A day had passed since the conversation with Leonard, and Mau had already started training. He would do excruciatingly painful exercises with Ivan in the morning and would practice using five different weapons during the afternoon. These weapons were butterfly swords, rapier sword, lance, daggers, and a QI gun.

These are the weapons Leonard thought would fit Mau best, and wanted him to at least find two of them to specialize in. Mau was doing great with all of them, but seemed to be more comfortable with the rapier sword and QI gun, which honestly surprised Leonard. He thought Mau would be more accustomed to the butterfly swords and daggers. This intrigued Leonard, and although he would still make him train with all the weapons, he would for sure focus more on those two weapons throughout the week as well.

Leonard also had him practicing martial arts known to be used by the beast kin with feline attributes. He wanted him to learn them all and had him practice them on his own after weapon training. The martial arts he was practicing were called black panther arts, tiger-striped fist arts, and dancing leg arts. Dancing leg arts was a martial art that was mostly used by feline-like beast kin with cheetah-like features, and it helped them move at speeds faster than light itself. This obviously wasn't possible for beginners, but the stronger he got, the faster he would be.

The beast kin that practiced this art was unknown to the public, and the only reason Leonard knew of this martial art was because he had to kill one for a mission, and he happened to have it on him. MAU actually had all this information in his spaces. He had gotten it the day he talked to Leonard and confirmed that he would be his disciple. The tool was very useful as it had access to a lot of information.

He obviously had to look up this information in order to find out about anything, but that wasn't a problem. After training all day, Mau had finally finished and was sitting in the training room looking through his spaces while Ivan continued his training. Ivan had more things to do than Mau because he had been there longer and was actually a late-stage mortal realm cultivator, while Mau was only a mid-stage not too far off from Ivan, but the difference felt like night and day compared to how talented Ivan was.

So, in his free time, Mau spent his time going over his martial arts. Black Panther arts was the easiest for him because it was similar to what he already knew when it came to moving in the shadows. The foot and handwork along with it was simple enough, but the Tiger Fist arts relied more on the fists, and the footwork was only there to support his punches. The hits were very useful and explosive.

While the dancing leg arts were even more tricky because if you got the footwork wrong, you would land on your ass. That is why this was the one he would practice the most. Mau would do this until Ivan was done, so they could walk to the estate together. Once he was finished, they would walk to the estate and make their way to the flower room to chat for a bit before getting ready for dinner. Now that Mau was a disciple, Ivan and Mau had separate rooms, but they would still meet up in Ivan's room, even though Mau would make his way to Ivan's room anyway.

Mau liked meeting in there because the smell was amazing since it was the flower room. Although the flower garden outside also smelled delicious, it was much better in the flower room.

[Leonard estate]

[Floral room]

Ivan, isn't the smell in here amazing?

Asked Mau. Of course, it's beautiful. Answered Ivan.

Mau and Ivan were now in the floral room enjoying the scenery and the smell, but while they were enjoying their time there, something was heavy on Maus hart he didn't know what to make of it, so he decided to ask Ivan about the feelings he was feeling. Ivan,

I have a question.

Sure, go ahead and asked answered Ivan.

Ok, do you think I'm doing well? I feel like I'm not working hard enough. Asked mau.

What are you talking about, it's been 3 days, and you've already made progress. Not a lot of people can say they would be able to do that. Answered Ivan

Over the 3 days Ivan had spent with mau, he had really started opening up to mau and letting him in more than he ever had with anyone before and more then he thought he was capable of, and honestly he loved the felling, he liked being close, with someone and did whatever it took to keep that feeling and make mau happy and encourage him.

" You really think, I was so nervous because I can never tell how well I'm doing with teacher Leonard. He always has the same facial expression." said Mau

"I know i use to be nervous to when i first became his disciple, but when you least expect it he'll give you praise just give it a bit

After Ivans pep talk, mau grabbed Ivan into a big hug and caught him by surprise, leaving the poor wolf boy blushing slightly, after spending so much time with mau, he was able to get his emotions under check after a while, but only slightly. He definitely still felt strongly about mau.

