Waiting is the hard part, but I guess we need to prepare.

  Akira suggested that we train with him. I don’t know if that will work but I decided to give it a shot.

  We are in front of Akira, he is holding a short sword in his right hand, looking at us with a warm smile.

  “Are you ready?”- Akira got into his fighting stance.

  “We are”- Hana and I are in our fighting stances as well.

  “You are properly holding your swords at least. Let’s begin to see if you can parry this simple attack that I am going to throw at you, I am going to be slow”

  Yeah, slow my ass, after the moment he spoke this he appeared in front of us, and we barely had time to react to his hit, although to his credit the hit was easy to parry.

  “Oh my, it seems like you can’t keep up with my speed. It may require you to get a new skill, a skill name See and Perceive, it should help you even at its lowest evolution level”- Akira is speaking to us slowly so we won’t miss a single detail.

  “Well, how do we get the skill, and how do we evolve it?”

  !Answer, you can evolve the skill See and Perceive with the next skill: Detect, you need this skill only for it to evolve into a Rare skill and you will need these skills for it to evolve into a Legendary Skill: Deflect, and Trap Detection!

  “Well, some monsters might have this skill and you can predate it from them. You will see it once you encounter a monster with that skill”- Akira put his short sword back in the weapon rack.

  “Why did you put it back?”- Hana looked at Akira like he was dumb.

  “Well, I need to train your reaction time and speed first and then we can move on with your training. We will do a special exercise now, we will use 30 water cups, all of them will be filled with water, and whoever manages to soak the other person first wins”- This sounds like an easy game, well it did sound like one until I pyed it.

  I was the first to py with Akira, this game is hard when you py it against him. I managed to get only two to three cups of water on him, while he managed to dump the rest of them on my head. Whenever I tried to pce my hand over a cup my clothes would already be soaked with water.

  We pyed 3 or so rounds. It was horrible to pay against Akira, you stand no chance.

  “Well, I guess it’s Hana’s turn right now. Come and py”- Hana smiled and started pying with Akira.

  The game went in Akira’s favor, to expect something else would be foolish. Hana’s hands are fast, but Akira’s are even faster than hers. She could barely manage to soak him in a few cups.

  She pyed around 12 rounds with him. On the 13th round of the game, Hana managed to soak Akira with six cups this time, more than I could have done.

  “Well, Hana, you improved. Now, Hikaru is your turn, come here and let’s py”

  I didn’t understand the point of the game until now. It trains our reaction speed and time by pying against Akira more times we get used to that speed, until now all of our opponents no matter what they were, were weaker than us, slower than us.

  Now that we are fighting someone far stronger than us it’s hard to adjust.

  !Welcome to reality Hikaru, the pce where things never go as pnned!- Sia said in a mocking tone.

  “Yeah, I know.”- I continued to py with Akira this stupid game.

  “Watch it, don’t get angry, the angrier you get the sloppier you become”- I looked at my hands and I could see them shake a little, I am not supposed to hesitate here, I took the first cup and poured it over Akira’s head, it is a start. Then he followed by soaking me in five cups of water. For every cup of water, I soak him with, he returns it with two to three cups.

  During this game, he is relentless with his approach and won’t forgive you for any mistake.

  12 hours ter:

  We spent 12 hours pying this stupid game, we didn’t manage to win once.

  #Skill gained: Exponential Growth#

  !Both of you have acquired this skill. It allows you to grow in a retively short amount of time. The skill was earned through this hard training that you did with Akira!

  “Akira, 5 more games for each of us.”

  The first 3 games were the same as the st 100 we pyed, but in the second to st game, I managed to get close to a draw with Akira. And at the st game, it was a draw, we both soaked each other with the same amount of cups, 15 and 15

  “Bravo Hikaru, with a little more training you will beat me. Your hard work paid off”- Akira cpped his hand while making a smug face.

  “It’s now my turn”- Hana got a table where they pyed.

  Hana is more talented than me when it comes to this game, she managed to soak Akira in the 3rd round, she won that round 16 to 14 then in the 4th round 17 to 13, and in the final round 18 to 12. She won against Akira. She is better than me when it comes to this.

  !Don’t feel bad for this Hikaru, remember, you and Hana are a team, there isn’t supposed to be any fighting between you!- Sia spoke in a calm voice, she isn’t mocking me anymore but giving genuine advice.

  “I did it Hikaru!”- She looks happy enough. Hana got up from the table and looked at me with a cheerful smile on her face.

  “Yes, you did very well out there.”- I smiled back.

  We returned to the house, we have 1 more day of waiting to do until the carpenter will come with us to the Nation of Monsters and built the houses.