Glimpse of Intent

Alex looked at the walls before him before bringing his sight back to the swords in his hand. He wanted to test his theory of using his qi in each and every strike of his. Taking a deep breath, he raised the short sword in his right hand and covered the blade with his qi giving it the usual silvery lustre. He the moved forward and slashed towards the wall.

The wall on the second floor was just normal like that of an underground cave. Although it's just compacted soil, it was still stronger than the normal as it is strengthened by the mana inside the dungeon. As Alex sword slashed the wall, it left behind a deep line on the wall. Alex was once again impressed by the attack force behind qi. That's when he understood the big difference between an awakened and an unawakened warrior. The difference was qi.

Qi, something that many people still failed to understand but still utilized. This was something that even Alex found so interesting that he couldn't help but want to try and get much used to it. With that in mind, he moved forward and continued heading down this path. While walking, he suddenly had an idea. He decided to at least fill the progress to rank 2 in both the mage and warrior path to a hundred percent so that he can only wait for a breakthrough when need arrives.

Nodding his head repeatedly, Alex continued walking while vigilantly watching his surroundings. He was after all in an environment that his life could be taken if ever he lost his focus. After walking down the path for about ten minutes, Alex came face to face with a slime. The slime's body just like always was blue in colour and it was a mid stage rank 2 monster.

Even though Alex knew that there was a difficulty in killing the slime as physical attacks wouldn't work on it, he still wanted it to act as a punching bag so that he could train with his qi for attack. He was still a beginner in the field of qi as he was just trying to exploit its limits. He was sure that by the time that he would be out of here, he would have already gotten something and he wouldn't be that much ignorant.

Looking at the slime before him, unlike what one would expect, Alex was really feeling enthusiastic. He was really going to exploit the dungeon to the best of his abilities. The slime didn't want to waste its precious time and simply spat out the gooey liquid from its mouth.

Seeing the liquid approaching him at a high speed, Alex activated his new movement technique lightning steps and easily evaded the attack. The reason for not using light steps was that he currently needed to increase his mastery over mana. This meant that he was training two types of essences at the same time, something that wasn't seen according to his knowledge.

He didn't want to become the punching bag of this slime and so, he immediately charged forth. He was the one training and not the other way round! Since that was the case, with his superior speed, Alex used his sword and slashed at the slime. The rank 1 mid grade dual swords easily cut through the body of the slime with no resistance.

The slime that didn't have eyes and only used its senses to detect the source of heat in its surroundings didn't have time to react before it felt a sharp pain at the middle of its body and its body was divided into two pieces. Even before it recovered, Alex had already whacked his sword several times cutting the slime into several pieces.

Being a mid stage rank 2 monster, its reconnection capabilities were higher than that of the initial stage rank 2 monster and thus in just thirty seconds, its body was already back in shape. Alex didn't utilize his qi now because he wasn't sure of the results of using it when attacking the slime as it may fail putting itself together thus denying Alex a punching bag.

He wanted to at least increase his mastery on the sword and the more he attacked the slime, the more his understanding of the sword he got. His movements that were stiff before were now getting swift the more he swung his sword. He was deeply immersed in swinging and waiting for thirty seconds before swinging again.

As for the slime, it was silently wailing for its miserable fate. This was because as soon as it finished putting itself together, its body was once again cut apart not giving it even the time to move an inch away from this hell. Although it could reattach its body, that didn't mean that it couldn't feel the pain and it was currently crying silently while cursing its lack of vocal cords otherwise it would have already been making noise.

Alex had become something like a machine whose only function was whack to pieces, wait for thirty seconds the whack again. This went on and it had already been about seven hours. The slime's mentality was already broken from being subjected to pain for a long time. Alex was sweating all over and currently, his arm muscles were aching.

