As Lin came back, Kelf went down. It was his turn at last. Of course, his entrance was not as retarded as Xel’s, but it was by no means any less attention-seeking.

Back at the seats, Xel asked Xue, ‘Do you understand what I just did?’

‘Only a little.’

He explained that the first thing he did was to take away his opponent’s weapon at the first opportunity if it presented itself.

‘In a battle, the weapon is the person’s life. Without a weapon, a weapon user is as good as crippled.’

After that he tried to provoke the opponent by waving her weapon around.

‘When a person is provoked, he is unable to think properly. The battle becomes a fight where the combatant only relies on instinct and experience. If one fails to think, he is putting himself into danger. Just now, when you fought with the man, although he did not make you angry, you were affected by his actions and his words. In a way, you too were similar to one being provoked. At that time, you did not calmly think and analyze the situation. You relied on everything except your brains. Thinking through the situation and determine the right course of action at the same time while you are fighting is a skill, and it is extremely important.’

He continued to explain, that when he returned the weapon to her, and made her lose her momentum, it was to say a person in the air needs balance. If there is a loss in balance, the person falls and the result will be fatal, just like what he did by aiming an arrow.

‘Just now, when you jumped into the air, you could not react fast enough, especially when the enemy was not at the front. And as a result, when he appeared behind you, you could not do anything. One slight kick at your leg made you lost your balance. He did that, didn’t he? Like what Lin did, you should always cover your back in the air, unless you were already expecting an attack from behind and had prepared a counter-attack. Of course, the girl was too slow in covering her back though. But the idea was there.

Next, if an enemy is going to use his powers sooner or later, and if it is not possible to finish him quickly without letting him display his real powers, one has to make the enemy show his real powers as soon as possible so he can analyze and knows how to counter. One must always know how to use one’s weapon. As everyone’s power has an equal capability, the only difference is the form it is in and how well they can use their weapon, among other things like battle experience.

You made the mistake of showing him your powers too early and not finishing him off. If you have to show him your powers, make sure you finish him off before he can counter-attack. Just now, you jumped away, realizing that he had not yet gone down after his neck was broken. That, gave him time to analyze your ability and come out with a plan to take you down. You were in a disadvantage because you had not known his real powers yet, but he knew yours. Always remember, when you are at the advantageous position, never stop attacking until the enemy had gone down. Don’t stop no matter what surprises there are, unless you know you are going to be in danger. I believe I told you all that before, now you see it for yourself that applying and understanding are 2 different things.’

Next was the shooting of the arrow which came back from the top towards Lin. One must distract an enemy of the real danger, so that they could catch him unawares.

‘Just like how he distracted you with the skeleton whip, you focused too much on that direct attack and could not sense properly his movements. Every human has a scent on him, and you should have relied on your sense of smell just now when you were in the air to detect his location. Instead, you only relied on your eyes. That is somehow similar to the smoke I created. A human relies on eyes to see and for the most part, to perceive. But if sight is gone, a person starts to panic. Being stressed and unable to think properly, he is unable to register what is going on in his brain. I was sure Lin would have heard footsteps at that time during the smoke because I made it loud enough for her to hear. But because she panicked, she could not register that. A pro should be able to understand it. Thus there is a need to rely on the other senses if one or more of the 5 senses is crippled.’

Forgetting her own loss and ‘depression’, Xue then turned towards Xel in amazement and asked, ‘How long did you take to come out with the ‘syllabus’ of what you are going to teach?’

‘When you were fighting down there I already knew what is your problem. Furthermore I am your teacher and I taught you everything you knew. It did not take me too much effort to come up with something like that.’