A couple of weeks went by as Leo trained in his chamber. Every day was like the last. He would wake up, gather mana, and practice all his techniques over and over again. Leo made a lot of progress and broke into the peak stage of Mana Fighter. He was ready to break into Core Builder level at any moment.
Leo's attention was mostly on understanding the elemental laws of Earth and Metal. His earth laws didn't progress much, but he broke into the understanding of Destruction of Metal phase.
Also looking at how Urcaguary manipulated metal and earth materials, Leo created his technique using the laws of yin and yang. When he applied yang mana to gold, it became soft. Then when Leo administered yin mana to the shiny metal, it became hard. Like this Leo morphed and changed the element however he wanted.
Leo found he could also apply this to his control of earth-like materials. He could now come up with a diversity of different attacks.
His comprehension of yin and yang became deeper. Leo was on the brink of Control of Yin and Yang.
Urcaguary golden plates brought Leo many insights and caused him to attain levels of control many at Core Builder didn't have.
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Upon the surface, things were normal. Jira ended up bringing Lucy, Pedro, and Shadow back to Machu Pichu when they learned Leo was there. When they got there, Urcaguary told them he was training and not to disturb him.
Supay also returned the same day with Zero. Supay could feel the death aura surrounding Pedro and decided to teach him a cultivation technique.
Pedro prostrated on the ground and thanked Supay. The man only smiled and waited for Zero to finish business with Jira.
Zero told Jira about the Deicide and decided with Supay they would take it to an island to keep it safe. Jira didn't think the monster should be kept alive, but he would never argue with his master. Zero also imparted some new techniques he was inspired on to Jira.
Once he was done talking, he and Supay took to the sky. The two of them flew off into the distance.
Lucy and Shadow found them a place to stay and wait. They gave pointers to Pedro and trained themselves. Shadow had become pretty friendly and even visited the other humans in golems in the city.
The other golems were fond of the two new ladies. After finding out Shadow trained in using yin mana they let her meet Cavillaca the artifact spirit. She was once Mama Quilla's disciple and training in her Moon Arts. Cavillaca passed everything she could remember to Shadow. Shadow was deeply grateful.
"What can I do to repay you for this manual?"
"Nothing. We owe a great debt to Leo, and by helping you, I feel a little relieved."
Shadow smiled. Where ever Leo went disaster followed, but in his way, he helped those he could. Shadow bowed to the spirit and left to go home and study her new manual.
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In a flash, a few weeks went by, and Leo never exited his training chamber. On the edge of the mountains, a large force of draconians was charging towards Machu Pichu. They decided that attacking by air would alert them too soon.
Urcaguary felt a rumbling through the earth. "Everyone listen. We are under attack." A booming voice sounded through Machu Pichu.
Jira was rounding up some animals down the mountain when he heard Urcaguary warning. He turned toward the east to see movement coming towards him.
In a flash, hundreds of draconians appeared before him. Seeing Jira, most of them stopped in their tracks.
"Fellow draconians, why are you here?" Jira asked.
"Its the betrayer. Open fire!"
In a split second, most of the warriors started firing their blasters on Jira. Fear spread across his face, and he hid behind a tree. The shadow beast and animals scattered. A few tried to attack the draconians only to fail.
A Core Builder stepped forward and launched a fireball attack and destroyed the tree behind Jira. The blast blew away Jira, and he tumbled into a rock. Jira slowly lost consciousness, but then he opened his eyes.
"Where am I?"
Seeing the draconians run towards him, Jira starting to channel mana.
"Oh, I'm only at the Mana Fighter stage. This body is so weak and such a bad foundation." Jira looked ahead and then said, "Let me see what I can do.
Channeling yang mana into his draconian fist, Jira released a bright-yellow fireball at the incoming men. He incinerated three Mana Fighters with one attack.
Sidestepping the blaster fire, Jira killed a few more men. The Core Builder was amazed. What had this draconian learned in the past to bring it to a point where it controlled yang fire mana to that extent.
"Oh, so he has trained using life mana too. Good...Good." Jira used a healing art to heal himself, and he continued to fight.
In Machu Pichu, the golems prepared for the attack. Urcaguary erected a large stone wall that the golems climbed up on. Lucy asked Pedro to take everyone, the humans and low-level golems, to hide underground. Lucy and Shadow then climbed up on the wall.
"You don't have to fight little one," said a massive golem next to Lucy.
She smiled and said, "I have a friend to protect." Seeing the cute girl give him such a look he couldn't argue and just stared forward as the draconian army raced up the mountain.
Urcaguary floated in the air. In the distance, he saw a black draconian coming at him with a bastard sword.