Gideon slammed his foot into the ground with enough force to create deep and long cracks while causing it to shake violently, which messed up the balance of the dummy on front of him.
Then, Gideon's hand blurred and so did his daggers that were previously spinning. The dummy suddenly jumped backwards and just as it did, the surrounding 30 meters of ground around Gideon suddenly changed and a large network of crisscross slash marks appeared, the dummy only barely dodging.
Meanwhile, a purple dragon head formed on Victoria's fist which impacted the dummy's daggers that protected its chest causing the dummy to fly backwards and it only stopped after planting its feet I to the ground creating two long trenches in the process. But by the time it had stopped, Victoria was already upon it.
Baal looked at the two individual battles and couldn't help but be surprised greatly. Just five days ago, these two could barely defend against the dummy's passively, but just five days later and they were already able to stand on equal footing.
As for Lisk, although it could learn how to fight, it couldn't get stronger through fighting and could only devour more beasts before learning how to fight something of its level.
Gideon naturally notices this as well and when he asked the system, it gave him a surprising answer.
[After Host had successfully binded with the system, apart from the leveling ability, it also increases Host's talent to a terrifying degree. However, Host was unaware of this as Host never bothered to meditate and only focused on killing monsters.]
The system's response made him smile bitterly. Not because he had only focused on leveling up, but because he always had bad talent from the start. He was secretly hoping that he really had good talent but wasn't able to use it properly, but alas, that was not the case. But then another question popped up.
'If I meditate long enough, do I still level up?' Gideon was expecting it to say yes, but he was surprisingly wrong. In fact, the response baffled him.
[No Host, if Host meditates and increases his strength to what the next level would give him, instead of Host leveling up, the experience required for the next level will increase, this way Host can experience a qualitative change when he levels up.]
Back to the present, Baal had made them to stop the fight and collected the dummies back.
"Alright, you results were semi-satisfiying, but like I said, you cannot take off those suits until you can defeat the dummies, even when you're training with the others." Baal said and the two of them nodded, they had already accepted their fate.
"Now." Baal clapped and out of nowhere, Draven suddenly appeared by his side, startling Gideon and Victoria.
"You're next training session will be with him, if you have any questions, ask him." Baal said with a smile before walking away.
Draven didn't waste any time and before the two could react, the were surrounded by water bubbles and once again, their vision blurred from how quickly they were moving.
At this point, they had become used to it as they silently meditated while waiting to reach their destination.
After about five minutes, Draven suddenly stopped and the water bubbles disappeared and they landed quietly, at the same time, they observed their surroundings carefully and found out that they were in a small clearing in a forest with what seemed to be another dummy in the middle of it.
"You can progress to the next stage of training when you've successfully managed to sneak up to the dummy and hit it. Using force doesn't count." Draven's voice echoed in their ears, it was also at that moment that they realized that he had vanished.
The two of the looked at each other before Victoria said.
"Why don't you go first, you're already an assassin aren't you?" Hearing the suggestion, Gideon nodded as he suddenly turned invisible and silently approached the Dummy.
As he got closer, he noticed that the dummy wielded a short sword and had its head bowed down.
'Now that I think about it, these guys can produce dummies with from what I've seen, silver rank and below strength, if they can mass produce them then wouldn't that mean that mages of those ranks wouldn't need to participate in battles?' Gideon shuddered at the thought before carefully approaching the dummy.
He wasn't quite sure if the thing had some hidden ways of detecting him so he was extra cautious just in case.
However, as he got closer and closer, the dummy didn't react in the slightest. So he kept getting closer.
3 meters, still no reaction.
2 meters, nothing.
1 meter, he was within the striking range without making a sound.
'Did I overestimate it?' Gideon wondered as he stood behind it silently before swinging his dagger at its neck.
Suddenly, just as he swung his dagger, the dummy's hand moved as its head shot up.
*CLANG*
It blocked his dagger.
Gideon's eyes widened in shock, how was he noticed?
The dummy didn't give him any time to think though as it suddenly clenched it's fist and punched out towards his face and so he swiftly retreated.
But oddly enough, after he retreated, the dummy went back to its previous stance and didn't attack.
Gideon narrowed his eyes and carefully observed the dummy.
'Did it wait for me to get close?' Gideon wondered as he deactivated his stealth and camouflaged poison before walking towards the dummy. However, the moment he was five meters away from it, it suddenly turned its head and although it didn't attack, it kept a fighting stance and waited for him.
'So my skills did work.' Gideon thought as he stepped backwards and the dummy once again seemed to 'shut down'.
'There's nothing wrong with my stealth and I'm able to get close, but it retaliates the moment I attack, even though I'm still invisible. What am I missing?' Gideon soon entered deep thought while Victoria silently observed him. If he couldn't do it, then she had no hope, so she just decided to watch him.
Gideon closed his eyes and remembered every battle he had where he used his stealth and carefully thought of every action he made, and soon, he discovered something.
In every single one of his battles where his stealth was involved, he noticed that the moment he attacks, the opponent notices at the last second. Even though most of the time they still ended up dodging, there were some where the target noticed in time before his attacked landed.
And so upon this discovery, Gideon wracked his brain as he thought of everything that could be giving him away.
"What if it isn't something about your body, like smell?" Victoria suggested, at some point he had to ask he wasn't getting anywhere.
"No, my smell is concealed as well." Gideon said while shaking head, his camouflaged poison has no smell.
"Hmm, maybe its something that only appears when you attack? Similar to how you taught me to sense how astral energy gathers." Victoria said once again and Gideon furrowed his eyebrows.
He knew it wasn't his astral energy as even when he brought his magic as close to him as possible, the dummy was still able to react.
"What if it's something I release subconsciously but it's not my aura or anything related." Gideon muttered as he felt that he was getting closer to something, and then it dawned on him.
"Killing intent!" He said loudly as realization dawned on him.
Killing intent was released when one wanted to kill, and the more one killed, the stronger the killing intent. But one couldn't control it like their aura and it was only released when they went in for the kill. Well, that was what Gideon thought.
'What if...' Gideon once again approached the dummy with his stealth and when he got close to it he struck with his dagger. However this time, Gideon rid himself of all his intentions to end the dummy, all he focused on, was to continue making his dagger move.
*SHAA*
The dagger passed through the dummy's neck effortlessly and soon fell on the floor with his body.
At the same time, Gideon's face paled as he wanted heavily. Although what he did sounded easy, it was anything but. What he did was no different from stopping your body's involuntary actions, like your heartbeat.
"Hmm, okay, you passed the first step." Draven suddenly appeared with his usual indifferent gaze.
"Now your proper training will start." He said.
"What about me?" Victoria asked.
"You'll also start the next stage of training when you beat the dummy." Hearing his words, Victoria sulked.
Gideon felt worse because he knew that it would only become harder from here on out. But he would handle anything that came his way and persevere, no matter what.