Arc finished eating and found that his headache had weakened, and prepared to clean up, but as he turned around he found Aurora standing before him
He looked up to see she was fully armed and ready for combat, and he couldn't help but remember being punched through several walls yesterday
Before he could do anything she began to laugh lightly, the armar then turned into robes and sword disappeared,
"I will wait for you to recover before attacking, anyways we have something to do today, lets go"
She grabbed his arm as she spoke, they moved extremely fast when Arc could register that he was moved it was already over
"Can you please warn me next time"
Arc spoke bitterly
"You'll get used to it"
She said plainly as Arc looked around he realized they were in the forge
"Are we making the lighting rods today?"
Arc spoke excitedly he truly wanted to see how a master would forge
Aurora nodded before having Arc turn on the earth fire and prepare the material they would use, it seems as though she took some inspiration from Arc
As the ingredients included silver gold, mythrail, and a few other ingredients that Arc could not recognize
Arc began preparing the materials to mix them, a large quantity would be needed to contain the lightning, the mixture was a 10/10/15/25/40
of all the materials with gold and silver being the lowest in quantity followed by Mithral
The remaining materials Arc didn't currently know what they were, and it could be distracting to ask Aurora questions so he decided to hold off until they finish
After making several billets, he took one and beginning heating and hammering it to shape, the material was hard and his hands felt numb, each stike took more effort than the last
Arc's eyes went wide as he realized one of the materials was absorbing the spirit qi within his body, causing his strength to leave him faster than normal,
Aurora waited until he seemed to be at his limit, and switched places with him, they then began taking turns preparing each bar needed for the lighting rod cage
While Aurora could last significantly longer than Arc, his recovery speed was astonishing, as he could simultaneously absorb spirit qi and world qi, he is essentially absorbing more than double the energy, in half the time
This allowed them to just barely take turns, as this swappings was happening Aurora begin thinking to herself
'It was arrogant to use such a large piece of abyssal dragon's horn, but it is the highest quality material i have available'
This material is what was rapidly absorbing energy from both Aurora and Arc was from the horn of an abyssal dragon,
The nascent soul grand elder luton, brought that back from one of his travels across realms, and gifted it to Aurora knowing she would soon attempt to advance
After forming all the bars they then began twisting them, each bar would have to be heated and twisted at least 32 times, and it then would also be flush with earth qi in-between each heating cycle
This would cause a chemical change in the materials, allowing them to become more resilient and more resistant to attacks
This part was simple as it took less force from both Aurora and Arc, allowing them to complete it at a much faster speed
After finishing the twist, they laid out each bar, and marked the locations in which they wanted them to intersect
Arc decided to show her a little trick, and used his qi like a Stick welder, to tac the bar's allowing her to activate a spell with them steady
With them together, Aurora took certain areas the intersections and began heating them up and use a technique, to manipulate the elements within the material to allow it to bond
The intersections turned liquid and mixed together mending at the deepest level
After that, the remaining bars, were added sticking out of the cage, appearing to be lightning rods, one on the top and two on the sides
Aurora and Arc both let out a sigh of relief realizing that they had finally finished after nearly 15 hours in the forge
"That was fairly quick"
Aurora spoke with a light smile on her face
"How was that quick?"
Arc asked shocked
"Many smith's can take up days or months to forge that same cage, you have astonishing recovery,and i'm a gold core cultivator with a spirit body"
" Naturally were able to do it at a quicker speed as earth energy comes simply to us"
Aurora explained lightly looking at Arc's slightly confused face turn into one of understanding
She reached out her hand and patted his head as she spoke
"Thankyou for your help Arc"
Arc's face flushed slightly before he nodded and said "no problem"
Aurora then got serious before speaking
"The date for the "party" will be in 2 months, and after discussion it with the other grand Elder's, we have decided to take a risk"
"Currently our sect only has 1 nascent soul cultivator, thankfully the Luten is known for his mastery of spells in combat"
"His ability had improved the standing of our sect, but he wouldn't be able to handle 3 nascent soul cultivators simultaneously"
"We have decided that i will attempt to advance before the date of the party, to relieve pressure and lessen the chance of a attempt against us"
Arc's face was unsightly, he was worried, but he had confidence and trust in Aurora and her spirit,
he spoke the truest words he felt
"I love you, and i know that you can do it"
Aurora face slowly turned red before grabbing him, and taking him to her room
The next morning when they left the room, Aurora and Arc were wearing their full combat gear, and Arc prepared to spar with her once more heading towards the same forest as last time
After arriving his spear stuck out and was immediately deflected by the handguard on her sword before it swung down towards his head
Arc realized the attack would be coming and used the back end of the spear to block the attack
This time was different from their last fight where Aurora was attempting to find Arc's limits.
This time Aurora was matching both the strength Arc was using as well as speed meaning this would be purely skill against skill
Arc failed to keep up her attacks were unrelenting and even her defensives led back into more powerful attacks
He didn't immediately realize that the force was identical to his own ,but he could tell the massive disparissie in combat skill,
he began to "record" and learn, engraving good habits into his own muscle memory, while getting rid of bad ones
She never gave him a chance to breathe, and since this time she wasn't boosting his recovery he was losing stamina quickly
As his stamina was lost he began to slip and she would ruthlessly strike him with no mercy
His eyes were wide and his hands shook he began to organize his thoughts and instinctively began using ki, something he hasn't used since becoming a cultivator
His ki radiated outwards, and he found that it was smooth and pure,and merged into his qi he remembered that spirit beast qi, was formed with a combination of qi and ki
He has been using two halves of a whole, now his body instinctively activated both simultaneously allowing his body fo reach its true potential
Aurora found the change interesting but it wasn't enough to bring her alarm, as there are always outliers in the cultivation world,
she had killed more dangerous creatures with abilities more powerful that Arc's
This change did help the flow of his Aura but didn't help much with the attacks he was using, she was significantly more skilled and activating his ki only delayed the inevitable
She stuck out with the sword breaking his guard and separating him from the spear she then kicked him away the striking once more with him leaving him on the floor in pain
She did make sure to include earth qi within the last attack to prevent him from getting hurt
Arc laid flat the ground before immediately asking questions, he gave an exact play by play of the entire fight and the placed he thought he messed up
She then noted the things he missed and corrected the mistakes he didn't even know he made
" you stopped my swing the first time with the back of your spear from then on in the fight you only attempted to block with the back of the spear"
" this allowed me to easily maneuver it into a position where I could pull you away from it, allowing me to separate you from the weapon"
Arc nodded and was happy that Aurora took her time to help him gain combat experience and corrected him on his mistakes
Normally sparring alone could not replace true combat training, but in this situation fighting her is no different than fighting a real enemy, as she held back all her attacks for aiming to kill
Her qi flow is so precise that at the last moment she could change the element's properties, making a absorbable for arc, but she would only do that if the strike would kill, in any other scenario she would allow him to get injured
She was ruthless when it comes to combat, and when it came to his cultivation arc was cold and calculative
This allows them to blend very well in this training allow them to see bring out the maximum potential in Arc in a very short period of time
The conversation slowly drifted though, and they began to speak about various topics mostly forging, he then asked her what material they used for the cages
"Oh, I was just in the materials you already know, I used the giant piece of the horn of an abyssal dragon, also used another metal to stabilize it, but it seems we didn't put enough as the horn was still absorbing a massive amount of our energy"
After that, they chatted lightly before going their separate ways, Aurora had to get back to work, while Arc, decided to head to the bookstore to collect martial arts manuals, normally he directly collect ki manuals
This time he chooses to collect martial arts manuals, to figure out forms and techniques to learn that would be useful in combat