Azaroth didn’t succeed in doing what the eye wanted that night, first, it was confusing and the essence didn’t move as he intended.

One time during the night the essence almost moved as he wanted, the essence lifted from his hand like a smoke of black and red. Azaroth managed to direct it to the sword before it dissolved.

He had clenched his teeth then. The short movement he had made the essence did was straining against him mentally.

The eye had crackled as it watched Azaroth fumble with the essence and Azaroth had thought of drawing his weapon on it. The eye must be the most useless teacher Azaroth had ever known.

"You know you were supposed to know so much about this, as the technique that you are." Azaroth had said, keeping his voice calm. He had stopped channeling essence now.

The eye coughed and avoided looking at Azaroth. "Well.... I am the teacher that must make sure you build a very strong vessel for..... so yes I am the technique teacher."

Azaroth sighed and the eye hurriedly continued. "But you must understand that you are my first student!"

"Don’t you have a sort of teacher’s guide?" Azaroth frowned.

The eye moved right to left and Azaroth knew it was shrugging. "Everything is about visualizing..... wait.... let me think... hum.... yes!"

"What?" Azaroth asked flatly.

"I’ll prepare something for the next session that’ll help with the skill." The eye said.

Azaroth stood and fastened his sword around his waist. "Well then, send me back."

The eye glowed and it was the red eye so much like his own was what Azaroth saw last before he woke up. He found himself slumped on the bed his head resting uncomfortably on his weapon.

"At least I’m sleeping when I’m with that eye. Wherever that was, it said it was my head..." Azaroth stretched, his muscles pulling satisfyingly. He felt refreshed as if he had taken a long deep sleep instead of using the night training.

It was one of the things that always baffled him about wherever he went during his session with the eye. It all felt so real and even the core he filled there remained filled in real life.

Azaroth stood from the bed, he was in his underwear and that soon was removed too as he made his way to the bathroom.

He took a quick cold wash put on his robe uniform with his sword on his left hip, and made his way outside.

The training hall was full when he got there, he was the last to join them at the table for breakfast. It was back to bread and stew. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"I did not want to disturb you all since I gave you the day off last night. That’s all ended now," Kael folded his hand on the table and rested his chin on it. "Your normal routine will continue but with more attention on skills training."

"What skills are we learning?" Alex said with his mouth opened while chewing bread. Stallus gave him a disgusted look.

"You will learn some basic skills that all Awakener knew and uses then you’ll learn skills of your specific techniques. Skills at initial level of course." Kael tapped some books on the table.

There were four books in total, three of them were new with undamaged cover, the fourth was worn, the cover wrinkled and brown.

"Your techniques manual. All the skills for your initiate levels are here. I’ll give it to you. You are to go over them through the night and pick three skills each. That is the number of skills you can learn at your level." Kael slapped the books gently.

"I’ll advise you to pick useful skills. Out of the three skills, one will be the one you will continue to build on as you advance." Kael said.

"Build on?" Stallus asked.

"Yes. You make it stronger each time you advance. You advance with the skill." Kael said.

"And if you want to keep all three as you advance?" Azaroth asked. Won’t that be wise? You’ll be familiar with the skills already.

Kael shrugged. "A lot of people do that. As you advance you might not always have the time to learn new skills and just upgrade the ones you’ve brought from the initiate level."

"But?" Azaroth asked.

"It makes you easier to predict and counterattack. Stick with one or two skills and upgrade them as you advance. And learn more as you advance." Kael said.

Azaroth nodded, he could understand the point.

"Why only three skills? Can’t we learn more?" Stallus asked.

"You can but think about it. Instead of learning fifteen skills that you might not perfectly master but having only three strong skills, which one is better?" Kael asked, he didn’t wait for an answer. "Also your essence level matters. Of course, you can learn as much as you can if you can perfect it."

"Three is just the average and also for your level, three is enough," Kael said.

Stallus nodded. "Makes sense."

"How many skills do you have?" Catena asked.

"Four major one and like six three minor skills." He answered.

"Major?" Catena raised his head from his plate and looked at Kael.

"Yes. Major skills are your most powerful skills at any level of Advancement. They are usually essence-consuming. Your minor skills are skills that are inferior to your minor ones. They don’t cause as much destruction as a major one." Kael explained.

"Like that fire laser, I used that day? That was a minor skill." Kael said.

Stallus snorted. "That can kill."

"Seems that way to you because of your level, if I’m facing someone of the same level as me, then that’s a different matter entirely." Kael shrugged.

"You remembered what I told you about the quality of techniques? This is where it plays a huge role. Some Awakeners’ major’s skills are minor’s skills to some." Kael said.

This reminded Azaroth of his father. All his technique skills were useless. Azaroth looked at the books and wondered which skills he would choose.