Astonished about the sudden invitation to spar with one of the top powerhouses of humanity, Nial couldn't help but feel that this was a great opportunity for him.
However, upon sensing the excitement in Melvin's mana fluctuations, his initial reaction changed almost instantly.
He sensed that something was off because Melvin was way more excited at the prospect of his master and best friend fighting than he should be.
Thus he couldn't help but bow lightly before politely rejecting the offer.
"Master Junades, I have to apologize, but I'm currently not worthy enough to spar with you. I'm currently searching for a suitable technique in order to learn how to fight as I'm still a rookie in the fields of combat experience, combat knowledge, and many other topics that are necessary to know to fight.
Furthermore, my condition makes everything a little bit more challenging, and I do not want to bore Master Junades with my ineptitude."
When Nial finished speaking, he immediately noticed how Melvin's excitement had died down and had been replaced with confusion.
Yet, seeing that Nial had turned to face Melvin, Junades noticed something that made him smile faintly.
"It seems like you are not as slow-witted as your friend thinks, otherwise, Melvin wouldn't have lectured you that loudly!"
Speaking to Nial, Junades looked at him curiously after having figured out why Nial was reluctant to spar with him.
Thus, one of the things Melvin had accused his friend of seemed to be wrong.
Because of that, he wanted to personally see if the other complaints Melvin had about his friend were true or not.
In the end, there may not be a reason for Junades to show any interest in Nial, but for Melvin, who he had taught to be level-headed and control his anger, Nial had to be extremely important to his disciple.
That was already more than enough to test the blind young man, who Junades knew almost nothing about.
Excluding the information provided by Melvin, there was no intel he had yet procured about the blind youth. As such, Junades wanted to spar with Nial in order to figure out what kind of person the young man was.
Wanting to know more about him, Junades tweaked his earlier suggestion and asked again.
"Alright, if you don't want to spar with me just like that...how about I give you the [Control of the Ancient Monarch] technique for a large discount so that you can afford it?
For that to happen, you will have to hit me anywhere you want, three times in total!"
Nial had already figured out that Master Junades had eavesdropped on them, but that was not exactly something that astonished him.
Instead, it would have been weirder if he would have had no clue of a stranger entering his home.
After all, it was a given to keep an eye on who enters your private property.
Meanwhile, Melvin seemed to be more astonished about the sudden offer his Master gave Nial.
In his opinion, it had already been illogical for Nial to decline his master's request for a spar.
Yet, the fact that stingy Junades gave Nial such an offer clearly showed that he was interested in something about the young, newly awakened blind young man.
As such, he remained quiet and simply watched his friend and master discuss the further course of action without meddling in it.
It was a lucrative offer, one which he could not refuse, certainly not after he checked the price tag of the technique, which caused his hand to tremble violently.
While carefully placing the manual back on one of the numerous shelves, Nial was fully aware that Master Junades was itching to figure something out, otherwise, he wouldn't make such a tempting offer.
This caused Nial to wonder if there was something special about him, which was not the case as long as one was unaware of the Odyssey seed within his body.
For a fleeting second, Nial thought that Junades had figured out something about his Odyssey seed, but discarded this thought a moment later.
If someone knew about his Odyssey seed they might be interested in him, but this interest would be different in comparison to what Master Junades was trying to get the hang of.
To Nial, it felt as if Master Junades was interested in finding out more about him, including his personality, determination, and so on, and not just one specific trait of his.
That was even more confusing because it made no sense, but instead of continuing to assume things and interpreting actions and people's attitudes in different ways, he cleared his mind in an instant.
His friend's words were still ringing in his mind, and Nial nodded his head while he grinned lightly and replied,
"It would be an honor to spar with a true Master! I hope Master Junades would restrict his strength, so I won't be beaten to a pulp."
Having accepted the offer, Nial bowed slightly once again and followed the proper formalities. Meanwhile, Master Junades shook his hand with a joyous smile on his face.
"Obviously, I will restrict my strength, kiddo. What kind of request is that? Hahaha… Alright, follow me to the elevator, we will go down to the basement!"
Saying so, he walked past Nial in a specific direction while simultaneously releasing a faint thread of mana with which he enveloped the [Control of the Ancient Monarch].
It hovered in the air for a moment before being pulled towards Junades and landed on his hand.
As Melvin followed him, he couldn't help but feel somewhat odd about both Master Junades' and Nial's behavior.
Something bothered him but he was not sure what exactly it was.
Yet instead of saying anything, he wanted to drag Nial along with himself, but surprisingly, Nial had already fallen in step behind Junades, and his expression was serious.
This told Melvin that Nial was ready to give his all in the spar against Master Junades.
Whether this was solely in the hopes of hitting Junades a total of three times in order to afford to purchase the technique, or because he wanted to show himself, and possibly the others, that he was not as weak as others believed he was, Melvin wasn't sure.
In the end, he might be at a disadvantage due to his disability, but that allowed him to focus on other things that cultivators with vision would otherwise miss out on.
Now that the moment of the spar was upon him, Nial tried to think of a way to hit Master Junades a total of three times.
He knew that this would be an extremely challenging task, but attempting it with all his might was the only choice he had.
On the bright side, he didn't think that Master Junades would hurt him in any way. It was more likely that he would defeat him in a single move, and fight like Melvin, cruelly showing him what exactly he was lacking.
Other than that, Nial hoped that Junades would guide him, but that was just his wishful thinking.
Less than a minute passed after they had entered the elevator, and reached the basement before walking into a room that seemed to be relatively empty.
Dozens of different types of weapons were hanging on the walls, and there were a few poles that jutted out of the ground.
Yet, even they disappeared after Junades pressed a button next to a large board where dozens of different levers, buttons and all kinds of monitors could be perceived by Nial.
