Renon battled Ning multiple times, losing each time in a couple of attacks. Each time he lost, he came back to fight with hope and yearning that this would be the fight where he would best Ning.

Ning stepped to the side as Renon came with another slash, dodging it once more. This time around, Renon seemed to understand this was going to happen, so he stopped as soon as he could and swung the sword sideways.

Ning closed in toward the young man, completely arriving into his personal space such that the sword swing ended up meaning nothing.

Ning pushed the man backward and lunged forward with the spear, striking into his right shoulder. As soon as the stab connected, he pulled back the spear and changed targets.

His footwork shifted him to the right as he hit the young man’s left shoulder as well.

The young man stumbled backward and completely flipped over before coming to a halt on the floor.

He coughed and grunted in pain while Ning stood emotionless as though what he had done just then was not something incredible.

Ning waited for the young man to get up, but then realized that he may have hit the young man a little too hard. After all, the young man had been training all this time and was most likely quite tired. He looked back at the Cardinal, who seemed to be processing what had happened himself. After thinking for a moment, he quickly ordered Renon to be taken out and cared for. The chances of him being seriously injured were none, but the Cardinal still wanted the young man out of there immediately.

“You are very talented indeed,” he said. “How long did it take you to acquire this level of skill?”

“Oh, well. A very long time,” Ning said with a soft sigh. “I had to spend years training.”

“You’re still so very young. Just how long could you have spent in training?” the Cardinal asked.

“Trust me, it’s a lot,” Ning said.

“I see,” the Cardinal said as he saw Ning not wanting to answer and moved away from the topic. “Do you wish to continue this or should we call it off?”

“Whatever you wish,” Ning said. “I understand the other Cardinal will be taking some time, so I have some time to spare of my own.”

“That he will,” the Cardinal said and looked to the side and gestured with his head.

Galamor walked toward his father and stopped next to him.

“Would you mind if I test your spear skills against my son’s sword skills?” the Cardinal asked. “He’s been training a lot longer than the young man from earlier, and I think is thus much more fitting to be your opponent.

Ning acted as though he was thinking for a moment and shrugged. “Sure, why not?” he said. Before he knew it, he was standing before the young Galamor, ready to fight once more.

“Same rules as before. Don’t attack where it would hurt. Stick to limbs and shoulders,” the Cardinal said. “Begin.”

Galamor gave a bow as he readied to fight Ning.

Ning bowed back all the same and the battle truly began.

Galamor moved laterally, going around Ning, trying to look for an opening. Any opening.

However, even as he wasted precious seconds looking for an opening to strike, he found none. He knew something like this was going to happen after seeing Ning’s fight with the young man Renon, but being directly in front of him put things into perspective so much more clearly.

Ning’s entire body seemed relaxed and barely even ready for a fight. But when looking deeper, one could notice just how easy it was for Ning to move and block any attacks.

Galamor frowned as he realized that he hadn’t been doing anything in all that time and was instead simply walking around normally.

‘No, I must act,’ he thought and found what small opening he could possibly exploit to make into a better opening and rushed forward.

He attacked from Ning’s left side. As Ning was right-handed, and currently held a spear with his right hand, his reaction was bound to be slower than if he were holding it with his left hand.

Galamor moved right next to Ning and stabbed him.

Ning suddenly moved forward, escaping the man’s attack while he left behind his spear standing still.

The stabbed sword moved in between Ning and the standing spear, which was starting to tilt and fall on the opposite side of Ning.

Ning tilted as well, to the other side than the spear, and stepped on the base of the spear with his right leg, while with his left leg he stopped the spear from falling to the other side,

At the same time, using the base and his right leg as the fulcrum, Ning pulled the spear back toward him, slamming Galamor’s sword as it came toward him.

The spear fell completely, but so had Ning. He was barely stopping himself from planting his face on the ground. He pushed against the ground and tossed his spear into the air. As Galamor recovered from the attack and went for a strike, Ning spun himself around his blade and caught the falling spear with his hands behind his back, the tip of the spear pointed at Galamor’s throat.

Galamor paused in surprise as he didn’t understand what had happened at all. All he could tell was that Ning had fallen, tossed his spear, and then somehow caught it as he came back up.

That had been truly one of the most bizarre things he had seen during any training at all.

Galamor was not the only person surprised. Everyone in the surroundings had been surprised by the bizarre display of skills. Many found the display not to belong to spear skills at all, and yet somehow Ning had won the match clearly.

It was his spear that was at Galamor’s throat.

“That was… an interesting show of skills,” Galamor said.

“It certainly was, wasn’t it?” Ning said as he held onto the spear and checked it up close to see if he had harmed it in some way.

“What was that even? It looked like gymnastics more so than anything,” Galamor said.

“It was,” Ning said. “I wasn’t doing anything particular or anything. I was just doing what felt right.”

He slammed the spear on the ground twice and checked the vibrations. Everything seemed pretty good with the spear, and he hadn’t broken anything.

“So, shall we continue?” Ning asked.

“Of course,” Galamor said and moved back. Once he was ready, he attacked again. He started with a diagonal slash so that Ning couldn’t find a way to escape from any direction.

Ning parried the attack with the shaft of his spear, moving it out of the way and in a completely opposite direction. Galamor recovered immediately and rushed forward with a quick strike. Ning blocked with this spear at first, and then dodged it for the second strike, before completely parrying it on the third strike.

By the fourth strike, Ning was already in the lead, attacking before Galamor could recover. He managed to attack Galamor’s shoulders before Galamor managed to force himself away from Ning and outside of the range of his attacks.

Ning had absolutely no intention of going after Galamor if Galamor had gained distance between the two.

Galamor took a moment or two to recover himself before coming after Ning.

Ning decided to help the young man keep some dignity and keep it easy for him. His fight with Galamor lasted about 15 minutes in total, in which he had let Galamor fight to the best he could.

By the end, despite losing to Ning, Galamor was very happy to have been Ning’s partner for many of the matches today.

Someone arrived next to the Cardinal and whispered something into the man’s ears.

“Ahem!” the Cardinal caught Ning’s attention. Ning moved his eyes away from the disastrous fight and looked toward the Cardinal.

“The Cardinal of Coins has arrived,” the Cardinal said. “While this practice match yours has been incredible if you wish to, we can go meet him right away.”

“Ah! He’s here, is he?” Ning said and quickly looked at the people in the fields. “I’m sorry if any of you guys wanted to fight with me. I must leave you all alone.”

Ning walked away, arriving next to the Cardinal.

“You showed an impressive battle today,” the Cardinal said. “If you wish to, I can keep you here as a trainer.”

“I have no need for any of that,” Ning said. “I’m doing fine as a jobless man until now.”

The Cardinal tried to persuade Ning quite hard, but Ning wouldn’t budge. Since he had decided to not join any sort of organization, the cardinal had an impossible job outside of that.

Tim and Jasmine quickly came by and offered up some congratulations to Ning. Ning didn’t need that, but they still gave him one.

Galamor walked behind his father, somewhat hurt, but also with a look of defeat and understanding on him. He stayed quiet as the group returned back to the mansion.

Arriving at the hall room, Ning saw a thin man sitting on the sofa, drinking some sort of tea.

“Elias! Good to have you here, brother,” the Cardinal Farsas walked up to the new man.

“Farsas,” the thin man said and bowed toward the Cardinal of Justice.

Cardinal Farsas bowed back in respect and introduced the group to the cardinal. When it came to Ning’s name, the Cardinal of Coins looked surprised.

“So… is it you who wishes to see me?

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