Theo looked at Sihan unwillingly. He truly wanted to know anything about his brother, but it became just a dream after he died.
Theo's consciousness returned to his body before he reemerged in the field, glaring at Sihan.
"It's useless. Now that you have lost, I won't say anything." Sihan shook his head. "You use tricks after tricks, but you don't know that you get tricked too. Your movement is still too straightforward since I know you will be aiming at my blindspot. There was a sniper who could shoot a heart or a head from far away and he never missed… However, he still lost because of the very reason since his opponent knew he would aim for either his head or heart. You're like this now.
"It's a good thing to aim for the vital area, but if you fight someone strong, they will be able to react to your tricks without doing anything. One thing you lack in employing your tricks is patience. This whole time, you have been the one initiating the trick.
"But if you want to win with your tricks, you need to have patience. You need to be patient, waiting for your enemies to think no tricks will come or you won't be able to turn the situation around. That's where you are going to use your tricks instead of initiating them yourself. If you were more patient with me until I thought I managed to save myself from that situation and tried to escape, you would have won.
"There are a few more fatal mistakes that I want to address, but…" Sihan stopped for a moment, looking Theo in the eyes. "I just want you to know, my relationship with him is complicated, but at least we are not enemies. As to the exact relationship and any other information, I will keep it to myself for the time being.
"Since you have lost your chance to know that secret, I will only tell you another after we officially become the candidate for the Grand Gaia."
"…" Theo remained silent as he took a deep breath, calming his heart down.
"I am not blaming you for being rash, especially after getting taunted. Even I have something that will trigger me like a dragon's reverse scale. You can keep that flame in your heart but suppress them so it won't enter your head. With your brain, you should be able to make a poker face as if you are indifferent and so on. If you manage to do that, you will be strong enough to kill me."
Theo clenched his fists to let out his anger. He simply wanted to know something about the brother that had been missing for almost a decade, but he knew his mistakes in this battle.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Theo calmed his heart down while looking at Sihan. Sihan just showed him that his heart was unclear, and it was indeed a precious experience for him, so no one would trick him again in the future.
Now that he had calmed down, he started seeing things differently. First of all, Sihan seemed to be telling the truth about his brother and their relationship. Although he couldn't trust him one hundred percent, he knew that connection was the one forcing Sihan to bully him.
Sihan must have a different reason for bullying him though.
"If you're done sorting your thoughts, we will have another battle," said Sihan, not caring about Theo's opinion.
Theo had also come to terms with the current situation and nodded, continuing their training.
For the next two weeks, Theo kept dying over and over again, but his eyes remained strong. The loss count gradually became less, showing Theo's improvement. Even Ellen praised him for his progress in Magic Power.
When they were together, they would fight together as a team or two versus two matches, trying to work out their coordination.
Theo realized how much thought they put into the team. This was something he didn't learn since he mostly relied on his clone as his partner.
Instead of sacrificing his clone, Theo needed to take care of the lives of each teammate and coordinate with them.
They were awkward at first, but Theo found it amusing because as they got better and better, more and more patterns were opened in his mind. He had many plans that he couldn't do before.
Of course, Theo and Sihan still maintained their silent relationship while Phyrill became even more impressed by Theo's ability. He recruited him to his family a few times, but Theo rejected all of them.
He also hadn't used a single Magic Bullet in front of Phyrill, even though he knew he needed to use it in this competition.
Finally, two weeks had passed and Alea seemed to have found two more teammates, climbing her rank to their level.
After another week, specifically, the night before the third Sunday arrived, Theo got a call from Alea.
He just took a bath and prepared to train his Awareness, so finding Alea's call surprised him.
"Does she want to talk about tomorrow?" Theo furrowed his eyebrows. He picked up the Skylink and picked up the call.
The call was filled with silence in the first ten seconds until Theo said, "What's wrong?"
"Ehm…" Alea's voice finally rang in his ears, but her tone seemed to be filled with worry.
"If you don't have anything to say, I will hang up." Theo sighed. "Even if I need to fight you, I will use everything to win against you."
That was also the highest form of respect Theo gave her.
But Alea didn't say anything regarding their fight. Instead, she focused on another thing. "Actually… There are more problems than I thought."
"Problems?"
"Yes. Many have known that I have lost once, so there are several groups holding their progress. Hence, I am not sure whether I can meet you again or not in the next match or maybe in the match after that."
"So that's how it is." Theo closed his eyes and sighed, "I will do my best to repay you for everything you have done for me."
"Oi, oi. Why do you sound like you don't want to partner up with me again? Where's the one month's memory we have spent together?"
"Not every effort will be rewarded, including this." Theo wanted to let her know that even if they had worked hard together for an entire month, there was no guarantee everything would go according to their plan. He had understood it after getting trained by Phyrill, Ellen, and Sihan.
"Tch. You are cold as always." Alea pouted before saying, "Fine. We will see what happens in the next match. And don't mention the payment again."
***
Every 100 power stones = 1 Bonus Chapter on the weekend.