Chapter 333: Lexi.

Although he was still young, his strength had already reached an extraordinary level, and among the participants representing the Northern Safe Zone in the upcoming tournament, he was considered one of the strongest. In fact, there were those who believed he might be the strongest participant their Safe Zone had brought.

However, despite possessing such impressive strength, Enzo showed no signs of satisfaction.

Bang!

Another punch struck the training post. His muscles tightened as the metallic sheen covering his forearm grew slightly more pronounced. He withdrew his fist and immediately repeated the movement.

Again and again.

His breathing remained steady, but his body was already covered in sweat, a clear sign he’d been training for quite some time, and yet he showed no intention of stopping.

To Enzo, this was nothing unusual.

Training had long since become an inseparable part of his daily routine.

He didn’t particularly enjoy the exhaustion that came with it, nor did he find any special pleasure in repeatedly striking the same piece of equipment. But he understood something very clearly, strength wasn’t going to come to him simply because he wanted it. If he desired greater power, he had to work for it himself.

And that was precisely what he’d been doing for most of his life.

Bang!

Another strike landed, and Enzo was just about to continue when a faint sound reached his ears.

Creak.

The entrance gate to the courtyard had opened. He heard it clearly, but he didn’t bother turning around.

He wasn’t a particularly social person, and he already knew who it was the moment the gate creaked open. Judging from the footsteps approaching behind him, he was right, but he remained focused on his training regardless.

Bang! Bang!

Several more punches struck the post. Then a feminine voice sounded from behind him.

"Hey there, Enzo!"

Enzo didn’t respond. Another punch landed.

The footsteps stopped, and a brief silence followed. Then the voice returned, this time carrying an unmistakable trace of annoyance.

"Are you seriously going to ignore me?"

Enzo sighed. Here we go again.

He lowered his arms and slowly turned around. Standing a short distance away was a young woman who appeared to be around his age.

She was exceptionally beautiful, with delicate facial features and a graceful figure. Her long hair fell neatly down her back, and she wore an elegant white robe that complemented her appearance.

The robe was simple enough to allow comfortable movement, but the quality of its material made it clear this was no ordinary clothing.

Even without knowing her identity, anyone familiar with the great clans of the Northern Safe Zone would have recognized at a glance that she came from an influential background.

Her name was Lexi. And she was Enzo’s fiancée.

Well, technically.

The two weren’t engaged because they’d fallen in love or decided together to spend their lives as one.

Their engagement was the result of an arrangement struck between their respective families, the Ironbull Clan and the Blue Eagle Clan. Both were influential powers within the Northern Safe Zone, and a marriage between their descendants would naturally help strengthen the ties between them.

Such arrangements weren’t particularly uncommon among powerful families, after all, marriages could be used to forge alliances, consolidate influence, and secure mutual benefit. And considering the potential both Enzo and Lexi possessed, their union was regarded as an especially favorable match.

At least, that was how their families saw it. As for Enzo himself, his feelings on the matter were somewhat more complicated.

It wasn’t that he disliked Lexi. In fact, he considered her a fairly decent person.

She wasn’t particularly cruel, nor did she carry the kind of arrogance that made some descendants of powerful clans genuinely unbearable to be around. She could be demanding at times, sure, but that alone wasn’t enough to make Enzo hate her.

The real problem was something else entirely. Their lives had simply been too different.

Lexi was the treasured daughter of the Blue Eagle Clan’s current leader, and from the moment she was born, she’d been surrounded by people who valued her existence. And once her talent began revealing itself, that attention had only grown further, because Lexi wasn’t an ordinary descendant. She was considered a once-in-a-decade genius.

Not only had she inherited an exceptionally pure strain of the Blue Eagle bloodline, but she’d also awakened the rare dual elemental abilities tied to it, the wind and water elements.

Possessing either ability alone would already have marked her as a promising talent. But inheriting both, paired with such a high-purity bloodline, placed her far above most of her generation.

Naturally, the Blue Eagle Clan had invested heavily in her development.

Resources ordinary descendants could only dream of were made freely available to her, and powerful instructors personally oversaw her training.

Whenever she demonstrated progress, the Clan celebrated it openly. As the Clan Leader’s treasured daughter and one of its greatest young talents, Lexi enjoyed a level of authority and privilege few people her age could ever hope to match.

For most of her life, she’d never once had to worry whether she’d receive the resources necessary for her cultivation, nor had she been forced to fight for her own family’s acknowledgment. Her position had been secure from the very beginning.

Enzo, on the other hand, had experienced almost the exact opposite.

Although he, too, was a son of a Clan Leader, the circumstances of his birth were far from respectable.

His father, the current leader of the Ironbull Clan, had once become involved with an ordinary woman during a drunken encounter. It had been nothing more than a casual fling, at least, that was how his father had always treated it. But unfortunately, the encounter had resulted in a child.

Enzo.

And from the moment his existence became known, he’d been regarded by many within the Clan as nothing short of an embarrassment.

His mother wasn’t a noblewoman, she didn’t belong to any influential or wealthy family, didn’t carry an extraordinary bloodline or valuable connections. She was simply a commoner. And in a Clan where bloodline purity and family status were treated with near-religious importance, that alone was more than enough to make her an object of quiet contempt.

Of course, Enzo’s father hadn’t completely abandoned them.

His bloodline was undeniable, and as the Clan Leader’s son, Enzo had eventually been permitted to enter the Ironbull Clan alongside his mother.

However, being allowed in didn’t mean they were ever truly welcomed.

Far from it.

For most of his childhood, Enzo had been treated as someone who simply didn’t belong, while the legitimate descendants of the Clan Leader enjoyed privileges he could only watch from a distance.

They received the finest resources, trained under the most experienced instructors, while Enzo had to make do with whatever scraps of opportunity he could scrounge up on his own.

His mother held little influence within the Clan, and there was almost nothing she could do to improve their standing. Worse still, her lack of an extraordinary bloodline had directly affected Enzo as well.

Although he’d inherited the Ironbull bloodline from his father, its purity ran considerably lower than that of his siblings, and within the Ironbull Clan, bloodline purity played a crucial role in determining a descendant’s potential. The purer the bloodline, the greater the benefits its wielder could draw from it, at least, that was the general belief.

Naturally, Enzo’s lower purity became just one more reason for others to look down on him.

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Hey guys, all Chapters have been fixed. Also, from now until the end of this month, there’ll be a 5-Chapter daily release to make up for the past few days.

Thank you all for understanding this poor author, and I hope the story keeps living up to your expectations??