Inside the dreamland, I was fighting against the demon.

I used my spear to keep the demon in check, keeping him at a distance where I could attack and defend easily.

It was easier said than done, though. The demon’s movements were not fast, but it was as though he could read the future. His spear thrusts always managed to pierce my weaknesses, forcing me to defend and disrupting my battle rhythm.

I did my best to keep calm even as I put my entire focus on the battle. My eyes followed every movement of the demon carefully, trying to find an opening to attack.

In fact, I had seen several openings already, but every time, I got the feeling that it was the demon’s trap and decided to ignore it.

But eventually, I finally saw an opening.

It was not really an opening, instead, it was a chance to make a big move.

I avoided the spear thrust coming towards my chest and pulled my spear back. Violent lightning flowed out of my lightning seed, moving towards my spear and filling it in an instant.

Next, I stomped on the ground and launched myself towards the demon with my spear thrust forward.

The demon easily blocked my spear with his, but at that moment, the lightning inside my spear was released.

*Zzzap!*

With an electrifying sound, a beam of lightning was shot from my spear toward the demon.

It was the new technique I learned from the demon, I called it, [Lightning Beam].

The lightning beam arrived in front of the demon in an instant. It was so fast that nothing should be able to avoid it.

Then–

*Swoosh!*

It passed harmlessly beside the demon’s face.

I was stunned.

How!? I mean, the demon did not even move!

However, the demon did not give me the opportunity to understand what happened.

In the next instant, he twirled his spear, entangling my spear and forcing it towards the ground.

Then, his spear shot up at great speed towards my neck.

Just like that, my head flew through the dreamland and my headless body fell to the ground.

Once more, it was my defeat.

A couple of seconds later, my body returned to normal.

I sighed with a bitter expression.

Sigh, I thought I finally had him this time.

I was confident in being able to injure him this time, but it looks like it's still early to talk about outsmarting him.

Closing my eyes, I replayed the fight of just now in my mind.

Soon, I understood what happened just then.

At the moment when I shot the lightning beam, the demon hit my spear slightly, disrupting my aim without me noticing.

I chuckled helplessly. As expected of him.

“I guess it’s still not enough to hurt you, huh.”

[Of course not. But you did well. This has been your best performance ever. You are improving quickly.]

Well, I guess that is true.

It has been ten days since I started to train the new technique. During these ten days, I managed to reduce the time I need to perform the new technique from five seconds to a bit over one second.

It’s still far from the demon’s level of using the technique instantly, but it’s much better than at the start.

However, I eventually hit a bottleneck, and reducing the time further became very hard.

According to the demon, it’s because my body is not strong enough yet. As my body becomes stronger, I will be able to reduce the time further.

In the meanwhile, the demon told me to learn to perform the new technique during battle. If I need to put my entire focus on performing that technique every time I need to use it, then it will limit its use greatly.

As always, the demon’s advice was on point. After a couple of days of training, I managed to use the technique freely.

Even the demon gave me a rare word of praise after that.

Now, I’m training to make the use of the new technique more natural.

Five days later will be the entrance examination for Sanctuary’s First Awakened College, so I’m trying to increase my strength as much as I can before that.

I continued training in the dreamland and fought the demon a couple of times more. I lost every time, but it was a way to get more battle experience.

At the very least, I wanted to believe that.

Finally, after an undetermined amount of time, I woke up.

When I woke up, I felt a slight weight on my chest.

Looking down, I saw a cute reddish Somali cat lying on my chest while licking its paw.

“Good morning, Scarlet.”

Scarlet just looked at me indifferently before resuming licking her paw. She was so cute that I could not resist stroking her head.

As soon as my hand touched her head, though, her paw zapped my hand fiercely.

“Meow~!”

I could swear that she seemed to be saying ‘how do you dare to touch my noble body with your dirty hands!?’.

She then stood up and jumped down from the bed before walking towards the door.

But she did not leave the room. Instead, she looked back at me and meowed again.

“Are you hungry, beauty?” I asked while leaving the bed. Then, I went to the kitchen and found the box of cat food.

As expected, Scarlet followed after me while meowing. I smiled wryly and filled her bowl with cat food.

As soon as I moved away, she started to eat.

“It seems like you were really hungry, huh.” I smiled softly. “You are such a cute cat. But you would be cuter if you let me stroke you occasionally.”

I did not know if she understood me, but I saw Scarlet glance at me and roll her eyes.

… Yeah, I’m probably still sleepy.

With a wry smile, I returned to my room and took a bath. When I went down to the first floor again, mom and Ley were already awake, and the breakfast was on the table.

“I need to work until late today, so I’m not sure if I can come back tonight.” My mother said when I sat down to eat.

“Did anything happen?” I asked my mom curiously.

She sighed heavily and nodded.

“A couple of dungeons appeared in the surroundings of the city, nothing too dangerous, but it increased my workload.”

“How unlucky.” I looked at my mother with a pitiful expression, making her glare at me in mock anger.

“Hehe, mother, don’t worry. Brother and I will be alright.”

“I know, I’m not worried.” My mother sighed. “Also, Karen is back in the city. You should go to visit her.”

Ley and I stiffened at the same time.

Karen, huh...

We then looked at each other with complicated expressions and nodded.

“Yeah, we will go.”