Underground, two figures are sparring. The sparring area completely withstood the impacts between them, though. The runes engraved on it made it do so.
"Domain!"
Right now, Lugh couldn't bother speaking. As for the reason why...
Bam-!
With the projection as the center, a gravity field was formed. Not only that, countless sword phantoms filled with sharp intent can be seen on its surroundings.
"Embryonic Domain. Stars, Swords.. Master.."
Sword Phantoms flew at him one by one. With the Domain, the sword movements of the projection is getting stronger at every move. The Sword Phantoms summoned by [Infinite Sword Phantoms] are affected by it, too.
The gravity that pushed him down became stronger in every second.
As if saying its not enough, more Laws kept appearing inside its Embryonic Domain. Strong light appeared on the Stars inside the Domain, while Space twisted in Lugh's direction, making it harder for him to either travel through the special dimension or use [Space Transfer].
The Speed of the projection suddenly became fast. It quickly got close to Lugh and executed a set of sword attacks. The sword attacks seems sharper than usual as well.
Clang-!
"If not for my [Sixth Sense].."
Thanks to it, Lugh managed to block every single attack. He then proceeded to counter the projection by summoning a bunch of sword intent blades as a distraction.
Unsurprisingly, it didn't work. The sword phantoms destroyed them thoroughly, not causing any damage to it.
As the time passes, Lugh became more and more disadvantaged. Sword, Stars, Light, Space, Speed, Wisdom, Cancellation, and Mirror. These characteristics appeared on the projection's Domain.
The sword projection cut through space and has unimaginable speed, the stars controlled the gravity, it has enough wisdom to predict many steps ahead, and it can negate damages and reflect it to his enemies.
It is because these characteristics are the so called Pseudo-Authorities. Since it didn't step into the level of a Deity-Realm Combatant, it is limited to this. When a so-called trait reaches LV.MAX, it becomes eligible to be a Pseudo-Authority. Of course, not all traits can be one.
Still, one could have a higher-chance of stepping into Deity-Realm if they already have one of these.
"This is impossible.."
After some time passed, Lugh got cornered. He couldn't even counter anymore due to the sheer amount of attacks that he were receiving. It is even more evident when his resistance-type traits are desperately healing him.
In actuality, the projection could've defeated him just with its EX+ Rank, but it chose not to since this is just a training.
In no time, Lugh died. He was split in half due to it taking advantage of a certain gap. A few minutes later, he woke up.
[Warning! Warning! An attack exceeding the Ten-times limit had killed the user! Exp needed for Revival has been increased to times 8!]
[Exp deduction complete. The revival has been initiated.]
"Huff.. I think I'm now used to it."
That's right. Ever since 25 years had passed ever since the start of his training, his Master finally made up his mind to experience death on a weekly basis. It is due to the fact that Lugh finally had a surplus amount of EXP. For the past 2 months, he kept hunting Wild Beasts and Zergs. Thanks to it, he earned more than 2B EXP.
Though it might look that much, it actually isn't. Just the cost of upgrading traits drained most of them. Since Lugh knew that traits are his foundations, he skipped on upgrading his stats first. After all, he's already at SS+ Rank with Xiao Song's help.
Even if he upgrades to SS- Rank, its not like he would go up to SSS- Rank. Xiao Song also has her limits, as the enhancements in realm that she could give couldn't go over more than a realm higher than its rank. Since it's at S+, she could only enhance up to SS+ Rank.
When Lugh looked at the EXP required to upgrade her again to SS+, he saw that it costed more than half a billion. With his [Demon Dragon God Physique] not even at the Law Rank, he chose to focus in his traits first.
As of now..
[Lugh Austere Bayer]
Rank: S+
Latent Potential: C-
EXP: 97,000,000
Strength: S+
Agility: S+
Stamina: S+
Vessel: S+
Wisdom: S+
Traits:
[Dagger Mastery (LV7)]
[Dexterous Hands (LV7)]
[Sword Mastery (LV8)]
[Decisiveness (LV6)]
[Sixth Sense (LV6)]
[Poison Body (LV6)]
[Damage Offset (LV6)]
[Stone Skin (LV6)]
[Resilience (LV6)]
[Spear Mastery (LV7)]
[Evil Eyes (LV7)]
[Darkness Control (LV7)]
[Demon Dragon God Physique (LV5)]
[Corruption Resistance (LV6)]
Thanks to his focused sword training for 50 or so years, his [Sword Mastery] took the lead, with it reaching LV8. Since the levels of Masteries follows the level of Mental Realms, he's now at Peak Controlling Stage. He can now let out his Mental Power with perfect control and it now also has enhanced properties, such as adding sharpness to the sword, dealing damage to intangible enemies, and so on.
Meanwhile, his other traits reached an average of LV6.5. His [Dagger Mastery] and [Spear Mastery] were also at LV7, allowing Lugh to be more versatile with his weapons. In the first place, that is the reason why he did all that. Instead of focusing on [Sword Mastery] alone, he also upgraded other Masteries, just to that he can use Little Xue to her full potential.
Sadly, he didn't gain any new traits even after 25 years had passed. It seems that he got too lucky before.
"How was it?"
"It's not that unpleasant like the first, Master."
When he looked ahead, his Master is already waiting for him to wake up. Since his Master knew that honing his danger sensing skills (Usage of [Sixth Sense]) is essential for his foundation, he trained Lugh with his never before seen training method. As even he didn't have the luxury to get used to death, he's quite envious at first.
"That will surely help you later."
'I can already feel it, Master. I can now even guess when my [Sixth Sense] would activate.'
If [Sixth Sense] allows him to sense the incoming danger, then he can now faintly guess when [Sixth Sense] would activate. Perhaps this has something to do when he encountered that black entity on his illusion.
"Looking back at it, you've been training for 50 years already, right?"
"It is 50 years and 4 months, Master."
"Right. You feel like you couldn't achieve anything else here?"
Looking back at it, Lugh knew that his Master his right. Even though he's a high-ranked Deity, what external forces can do is still limited. That's why..
"Yes, Master."
"It's time for the real stuff then."
"Practical battles?"
"Yes. To be exact, the frontlines."
Frontlines. Ever since he got into this World, he had heard this term for many times. The most terrifying meat grinder of the Alliance, the Frontlines.
"You'll be going to the Frontlines."
The day he finished his training, Lugh got conscripted in the Military.