“You know, as your master, I must ask this question; how do you feel about me?”

“Huh?!”

Ellios approached Luke from behind with quiet steps, causing the latter to almost jump out of the chair he sat on. That wasn’t the reason Luke was surprised, though, no-

“What kind of nonsense are you asking me?”

-It was the question itself that caught Luke off-guard.

In response, Ellios not only ignored the question completely but got fidgety for some unknown reason and said in a slightly bashful tone of voice with clasped hands, “Ahh, with how rapidly you’re progressing through your training, even an old man like me is starting to grow weak in the knees…”

If he didn’t know any better, Luke might even have thought the old man had started falling for him after what he just said. And although he knew that Ellios didn’t bat for that team, he couldn’t help but grow frustrated.

“Just cut it out already. You’ve been spouting similar bullshit for weeks!”

“Oh? You don’t like it? Then stop me, you miserable little maggot!”

Hearing that comment, Luke leaped out of his chair and swung a fist straight at Ellios’ face. Needless to say, it was easily dodged by the latter with a sneer.

“You’re just proving my point.”

“Raaaahhhhh!”

Ignoring Ellios’ taunt, or maybe provoked by it, Luke launched a flurry of fists all over Ellios’ body, but to no avail, as none of the punches connected with their intended targets.

Not only was Ellios not bothered; instead, he kept smiling as he simply blocked every single strike with complete precision.

Both of them enhanced their bodies using the wind elemental, but the difference in power and technique would be clear even to a beginner elementalist.

A red glint shone in Luke’s eyes as he kept striking faster and faster. Over the duration of the fight, strands of black smoke rose from his body.

Noticing this, Ellios grabbed hold of both of Luke’s hands and pinned him to the floor, face-first.

“There we go!”

Luke glared at Ellios over his shoulder and gritted his teeth like a mad, blood-thirsty hound.

“Let me go! I’ll show you who’s a maggot! You fucker!!”

“Tsk, tsk! Where are your manners? You always start cursing at me in these situations, even though it’s for your own good!”

Hearing this, Luke bit his lip until blood flowed from it. It seemed like he was struggling against something. And after a few minutes of fighting his own thoughts, he let out a heavy breath.

“I’m alright now,” Luke said, with none of the previous madness or anger present in his voice.

Ellios nodded and immediately let him go. The two of them stood up, and he gazed at Luke with expectancy in his eyes.

Putting a hand on his chin in thought, Luke closed his eyes and nodded to himself a few times.

“I think I’m starting to get the hang of it,” he said as he opened his eyes, to which Ellios grinned.

“Good! It seems like all the mental abuse I’ve been dishing out is starting to pay off,” he said with a small chuckle while patting Luke’s shoulder.

Luke glared at the hand on his shoulder and said, “You shouldn’t touch me yet, though, or I might just relapse.”

“Alright, alright,” Ellios said as he removed his hand in a slightly exaggerated manner, as if he had touched something he wasn’t supposed to.

‘That’s basically how I figured out E-Release, bit by bit. I just need to think of Ellios spouting cringy lines, and I snap. That amount of anger is more than enough to kickstart it,’ Luke thought as he remembered such a scene.

‘I’ve learned how to hold onto my anger until the right time. Although it’s the elementals’ fault that I had an anger management problem in the first place.’

After Luke had multiple in-depth talks with Ellios about it, they figured out that his repeated bouts of angrily lashing out at various people like a child were due to the massive amount of mana that entered his soul in a short amount of time, bringing about an imbalance in his rationale and thought process. Apparently, such a condition was rarely seen but wasn’t unheard of.

Because of that, Ellios intentionally pissed Luke off constantly during his off-time from training, each and every day, so that he would be able to better feel the strong negative emotions overcoming him; eventually, he naturally shifted back to how he was originally — aloof and calm. Figuring out E-Release came as an unexpected bonus.

The red glint of Luke’s eyes threatened to swallow Joseph whole as he stood frozen stiff in front of him. They were still fighting inside the BHA building.

This was the first time he used the bulk of his bottled-up anger against someone — E-Release included. If he needed to, he’d decided that he would even become a wrath incarnate.

It was still very tough to control himself in this state of rage, but he knew that he’d be able to last a minute or two because of the few trial runs he did with Ellios. That was more than enough time for what he needed to do.

‘I’m still not sure if this will work or if my guess of his ability is even correct, but judging by the slight change in his expression as well as the lack of snarly comments after I said that I’d strip his 'shell' off, it has to be at least somewhat close.’

Luke surprisingly learned to pick up on such things from Anastasia. He’d always thought she was a bit muscle-brained, but you truly couldn’t judge a book by its cover.

The black miasma that surrounded Luke condensed into a pitch-black cape flowing behind his back, as well as a pair of claws that extended from his fingertips. Combined with his black robe, he looked like the Grim Reaper himself.

Joseph, of course, couldn’t just stand there and admire how cool Luke looked, and instead he suppressed his instinctual fear and launched an attack consisting of multiple thunderbolts as well as a sword strike aimed at Luke’s neck.

