*POW!*
*CRASH*
The sound of Cyrus's back going through a tree echoed across the forested area on the northern side of Elaine's property. This wasn't the first time today he found himself being sent flying back into the local vegetation. And with the way that his training was going, it certainly wasn't going to be the last.
"Come on, Tree Boy!" Elaine shouted from somewhere above the treeline. "You won't get your overdrive skill if you keep acting like this! I even brought us into the forest this time to give you an advantage!"
To say that the last few days of Cyrus's life had been hell would be putting it mildly. Now that he was done with the first phase of his training/rehabilitation, it was now on to the more difficult part of it. And difficult might not even be a suitable enough word to describe it.
For the last few days, it had been nothing but nonstop combat drills with Elaine. Drills that were allegedly supposed to push the young 'tree magic' user to his limits. And Cyrus would be lying if he said that he was enjoying it.
For starters, the fact that he was going up against one of the strongest sorcerers on the planet was not lost on him. Not even in the slightest. Elaine may have been widely known as an actress and singer, but it was easy to forget that she also used to be a DPA agent under Station Nine's Anti-Personnel Squad. And the woman certainly had the battle prowess to prove it.
Not only was she incredibly swift and agile, but she was also way stronger than one would've guessed. On top of that, the way that she was effectively able to combine her 'wind magic' attribute, raw mana, and enchanting skills into one dangerous package was nothing to laugh at.
Every time Cyrus thought he had an opening against her, the woman would effortlessly counter it before hitting him hard enough to put a dent in any normal car. So far, the young man had only managed to land a few decent hits on her over the last few days. But even those small moments of triumph were quickly met with either a busted rib or a new bruise somewhere on his body.
And to make matters even more difficult, Elaine wasn't the only one he was fighting against.
Every so often, Quintin and Michiko would appear out of nowhere and take pop shots at Cyrus whenever he managed to catch a bit of breathing room. Allegedly, their purpose for doing so was to keep him on his toes. But in all honesty, Cyrus was certain that they were just having a bit of fun at his expense.
"Alright, let's try this!" Cyrus then shouted as he placed his hand on a nearby tree and imbued it with a bit of his mana.
A moment later, the young man used his magic to reshape the tree and turn it into a long, winding spear of wood, and sent it in the direction from which he could sense Elaine's mana coming from.
Unfortunately for Cyrus, the attack was simply too slow to land a hit on the woman. And the moment he released his hold on the non-magical creation, a literal vortex of wind came flying at him at blinding speed.
"Argh!" Cyrus grunted before barely dodging out of the way of the attack. Then, before he even had the chance to get his feet up under him, Elaine descended back down to the ground.
The woman, who still had several orbs of neon-green mana floating around her body, sent the baseball-sized constructs in his direction. An action that forced Cyrus to try and dodge the attacks before he had the wherewithal to use his flying enchantment to put some more distance between the two of them.
"I thought I already told you!" Elaine shouted while effortlessly closing the distance between the two of them. "You're not fast enough to get away from me!"
What happened next was so fast that it would've made any normal person's head spin trying to keep up with it.
In the blink of an eye, Elaine was right above Cyrus. And the woman wasted no time before delivering a devastating punch to the 'tree magic' user's back that was strong enough to send him back down to the earth. The punch was so powerful, in fact, that Cyrus's body literally bounced off the forest floor upon impact.
"Fuck off!" Cyrus then shouted before pointing the palm of his hand at the woman and sending a thin beam of dark green mana in her direction. A move that Elaine casually dodged before lunging forward and shoving her foot into the man's chest.
Once again, Cyrus found himself flying through a nearby tree. Under normal circumstances, he would have the advantage when fighting in a heavily forested area like this. But when faced with such an overwhelming opponent before him, those advantages might as well have been nonexistent.
"Get up!" Elaine then ordered the young man. "We both know that kick wasn't enough to actually hurt you!"
'God dammit!'
A moment later, Cyrus stood up and faced his opponent. The young 'tree magic' user now had three orbs of dark green mana floating above his body. And the look on his face did nothing to hide the pain that he was feeling at the moment.
Cyrus still wasn't used to this method of combat. And the concept was actually a lot harder to wrap your head around than one would expect.
The orbs of pure mana, or baangs as they were actually called, were supposed to be used as extra projectiles and drones to assist a sorcerer when it came to long-range combat. They could also serve as an extra line of defense if necessary.
This form of mana manipulation was first created in South Korea around thirty years ago, and many of that country's sorcerers were quite skilled in using it.
Quintin first taught Cyrus about this a couple of days ago, but there was still a heavy learning curve when it came to actually using them in practice. It required a lot of focus and mana control to maintain them like this. And compared to someone like Elaine, who is an expert in using them, he was certainly outclassed.
"Oh, you're finally deciding to use your brain, huh?" The woman taunted Cyrus while slowly walking in his direction as her mana leaked out in all directions. Which was yet another aspect of this training that upped the difficulty quite a bit.
Cyrus didn't bother responding. Instead, he sent all three of his baangs flying at the woman at full speed. The moment all three orbs of mana got within a yard of her, Elaine simply turned her body to the side and managed to evade all of them without so much as a look of concern on her face.
"I'm not done yet!" Cyrus then shouted as he fired off another mana beam at the woman.
When it came to fights like this, Cyrus couldn't rely on his 'tree magic' to help him out. His magic was simply too slow to make any real difference. So, he was forced to rely on only using basic mana techniques to keep his head above water.
