"Yale. Wyba. Take a bow and shoot towards all the targets."
Aiwai took out two bows and gave them to Yale and Wyba; they were perfect for their sizes, she had chosen the best bows for them.
"Wyba also needs to shoot?"
Wyba asked confused; she had never practiced archery.
"Of course, as my little sister, you must learn archery. In fact, as you can fly without skills archery is even more useful to you than for Yale until he learned how to fly without skills like you."
Wyba didn't understand well Aiwai's words, she knew that Yale was good at archery, but she didn't know why it was more useful to her. On the other hand, Yale guessed the reason.
"One of the biggest problems for archery is the battlefield. With too many obstacles an archer will find difficult to shoot arrows towards the targets, but with an unlimited flying like yours, you can shoot arrows disregarding the terrain and without time limit. It is similar to how you use the Ice Spears, but without consuming your energy."
Wyba nodded after hearing Yale's explanation.
"Very well! You have really studied seriously about archery. It is as you have said just now, due to our bloodline, we are extremely suitable for archery. Furthermore, our bloodlines let use improve all out stats, we didn't have the limitations of the humans which should train two paths to be able to progress well in archery."
That was a big advantage of good bloodlines; a Frost Winged Wolf Bloodline wasn't worse than a dual practitioner. However, other half-beast bloodlines were inferior even to those with only one path.
There was a huge division in talent due to the bloodlines, for those like Aiwai, they had nothing to envy the humans. The increased difficulty after reaching the bloodline limit was easily compensated for the natural flying capability.
That was the true reason the Anpaes Kingdom considered half-beasts superior to humans, those who started to think in that way had all very powerful bloodlines. On the other hand, those who were regarded as inferior being by humans were half-beasts with weak bloodlines. Both sides had taken only a part of the population as used to generalize the whole species.
At that moment, Yale thought about Zack, the last time he had seen him he was still unconscious after being healed. Yale was sure that Zack would turn into a half-beast with the Frost Winged Wolf bloodline without doubting for even a second.
Yale sighed. After Aiwai had told him about having good memories of the past, he couldn't stop from remembering people he had met before, Yale had never been to close to them even if most of them showed goodwill towards him.
"You can take your time to shoot if you need it, but you need to shoot all the arrows, there are just enough for all the current targets."
After Aiwai said that, Yale started to shoot arrows without stop and without changing his expression; quickly he hit in the center of all of them.
Yale had a lot of experience with archery, hitting fixed targets without obstacles was very easy to him.
Wyba was just the opposite, she tried to imitate Yale, but she had failed all the arrows.
Aiwai was expecting Yale's result as she knew that he had practiced archery before, but Wyba's performance was too poor for her expectations.
"Don't cry, it is your first time trying it; it is normal to fail."
Yale saw that Wyba was starting to cry and went to comfort her.
Even if he said that; he was better than her when he started, although the targets in the Roanmad Clan were easier than the ones Wyba tried to hit.
Furthermore, Yale had read a lot about archery and had enough knowledge for his first try in archery while Wyba had been a wolf until a week before they meet Aiwai, she hadn't read any books or had any chance to practice with weapons until that moment.
"That is right. This is only your first try. I will teach you, and very quickly you will be able to hit the targets."
Aiwai also neared Wyba to comfort her, she was a bit disappointed with Wyba's performance, but Wyba was still a kid without any experience and Aiwai didn't plan to be too strict with her.
"Yale, try to hit the next targets, those will be moving. If you can hit all of them, I will tell you how to reach the apprentice stage."
After Aiwai said that, a lot of ice-made targets appeared in the sky. Those were made by Aiwai personally, and since the weather was quite cold, they wouldn't melt. Furthermore, it was easy for her to make new ones as she didn't need any special material.
Yale started shooting without hesitation; he understood that if he failed Aiwai wouldn't tell him how to reach the apprentice stage because his own ability wouldn't be enough disregarding that special requirement.
Fortunately, all the time Yale had spent trying to reach the apprentice stage helped him to have enough ability to hit all the targets.
"Very well, you weren't bragging when you said that you trained archery seriously."
Seeing that Yale didn't reply to her and was waiting silently, she continued speaking.
"Archery is a bit special, usually to reach the apprentice stage being in the Mortal Rank is enough, even a starless Mortal Rank should be able to reach an apprentice stage or even an expert stage."
Yale remembered that Durgan's little sister, who Durgan had forcefully engaged to Yale, was someone who was just like that and even before reaching the 1-star she was already very skilled with the sword.
"However, with archery that is impossible. There is something that you need to reach the apprentice stage that everyone at the Mortal Rank isn't able to use, Spiritual Sense."
Yale was surprised that the answer was the Spiritual Sense, he had always considered the Spiritual Sense as something intangible, and he wasn't able to think how can it improve his archery ability.
"I know your thoughts right now. How can something intangible help to improve archery? The answer is... although it may seem intangible it can interact with physical things. It is difficult to do it at the Novice Rank, but once you advanced to the Apprentice Rank, you will find easier to use it in that way. However, even if it is difficult to do in the Novice Rank, it isn't impossible, so you have the chance."
Yale had never thought that the Spiritual Sense could have been used like that, if he had known that piece of information, he would have tried to use it to redirect arrows after shooting them.
"You probably already guessed it, once you become able to redirect an arrow with your spiritual sense you will reach the apprentice stage. This is the true reasons humans stopped training archery after they had lost that path of theirs. Without a good dexterity, you won't be able to control well your Spiritual Sense. That path of the humans didn't let them improve the other stats related to mind, but the path itself helped them to compensate that area. Well, in my opinion, that path was still flawed, our bloodline is better than that path."
Yale knew that the Ancient Archery Path was flawed since it was still part of the degradation of the Origin Path, but he didn't know that it could supply the problem of Intelligence and Wisdom for using well the Spiritual Sense. If the Ancient Archery path could improve that, the Origin Path should also be able to help him using better his Spiritual Sense.
"Sis, can I try it now?"
Aiwai expected that question; she thought that even if he couldn't do it on his first try, he would still want to try.
"Of course, but if you fail don't be depressed, you can take your time."
In her eyes, even if Yale was more mature than Wyba, he was still a kid, she didn't want that Yale became discouraged because failing.
"I know."
Yale concentrated on the arrow on his right hand; he was trying to focus his Spiritual Sense on it.
"How can I use the Origin Path to help me? Maybe using some Origin Qi at the same time?"