This told him that they had entered a high technology combat hall that could be used for training purposes, spars, as well as evaluation of combatants using technology.
The entire room could probably be customized, which was pretty cool.
Nonetheless, it was expensive, and Nial had only heard about such rooms from Originals who would proudly boast about their purchases on the Internet.
However, instead of trying to make sense of the buttons, levers and all of the stuff he didn't understand, to begin with, he entered the combat ring that was ready to use.
There was not much to prepare and it was just an enclosed empty space.
With that in mind, he turned towards Melvin, who had already taken out the Viper spear from his spatial ring before he threw it toward his friend.
Shooting his hand in the air the moment he sensed the Viper spear approaching him, he caught it before beginning to spin it as a warm-up.
With the Viper spear's blade retracted, Nial stood opposite Junades, who was also taking out a rod from one of the walls in order to spar with him.
While Nial was not sure if that was Junades' main weapon, Melvin knew that this was not the case.
To be precise, Melvin had never seen his master fighting with a rod, spear, or any kind of weapon like that.
Yet, rather than having a weak spearmanship, the moment Junades swung around the rod, and tested out multiple movements, Nial, who had barely perceived anything owing to the distance he was keeping from Master Junades, couldn't help but gulp.
'Was that really a good decision?' He wondered, but before he could regret his decision, Junades remarked,
"I won't use any ability or any mana, just my physical strength which I would restrict to the 1st Origin rank and emotions! Pay attention, kiddo!"
Smiling brightly, Junades pushed his feet from the ground and advanced towards Nial, who grew tense the moment he felt his entire body being enveloped in pressure.
It felt like he was surrounded by joy, yet, at the same time, the same joy was slowly morphing into an intent to fight against Nial.
With that in mind, Junades emerged in front of Nial before executing a simple thrust that targeted Nial's abdomen.
However, just as Nial moved the Viper spear whose blade had been retracted to create a perfect balance between the rod's tip and bottom, he perceived that the attack's target was suddenly changing.
From targeting his abdomen, Junades made subtle movements in order to change the thrust's trajectory.
Through this, the rod was not targeting his chest, which Nial noticed early enough to react.
Because of that, he swung the Viper spear, and tried to block Junades' attack, only to realize that he had miscalculated something!
In fact, Junades' change in trajectory was only a preparation for the real attack and a feint to distract Nial.
Junades didn't want to attack his abdomen or chest, but his lower body!
The subtle move towards his chest was similar to moving backward in order to gain a little bit more space to take a good swing, which was exactly what Junades did.
Nial was so flabbergasted by this sudden change in the attack pattern that he could only feel extreme pain in his right leg that had to endure the impact of Junades' rod's swing.
However, as he was gritting his teeth and trying to bear the pain, Junades' dealt another blow.
After hitting his right leg, Junades smoothly moved around Nial, pulling away his leg with the rod that seemed to be coiling around his entire lower body like a ginormous snake that had him in its grasp.
Not even his mana perception was able to follow Junades' quick movements as the visualization was too slow in order to process everything directly.
Nonetheless, even his other senses seemed to be too slow to keep up with Junades' speed, which was mostly due to the fact that the noises Junades made were muffled and also completely different from how he actually attacked.
Suffering an onslaught of heavy attacks, Nial knew that both of his legs would be covered in bruises.
Yet, instead of bothering about the pain that tried to influence his mind, and makes him give up, Nial gritted his teeth.
He couldn't even deflect Junades' attack, how could he think about attacking him?
There was not a single opening, and Nial's senses were betraying him, clearly showing him the issues he had to overcome.
First, his mana control was lacking severely as a single attack by Junades was enough to distract and prevent him from sensing his surroundings.
Other than that, his focus on the remaining senses was also wavering.
Knowing what mistakes he made, Nial was trying to work a way around his flaws, fixing them at a pace that seemed to be extremely slow.
Yet, what seemed slow to Nial shocked Melvin once again, and even Junades had to acknowledge that Nial was much faster at figuring out and acknowledging his mistakes than he had expected.
With that in mind, he increased the difficulty for Nial slightly, accelerating the speed at which he swung the rod around himself.
The additional pressure caused due to the sudden burst in speed was unbearable, and his body was just screaming in pain leaving him no room to even think of evading or defending against a single attack Julandes initiated.
This enraged Nial, not because he was being played around with, but because he had overestimated himself, his combat experience while underestimating the strength one could utilize as long as one had undergone proper training.
Even if he wanted to complain, there was nothing Nial was able to do at this exact moment.
He could only try to endure the attacks while eliminating his flaws in order to be hit less or to evade and deflect attacks.
This shouldn't be impossible but in order to achieve this, he suppressed his emotions forcefully, allowing the analytical part of his brain to take over, and figure out how Junades was moving, what kind of mistakes he made, and how exactly Junades countered every move of his.
More than an hour passed as they continued sparring, and Nial's entire body was covered in bruises, but he had yet to give up!
Melvin looked at his friend in shock, and he had wanted to intervene many times.
Yet, every single time, Master Junades held him back as if he was trying to see how long Nial could go on.
Master Junades could barely contain his excitement, and it was at exactly this moment when Melvin saw something.
Whether it was a coincidence or Nial's instincts, Melvin was not sure about that, but it didn't matter.
Just as Nial took a step backward, he leaned forward, expecting the rod thrust as well as Junades' moves over the last hour or so which helped him predict that Junades would move forward.
And as expected, Junades took a step forward, followed by the rod he thrust forward, targeting his abdomen just like he thought.
However, just as Nial thought he could deflect Junades' attacks for the first time by moving in accordance to the expected trajectory, he sensed that the atmosphere seemed to be overflowing with excitement.
Following that, Junades' movement accelerated and the rod reached Nial before he could complete his own move, defeating him without much effort.