"I will choose the best two for you. They are the most talented in martial arts and reached the expert stage while still being very young."
Of course, that very young meant fifteen or sixteen years old. For those guards, that age was already being young to reach an expert stage.
"I will be in your care."
Shiba bowed politely after two men walked towards him.
"Tell us when you had enough, and we will stop. We will restrain ourselves, but you aren't used to battle people like us, so don't be afraid of stopping. We can continue another day."
In a battle, even if it were a training one, they couldn't guarantee that they wouldn't injure someone as weak as Shiba. They would restrain themselves, but if Shiba was too tired and his battle prowess dropped in an instant, they might fail to regulate their strength in time.
Given the background that Shiba seemed to have, they didn't want to imagine what could happen to them if something like that happened, so they wanted Shiba to stop as soon as possible if he was tired. It wasn't too much for them to continue another day.
"Yes!"
Shiba agreed because he knew that overexerting himself would only end up with him hurt.
The battle started after that.
Shiba was attacking both opponents simultaneously, but they weren't putting in too much effort.
Given the disparity in strength, with them being three times stronger than Shiba, it wasn't possible for Shiba to injure them.
They were impressed to see that Shiba was already at the limits of the apprentice stage on martial arts, but since they were both at the expert stage, there was no way Shiba could close distance using it.
As the battle progressed, the guards started to press Shiba a little more. They were increasing their strength progressively to put some pressure on Shiba without being too overbearing.
Seeing the battle, the Lord of the town, who was observing it from another floor, sighed.
"Activate the formation."
The butler behind him didn't expect those words.
"Sir, are you sure?"
He knew the big implications activating the formation had.
"I am sure."
There wasn't any hesitation in his voice.
"That was prepared for your breakthrough. If you use it now, who knows when you will be able to advance."
The butler knew how much effort the Lord of the town had put into creating that formation.
"I know, but even with the formation, my chances are still minimal, and it isn't as if I truly need to advance now. I have a lot of lifespan remaining, so I will be able to do it someday. On the other hand, Shiba has limited time to reach Rank 1. He needs this formation more than me."
He really wanted to advance as soon as possible since it would also be good for the town, but he knew that his chances were still too small, even if he were to use that formation. Thus, he hadn't used it despite having completed it a long time ago. Based on his progress, he didn't believe that he would need to use a formation like that in the short term.
That formation had the objective of increasing the energy in the affected area, making it easier to train.
The energy in the area was still too thin to train despite being better than in the arid zone. Other parts of the world had far more energy available on the air, making them better places to train. Thus, a formation like that was needed to train with ease when trying to surpass a bottleneck.
That formation was made using a lot of precious resources. The Lord of the town had been using his money to buy everything he needed until creating that formation.
However, it was a fact, that it was still lacking to properly aid the Lord of the town, but that was the best he managed to create.
Thus, he felt that rather than waste it on a failed breakthrough, using it to aid Shiba would be better.
With some luck and that formation, the Lord of the town believed that Shiba could advance a couple of levels, which would also improve his security when hunting beasts.
At the moment, the formation was activated, all the guards were shocked.
They knew how much their boss valued that formation, so to use it to aid Shiba showed the importance of the latter.
However, they were even more shocked the next second.
An instant after the formation was activated, Shiba advanced to Level 4 Mortal.
His training outside the town and his battle against the two beasts had benefited him a lot, so he wasn't that far from advancing when the huge surge of energy made him advance automatically.
As if that wasn't enough, the two battling against Shiba noticed that his strength was already at the limit of Level 4 Mortal.
The formation only allowed to increase the energy on the air to make advancing in level easier, but it didn't have any effect on increasing the stats.
Usually, having the stats maxed was an indication that one remained at the same level for a long time. The guards had never heard of someone having them all maxed soon after advancing.
Of course, there was no way they had interacted with something as powerful as Master Liye's energy.
However, the shock they had was only that, Shiba's increase of strength wasn't enough to change anything.
Shiba had also noticed the change of the energy in the surroundings, but since he didn't know about the formation, he didn't think that it was something overly special. Anyway, it was a good chance to increase his strength, so he started to absorb as much energy as he could while fighting.
After several minutes, he advanced again, reaching Level 5 Mortal.
That kind of advance was extremely fast, but since the formation was originally planned to help the Lord reach Rank 2, the effects on the Mortal Rank were obviously great.
In fact, it should have been impossible for someone at the Mortal Rank to absorb that kind of energy. That was something that not even the Lord of the town knew.
It was only because Shiba had Fake Origin Qi that he could absorb energy disregarding the difference in level.
If that formation were used to aid someone at the Mortal Rank who didn't practice the Origin Path or the Fake Origin Path, it would have been wasted.
Having reached level 5, Shiba's strength maxed again, but it also provoked that he couldn't control it properly.
Fortunately, his opponents were far stronger than him, so they didn't care about that.
Shiba continued absorbing energy, but he knew that he wouldn't reach the next level that easily.
After all, although that was a formation to advance to Rank 2, it was just for advancing, not to fill all the energy needed on the level.
Shiba was already near level 4, so he didn't use too much, but he used it to reach level 5 shortly after that, so absorbing the energy wasn't as easy as before since its density reduced quite a bit.
"Since I turned stronger, maybe that will work now."
Shiba had a crazy idea when returning to Border Town, but he felt that his body was too weak to apply it.
However, after advancing two levels, he felt confident in succeeding.
Shiba controlled the earth element around his arm, creating a cover of earth.
Since his body was weaker than a sword, he didn't dare to put the huge strain of using it to create a skill similar to Earth Blade. However, he saw a chance at that moment, and he really lacked a skill to use with his martial arts.
Although Shiba was succeeding at the start, it started to fall apart without being complete.
"No, I won't fail."
Shiba focused all his strength on successfully creating the result he desired. If it weren't because the other two noticed it and stopped battling, he could have been harmed by them.
Despite all his effort, he seemed to be unable to cover his body with the pure earth element, even if it was just the arm. He felt that something like that would increase both his offense and defense, so it looked great from a theoretical point of view, but the act of using elements on top of living beings was far more difficult.
If it weren't because Wing Wings also was in contact with his body and thus, he had the experience, he wouldn't even manage to endure that much.
While Shiba was almost unable to continue, a surge of energy flew from the spatial ring without Shiba noticing it.
In the next instant, the skill had succeeded.
[Congratulations on learning the skill called Earth Armor. Detected unknown surge of energy, purifying it, and sending it back to disciple Shiba.]
Once Shiba succeeded with his new skill, the two guards were ready to continue. They were amazed by Shiba's capability to create a new skill.
Given how they had seen the process of Shiba almost failing, it was obvious that he didn't know it from before.
However, before they could start, they noticed that all the remaining energy on the formation rushed to Shiba's body immediately, which provoked that the formation got exhausted, and Shiba reached Level 6 Mortal.
Reaching that level was the Lord of the town's best expectation, but the absorption speed had amazed even him.
In a short span of time, Shiba's strength had doubled.
Of course, he was still far weaker than his opponents, but after exchanging a few hits, the two guards noticed that there was something wrong.
"Boss, this guy is unconscious."
Shiba's battle style had changed too much to not notice. They feared that something bad happened to him for advancing too quickly.
"He isn't unconscious, he had reached some kind of enlightenment. Continue battling with him, don't let him lose this chance."
He had an enlightenment once, and it was thanks to that that he managed to reach Rank 1 before sixteen. Thus, he knew how valuable an enlightenment was.
However, he didn't know that the purified energy from the ancient ring was the reason for Shiba's enlightenment.