The answer was obvious for most people. The old lady before him was an extraordinary expert with a powerful background to the point she didn't think much of the Lange Family. Yet, Theo simply couldn't understand why such a person wanted him to be her apprentice.
If this person came from the military, such a person would be famous in the country. Hence, she could be either an expert that moved in the shadow or a foreigner.
"Who are you?" asked Theo with a hesitant tone.
"Me? You don't need to know my name." The old lady waved her hand as if her identity was not important and continued, "That's right. You can try to take a picture of my face during the training. However, I need to warn you that I will destroy the camera and memory card as soon as I notice it.
"On the other hand, I will teach you how to become an expert during these six months… Or at least until you are qualified to participate in Grand Gaia. Of course, my training is not that easy, so you will be tired during these few months. So, what do you think?"
Theo clenched his teeth. Although he had many doubts, he knew that there was no escape from this situation. He opened his mouth. "Do I have a choice?"
"Nope. Try to reject me and the next thing you know, you are already in the middle of level 200 area." The old lady smirked as if thinking it was amazing.
"Then, why do you even ask…" Theo resigned to his fate.
"Good. Now, you are officially my student. First of all, you must be coming here for a mission, right? What is the mission?" She asked.
"Getting Leaf Rabbit's fur."
"Easy enough. I can locate all the nearby rabbits in one minute." The old woman nodded with a confident face.
"Ehm… May I ask how to address you?" Theo politely asked.
"Just call me Teacher or Master. It's up to you."
"Then, Master, what should I do?" Theo chose "Master" because he called those who taught him in the school "Teachers" or "Instructors", so he didn't want it to overlap.
"I will be teaching you five most important aspects that you should have as an elite." She raised all her fingers before pointing at her thumb. "First, it's awareness. If your awareness were good, you would have noticed their ambush and reacted accordingly. This could also allow you to hide your presence and act as a part of nature to escape."
"Do you mean that I can sense someone a hundred feet away?" Theo narrowed his eyes.
"Yes. As I said earlier, I could locate all the nearby rabbits within a minute. Each life has something in common. They have a presence. You must have turned around a few times when you felt like someone followed you, right?"
Theo contemplated for three seconds before nodding a few times. "Yes. When someone stared at me, I somehow noticed their gaze."
"That's right. There are two types of awareness: Internal and External. When you are aware of your internal awareness, you can hide your own presence. Like this." The old lady smiled and stared at him.
"!!!" The change sent a chill down to his spine. If he relied on his eyes alone, he would be able to see her staring at him. However, there was a weird sense that appeared in his head. It was like she was there, but not there at the same time. She stared at him but felt no gaze. "It's confusing someone's sense."
"Exactly. By becoming a part of nature, you would be able to confuse someone's sense. This is Internal Awareness. But if your skill in sensing nature were higher than my own power, you would be able to sense me no matter how hard I hid my presence earlier."
Theo seemed to have grasped something and asked for confirmation. "So, if I had a more powerful External Awareness, I would be able to sense you earlier. At the same time, if my Internal Awareness were stronger, I could hide my presence from you."
"Yep. And you could sense any arrows or random attacks that flew toward you. Something like that." She nodded with a smile and pointed at her forefinger. "That's the first thing. Before I move to the second thing, I want to ask, what do you think are the most crucial things when fighting? Give me three aspects."
Theo looked down and supported his chin with his hands, falling into deep thought. "Skill, Strength, and Speed?"
"I give you ten points… Out of one hundred of course." She smirked and teased him. "Show me your butt. I'm going to spank you."
Theo's face became pale as he imagined what would happen if she slapped him. His butt would be obliterated like the assassin's head.
Seeing that reaction alone was satisfying, so she laughed. "Hahaha. Joke aside, the answer is Breathing, Control, and Technique. Breathing is the most important thing you need. Just like a sport, you will gradually stop thinking when you move too much at a certain period because the oxygen can't fully circulate in your body and brain.
"On the contrary, if you can keep your breathing stable, you will get a clear vision and head to think something. Even if your opponent is stronger or faster than you, you may come up with a trick or two to overturn the situation, like what you did earlier.
"As for Control, it's basically the control over your body, including magic power. If I'm not wrong, you can split your Magic Bullet into a few, right? Unfortunately, your control is too low to do it. This is what I will teach you. Look at me." The old lady stood up. Her spear glowed like before and she thrust it toward a tree.
However, Theo was shocked when the light flew in a crescent-shaped form, piercing anything in its way.
"Do you remember what happened when I used it for the first time?"
Theo nodded. "It's like a torrential shock wave."
"Exactly. I use my control to make it burst to create that shock wave. In other words, if you have enough control, you can easily turn the Magic Bullet into ten or even increase its size." The old lady then stabbed her spear to the ground. "Then, it's time for technique. There are two types of techniques: Internal and External.
"Internal Technique is something that we do repetitively like Martial Arts. For example, if my opponent is stronger, I can deflect his attack instead of taking it head-on. If my opponent is faster, my body may move faster because of the repetitive movements that have been instilled into my body.
"The second one is skills. However, I won't help you with this. You need to search for your own skills because you are the one who knows what kind of fighting style you want to achieve, not me. A real teacher guides you to your own special style, not restricts you to follow his/her style."
She then pointed at the last finger. "Last but not least, it's stamina."