Makomo felt her breath catch in her throat. Instinctively, she activated her Breathing Technique, two streams of white vapor like silk ribbons flowing from her nose. At the same time, she dodged with the swiftness of a nimble monkey, barely avoiding Kurozawa's large hand.
Next, Kurozawa continued his pursuit, using elbow strikes, knee strikes, and neck twists. Though he only used simple fist and foot techniques, he constantly pressured Makomo. Makomo had drawn her sword, but it gave her no advantage.
During the exchange, Makomo felt as if she were a lone boat tossed about on a dark, stormy sea, swaying and sinking, ready to be swallowed by thunder and gale at any moment.
This was why she didn't want to fight Kurozawa. The pressure Kurozawa exerted during a fight was even more intense than that of her master, Sakonji Urokodaki.
The highly oppressive training continued until evening.
By then, the wind blowing from the mountaintop had become cool. The sun had retreated behind the scenes, and the crescent moon had appeared.
Under the faint moonlight, Makomo's body, which was far stronger than that of an ordinary Swordsman due to her Breathing Technique training, was now drenched in sweat, almost lacking the strength to stand.
She gasped for air, trying hard to control the rhythm of her breathing.
Beside her, Kurozawa's breathing was even, as if he hadn't moved at all.
He shook his head, a little disappointed.
"Makomo, you're too easily swayed by your emotions."
"In this afternoon's training, you made mistakes over twenty times, due to nervousness, fear, and anger."
"This means your state of mind is unstable. If this were a real battle, twenty lives wouldn't be enough for you."
After being reprimanded, Makomo propped herself up and mumbled.
Her voice was heavy with fatigue, lacking the crispness of a young girl.
"I didn't want to. It's just that I haven't trained enough, I guess. If I do it a few more times, I should be able to handle it."
"Speaking of which, Senior Disciple, are you even human? How is your physique so strong? You're clearly a monster."
"A corpse is talking." Shaking his head again, Kurozawa turned and left.
"Huh? How can you say that? Senior Disciple, wait for me, I'm so tired." Makomo quickly chased after him, but Kurozawa showed no sign of slowing down, and his figure quickly disappeared into the dense forest.
"Honestly, Senior Disciple is always like this." Her tone was a little aggrieved, and Makomo slowly descended the mountain towards her dwelling place at the foot of the mountain.
She knew Kurozawa's personality. He was usually gentle with others, but when he got serious, he became strict. She also knew that Kurozawa was doing it for her own good, but being reprimanded never felt comfortable.
Kurozawa, who had already gone far, looked back and sighed softly when he heard Makomo's voice.
I can't possibly tell you that you died because you lost your mind during a battle...
It wasn't that Kurozawa was strict; it was that he knew, in this world where Demons were brutal, there was no room for a single mistake.
He could help Makomo escape a disaster by relying on his knowledge of the plot, but he wouldn't always be with Makomo. When she became a true Swordsman, she would eventually have to face Demons alone.
One mistake meant death, meant a permanent loss.
But after nearly a full day of training, my Potential Points only increased a tiny bit...
Looking at the seven strange symbols that appeared in his vision, Kurozawa lowered his head and walked towards Sakonji Urokodaki's dwelling.
On the day Kurozawa turned 20, when he first opened his eyes in the morning, he was surprised to find eight strange symbols arranged vertically in the lower left corner of his vision.
These symbols were semi-transparent and gray, and they didn't obstruct his vision.
And the moment Kurozawa saw them, he understood what these symbols represented, even though he had never seen them before.
Strength, Constitution, Agility, Intelligence, Skills, Potential, Power of Despair, Power of Species Annihilation.
Among these, the first four were physical attributes that could be simply represented by numerical values.
Currently, Kurozawa's four attributes were Strength 0.33, Constitution 0.41, Agility 0.31, and Intelligence 0.20. According to Kurozawa's investigation and comparison, the limit for ordinary people who hadn't learned a Breathing Technique was around 0.1.
Skills were the abilities Kurozawa himself possessed. Now, as long as his gaze moved towards the skill symbol, his ability information would appear.
Water Breathing, Fourth Tier (Upgradeable).
Water Breathing Sword Forms, Second Tier (Not Upgradeable).
Potential, however, was a strange attribute, represented as a percentage bar. Training the body could gain Potential, and when it reached one hundred percent, it could be used to enhance the first five abilities, body attributes, and skill levels.
However, skills related to external objects couldn't be upgraded, so Kurozawa later gave up on learning the sword and focused on developing his body, which Sakonji Urokodaki considered walking down a crooked path and being obsessed with physical strength.
Initially, Potential accumulated quickly. With Potential, Kurozawa quickly broke through his Breathing Technique to the fourth stage.
The fourth stage, Total Concentration: Constant, allowed him to operate the Breathing Technique at all times, his body constantly getting stronger.
Kurozawa's physical attributes, which were more than twice the limit of ordinary people, were mostly due to Potential breakthroughs, but some were also gains from Total Concentration: Constant.
For beginners, using the Breathing Technique each time was a very difficult and tiring task. Using the Breathing Technique for extended periods would also cause pain all over the body, and in more severe cases, liver rupture and blood vessels bursting were common occurrences.
Total Concentration: Constant was already a stage that surpassed ninety-nine percent of Swordsmen. Kurozawa's master, Sakonji Urokodaki, was also at the Constant stage of his Breathing Technique.
His Water Breathing could still be improved, but Kurozawa's Potential Points were becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. He had only accumulated fifty-five so far, and at the current rate of accumulation, it would likely take an extremely long time.
There should be other ways to increase Potential Points, and Kurozawa already had some ideas, but they needed to be verified.
As for the two most unique symbols, Power of Despair and Power of Species Annihilation... Kurozawa had some understanding of the Power of Despair and had a guess about the Power of Species Annihilation, but he wasn't sure.
Before, based on the literal meanings, Kurozawa conducted many tests to understand these two abilities.
He carried out extremely cruel and bloody species massacres.
Using methods like flooding and burning, he didn't know how many ant nests in Mount Sagiri he had destroyed.
During this time, the Power of Despair changed. Under the symbol, new branches appeared like Black-Brown Ant, Carpenter Ant, Termite, etc., also shown with percentage suffixes.
The Termites, most severely affected by Kurozawa, had their Power of Despair reach 13 points.
And when the Termites' Power of Despair reached 10 points, Kurozawa discovered that as long as he got close, those poor Termites would exhibit symptoms of anxiety, restlessness, fear, and even chaotic behavior.
Because he had only affected these insects so far, Kurozawa still hadn't figured out exactly what the Power of Species Annihilation could do. Right now, all it did was make the victims extremely afraid of him.
As for the Power of Species Annihilation, no matter how Kurozawa tinkered with it, it remained zero.
However, the name, combined with how the Power of Despair manifested, perhaps meant this symbol would never change.
Recommending a new suspense novel, "Bizarre World, I'll Smash Them"
Synopsis: This is a bizarre world. Gods and demons are gone. In the real world, the bizarre runs rampant.
Jiang Li opened his eyes, his expression blank.
The bizarre little boy with marbles...
The faucet silently watching you late at night...
Jiang Li felt no fear. He suddenly tightened his grip on the large iron hammer in his hand.
Smash these bizarre things!
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