He just couldn't put words to what the feeling he was having were, But he definitely was taking advantage of the hug he received and embraced mau back hard, catching mau by surprised, leaving mau blushing way harder than him.

They soon detangled themselves from each other's embrace and sat there in silence for a while, enjoying the scenery and aroma in the air. Mau decided to practice the breathing technique given to him by Leonard. It really did wonders as he could feel himself slowly creeping up to the late stage of the mortal realm. This was very exciting for Mau, and he couldn't wait to catch up to Ivan, even though his skill level still wouldn't be on par with him.

[ next day ]

SLING! SLASH!

It was the afternoon and mau was currently practicing using the Rapier and Qi gun against leonard who had lowered his cultivation quite a bit but only to the low stage of the foundation realm to keep mau on his toes and boy was he giving mau hell, the further the week came to ending, the harder Leonard would be on mau when they where traning.

BANG!

Mau had slammed his sword against Leonard's katana, making slight sparks fly before pulling out his gun to shoot at Leonard. But before he could even think, Leonard forced Mau three feet back with a slight nudge of his sword before slicing his sword downwards and aiming a dark green slash at Mau.

SLASH!

which he quickly shot a huge black beam with his Qi gun, causing a small explosion once the two attacks collided.

BOOM!

He was about to use the explosion as a smoke screen, but before he could take a step, Leonard appeared behind him, slamming him back-first on the ground.

"Good job! You lasted a little longer this time," said Leonard.

"Thank you, Teacher Leonard, but I'm still not lasting as long as I would like," replied Mau.

Regardless of how Mau answered Leonard's praise, he was still very happy that he finally received some. This gave him an idea of how much he was progressing. He did not want to be praised to feel liked by Leonard, he just wanted some constructive criticism, both negative or positive. He did not care as he wanted to become stronger, but he couldn't lie, it did feel good to be praised a little.

"Oh, don't be hard on yourself, young one. A lot of people in the same realm as you, and even higher, couldn't even last a second with me, and you lasted 5. That's progress said Leonard.

"Ok teacher, thank you." said Mau.

"No problem, young one. Now you're excused. That's enough for today. Go and eat, but make sure to remember to practice all the martial arts I gave you before dinner, and make time for cultivating as well before you rest," said Leonard.

"Yes, teacher Leonard." Answerd mau.

After that Leonard excused his self while mau took his time to do some cultivation before going into practicing his martial arts so he sat down crossed his legs closed his eyes and went into a meditative state. For 2 hours before getting up to practice his marital arts.

"Shadow armor"! Maus body was then covered in shadow as he moved in strang unreadable patterns while also seemingly disappearing and reappearing as he moved around the training ground. "Sky dance" mau began to mave at a alarmingly high speed and ended up at the end of the training ground in a instant and back to where he was originally standing at the same paste. Mau was making alot of progress with his marital arts he could already use 3 black Panther techniques, and one of each of the two other martial arts he was practicing with low difficulty.

Mau then decided to practice his tiger striped fist technique on a practice dumby. "Strong striped punch!" the sound of mau punch boomed in the room with a loud roar as if a beast was attacking its prey leaving a huge dent in the practice dumby. Mau went over these techniques for another hour untill it was time for lunch. He then realised he hadn't seen ivan sense they practice this morning but didn't worry to much because he new he would run into him again once he was in the dining room.

[10 min later]

"Where were you? I haven't seen you since this morning. Are you avoiding me?" said Mau.

"No, I was just cultivating in the floral room. And I decided to practice my martial arts a little there as well. But, I guess I lost track of time. Before I knew it, it was lunchtime," answered Ivan.

"Oh, okay. As long as you weren't avoiding me, that's fine," said Mau with a full mouth of food.

They continued eating in silence for a while. After they finished their food, Mau decided to go to the floral room again to practice his breathing technique given to him by his teacher. He brought Ivan along with him who came with no complaints and decided he also wanted to do some cultivation as well along with Mau. They did so until it was time for them to go to their separate rooms for the night which Mau dreaded. He wished he could share a room with Ivan again, but he thought that would be asking for too much.

So, he quietly departed from Ivan after giving him a firm hug for the night and went to his room to rest the night. And boy did it feel good after such a long day of hard work and cultivation.