Jizoku Island

The plan was already in place. The first thing all four of them decided to do was to make Shiro accustomed to using the power of the spears but to do that Shiro must utilize all of his spiritual energy. Shiro had an abundance of mana that had been passed on to him by Ain. The spears informed Shiro about their status from the six spears, apparently they were the three weakest ones in possession and the others were spread across the world. The spears had been trained by Ain, one of the greatest warriors of all time. Shiro had no experience in controlling the sacred treasure, managing his mana or fighting physically. They were deciding on a place where Shiro will spend his next two weeks in training. This was when Rui suggested a volcano Island area named Jizoku, according to Rui, once when Ain was a beginner, nearly five thousand years ago, he trained there for a year and it would be perfect for Shiro too.

Shiro packed his luggage and got ready, the spears came under his feet to make him float. Shiro was surprised, the spears told him about his ability to fly through the sky. Shiro then asked them to take him to this Jizoku place and in a blink of an eye, they were there. Shiro had not even realized they had travelled; he thought they teleported but was reassured that they only flew. Shiro felt nauseous and vomited all over. He looked around and saw a green meadow with no sign of a volcano, to his surprise they were on the volcano and the reason for him not seeing it was that it was too big to grasp.

All three of them decided to train their master in their respective field. As Nagisa was a manifestation of brute force and strength to destroy his enemies, he would train Shiro’s body in handling as much mana as possible by physically strengthening his body to be able to utilize such spiritual energy given by Ain. Izaya was well versed in techniques, so he would instruct his lord on how to handle the spears to the best of their abilities. As for Rui, she had a very good strategic mind and memory. So she was handed down the task of teaching the young master all about the mechanics of mana.

They decided to camp there for the night and the next day Shiro had a throbbing pain in his whole body and couldn't stand; this was due to an unusual phenomenon of Jizoku Island where the gravity is five times that of the world. The spears helped him up and told him that if he survived the training and completed the course, he would definitely notice a significant difference in his speed, strength and overall fighting ability. Izaya now taught him basic fighting techniques in his soul form; they brought Shiro along with a one-handed sword to fight in close combat. This sword was a mark of the ancient dragon scales so it was as durable as a human weapon can get. Izaya thought of doing this because even if spears were far from fighting an opponent Shiro would be able to defend himself and fight the enemies on their own. Firstly, Shiro was having difficulty even walking but eventually in several days he was able to walk but not run. The one-handed sword whose name was Cardinal was surprisingly light and well-balanced, Izaya and his master focused on basic parrying, throws and openings to find while fighting to defeat the enemy.

Shiro’s schedule was packed; he woke up at six, ate breakfast, trained with Izaya from 7 to 12, took a break, got lessons from Rui from 2 till 8 and did physical training with Nagisa from 10 till 12. For the next 5 days, Rui focused on Shiro using his mana efficiently, first Izaya taught him how to control the spears which tired Shiro a lot as manifesting and using such weapons had a very heavy toll on him. He was then taught how to use his mana to make a shield, inflict it on his weapon to do greater damage to the opponent, heal any wound with the help of mana by increasing the metabolism of the body and lastly use mana to alter nature. To teach the young man healing magic, Rui cut down a tree with her blade and asked Shiro to restore it. Even after days of concentration, Shiro was still not able to utilize his mana in performing simple tasks such as healing magic. Healing magic was the easiest and the most common but Shiro had a great amplitude in Gravity generation. Magic was produced by a great amount of mana extracted from the body with great concentration which could command the mana in doing tasks such as burning, freezing and making complex magic structures that could be more or less efficient or draining.

It took a couple of days for him to figure out the tricks to healing magic. He was then taught how to use mana in hand to hand combat to make the hits more effective and destroy a shield that covers a soul. Along with this, Nagisa had Shiro climb ten kilometres in a day and several hours of meditation to achieve inner equilibrium. Nagisa also had Shiro sit under a cold waterfall to clear his mind of thoughts.

This repeated for 7 weeks, the next week he was told to rest and gather soul energy for the upcoming fight with Richard.

He had seen the change in his physical strength, it grew significantly in both human and soul form. He could now seamlessly control the spears and was able to take two spears in hand to hand combat and easily equalled Izaya in sword fighting. He could also direct his mana into his attacks and heal his wounds in less than five minutes. Shiro now has also mastered some simple gravitational magic tricks; he can now control the weight of his body and the thing he touches though only for several minutes at most.

The spears had grown to respect Shiro and he felt confident he could beat Richard easily, but overconfidence is not really a good thing even for experienced fighters. The day finally came and Richard showed up in the exact place they fought last time. Shiro saw him taking a nap under a tree when he reached the place. Apparently, he had not moved an inch since the last time and was resting for 2 months, this was normal for him as he and the soul forms of most Gods were immortal who used to sleep for long periods of time to recover their strength and mana.