As he was about to continue, he felt some movements coming from behind him and he sensed danger. Without a thought, he immediately rolled to the side and the place he was standing was immediately melted by the acidic properties of the gooey substance that had just hit the ground. Alex watched this with rapt attention as he knew that the one that attacked this time had greater power as compared to the slime that he was currently using as a punching bag.

Looking behind him, he saw a big dark blue slime staring at him with dark red eyes. Yes, it seems that at higher stages, slime's gain sight and the one before Alex just happened to be one. Alex felt the aura of the slime and he immediately got alert as the slime before him was a peak stage rank 2 monster. Alex himself was surprised as he didn't expect that such a monster would suddenly come to this place. After all, this monster was supposed to be found at the inner parts of the floor.

Alex raised his swords and took a battle stance. Now, it was time to get serious and he didn't dare to be careless before the monster staring at him. This one could easily take his life if he made a mistake. As for the slime that he was using as a punching bag, it was still not even making the slightest movement.

Seeing this, the bigger slime's fury intensified as Alex could feel that the pressure boring onto him had intensified. He currently felt as if he was carrying something heavy and he felt that his legs were shaking. The fatigue of swinging the sword for seven hours continuously plus the natural of a monster one rank above him wasn't something easy to handle.

The slime didn't waste any more time and immediately spat another mouthful of the gooey substance. The speed this time was higher than the previous one as it seemed that this slime was hell-bent at destroying him. This time, Alex was caught unprepared and the only thing that he could do was use the only defensive skill he had at present, shield bearer.

Immediately, his qi swirled and the silvery qi essence immediately formed a shield in front of him. The liquid hit the shield and it immediately disappeared into nothingness. This led to not only Alex but also the slime being surprised. Even Alex who owned the technique didn't know that this was how things would be as this was the first time that he was using it.

Seeing the dumbfounded slime, Alex activated his lightning steps and charged forth. He knew that the monster before him could kill him if he didn't finish this fast enough. His speed had also significantly improved from the long period of usage as his mastery increased. The only downside was that his mana was only thirty two. This was all that he had as his mana was regenerating as he continued slashing at the slime.

He currently knew that this won't hold for long as he was pushing everything to the maximum. As soon as he arrived before it, Alex swung one of the swords in his grasp. Surprisingly, the slime didn't react which was odd considering that this was a peak stage rank 2 monster. The answer came right after the sword connected.

Alex's arm recoiled and he was pushed back several steps. Now he understood the reason why the slime didn't react. It was confident that Alex couldn't injure it. Just as he was trying to stabilize his steps, the slime once again spat out the gooey liquid. Alex's shield bearer immediately activated and blocked it.

Alex took a few steps back and stared at the slime intensely. This was going to be troublesome than he had thought. With no other choice, he immediately used his qi to cover the swords and again charged towards the slime. The slime once again ignored Alex's attack and began preparing to spit but this time a large amount.

Alex's attack connected but the result was the same, he recoiled and this time even his internal organs were shaken as he had stroked with all his strength only his attack to be returned with twice the force. Although shield bearer was a passive skill and could always block attacks that were deemed fatal, that was only of the attack was from an opponent but this was Alex's own attack returned to him.

As he tried to recover, the gooey liquid from the slime slammed onto the shield in front of him and this time it took time to fully disappear. It seemed that the slime was increasing its aggressiveness. Alex closely looked at the slime before him and he couldn't help but curse his bad luck. This slime was known as mirror slime and its body will always reflect the physical attacks on it as long as the power didn't exceed two stages above it.

Alex knew that he couldn't use his lightning to attack as apart from not having enough mana currently, he didn't even have a single offensive spell. Now, he wondered what he would do in this situation. He only took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The slime couldn't break his defense and he couldn't also injure it, was already in a stalemate.

Alex concentrated on his sword. He ignored his surroundings completely and immersed himself in the path of the sword. He felt the edges of the sword, he felt the sharpness of the blade. And slowly, his sword began shining while giving a sharp feeling that could cut through all obstacles. This was sword intent.....