While facing the youth whose entire body was enveloped in semi-translucent armor, Jason was not sure what to think of him.
The enhancement that the youth received was likely to be equal to his cultivation at the Initial phase of the Ascendion stage.
As such, Jason could comprehend that controlling the wandering soul was the easiest if it was at the exact same cultivation base as oneself.
This was good to know, and he felt oddly reassured, even if it meant that his own strength was lower than that of his opponents.
However, this was only the case if one looked at the basic characteristic of one's strength while ignoring everything else.
Fortunately, Jason had never been someone who solely relied on his physical strength or that of mana.
Instead, he had many more means to continue becoming stronger, which was quite helpful right now.
Thus, he stood facing the youth, whose strength was higher than his, and a small smile appeared on his face.
It had been quite some time since someone whose cultivation base was not much higher than his own was able to face him head-on.
As such, it was only obvious that Jason was excited to figure out how the fight would proceed.
The moment the tall youth, whose name was Lex, began to move, Jason even forgot his worries about Jennifer.
He had to focus on the spar that had just begun because the speed at which Lex was able to move overwhelmed him in a moment.
Earlier, he had not expected the enhancement received by Soul force to be that strong, but the cultivation path utilized by the Yinar race was certainly powerful.
As such, Jason couldn't help but circulate moonlight transmuted mana and traces of divine energy through his body before he began to move ahead too.
Manifesting Artemis' wings on his back and feathers to cover his stigma, he finished the preparations to go all-in if necessary.
Yet, instead of exerting the Hermes Celeration movement technique right off the bat, or doing something else, Jason focused on plainly circulating the two energies through his body.
His body was enhanced through this to the extent that he was able to fight against the youth, whose speed was still much faster than his own.
However, that was not really a problem, because he realized that Lex's affinity was not the only thing to focus on speed.
Rather, the wandering soul he had bound himself to was the same.
His armor enhanced his agility much more than anything else, which was an interesting thing to figure out.
As such, Jason wanted to face Lex head-on without doing more than allowing Artemis to enter his mana core.
Jason believed it would be enough because his cultivation itself was already much more powerful than that of most people even without adding the natural soul amplification he received from all of his soulbonds.
Thus, manifesting Byakur from the soul world, Jason tightly grasped it with his hands before enveloping it with Solaris' flames, to further strengthen it.
A moment later, he shot towards Lex, who had almost reached him.
He was wielding two daggers which were the most common weapons used by agility-type fighters.
Prepared to face a quick series of attacks, Jason's eyes were enhanced by a decent amount of moonlight mana and divine energy.
It was not too much but neither too little to have any use.
As such, his Emperor Eyes and the foresight blessing were showing their true power, allowing Jason to perceive the attacks that were about to come his way a moment later.
Having adjusted to the sensation of seeing attacks that would happen in the next second, he could make use of his reflexes to evade the first series of dagger thrusts, slashes, and suddenly emerged wind blades.
Lex had yet to use his affinity to boost his already high speed, and from the looks of it, he didn't really want to do this.
Jason didn't know why this was the case, but what he knew for sure was that he could endure Lex's attacks.
They were extremely fast and normally he wouldn't be able to evade them.
However, it was his fortune to be an extraordinary human, in the first place!
With the divine energy of his, the moonlight transmuted mana, his Emperor Eyes, and the foresight blessing, evading the majority of attacks, while blocking the rest with Byakur didn't seem to be much of a problem.
At least, as long as Lex didn't step up his game, using his wind affinity, or even a movement technique that made use of his wind affinity to reach an even higher acceleration.
As if on cue, Lex did the exact same thing while Jason who didn't expect it to happen was caught off-guard.
Whether this was Lex's plan or not, Jason couldn't tell.
Yet, one point was evident- Lex's combat experience was even higher than Jason had first predicted.
Because he had underestimated his opponent, he had to exert the Hermes Celeration technique, followed by unleashing his Celestia aura and Stigma.
Before, Jason had held himself back from using them, but that was not necessary anymore.
After all, Lex was exerting a movement technique with the wind attribute as a means to support everything.
Not only was wind transmuted mana coursing through his body, but it looked almost as if he was being propelled forward by the faint gusts of wind behind him.
They had been manifested by Lex, and Jason quickly realized this.
Unfortunately, it didn't help him to release every means to enhance his speed too, because Lex's forte was simply agility, while Jason's was being versatile.
As such, he had to make use of his reflexes and strength that seemed to have reached a state at which he was on par with Lex in order to fight against him.
All he received from Lex's attacks were barely a few cuts.
And, those were trivial and could be easily ignored. Jason had yet to utilize all of his means to increase his own strength, after all.
He could always fuse with Artemis, but that was not something he wanted to do right now.
Instead, Jason knew that he could also win by using another means, which were to use one of his curses, the abyssal effect, or everything together.
In fact, there were a few more ways, but Jason didn't even think about that.
Rather, he was making use of the fight against an extremely fast opponent in order to forcefully practice the [Bladed Ruyi Bang] technique!
He didn't have much time to practice the martial art technique, even if he was rather impatient to improve his fighting style with Byakur.
As such, using the excitement that coursed through his body, and the pressure created by his opponent, Jason forced himself to endure the light cuts as he exerted the Bladed Ruyi Bang technique.
Adjusting the size of Byakur, he faced the wind resistance armed with a smaller version of Byakur that seemed to be the most intriguing difference.
After all, Lex was attempting to prevent Jason from moving his weapon however he pleased.
This led Lex to push strong wind currents against Byakur.
Thus, adjusting the length of his weapon, Jason could regain his footing and not be pushed backward while fighting Lex.
'If you're using your affinity, how about I use some of mine too?' He thought before deflecting the series of attacks Lex had shot towards him.
Forcing him to retreat two steps, Jason used the momentum to manifest hundreds of blazing icicles around himself before he smiled lightly.
"Catch!"
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