It was all well and good to daydream about the Occult Research Club’s future, but that wasn’t enough when you were the Red Dragon Emperor.
Even when I didn’t have homework on my days off, my friends and I always had something to keep us busy.
Among those, our top priority had to be improving ourselves—in other words, training.
It was for that reason, we found ourselves in a familiar underground training space in the Gremory territory.
Everyone split into small groups or went their own way…while I found myself facing some pure white object with my Boosted Gear.
This humanoid object—some kind of enchanted dummy the old Sun Wukong had conjured up using his own fur as a catalyst—was to be my sparring partner.
Essentially, the old Monkey King had instructed me to charge my gauntlet for a full minute and then lay into this target. And not just once—again and again.
It sounded simple when you put it like that, but it wasn’t quite so easy. Leveling up and throwing punches was only part of the process.
I was supposed to hit it with the same intensity ten times over after charging my power!
…It was a tough ask—for me, the ultimate challenge.
Throwing a punch was easy. But hitting a target ten times without weakening was much trickier.
If I boosted my strength to a factor of five and hit it ten times, I would rack up fifty points of damage.
…But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do it. Say I started off strong, delivering a solid five—by the third, fourth, or fifth punch, I would drop the ball and land a four or six.
All it took was one mistake and the animated target would announce, “Failure. Start again from the beginning.” The old Sun Wukong had made this thing to measure my strength, and it was unerring in calculating the damage I inflicted.
…Why was I doing this? Because the Monkey King had pointed out a critical weakness of mine not too long ago.
…Basically, I couldn’t sustain my Balance Breaker, my crimson armor, for extended periods of time.
In other words, my Red Dragon Emperor powers were sloppy. My armor state had improved a lot since the early days, when I could only use it for short periods, but there was still a cap on how long I could maintain it. On top of that, I didn’t have a firm grasp on how long that limit was and how much power I depleted with each attack.
…According to the old Sun Wukong, I was just wasting my energy on flashy displays of power. I thought I was pacing myself, but he pointed out I was simply making minor adjustments based on my momentum.
…I didn’t know what to say to that. He was right, of course.
Right now, my main goal was to perfect unleashing my power. If I could get that down to a science, I would be able to maintain my crimson armor that much longer.
Basically, if I could perfect my stamina management, I could strategize and adapt to any situation. There was no point in firing off energy like there was no tomorrow—that wouldn’t be enough against our future foes, especially not Euclid with that replica Boosted Gear of his…
Azazel had his own thoughts on the matter, “Maybe the powers you’ve inherited from Ophis and the Great Red will stabilize once you’ve tackled Sun Wukong’s challenge. Right now, your life force is bouncing between infinity and zero, but if you could bring it under control…well, you might just move on to the next level.”
The next level…
Everyone told me I was the only person to have received the powers of both Ophis and the Great Red—though honestly, I wasn’t even close to being able to use them.
If this training could help me unleash them…I had to keep going!
What with the enemies we were dealing with, I needed to get stronger to protect my friends. I didn’t want any of them to get hurt! We were going to survive this and have a peaceful school life!
I was all hyped up, throwing punches at the target, and yet…
“Failure. Your last attack was an eight. Start again from the beginning.”
Ngh… I messed up again. I let myself get carried away and unleashed more power than I should have. I was too impatient and let my emotions influence my actions. I had to learn to keep my cool better.
Even if I had a fire raging inside me, I couldn’t let it get the better of me. Though it was probably okay to let loose with a big flashy attack when things really heated up.
I heaved a sigh just as a white flash zigzagged above me. It was Vali, flapping his white wings in his suit of armor.
He joined us for training from time to time…and his sparring partner was none other than the old Sun Wukong.
The Monkey King was riding around on a cloud—his Flying Nimbus—effortlessly dodging Vali’s attacks.
Additionally, he was casually swatting aside Vali’s strikes with his staff. It was enough to leave us watching on speechless.
Vali, the legendary White Dragon Emperor, the strongest in all recorded history…was being toyed with by some old geezer no taller than a kindergartener!
Well, neither of them was going all out. If they did, this training field would be laid to waste. But still, it was impressive how effortlessly he managed to block Vali’s attacks.
…He was putting in minimal effort, just enough to cancel out his opponent’s strikes with his staff. He wasn’t even exuding much in the way of fighting spirit.
After a few minutes of back-and-forth, Vali dispelled his armor and came down to the ground. Moments later, Sun Wukong followed suit.
“…I hate to admit it, but luck isn’t on my side,” Vali said with a shrug of his shoulders.
The old monkey puffed on his pipe. “No, you’re really quite something, White Dragon Emperor. If you Two Heavenly Dragons came at me full force, I’d be turned to dust. You have me beat in raw power if you hadn’t noticed.”
That might be true, but the scary thing was neither of us could get in so much as a single hit.
Vali and I might have Sun Wukong beat in terms of raw firepower, but I doubted we had any real chance of winning against him.
As Bikou said, the old Monkey King was a legendary monster who had mastered both sorcery and sage arts.
“It all comes down to whether you can summon the strength needed in the heat of battle, and do so swiftly, like a flash of lightning! Now, you two young’uns are always radiating energy from your very beings, and you have much more stamina than ordinary folks. But mark my words—this here constant power output of yours means you lack in endurance, doesn’t it?”
…In other words, Vali and I should decrease our energy output in both our normal and Balance Breaker states and only ramp it up when it was time to go all out.
…Hold on. That all meant this was extremely high stakes, right? Basically, I had to boost my power output at the exact moment an enemy’s attack made contact with me! But they would no doubt throw a fair number of feints, too! And heck, I’d had my fair share of times when Kiba had caught me off guard during our sparring! This would leave me defenseless against those ambushes!
Trying to fine-tune my abilities was already a huge task, and the split-second decisions needed during battle were too much for someone like me…! I hadn’t even been a demon for one whole year yet!
But if I could nail this down, I felt like I would really be able to tap into my latent strength and unleash some serious power…