Mixed Blessing System

"For starters, this is just training, so I will only use strength equivalent to yours so we can compete a little bit without it being a waste of time." Then, Annaliese began to speak about her requirements for training her brother-in-law.

"Thus, no unnecessary talking during the fight."

"If you say anything while we are fighting that is irrelevant to your combat ability, I will stop immediately and not train with you again. All right?"

Lothur continued stretching as he listened to her, "OK."

"Good."

"Besides, since this is training, we can't use rules like those from before." She looked at him meaningfully, showing more confidence than she had done in the past few days. "Let's have our friendly match like cultivators normally do."

She then pointed to the markings on the ground in that small training area in this courtyard and continued. "You see those markings? Well, if one of us steps outside that big circle, that person will immediately lose the match."

Such a thing required both parties to put more effort into the fight since, in a limited space, it was harder to dodge and still secure your position. But, on the other hand, some attacks could also be inhibited if one side was too close to the other. After all, techniques always had their activation time.

As such, for a friendly fight where one side had to be careful not to hurt the other side excessively, fighting in a limited space was an excellent way to increase the difficulty of the fight and ensure better training results.

That was why Annaliese had suggested it, despite how easy it might be to eliminate a naive or foolish opponent in a contest with such rules.

She then continued. "On the other hand, if one of us stays down on the ground for 10 seconds, stops breathing, spits blood, or other worrying signs, the fight will end immediately."

"Finally, we will only do this for a maximum of 30 minutes. After that, no matter if you will be exhausted or anxious to continue, we will stop and continue tomorrow."

"OK?"

Lothur nodded to her and suddenly felt a doubt rise in his heart. "Anna, my offensive technique demands an ax. How will I fight with it without risking hurting you? Is there some kind of wooden ax here?"

Annaliese was only momentarily perplexed by Lothur's peculiar inquiry, as she was already aware that he lacked a clear grasp of cultivation-related matters.

She then answered him in her thin voice. "Lothur, when cultivators have friendly matches, they always use the weapons they would use in battles."

"Of course, some would choose not to use their main weapons, since it might be a problem to show other people their wealth or even a danger to fight with their highest level items. But cultivators never use fake items in their matches."

"Doing so would naturally alter the performance of someone already used to training and fighting with their weapons. And since the purpose of matches like these is to judge the skills of each party, making use of fake items would inhibit this."

"Then we don't use such items."

"But isn't that too dangerous? I know you are stronger than me, but I also know that people of the same level often train like this." Lothur said this with a worried expression on his face. "Aren't the risks too high?"

"There are always risks in fights, Lothur. That's part of it."

"But you don't have to worry whether your weapon is something like an ax, a sword, or a stone. It's not easy to seriously injure a cultivator of the same strength range as you, even when using weapons." She taught him this important lesson.
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An ax could indeed significantly injure a person who was hit by an opponent of strength similar to his. But therein lay the problem, hitting.

That is, while one side was attacking, the other side would not stand still and wait for the blow!

And since a training like this required full attention from both involved, the attacked side would always have options to deflect, defend, or even counterattack the other side.

As long as they fought with the same degree of power, it could be tricky for one side to seriously injure the other, even when one used a sword and the other nothing but his hands.

Even in the scenario where the blow hit the other party, the effects of such a thing could be decreased by defensive items or techniques.

At the end of the day, even the injured individual's body could prevent a fatal injury.

Hence, even with that tradition of fighting, people rarely got seriously injured in training.

Other than that, cultivators always had pills or medicines with them, so hardly one side would die even if something happened. That's why Annaliese had found Lothur's earlier question strange.

It was something so ingrained as truth in her mind that she could not imagine two cultivators using fake weapons to fight.

She then finished her explanation. "Even if I had the same fighting proficiency as you, a fight between us would only have risky moves near the end of it, when we would both be nearly exhausted."

"Before that, it would demand too much inattention for one side to be injured by the other's movement."

"Oh? So that's how it is..." Lothur finally understood such a reality.

He had only had three fighting experiences in this world, so he did not know much about the difficulty of battling against people of the same level as him.

To make matters worse, of his three experiences, one he was beaten by someone much stronger than him, another he was smashed by a group of people of his level. Finally, in the previous experience, he was already much more substantial than his opponents.

Because of this, he had not had the chance to learn that lesson alone, needing this teaching from Annaliese.

"Well, do you have any questions?" Annaliese positioned herself at one end of the circle around the area they could use for this fight.

Hearing this, Lothur looked at that woman's status and his own once again.

...

[Name: Annaliese Frost]

[Cultivation: level 6]

[STR: 18.9] [CON: 21.1] [DEX: 22.5] [AGI: 21.3]

...

[Name: Lothur Ritter]
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[Physique: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger]

[Bloodline: ****]

[Cultivation: level 3]

[STR: 5.8] [CON: 6.1] [DEX: 5.3] [AGI: 7.2]

[INT: 30] [PER: 11] [WIL: 41.6]

...

After seeing Annaliese's physical attributes again, Lothur felt a certain excitement in his heart, wondering when he would reach that level.

On the other hand, he could not help but notice how weak he was, despite his successive recent advances.

'Well, sooner or later, I'll get there.'

'I don't need to worry about it. I'll just take it one step at a time.' He sighed just before summoning his ax and looking into Annaliese's eyes.

"No, we can start whenever you want."

Hearing that, such a woman picked up a bronze coin and showed it to Lothur. "When it falls to the ground, we will start our match."

"OK."

And then she tossed that coin upward, directed so that it fell in the center of that circular area.

In that way, the two followed the parabolic trajectory of that circular piece of metal until finally, their fight began!

At that instant, Lothur immediately activated his movement technique and ran towards Annaliese, intending to attack her with everything he had.

He would, of course, not target any sensitive parts of that woman. Still, even disregarding this, there was plenty of area on Annaliese's body for him to aim at.

With that in mind, it did not take long for him to start moving his ax while moving nimbly.

'Oh?' Seeing that, Annaliese also began to move around the area, but she was not using her technique. After all, her average speed alone was already much faster than Lothur's, so she could not use her movement technique.

However, she was moving while feeling surprised at the initial performance already displayed by Lothur, as it seemed that he had already learned three techniques.

They had faced each other only a few days ago, but at that time, Lothur had demonstrated only one technique. Knowing that he had bought exactly three techniques at the Innumerable Scrolls store, that woman was curious how he could learn techniques so quickly.

'Did he have them before?' She wondered as she dodged his attacks, preparing to counterattack.

...