Sean lay sprawled on the ground, breathing heavily. His bare upper body was dripping with sweat, and his white hair, matted to his skin.
"It's not even thirty minutes," Richelle said, standing over his form, while she looked down on him, with a smirk.
"I..." Sean tried to speak in between breaths, "I can't... Too much."
"I certainly held back," Richelle said, her lips curling even further.
Sean however, didn't answer, too weak to respond.
Seeing his half dead reaction, Richelle chuckled, and turned towards the other side of the large training room, and Drew who was standing there, gulped.
"Alright, you're up. Let's see if you can last longer than him," she said.
Drew gritted his teeth and stepped forward, and in no time, they began sparring.
It was about a week now, since Sean was transmigrated into this world, and this had been a daily occurrence.
The started the following day after he transmigrated. Richelle had woken him up suddenly out of nowhere, and so early in the morning, that if Sean didn't know which world he was in would have called it nonsensical.
This was after he had barely closed his eyes from exhaustion, after refusing to sleep, the whole night, the whole episodes of his continuous dreams, haunting him.
From that morning till then, it had been a constant drill with Richelle. While she seemed like a prim and proper, delicate woman, she was anything but, when it came their training. She was a combat monster, as Sean called her, though calling her that when he didn't know any form of combat, was rather shallow.
The reality however, wasn't that Sean called her a monster of combat because she continuously beat his ass, and showed a combat orientation that was impressive to him, but rather, because from the book, she indeed was a combat monster.
The whole fiasco in the hospital between Michael and Richelle, had not fazed him in the slightest. Unlike Devon and Michael who even till now were unsure of how powerful Richelle was, Sean knew.
Richelle stood at the pinnacle of power in Aegis, and from the chapters of "Evolution Is the Way To Mythic", that Sean had read up to, though it was not stated plainly, it was implied that amongst all the Stage-5s in Aegis, she was considerably strong that she could have her way with quite a lot of things.
Infact, what had surprised him, was her giving Devon as much free rein as she did, but at the same time, he was also smart enough to see the problems with that, and know why she had gone with his route, even though he believed that chaining oneself to order with that much power was a mistake.
To him, her method of using the power she had was while not bad, underutilized. If her power level was known, then Michael wouldn't have tried to be an antagonizing force in the first place. Infact, if they knew she was a Stage-5, he wouldn't even have stayed after saying hi.
This was the power of deterrence. As much as physical might was good, and putting arrogant nobles in their place was satisfying, deterrence was even more so. With a huge deterrence, she wouldn't even need to act, before what she wanted was granted.
However, the way she used her power, wasn't his to decide. She was smart enough to have already thought through all of this before, but to still decide on hiding her capabilities from others, it meant there was something else at play.
He had knowledge of six hundred chapters of a two thousand chapter plus novel, there were still some things he couldn't get the full picture of.
He watched silently, as Richelle fought against Drew.
Her movements were so slow that looking at them, he knew he could react to all of them, but Drew was yet still consistently on the back foot.
He was surrounded by mist, and once in a while would have them burst into flames to protect himself or attack while he recovered his mana, continuing with basic punches and kicks. Yet, he was losing.
It wasn't even ten minutes yet.
Compared to Sean, Drew had quite some combat experiences due to living in the slums, but street fight was nothing before this monster.
Another thing was that he was still in the infusion phase of his enhancement. If he had reached integration like Sean himself, then he would have received better insights to use his flames, which came as a mutation of the beast genes, plus his natural affinity.
Integration phase came with a natural understanding of how the abilities of the integrated beast worked, as well as how to utilize certain parts of the body, that was already instinctive to them.
These were as a result of chemical imprints in the beast's genes, been distilled into the human genome, hence the term integration, as this was when human and beast really integrated.
Sean himself, had been having natural instinctive reactions, that shaped his combat style. The way he utilized his legs, was something that even Richelle was impressed by, and in a way, his legs were his most powerful weapons.
It wasn't limited to just his legs, his core for balance, his hands for precision... He truly moved like a spider. He had faster regeneration, his senses were incredibly powerful, moving in shadows felt like massage to him, and he grew stronger from drinking blood.
The only gene he had failed to receive anything from, was the unidentified gene in his body. But maybe he needed a different opportunity, for it to really showcase, he didn't know.
Less than five minutes later, Drew was on the floor in a similar position as Sean, completely exhausted.
"You've improved. Good work," Richelle praised.
"Tha... Thank you ma'am," Drew voiced out in between strained breaths.
Sean pushed himself up the floor, taking a fighting stance, the tendons in his calves, already coiled and ready for an explosive movement.
"Ready for round two?" Richelle asked, still looking fresh as ever. One could even mistake her for just leaving the bathroom.
Sean replied with an explosive speed as he rushed towards her, while her lips curled into a smirk.