Several hours passed, and Lothur was already returning from the Morning Star Academy alongside his beautiful sister-in-law.
After arguing with Annaliese earlier, Lothur had gone on with his interests at the local academy, having attended the language class and spent time in the library in Sector-1.
In Leopoldine and throughout the continent, the Common Language was the most spoken, and hardly anyone would need to know other forms of language to live well in this place.
However, in the far north of Concordia existed non-human species that occasionally came into contact with the rest of the society of this world, even considering their reclusion from those who were different.
And because of the non-occasional encounters with these beings, which were sometimes tense, with a bit of violence involved, most of the human nobles of Leopoldine learned some of such languages.
There were several of them, but two were the main ones. One was the Ancestral Language, spoken by the Ancestral Folk. The other was the Spiritual Language, spoken by species of humanoid beasts.
The first one was highly complicated and was only taught at this institution where Lothur was studying from Sector-4 onwards.
Spiritual Language, on the other hand, was relatively more straightforward. Furthermore, due to the more significant number of humanoid beasts outside the Ancestral Lands, it was the language focus for beginning students like Lothur.
It was more commonly used in everyday life. It was also more valuable since the number of its native speakers in this world was hundreds of times the number of members of the Ancestral Folk.
Such beings also left the Ancestral Lands much more often. In fact, some races could even be found living around other areas of this continent.
Thus, this language was essential for cultivators, which is why it was taught at the beginning of the study period for students of the Morning Star Academy.
In any case, the Spiritual Language was not that difficult, and Lothur was sure that he could learn its basics in no more than six months.
So, he had spent his morning at that academy between the Spiritual Language class and his time in the library, where he was catching up on basic information about this world.
After that, since he had no geopolitics class today, Lothur did not see the beautiful teacher Anneke, but he did meet Elke during the noon break.
They did not have class together, but since Elke already knew about Lothur's schedule, she met him in Sector-1 and then lunched with him.
After that, Lothur was taken by that woman to a blacksmith store in the center of Peters City, where he wanted to find a suitable weapon to train his offensive technique.
And after seeing many low-grade weapons in that store, he had finally found a suitable Iron-grade ax, which cost him 10,000 bronze coins.
That had scared him quite a bit since much of his reserves had been spent in just a few minutes in that place on a single item.
However, he had already learned from some books in the academy library that artifacts produced by blacksmiths were highly resistant to weather and hardly ever suffered damage.
In fact, an artifact produced by a 1-star blacksmith could last twice as long as the vitality of a peak Mortal Warrior, those who customarily used items of this quality.
Furthermore, as long as someone at the beginning of the 2nd stage did not counterattack or attack such an artifact, this item would hardly suffer significant damage to affect its durability.
Knowing this, even though he felt a pain in his heart for having to spend such an amount, Lothur had made this investment.
And with this item in his spatial ring, Lothur already had everything he needed to learn his first offensive technique.
However, he still had training with Annaliese and learned the defensive technique that was on his list of things to do.
So, after saying goodbye to Elke without much fun today, he spent some more time in the academy library until he met up with Annaliese for the two of them to return home.
...
"Did you talk to that doctor?" Lothur asked as he sat face to face with Annaliese inside her carriage.
Upon hearing this, the woman, who still had an irritated expression on her face, looked into his silver eyes and said dryly. "I have spoken with him. He should join us in an hour."
"Why? Are you afraid of what I can do, and he won't arrive in time?"
'That's what I'm afraid of...' He laughed internally but said nothing to her.
He wanted to get stronger, but that did not mean he did not fear death. Not only that but worse than death was having to suffer slowly. So, since he had chosen this challenging path, he at least had to make sure of certain conditions.
As for this woman being angry with him, that only helped him. After all, the system had already informed him about the condition of strong feelings for his Physique to be better utilized.
So, he was more than happy to see the look of anger in her eyes as she had teased him.
'She's angry with me, so I probably won't be able to test whether I can get stronger being beaten by someone who has no negative feelings for me...' He pondered this question that had been puzzling him ever since he won the previous bet.
That was Lothur's most significant doubt about his Physique at the moment.
It would be great if he could make this woman his training partner and get stronger. But what if the effects of 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' were diminished by his opponent's hatred for him?
That was a question he wanted to answer, but that could be answered only by being beaten by someone who was not angry with him.
At the moment, that person was not Annaliese.
"Sigh..."
'But this is better.'
'At least I can be sure that I will benefit from this training with her.' He looked on the bright side in all of this.
After a while in silence, Lothur finally said to Annaliese. "Where will we do this? I want to start when we arrive at your family's estate."
"Oh?" she smiled coldly. "Sounds like you're looking to be punished as soon as possible, huh?"
"Are you by any chance a masochist, Lothur?"
But he did not waste his time with this woman's games, having stood silently watching her calmly.
"Tsk!"
"Let's go to my residence. I have a large training yard in my area, enough for us to train without problems, but..."
"But tell me one thing. What will this training be like? Do you even know how to fight? What exactly do you want with this?"
"As I said when we made that bet, I don't want you to ask unnecessary questions. As for how we will train, you will find out later."
"Humph!"
"I hope you're not thinking of shameless things." She looked at him cautiously, remembering the words her sister had told her. "If you try any funny stuff, be prepared to..."
"Hehe, you don't have to worry about that. The training I want is something quite ordinary that you will do using your fists or whatever you normally use in fighting."
After that, the two continued there in silence until their carriage arrived at the Frost estate, in a small circular square around a bronze statue.
As they got out of that carriage, the two ignored that entrance to the principal residence of that estate and proceeded in silence towards Annaliese's residence.
Such a place was in the same part of that building as Viktoria's residence, in this building of the Frost patriarch.
Then, the two passed through a long corridor with several decorative plants on the sides and rounded pilasters, which gave anyone who passed there a pleasant feeling.
But Lothur and Annaliese were already used to every detail of this place and soon reached their goal, not having seen anyone on their way to that residence.
However, even though they saw no people in their surroundings, that did not mean that no one had noticed them!
'What is this scumbag doing with Annaliese?' A blonde woman wondered as she hid behind one of the pillars of the corridor from before.
...