BANG!
Leonel landed on the ground with a heavy thud, only to be surrounded by a wall of silence.
Honestly, even he, himself, was somewhat surprised by the conclusion. The slight change in his mentality, courtesy of his lovely girlfriend, had actually caused such a great change to his combat prowess even without any fundamental upgrade to his strength.
It had to be remembered that just a month ago, Leonel had to put in quite some effort to defeat Nigmir. Of course, his life was never in danger, nor did it seem difficult, but the reality was that if he didn't have a perfect counter thank to his Wind Domain spear, that battle wouldn't have ended so quickly.
Yet, Nigmir was just a white belt. Of course, he was a white belt on the edge of becoming a blue belt and could be considered to be an absolute elite amongst them, but he was a white belt nonetheless.
Despite this, Leonel was just able to defeat a blue belt in just a few exchanges and he almost made it look easy. The moment he stabbed his spears into the ground, Leonel felt that the battle was over, and that was the hard truth.
His counter to Arte's chains made the latter believe that the best option was to use the spears as anchor points to directly attack Leonel. As a result of this, Leonel was able to make use of Arte's own momentum and strength against him in his counter, thus ending the battle far quicker.
If not for this, it would have been impossible for Leonel to put enough strength into a throw to dislocate Arte's arm, and thus it would have been impossible for him to land such a clean hit on Arte's chest.
It was just a single, simple move… Yet it was like a master stroke that decided the battle almost immediately.
'Why guess your opponent's next movement if you can choose that movement for them…?'
Leonel didn't know it now, but this philosophy would be one of the most important changes to his psychology, only second to what would occur just a few months from now…
Leonel put his heavy spear away, reaching out a palm and causing the final spear to shoot out from the ground and into his hand. With slow movements, he put it away as well.
Now that Leonel's Earth affinity had been ingrained into his very body, something like causing a metal spear to fly toward him was as easy as breathing. He hardly needed to think about it in the slightest.
Leonel swept a gaze through his surroundings and his eyes landed on Arte who was coughing up blood in the distance. But, before he could start to walk to him, he found his path blocked by six shivering white belts. Though the fear was evident in their expressions, they seemed to have no intention of taking a step back.
They had no idea that Arte's strength actually surpassed Leonel's. After all, Arte was a Tier 6 existence. For a Leonel who had yet to refine his Metal Body past the Tier 1 stage, and whose Force was still in the Third Dimension, it was too large a gap. It was just that none of it mattered because Leonel's ability made up for the gap in spades.
However, whatever the details were, all they saw was a young man who could easily defeat their captain. They refused to let him get close again.
Leonel sighed and shook his head.
"What do you think I'm going to do? Kill him? His entire chest is caved in, if someone doesn't do something he really might die. Plus, I need my spear."
"I will heal him." One of the white belts said coldly.
Leonel shrugged. It made sense for a team like theirs to have at least one person with a healing ability. It seemed he stuck his nose in something it didn't belong in.
It wasn't like he hated Arte, they just happened to be on opposing sides this time. He didn't even know the guy.
With a wave of his hand, the spear that had been in Arte's hand shot out, weaving through the six and snapping into his palm. Even though Leonel had countless spears of this caliber, that didn't mean he would just leave them lying around so casually.
Plus, if someone who wasn't acknowledged by Spear Domain held onto the spear for too long, it would shatter into ash just like every spear that wasn't acknowledged by it.
"You can take him away. If you have any problems with my ownership of this shop… Well, you know where to find me."
With that Leonel turned to walk toward the bar under the gazes of many.
"Oh, and!" Leonel suddenly stopped and looked back. "Tell your captain that if he wants his hammers repaired, he can come here the day after tomorrow."
**
News of what happened spread like wildfire. The fact that Bear Rose had lost was enough to cause an uproar to begin with. But, for it to be at the hands of a supposed freshmen it was even more worth it.
The idea of a freshmen defeating a blue belt was enough to overturn all the understandings they had.
However, what was released next somehow surpassed even that.
According to reports, this Leonel was actually now a white belt. This should have made the news easier to accept rather than causing another uproar, but what really shook everyone to their core was the fact that this Leonel was part of the most recent batch of freshmen. He had been here for barely two months!
The current Leonel, though, had no idea that he had caused such a commotion. If he had known, a wide grin would most definitely spread across his face. The more people who knew that he owned this store the better.
By now, Leonel had shut the bar down and spread out his Internal Sight to memorize every nook and cranny. It took him just under ten minutes to perfectly Dream Sculpt the entire structure. Though it was large, there wasn't anything special about it other than the array which was drawn into its foundation. If not for this array, it would only have taken him a few seconds at most.
Leonel took a deep breath. He had never attempted to apply his Force Crafting to an entire building before…
He grinned. 'This should be fun.'
With a thought, numerous heavy metals began to clang to the ground one after another.. If a member of King of Ores faction had been there, Leonel would even think of taking bets on how many mouthfuls of blood they'd cough up.