Atticus left his thoughts and focused on what Cedric was explaining.
“As I said earlier, you won’t receive any demonstrations, unfortunately, but this last step should be the easiest part,” Cedric said as he slowly approached the staggering number of azure slashes in front of Atticus, using his walking stick for support.
Each slash still maintained its lethal shape, glowing brightly, with each thread serving as a conduit to supply them with mana.
“You’ve already created the slashes; now you have to join them all together. Just imagine pulling each string together and making them converge at the tip of your blade before unleashing it,” Cedric instructed.
Atticus nodded. ‘Sounds simple enough,’ he thought.
Though he said and felt that, it wasn’t simple in the least. As he tried to combine the slashes, the combination ended up exploding in his face, causing him to die.
Reappearing and ignoring Cedric’s laughter, Atticus pondered deeply about what had gone wrong.
Each slash had different properties— for example, their size, depth, and intensity were different. Atticus hadn’t even paid attention to their signature or how the surrounding mana affected them.
‘This is probably the case,’ Atticus thought, believing that the difference in their properties was what caused the reaction.
To solve this problem, Atticus realized he had to ensure that each slash he unleashed was identical in every way.
This meant he had to release his hold over the current slashes. After doing that, Atticus unleashed another set of slashes, making sure this time that they all had the same properties.
However, Atticus failed a couple of times. Cedric hadn’t allowed him to do it without the rain of mana coated balls shooting at him, so he had to multitask while making sure not to get crushed.
Eventually, though, Atticus finally achieved it— a staggering number of uniform azure slashes, all letting out the same aura, floated in front of him.
Afterward, a simulation suddenly appeared slightly ahead of him, and Atticus saw the same katana avatar from before.
A projectile larger and more powerful than the others suddenly shot at him, and in the next instant, the man unleashed a staggering amount of slashes before combining them into one mega slash that shot forward, severing the massive projectile into two.
Atticus didn’t need to be told twice. He walked to the middle of the room and waited. A loud chime resounded, followed by a massive projectile hurtling toward him.
Fortunately, Atticus didn’t need to unleash any slashes, only to combine them. He raised his blade, and with slight focus, the staggering amount of azure slashes converged at the tip of his blade, forming one larger crescent shaped slash.
Atticus unleashed it in the next instant, and it shot forward, cutting through the air before meeting the approaching projectile.
The collision between the two caused an intense shockwave to spread out, but in the next second, the crescent slash fizzled out, and the projectile continued uninterrupted, hitting Atticus with force.
Atticus’s eyes snapped open, and he immediately walked toward the middle of the room, ignoring Cedric. He was all too used to this at this point and knew exactly what had gone wrong.
He had been too focused on uniformity instead of infusing each slash with as much power and mana as he could.
Multiple projectiles shot toward Atticus at supersonic speed, and he moved like a blur, unleashing a staggering amount of azure slashes.
Afterward, the rain of projectiles stopped, replaced by one massive projectile hurtling toward him.
Atticus immediately combined the slashes, forming an azure crescent many times larger in front of him before slashing forward at blinding speed.
This time, the collision was much more intense, but the projectile eventually won, causing the massive slash to fizzle out.
Atticus’s eyes snapped open once more. The projectile had hit him again, and he had died.
Walking toward the center of the room, Atticus pondered everything deeply.
‘I see. I’ve been focusing on simply increasing the power, but I neglected how I learned to slash earlier,’ he thought.
Atticus repeated the process, and a large azure crescent appeared in front of him. He focused on the approaching projectile and slightly altered the crescent’s trajectory.
It shot forward once again, but this time, the projectile ended up getting severed into two.
Cedric let out a small smile before his expression immediately turned grumpy as he approached Atticus.
“Congratulations, you’ve learned the third art. In less than two weeks, crazy,” Cedric praised.
Atticus almost burst into laughter as he saw the strained expression on Cedric’s face.
“You don’t seem too happy, though,” Atticus remarked.
Cedric cleared his throat.
“Ahem. Smiling is too draining on this old body of mine. I’m happy on the inside, that’s what matters, right?” Cedric replied.
Atticus chuckled. “Right, right.”
Seeing that his lie wasn’t really working, Cedric decided to change the topic.
“So, will you battle the avatar now?” he asked.
“Absolutely not,” Atticus shook his head immediately. He would have to be foolish to think he could win against that monster in his current state.
‘I didn’t even see him unleash the art,’ Atticus thought.
The man had been so fast that Atticus hadn’t been able to see him either draw his katana or unleash any attacks. Unlike himself, where it took him seconds to unleash the third art, the man was an absolute monster in comparison.
“I want to practice some more before I fight him,” Atticus said to Cedric, who nodded in understanding. He appreciated that Atticus wasn’t being reckless.
Afterward, Atticus moved to the middle of the hall and began training. He performed each of the processes of the third art, slashing the massive projectile before repeating the same steps again and again.
This became Atticus’s routine as time passed. Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months.
Each time Atticus slashed that huge projectile, he could feel his proficiency increasing significantly. He was able to shorten the time it took to unleash the art by at least a nanosecond each time.