The thunderbolts were much slower than expected, and so Luke easily stopped them with a thick wind wall. As for Joseph’s short sword, Luke was still clad in his gale armor, giving him greater strength and agility, so he simply crouched, dodging the sharp, electrified blade completely.

Still crouching, Luke swiped his pair of ebony-black claws at Joseph’s stomach. As he was much faster than Joseph, whose sword strike still hadn’t traced its full trajectory, the claws fully penetrated deep into the middle of his stomach.

“AAAARGH!!”

With the motion of opening a pair of curtains wide, Luke spread his arms apart in opposite directions. Joseph’s face contorted as he let out a sharp yelp that immediately turned into an anguished scream.

Joseph’s mauled stomach barely held his upper and lower bodies in one piece. He helplessly collapsed to the ground, writhing about and still screaming. The pain he felt was much worse than anyone could imagine; that had to do with the very nature of his “immortality” technique. His wound still didn’t bleed, but it didn’t heal either.

Seeing this, Luke grinned triumphantly and stomped Joseph’s head with his foot.

“Hmph, so I was correct. I bet that pain’s gotta be gut-wrenching.”

Raising his knee, his wind-enhanced heel descended square onto Joseph’s shoulder, crushing it whole. Surprisingly, it started regenerating in short order.

Barely able to catch a breath, Joseph glared at Luke with deep hatred and resentment apparent in his gaze before barely uttering a few words with bated breath.

“Y-You! H-How did you…?!”

“I have a good teacher.”

Luke shrugged his shoulders and answered as a matter of fact.

“That doesn’t explain… that aura!”

“Ah, sorry, I have no time for any more questions. I’m on a timer here, see?”

Just as Luke was about to burrow his claws straight into Joseph’s head, he crushed something in his hand, and a bright flash enveloped the hall, blinding Luke.

And after a few seconds, Luke could see again.

“An artifact? Did he use a storage elemental?”

Joseph was gone. Instead, only splinters of the wooden floor remained under Luke’s fist.

Just as he was about to stand up, he heard something cutting through the air behind him. Not even having the time to look behind, Luke dashed forward with a roll, successfully dodging the surprise attack.

“Tsk!”

Behind him, Joseph wore an ugly expression as he clicked his tongue, his glare refusing to let Luke escape for even a moment. But other than that, he appeared to be completely fine. The wound on his stomach was gone completely, as if it had been a mere mirage.

However, this only affirmed Luke’s prior thoughts, “Back to your physical form already? What a shame,” he said with a smirk as his cape and claws turned back into black miasma and slowly dissipated into the air before disappearing completely. The red glint also left his eyes at the same time that the black miasma dissipated.

Joseph’s technique was simple on paper, but in reality, the number of people who could actually achieve such a feat was miniscule. Using the ball of thunder, the mana from the air around them was sucked in before merging back with Joseph. That huge amount of energy allowed Joseph to swap his physical body with a body made of pure mana in one part and his soul filling out the rest.

This was the reason physical attacks couldn’t actually damage, let alone destroy, Joseph’s body, but the E-Release, which was a mental, non-physical form of attack, could. Attacking something or someone using the E-Release would result in no damage to the physical form of the object or person, but their very soul and mind would be severely damaged because the soul and mind were deeply interconnected with each other.

It was perfect for cutting up a technique that was fundamentally a body made exclusively out of mana and Joseph’s soul. His physical body, in the meantime, could exist anywhere within that abstract body. As long as even a single atom of it remained, he would still regenerate and survive because the pure mana couldn’t be destroyed by mere physical attacks.

Luke didn’t know every single detail of this technique. He merely guessed that Joseph was either hiding inside a body made out of mana or that he was using his soul to protect his physical body. His training with Ellios also consisted of studying various things when it came to the nature of this world.

“Shut up! There’s more where that came from!” spittle flew from between Joseph’s gritted teeth as he shouted without even a sign of his dignity remaining; the veins on his forehead bulged out as his body shook. As much as he would’ve liked to deny it, he was afraid.

Recognizing such an obvious lie, Luke scoffed and instantly closed the distance between them – no, he tried doing so, but before he could even take a single step, another white flash swallowed his entire vision up, and at the same time, the whole BHA building shook as if an earthquake were passing through it.

The source of the flash was Joseph. Although he was now back in his physical body, the majority of the massive amount of mana collected by the ball of thunder still remained within his body. He had to expel the excess, or else he’d die. He, of course, didn’t mind, as he could focus it all into a single ultimate attack against Luke.

The white flash was just the beginning. It appeared as a huge ball of thunder floated above Joseph. Blood was flowing from his orifices because of the immense stress it put on his already-wounded soul. The white crackling thunder seemed to make the world shake, as it almost grew out of control. Before it did, though, the huge ball of thunder was hurled at the still-blinded Luke with all of Joseph’s might.

“I told you there was more to come!” Joseph shouted with a maddening grin with the last of his strength as he collapsed to his knees. The attack sapped the last of his remaining strength.