Gunnar ran.He used Storm Step most of the time, but Flash Step intermittently.His legs moved almost entirely on instinct, carrying him through the dense forest while his mind struggled a bit to keep up with everything that had happened.Leaves whipped against his face, as though trying to irritate him. Roots rose from the earth like the fingers of buried corpses, trying to block his advance in their own way, and loose stones rolled beneath his feet as he descended one slope and climbed another.Everything made his escape difficult.Behind him, the forest occasionally shook with the distant movements whether it be due to the winds or the beasts moving.The salamander was forty-feet long, but Gunnar felt that it could move fast.So, he pushed himself harder, using Storm Step whenever his legs began to slow, but each burst sent another wave of pain through his injured back.His breathing grew ragged. The poison from the Thornback Lizards was still circulating through his body, his spin

The next morning.At the western gates of the Fist clan, the two guards were yawning and were ready to end their shift.“Since the clan is expanding toward the river, are you going to build a shop or two for yourself?” one of the guards asked the other.“If I don’t, my wife will kill me,” he said. “She’s not satisfied with my salary. She said she’ll take care of the shop, so we’ll see how it goes.”“Haha, even if she’s running the shop, you’ll be bringing all the goods. That means you will have fewer hours to sleep.”“Haah, don’t even talk about it, okay? Just thinking about my future is giving me chills.”Just then, they looked to their left because they saw something move.Behind the thorny bushes, a person entered their vision.At first glance, they didn’t recognize him because he was all dirty and bloody.But as he got closer, the expressions of the guards quickly changed. “Y-Young Master Gunnar? Is that really you?”“The people are saying that you ran away to escape the wedding,”

Lexar’s eyes turned sharp. “You don’t want our father, the patriarch, to get out of the bed? Do you not remember how many herbs he fed you when you were young? He sent hunter squads to the mountain range and the warrior squads to many counties just to find rare herbs for your sake. But now, you’re thinking about sparing one herb for our father! This is ridiculous!”“Lexar! You, shut up!” Minerva raised her voice.“Mom?” Lexar frowned. “Are you supporting this little fool?”“He put his life on the line to bring that herb,” Minerva’s voice thickened. “It doesn’t matter if you, me, or the elder council wants this herb to be given to the patriarch. He needs to want to give it to the patriarch himself. But, put yourself in his shoes. How many times has he broken his elbows and wrists? You don’t remember it because you weren’t the one who tended to him every time his bones broke.”She put her hand on Gunnar’s head.“This poor son of mine suffered broken bones so many times he stopped crying

The training room was empty, so Gunnar could practice without any reservations.First, he practiced the Split Step. “This relies more on aura than the muscles in the legs, so it doesn’t give any clues to my enemies, which makes it unpredictable. But because there’s no muscle power backing the aura, you can’t move far with Split Step. Right now, I can move eight to ten feet at best.”Gunnar didn’t know that he was already moving much more distance than most people normally could using Split Foot technique.Then he moved on to the Storm Step. “This uses the whole leg, but the explosive power still comes from the foot. You generally use the whole foot at the start, but use the balls of the feet to keep going. I’ve reached the level where I can change directions without much of a problem using Storm Step.”Then he focused on learning the Spring Step.“Instead of releasing aura once into the balls of your feet, you do it multiple times at the moment your foot touches the ground,” Gunnar si

Dahlia went straight to the training grounds near the school.In the fist clan, there was a training tool that could test endurance.She went to the school and asked the teacher Usana who then took Dahlia to a particular house, where training related tools were all stored.In one of those rooms, there was a large stone slab with six concentric circles carved on it.This was a magic slab built with specific patterns. The Fist Clan called it the Measuring Stone. It could measure a person’s aura strike, and then the circles would glow appropriately.The innermost circle was for novices. The outermost circle was for veterans. Nobody in the fist clan had been able to make the sixth circle glow ever since this item was bought decades ago.Dahlia was here not to try and make all the circles glow. But it was to see how her aura output was varying as she pushed herself.In the fist clan, a child would finish their school when they were able to pass the Ten-Breath Trial.The point was not streng