Elaine proceeded to coat her hand in a thin layer of mana before blocking the mana beam with her palm. And in doing so, she was able to redirect the beam away from her and up into the air. Cyrus already knew what was about to happen next, so the young man preemptively erected a large mana barrier in front of his body. However, the moment he did so, Elaine used her superior speed to close the distance between the two of them and punch through the barrier before delivering a devastating flurry of punches to Cyrus's torso that caused the freckle-faced teen to drop down to the ground.
"Fuck…." Cyrus moaned while clutching his stomach. The world was spinning, and it felt like he was about to vomit.
Before the young man even had the chance to defend himself, Elaine raised her left leg high into the air before delivering an axe-kick to Cyrus's back that sent his face into the dirt.
Cyrus wanted nothing more in that moment than to give up and call it a day. But unfortunately for him, that quite literally wasn't an option. Training only ended when he either passed out or was simply too injured to continue. And Elaine was surprisingly good at doing just enough damage to keep him from falling unconscious.
Just as Elaine swung her leg around to deliver yet another kick to the man's body, Cyrus activated his body reinforcement in time to strengthen his body and lessen the power of the blow. However, that did nothing to stop him from once again getting sent flying in the opposite direction. Only to land in a small clearing about thirty feet away.
"You're resilient, if nothing else." Elaine then said as she levitated off the ground and flew high up into the air. "Which means that I'm not pushing you hard enough."
Cyrus picked his head up and momentarily caught his breath before attempting to stand back up on his feet. His head was now throbbing, and his entire body felt like rubber. He knew that this training was going to be tough, but right now, he was starting to regret ever coming out here in the first place. Sure, he knew that this was necessary in order to help him achieve overdrive, but at this rate, he might actually die before he even had a chance to activate it.
'She's going to attack me the moment I get back onto my feet.' The young man told himself. 'I need to put up a barrier. But I'm running low on mana. At this rate, I might pass out again before I can defend myself.'
Cyrus now only had about five percent of his mana left after fighting for the last two hours. He needed to play this smart; otherwise, he would accidentally run out. And he didn't want to deal with the side effects of completely depleting his mana core while his body was in this condition.
"Alright, how about we try this?!" Elaine then shouted from way up above the trees.
Cyrus looked up, and his heart nearly dropped to his stomach at what he was looking at.
Above Elaine's head was a massive swirling ball of pure mana, one that was roughly the size of a motorcycle. If Cyrus didn't know for a fact that the woman wasn't trying to kill him, he would've assumed that she fully intended to do so with what she was about to do.
Even so, the young 'tree magic' user immediately put a mana barrier up around his body and braced himself for what was about to happen next. But thanks to the disheveled state that he was in, he unintentionally used more mana than he expected. Almost completely depleting what was left of his reserves in the process.
The last thing Cyrus clearly remembered before everything went dark was Elaine throwing the massive ball of mana at him, only moments before his mana barrier shattered into pieces all around him.
However, just as his now-limp body hit the dirt, Cyrus felt something.
Something strange.
Something raw.
Something that he couldn't quite put into words.
Unfortunately for Cyrus, he wasn't able to get a firm grasp on that feeling before falling unconscious. Which meant that he would have to wait until another time to try and figure out what exactly that feeling was.
-(o)-
"No dice, huh?" Nick said to Elaine while looking at the now slumped-over body of Cyrus in the dirt.
"Not this time, unfortunately." Elaine replied.
"You think you might've gone a bit overboard?"
"No." The woman then said while fixing her dreadlocks into a long ponytail. "I was trying to get him to deplete his mana reserves before passing out. He got close this time, but his body wasn't able to hold up for long enough."
Nick simply nodded his head in understanding. This was similar to the method that Elaine had used back when she helped him achieve his overdrive. After all, it was the simplest way to get a sorcerer to push past his natural limits and tap into that next level of strength. However, it did come with a fair bit of risk.
Forcing a sorcerer to completely deplete their mana core would cause them to feel a non-insignificant amount of pain once it happened. Such a thing wasn't enough to kill one of their kind, but it wasn't exactly the kind of thing that was pleasant to experience. Nor was it easy to recover from without a few days of rest and inactivity.
Nick was now more glad than ever that he never had to get pushed this hard back when he was being trained. Seeing Cyrus have to go through all this trouble made him appreciate the fact that he was able to gain his power-up without too many issues.
"Well, we'll just have to try again tomorrow morning." Elain said as she walked over to Cyrus before picking him up and throwing him over her shoulder. "He is making good progress, though. He's able to use three baangs now after only learning about it a few days ago."
"I saw." Nick nodded. "I knew that his mana control was up there, but it seems like I might've underestimated him."
"I guess you're not the only prodigy around here anymore, huh?" The woman joked.
"I really wish you people would stop calling me that. It makes me feel weird."
"I know, I know."
"Oh yeah!" The 'healing magic' user then remembered why he even came out here in the first place. "Ayakao Watanabe is coming by tomorrow morning. Lucas's wife is sending her out here to come check up on how the kid's recovery is going."
"That's fine." Elaine nodded. "I was expecting Zoe to send someone out here sooner or later."
"You're not afraid of Tree Boy spilling our little secret?"
"Nope. He still hasn't broken the enchantment on his tongue. He couldn't rat us out even if he wanted to. Besides, he's not going to try until Hannah's six feet under. I already confirmed it myself."
"If you say so." Nick acquiesced to his boss's words. If she was so sure that Cyrus wouldn't tell his partner about who they really were, then he had no reason to doubt her.
"Now then, let's hurry and get him back to the house. I need you and Reyna to patch him up before we have dinner."
"Yeah, yeah, I know…"
With that, the two Iznana executives quickly made their way back to the mansion with Cyrus in tow. It wouldn't be long before they would finally be able to see the fruits of their labor. And when they did, it would mean that all of the trouble they were going through to help the young man get his revenge would be all worth it.