As usual, Kael’s mask was impassive as he stared at Azaroth, but he didn’t care; he shrugged and walked back to his position, ignoring the captain and the others.

"You didn’t have to do that, Azaroth!" Alex said, his eyes narrowed with anger.

"I don’t have to, but I did."

Stallus didn’t look angry; she just rubbed her stomach with her hands, looking at her discarded weapon. She was muttering slowly to herself.

"What do you think you could have done better, Stallus?" Kael asked.

Azaroth sat, his sword beside him as he waited for her reply. He kept feeding his weapon with essence all the while. He checked his two cores; the normal one was less full than the chaos one.

"Strength," her blue eyes sparkled as she grimaced. "I need to get more strength in my body. I am fast, but I lack strength."

Kael nodded. "You are absolutely correct. You need strength. Once you begin to advance, you might use your essence to give yourself strength, but that won’t be enough. Because you might meet some opponents whose technique is based on body strength."

Kael stood and gestured for her to do the same. They both faced each other. He put out his hand, palm facing her. "Punch me in the hand."

She looked startled, as she might, but she did as he said. She forged her hand, but Kael shook his head. "Do it physically first."

She nodded and punched his hand. The sound of flesh smacking each other was loud in the room.

"Good. Now forge your hand and punch my palm."

She did, and he grunted as the punch hit him. Then he told her to return while he remained standing in front of them. "I now know the fighting capacity of all of you and ways you could improve."

Kael walked in front of them. "Alex, you need to be diverse in your attacks. You can’t always wait for enemies to attack you. And on the matter of your forging, you have to learn to do it now because as you advance and your essence becomes stronger, so will the difficulties of perfecting the basics."

He turned to Stallus. "I think the best thing is to get you a heavy saber."

"But that will defeat the purpose of my sword skills," she protested.

Kael shook his head. "It won’t. I will not only make the saber stronger and heavier, but I will build your strength too."

She grumbled, but she also knew where she was lacking and how it made it easier for Azaroth to defeat her. That means all her previous training will go to waste, but if it will strengthen her, then she’s all for it.

"Catena," Kael Hound began. "First, you need a change of weapon. You need a lighter but stronger chain, and the chain itself should be changed into something more mobile. Something less complicated and easier to use. Your essence forging is good."

Catena opened his eyes fully, and he bowed. Kael snorted at that and turned to Azaroth. "Azaroth. There’s not much to say to you. Your footwork and your sword skills are good. You have been practicing."

"But all in all, you lot can do better!"

Then Kael Hound started teaching them about attunement. All the while, he told them to get their light skill going. The room soon lit up with four different kinds of lights.

Kael told them attunement is when they get their normal essence to change to that of the technique they wanted to use. Once a core is attuned, it can only do that specific technique it was attuned for.

For example, in the Inferno Legion, where the majority learned the fire technique, the only attunement they could do was that of fire. In short, a fire Awakener could not learn to manipulate water.

"So, my Earth Elemental technique can’t do fire?" Catena asked.

"Exactly! And me here can’t do Earth or crystal technique. Or do air technique. That’s because I’ve been attuned to fire," Kael said.

Azaroth thought as much. His chaos core was already attuned to chaos, and that was why its color was rust red and black. To do fire skills, he had to make his essence that of fire essence.

"But why?" Stallus asked. "Why get the essence attuned?"

"Have I not told you before? There are few among us who use pure essence. They didn’t get it attuned. They have different jobs."

"Not getting your core attuned will make you weak because there are no strong pure essence techniques. There’s not much unattuned essence will do."

Kael Hound continued. "Use yourself as an example. What can you do now? You can only forge your body and not even completely. While it makes you strong, it won’t ever be that strong. Like this!"

Kael forged his leg; the essence was a bright red, like a too-bright fire. He brought it down on the ground, and it cracked; they could feel the heat from the essence. "See that? I only used a little essence and yet produced so much effect!"

"Say a man with fire is throwing fireballs at you. Do you think your pure essence can save you?"

He left the question hanging as if they didn’t know the answer to that.

"Attunement lets you learn skills, and that is one thing Captain Zephyra’s team has over you right now. They might have begun to learn the skills of the initiate rank," Kael Hound said.

"Then we should learn too! I want to throw lightning at that boy!" Alex shouted.

"Keep quiet, Alex. It’s not like you can beat him. He’ll bend you in two," Stallus smirked.

Of course, Alex was offended, and he stood up. "I’ll beat him and all his team without breaking a sweat. I’m far stronger than I look! Don’t ever look down on me!"

Kael sighed. "Alright, alright. There’s one thing you should know. You can’t beat them unless you get attuned, and you can’t get attuned in a short while—not when the duel is in two weeks."