NOVGO.NET Chapter 1586 Invite
Chapter 1586 Invite
‘What is this…?’
Atticus swept his gaze around him as he fell from an endless sky. The horizon stretched as far as his eyes could see before giving way to a vast sprawl of green land below.
He felt a wave of relief as he checked himself. His attire had changed into a simple white and black kimono and his katana rested silently at his waist. More importantly…
‘My powers aren’t being restricted.’
He narrowed his eyes as the ground rushed up to meet him, and instinctively prepared to manipulate the air, only for his momentum to slow on its own as he descended gently and landed on solid earth.
‘What’s going on? Is this a trial?’
Keeping a hand near his katana, he scanned his surroundings again, searching for anything that might explain the situation. But he gaze froze on a lone figure standing some distance away.
‘The avatar…’
The man stood completely still, staring back at him with an empty, expressionless face.
‘I didn’t see him from the sky.’
Atticus raised his guard instantly. He had no way of knowing whether this was the patient instructor, or the version of the avatar that existed only to kill.
He observed as the avatar mirrored him, gripping its blade in silence.
Several seconds passed, and Atticus frowned.
‘Are we fighting or not?’
He relaxed his grip and let his blade lower slightly, watching as the avatar did the same. Then he drew it again, and the avatar followed his movement without delay.
‘Is this…?’
A thought struck him, and he tested it immediately.
Atticus shot forward, bringing his katana down in an arc. The avatar parried cleanly to the side, but Atticus followed through with a brutal kick aimed at its head.
It scarcely managed to block with its arm, the force forcing it off balance. Though it recovered quickly and moved to thrust its blade, only to halt when Atticus leapt back, widening the distance between them.
He studied the avatar with intrigue.
It wasn’t speaking. No instructions, no cryptic phrases, no guidance of any kind. This wasn’t a trial.
It was a training session.
‘So that’s why it feels different.’
The earlier call must have been informing him of this. Did this mean he could spar with the avatar whenever he wished? Atticus felt a surge of excitement as he realized the implications. He couldn’t imagine a better partner.
‘As soon as I stop attacking, it stops. The katana arts are expected… but what about my other powers?’
Curious to see the limits of this arrangement, he began performing different tests. As it turned out, the avatar couldn’t use any of his other abilities, especially not his bloodline. Aside from the blade arts and a refined, near perfect fighting style, there was nothing else.
Still, Atticus was excited regardless. What better way was there to learn the use of the katana arts than directly from the source itself?
‘Wait… what happens to my real body?’
The thought stayed with him just long enough to make him stop his experiments, and eventually he willed himself out of the katana world.
He opened his eyes in the training room the next moment, still standing exactly where he’d been before, with nothing around him appearing to have changed.
‘What about time.’
Atticus immediately took note of the current time down to the nanoseconds, then re entered the katana world, remained there for several minutes, and finally returned to his body once more.
As his eyes moved to check the time, a smile slowly formed on his face.
‘It didn’t change…’
The ability to train while time in the outside world remained completely frozen would push his fighting capabilities forward at an absurd pace.
Atticus curled his fist tightly.
This was an advantage he had no intention of wasting.
…
It wasn’t until days had passed within the katana world that Atticus finally realized just how deeply engrossed he had become.
He’d spent nearly all of that time locked in an endless clash with the avatar, sparring without pause, and along the way he’d discovered that he needed basically nothing to function here. Every injury healed the instant it was dealt, and no matter how long or how fiercely he fought, he never felt even the slightest hint of fatigue.
Still, the world wasn’t without its drawbacks.
No matter how much time he spent training here, his will, or any other power for that matter, refused to improve even the smallest amount.
Though he’d expected as much, the discovery still left him disappointed. It meant he would have to carefully balance his time between this place and the real world if he didn’t want to stunt his overall growth.
Even so, the time hadn’t been wasted.
He uncovered new ways to apply the katana arts, tested theories he’d never had the opportunity to explore, and refined techniques he’d only ever conceptualized before.
As the sparring continued, Atticus felt a clear improvement in how effectively he applied his abilities, along with a steady sharpening of his battle sense.
When it was finally time to leave, he fixed his gaze on the avatar, and a thought surfaced in his mind.
“Where did you come from?”
“…”
“Who created you?”
“…”
Atticus frowned. He’d thought it might be worth trying to fish for information about the life weapon itself, but his questions didn’t provoke even the slightest reaction. The avatar remained standing there, unmoving and expressionless.
“When will I attempt the sixth trial?”
In a surprising turn of events, the avatar suddenly turned toward a random direction, and Atticus frowned.
‘There’s nothing there.’
The thought had barely finished forming when the air at that spot suddenly distorted, rippling unnaturally, and a long flight of stairs emerged from nothing, its peak disappearing into an abyss of darkness above.
Atticus wasn’t sure how to react. On one hand, he was relieved that he’d finally received a response from the avatar; on the other, he had no idea what to make of a staircase manifesting in the middle of an open grassland.
‘I guess I’m supposed to climb it.’
He paused, then turned back toward the avatar.
“Can I die during the sixth trial?”
The avatar nodded.
Atticus frowned.
“What’s the trial about?”
“…”
‘Of course it’s not going to be that easy.’