’s statement since it was coming from Ottogackt. Nevertheless, that did not elevate his impression of Domingo.

“Have your rest. I will send someone for you when a new mission arrives,” said Domingo, ending the conversation fast. He knew Jiang Fei was not pleased to be around him and did not want to make things worse with unnecessary buttering.

Domingo had regretted deeply for everything that happened during the mission on the unnamed planet. He should have confirmed with Jiang Fei before assigning him to join him on the mission. If he was really just a soldier at 65,000 combat level, he might have tripped and killed himself on that planet! Whatever happened to Jiang Fei directly affected his own future!

The next few days, Domingo had scanned through paperwork and mission briefings to find a suitable mission to accept. He wanted to make sure any mission he accepted would be a low-risk, high-reward type. For better or worse, he wouldn’t want to accept any kind of mission that would cause any form of harm to Jiang Fei. While he was busying himself with that, Jiang Fei had found himself the perfect place to train.

There was a large training ground on Ipsilon, albeit not as large as the one on Redstone. This training ground was almost never opened for anyone to train as it had only been used as a gathering place for special occasions. The cost to maintain and operate the Time and Gravity controls were too high.

However, when asked about using it, Domingo immediately gave him the green light, granting Jiang Fei the authority to use the training ground to his pleasure. This was gratifying on so many levels as Jiang Fei craved training. To be fair, he was literally a nobody in the army. He had no authority or whatsoever to use a training ground without permission. Domingo, on the other hand, was willing to fork out anything he could to make Jiang Fei as happy as he could.

“Please set it the room to be 15gs and thirty times chrono acceleration,” Jiang Fei said to the operator. He had no intention to save resources for Domingo and had set the training room to its highest setting, coincidentally, the highest operating power. As such, one day out in the real world would give Jiang Fei a month’s worth of time inside the training room.

“Ugh…”

Jiang Fei grunted as he entered the room. At the very least, he did not fall face-first on the ground, like the first time he entered a training room set up by Ottogackt. Fifteen times of Redstone gravity was strong but not too overbearing that it required him to use Omnisurge.

“Time to master my swordsmanship,” Jiang Fei said decisively. He recognized that his swordsmanship was only so strong because of the raw strength that came with his physical strength. If he wanted to further improve his swordsmanship, he needed to train harder. Strip off his powers and strength, and Jiang Fei’s swordmanship was only as good as the disciples of any sect on Earth.

One of the reasons why Jiang Fei wanted to improve his martial arts skills was none other than to fill up the gaps in his array of skills. He had accepted the fact that there were others with powers so strong that he could never catch up. At the very least, he had one thing that no other alien race had, and that was his prowess in the Chinese Martial Arts.

Polish not the handle, but of the tip of the sword.

Jiang Fei understood the meaning of this proverb and knew where he should focused on when training. Omnisurge had not required him to dedicate precious time on training as it relied solely on his desire to be strong. On the other hand, his swordsmanship could be his one ultimate weapon that would be the bane of other alien races.

As the training progressed, Jiang Fei’s handling of the sword got better. Hours later, he was able to get used to swinging around a sword that weighed like that of a huge elephant in his arms, without hurting himself. Once the handling of the sword had been greatly refined, Jiang Fei proceeded to to actual practice.

Burst after burst of sword slashes were projected out and from afar, destroying the beautiful landscape throughout the training room. Trees were cut down as if someone had sliced through with the sharpest surgical knife.

…

In a blink of an eye, seven days had passed in the real world. For for Jiang Fei, it had actually been seven months! After such a long time, the sword in Jiang Fei hands now glided around as if it were part of the air and him.

“Is this the legendary Unity of the Sword?” Jiang Fei smirked. Even though he was delighted to have finally grasped the shallow waters of swordsmanship, he understood that he was still far from dipping his toes in the deep waters of the art of the sword.

To test things out, Jiang Fei got into a stance. He gripped his sword hard, but not too hard that he would bend the handle yet not too light that he would drop the sword. In the next instance, Jiang Fei pulled out his sword from its sheath and delivered a powerful blast. As the energy burst soared into the sky, he focused his thoughts into the sword and moved his main sword hand slightly. In that moment, the energy burst changed its direction, moving about according to his will.

The Willful Guides the Sword. That was the skill that Jiang Fei had just used.

Delighted by the result, he continued to unleashed the same skill over and over until he heard someone, or something, approach him from behind.

“Interesting sword play,” a voice said.

“Who’s there!” Jiang Fei bellowed as he turned around, with the sword in his hand ready to deliver a killing blow. As soon as he locked eyes with the owner of the voice, Jiang Fei froze in place. It was a one from a short alien race that had wrinkled skin, as if it had lived a good portion of its life. The little fellow was glowing and translucent, as if it was a digitally projected hologram.

Race: Orbis

Combat Level: Unknown.

Note: A mysterious race of uncertain fighting capability. They can be very weak at times and overwhelmingly powerful at others.

“Young Terran, do you not know who I am?” said the little man.

“Erhm… Have we met?” Jiang Fei asked. He tried to sense the air around him but could not pick up any sense of hostility from the fellow.

“Mhm. So it seems… My name is Dawan, the manager of this training ground,” said the man.

“I see. I’m Jiang Fei. Do you have any business with me?” Jiang Fei said. He knew that every training ground had a keeper or a manager. He had just never met one before.

“Nothing. I was only curious about your sword’s style,” Dawan stated.

“Good for you. If nothing else, please do not disturb me,” said Jiang Fei, a little grumpy. He did not like anyone peeking at him during practice, not since he had left Earth. His martial skills was the only fighting skill he had against the other aliens.

“Calm down. If I wanted to copy your art, I would have already done so.” Dawan laughed as he teased Jiang Fei. He then took out a small leather-like pouch and tossed it to him.

“As a compensation, please accept this,” he said.

“What is it?” said Jiang Fei as he purposely let it drop to the ground.

“It’s the seed for Yondu’s Sprout. Once it touches the ground, it will sprout into a stalk instantly. If you let it soak your blood, it will grow into shapes and sizes according to your will. Such as…”

Dawan slipped his hands into his pocket and took out a green little seed. He then pricked his wrinkled finger and dripped a drop of blood onto the seed before tossing it to the floor.

Once the seed touched the ground, it sunk itself deep and in the next instant, a large green stalk burst out from the ground. The stalk grew fast and tall. In a few moments, at a certain height, it bent downward, forming tendrils that curled together to form a table, two chairs, and two cups out of flower buds with liquid inside.

“Just like magic…” Jiang Fei gasped.

“As you can see, this is what I thought and this was how it formed,” Dawan explained.

“And you are giving it to me…?”

It was hard to believe that a random stranger would just give out something so obviously valuable.

“Mhm. If I have a choice, I wouldn’t. But I was asked by Lieutenant Domingo to give it to you,” Dawan explained. This was one of the attempts Domingo was using to try to please Jiang Fei in order to get to his good side.