After killing Ellen, Theo dropped to the ground and spat a mouthful of blood before he realized Ellen still managed to react to his attack and hit his chest with her elbow. If she were a fighter like him instead of a magician, he would have died too.
"Seriously… Even with all my current power, I can't beat her completely. No, I feel like Ellen is stronger than the assassin leader the Lange Family sent." Theo narrowed her eyes and sighed. "So, this is what it means to have enough experience and skill."
He shook his head helplessly before finding Ellen returning to the field.
"You should recover first," said Ellen as soon as she met Theo.
Theo nodded, closed his eyes, and returned to the real world. A few seconds later, Theo's figure reappeared as he said. "I'm good now."
"I have understood your level and I think you can fight a second-year equally. In fact, you would have won if you used these two skills in our match." She smiled. "Restriction is it…"
"Yeah." Theo let out a long sigh, feeling disappointed in himself too.
"Have you ever thought about breaking that restriction yourself?" Ellen asked after finding Theo's restriction must come from another person. She wanted to see whether Theo would follow that person blindly or trust himself a bit more.
However, Theo's answer changed her opinion. "Only during life and death situations."
"I see. I worry that you trust someone else blindly to the point you would do everything that person instructs you to do."
"Don't worry. I won't do something like that."
"Good. Anyway, I have grasped the extent of your control in that Magic Bullet earlier. I will train you as much as possible, so you will fight both Phyrill and Sihan for experiences. Make sure you understand your role and how to cope with it. I believe the you two weeks later will be a different you."
"Thanks."
"Now, let's start our training." Ellen smiled and began explaining her views about Theo's skill.
Although Ellen wasn't as good as his master in terms of teaching, her explanation wasn't that hard to understand and Theo managed to absorb all the knowledge she gave.
It was the start of his trials and errors. Ellen kept watching him while offering some suggestions when he was confused.
This never happened when he was with Alea since they both focused on hunting instead of training. Of course, Theo was grateful to Alea since he leveled up so much during that one month.
Surprisingly, Ellen didn't teach him Force Control alone. She also provided some guidance about Soft Control and magicians in general.
The time went by in an instant and Theo had no choice other than to go home.
Now that he had a house and a backyard, going home felt like a blessing to him since he could relax and train whenever he wanted.
The next day, Theo received an invite from Phyrill. His training was practically simple since they kept doing one on one from start to finish. Theo kept losing one after another because he only used his Clone to fight Phyrill, not his Magic Bullet yet. He believed it wasn't the right time to tell him he was Joker.
What Phyrill taught him in this training was how to fight assassins. After all, he learned that Theo had never actually killed an experienced one like them.
Of course, Phyrill already told him to bring his spear with him since they would fight at least one hundred battles today.
Despite getting killed continuously, Theo's eyes didn't lose their light. He kept looking ahead, learning as much as possible.
Phyrill even sucked a cold breath when everything Theo did was reading his movements. He always asked at least ten questions about their fight with one same line. "Why did you move this way?"
This one question could be answered by different reasons depending on how he moved. When Phyrill asked him about his obsession for understanding each movement, Theo simply answered him with, "I don't have much time to practice, so it's better to understand it and see what move I can use to counter it."
There was a risk of being too repetitive, but Theo promised Phyrill not to stick to one pattern. The one thing that kept Phyrill from questioning him was how he proved himself to Phyrill by showing a few different attack patterns to counter one movement.
After getting Phyrill's seal of approval, they kept sparring for tens if not hundreds of battles. Theo had gotten used to his death since he didn't feel any pain inside this Virtual World.
His footwork, spear technique, and breathing improved tremendously. He gradually polished his footwork and made some changes to make himself comfortable since repetitive footwork would just become a target to take advantage of. The same applied to his spear technique. The length of his hands and the size of his palm started adjusting as Theo searched for their own comfortable positions from half an inch to an inch and so on.
He was pretty satisfied with the two days of progress.
When he thought all the past two weeks would pass by quietly, he was wrong. The moment he opened the door where he was supposed to meet Sihan, the latter gazed at him coldly.
"…" Theo fell silent for a few seconds in front of the door before lowering his head. No matter what, Sihan would be teaching him, so he needed to be polite. There was no shame to lower one's head to the one who taught you. "Nice to meet you."
Before letting him sit or enter the capsule, Sihan pointed his hand to the wall in front of him as if telling him to stand there.
Frowning, Theo walked carefully and asked, "May I know what you would like to say?"
His tone was cold since he didn't like Sihan either despite respecting him as his mentor. He didn't forget the fact that Sihan also bullied him.
"Theodore Griffith…" Sihan called his name and paused for a minute while closing his eyes, steeling his resolve. He took a deep breath, rested his arms on top of his thighs and continued with a question. "Do you know why I bullied you?"