In the beginning, Jennifer didn't even realise that she had released the restriction on her strength.

It was only when she saw that Jason was unable to get out of the depths of the arena he had been bashed into, let alone move, that she understood what had happened.

This caused her to quickly retract the three fused cultivation energies as she dived towards the ground, to help Jason get up.

A worried expression appeared on her face, showing Jason that she hadn't done it intentionally.

Thus, he didn't say anything, and realised that Artemis' fusion had been severed.

Because of that, his strength receded, just like his appearance that returned to his usual self.

His entire body was sore, and he felt as if he wouldn't be able to move around properly for the next few hours.

In order to avoid this, he let Solaris enter his mana core, before manifesting its flames inside his body, soothing the pain and soreness within him.

This allowed Jason to turn towards his right side, where he found Byakur.

Releasing a faint thread of mana, he enveloped Byakur with it, allowing his soul weapon to return to the soul world.

Despite having mana within his mana core, the fight had evidently ended, even if it was different than both Jason and Jennifer could have hoped for.

Nevertheless, it had been exciting, and Jason couldn't help but smile, ignoring the pain within his body as he said,

"That was fun and extremely helpful! Let's spar more often from now on!"

Jennifer had been worried that she hurt him, but seeing that he was alright, she couldn't help but return him a smile too as she nodded her head.

"It's really interesting to fight you. Let's definitely repeat it!"

With that agreement both of them decided to fight more often against each other, thereby increasing their combat experience, combat awareness, polishing their instincts, reflexes, and most importantly, the bond that had just been established between the two of them.

The easiest way to get to know someone else was to fight them because one would get to know how others behaved, how they fought, and what kind of personality one had according to the subtle movements, and specific traits one perceived during a fight.

While it was easy to deceive someone under normal circumstances, acting sincere while, in reality, being someone else than one showed, this was something completely different during a fight.

It was not difficult to perceive if someone was holding back or forcefully adjusting their combat style in order to please others or even to do things one would never do under normal circumstances.

However, by using his whole capabilities, Jason had revealed everything in front of Jennifer, which allowed her to understand what type of individual the young halfling in front of her was.

What she comprehended about Jason was by no means bad, rather, it made him even more interesting than he had initially been to Jennifer.

Even if Jason couldn't truly figure out Jennifer because she had restricted her strength, including specific techniques, the full capabilities of her affinities and other special traits she might have, he was still able to roughly gauge what kind of a person she was.

And this was satisfying enough to make him think that Jennifer was a strong yet kind woman, who he could trust to a certain extent.

She was interesting and by fighting her more often, it should be possible for him to get to know her better, which was something he wanted to do.

It was odd, but both felt that a bond had been created between the two of them during the fight, and both interpreted the bond in the same way.

They thought it was a simple bond of friendship and camaraderie.

Little did they know that they were simply unable to realise its true meaning!

While Jason's sore body was slowly recuperating, the process accelerated owing to Solaris' unique characteristics. Jennifer couldn't help but think that Jason was extremely powerful, and that it wouldn't take long for him to reach her combat prowess.

'He will be much stronger than I am right now when he reaches my age' She thought, realising that Jason was already that strong when he had barely been on Manyr for a few months.

In the end, Jason was more than five years younger than Jennifer, and despite her requiring thrice the time and energy to cultivate, she had reached the peak of the Prismar stage in all three paths in her mid-20s.

This was shocking enough, but considering that Jason, who was only cultivating in one path, was likely to be stronger than that at this age, it was even scarier than Jennifer could imagine.

'I wonder from which races he hails' Simple questions like this were just the beginning of the pile of doubts that further ignited Jennifer's curiosity in Jason. He was already deep in thought, thinking about the fight against Jennifer, and what he could have done better.

'Even if I don't have a martial art technique, the Floating Sky technique and my knowledge of the most basic techniques should be enough...or should I try to focus on learning a neutral martial art technique with which I can use Byakur and all kinds of affinities?'

In the end, a martial art technique improved one's combat prowess by leaps and bounds.

However, at the same time, it restricted one in the versatility with which said technique could be used, until one had a perfect mastery allowing the user to change the necessary movement sequence at will.

It was even possible to make specific techniques stronger by changing the order of movements, but for that, one would have to know the technique like the back of their hand.

In the end, this was not something Jason was fond of because most techniques he could obtain were, at most, at the Terra grade, which might sound extremely strong in comparison to fighting without a specific technique.

Yet, at the same time, his goals were already too high, and he would rather learn a Heaven's grade technique than any other. It would make sense to use his utmost efforts to learn such a technique as if he had been born with its knowledge.

While being deep in thought, he also tried to recall how he had used the wild, ferocious aura as well as the pressure in combination with his ice affinity as it was something he hadn't been able to pull off before.

This was interesting and gave him more than enough information and knowledge he had to process.

'If I merge the pressure into my aura just like Jennifer, it should become even more terrifying, right?' He thought, only to notice that Jennifer was speaking to him.

"Jason...Jason!!!"

Shaking his head, he was brought out of his meditative thinking, as he looked straight into Jennifer's silver eyes whose highlights were the crimson outlined pupils.

"Yes?"

"We should leave the arena, so as to get it repaired and let the other cadets continue training!"

Nodding his head, Jason just recalled that there had been others except them, which made him take a look around.

The wrath in Rex's eyes was still apparent, but there was also something else gleaming in his eyes, which made Jason even more uncomfortable.

'Does he really consider me as a rival?' He wondered while trying to make sense of the weird feeling he got.

It was almost as if Rex had acknowledged him as a rival in multiple fields, only for Jason to be oblivious to what was going on.

Even if he was uncomfortable with that, Jason couldn't help but think that this might as well turn into something good.

As long as Rex didn't kill him everything would be fine, and from what he understood, the cadet at the Ascendion stage was even someone with an extremely high combat experience.

As such, it might as well help him to spar against Rex, under the condition that he survived.

'I should become a little bit stronger first...My combat prowess needs to reach the Prismar stage as quickly as possible!'

Right now, even if Jason didn't know about it, the need to become stronger at the fastest possible pace was even more urgent than anyone could ever expect!

__________________