Heaven's Greatest Professor

A thousand credits for a day seemed astronomically expensive for any common combat instructor, whose entire monthly remuneration would only allow them to stay for two days. It seemed.

"It is more than fair," June said. "You'd know why once you get there."

Trusting her words, Warden didn't hesitate to pay up, but when he was about to, June halted him.

"No need. Considering you have limited credits," she said, "I'll play for this time."

"Well, I have most of my credits," he argued, unprepared to let her pay. "And it's not like it would take me that long to go get the credits."

A few runesmithing classes would keep his pocket flowing with credits, after all.

"You have already instructed me personally more than once in runes," June said. "It's the least I can do for you. Besides, I have a lot of leftover credits which I hadn't used for the last two months."

"Phantom Accursed Valley," June instructed, handing over her badge to the old man to pay the bills.

Done with the payment, they entered the warpgate. The arrays of formation lit up immediately, As they stood closer. Soon before Warden could even check his surroundings, he found himself in a new location with dimming light and rocky terrain. It was a world much more like a virtual one, but far more real. There was a distinction to it.

Warden found goosebumps crawling up his skin as he appeared in the darkened land.

He could easily tell the difference between Virtual Realm and the real world, but this place gives a different vibe altogether. It was like inside a dungeon, yet all the balance of elements and affinity wasn't tipping wrong.

"Welcome to the spirit realm," June said with a smile. "The high ridge ahead is the Phantom Accursed Valley, your training ground."

The very air of the atmosphere was fuzzy and condensed with a deep aura of death and malevolence, emanating out from the valley ahead. As they entered, the malevolent air rose to another level, causing his energy to twist inside in a slow surge.

June handed him a dozen of vials of potions. "The blue ones are for healing," she said as they came into the blackened valley. "Red if you get hungry."

Warden opened his subspace and stored them all to question: "You're giving me all these as if it will take me--"

"Prepare yourself," June said immediately. "It's rather dangerous here, not to mention you're in your physical form."

"What?" Warden asked though he did not need to hear her, feeling the malevolent air burning with malevolence. It gnawed at his heart as he found ghostly figures drifting about.

Their presence seemed to be unwelcome here, as the very sight of them, those ghostly figures shot at them. manifesting various types of weapons like blades, spears, axes and hammers. They came in swiftly, flying through the air to attack them, exuding a mixture of violence and evil intent.

"Echoes of the dead," June said, forming wards around her to defend. "Although most people call them evil spirits. The speciality of these two is that many of them were high rankers in their prime and had enlightened with their Intent, which still remained in this form."

Warden was already engaged in fighting with the echoes. His spear swung at their vicious attacks. Although they looked semi-corporeal and ghostly, with their will and intent they felt solid and real to them. It was definitely not the most frightening thing Warden faced, but without using his void energy, it would be difficult to claim victory against them.

"They are ancient warriors," June said, "even before the times of the system. Before mastery over their restible weapon took residence over the attributes which are so easier to accumulate now."

"How did they turn out like this?" Warden croaked, as a blade with a sharp sword intent dug towards his solar plexus. he enabled Void Shroud just in time to restrict its path and swung his spear through the ghostly echo. Of course, it wasn't so easy to kill them, but the void energy in his spear did weaken them.

"Some unique circumstances in their time had them turn into malevolent spirits, but the echoes of their intent, their remnants of their soul and Will remain in this form."

"So, you want me to learn from them?" Warden asked even though it wasn't a time for questioning. There were eight echoes: three with spears, four with swords, and one with an axe. All of them had an intent of their own, some strong, some weak, but all malevolent as if it was Warden who killed them and turned them into maddening ghosts.

Somehow, they seemed to be avoiding June. After a couple of attempts at destorying her wards, none of the echoes even got closer to her.

"Naturally," June said, "only through enduring a weapon intent will you manifest your own. Just do not be hell-bent on defeating them; instead, try to observe and learn from them. I'll be going now, I'll come to check in now and then."

Void energy seemed to be the bane of most things, and even these ghosts were no different, though they were more difficult than a physical individual. Without void energy, it would be tremendously difficult for him to fend off all their advances.

"Oh, I forgot to add, the time is dilated here," June said as transportation runes manifested under her feet. "It's more or less 12 days here, compared to one day outside. So you'll have sufficient training time."

With that, her figure vanished from the darkened valley as the eerie figures of the echoes surrounded Warden from all directions.

"Time dilation," Warden muttered. He would have thought it was cool if he wasn't so pressed under the threat of their intent at this moment. "Fine let's get this over with."

Warden released all his defence and his hold of void energy. He focused completely on the spear in hand and shot at the ghosts.