Jean Stardust had not experienced the tragedy of Esdeath's childhood, where her entire village was massacred by northern barbarians, so it could not truly understand the desire for power that was carved into Esdeath's bones.
Likewise, Esdeath had not experienced Jean Stardust's past circumstances—the feeling of helplessness where every day could be its last, where seeing the sun for one more day was a stroke of luck, and looking forward to tomorrow was a form of torture.
The subsequent conversation lacked any real substance. Although Jean Stardust understood what Esdeath meant, changing such values could not be accomplished overnight.
In fact, Jean Stardust never felt that it had done anything wrong. After all, the vast majority of people could not manage to do what Jean Stardust did—giving its all to complete the task at hand, even to the point of exhaustion and death.
Consequently, the conversation devolved into mere bickering. Since neither of them possessed Naruto's talent for talk-no-jutsu, it ultimately ended up sounding like elementary schoolers fighting.
It continued until Jean Stardust blurted out: "If my wind element didn't change its properties upon contact with other elements, and if Budo wasn't also immune to lightning, I wouldn't necessarily have lost to him."
Of course, this was just bragging. People subconsciously exaggerate when arguing to increase their persuasiveness, but Esdeath's expression suddenly changed.
"Use that wind again, let me see."
Although confused by Esdeath's behavior, Jean Stardust obediently released a small whirlwind.
Suddenly, an ice spike grazed past the whirlwind, brushed against Jean Stardust's face, and embedded itself into the wall behind.
"Hey, that's dangerous! Warn me before you throw something!"
Esdeath ignored Jean Stardust and stared intently at the now-white ice whirlwind in its hands.
"Wait here for a moment." Esdeath then entered the inner room and began searching.
That was her private room, a place Jean Stardust had never entered before. Although it was quite curious, it had been beaten so miserably every day that it still maintained a necessary sense of awe.
Before long, Esdeath returned with a beautiful green gem and handed it to Jean Stardust.
"Try to see if you can store your wind element inside."
Jean Stardust examined the gem. Its exterior looked crystal clear, but strange patterns had formed inside, which did not appear to be natural. It then held the gem with both hands and channeled its elemental power into it.
As the power was injected, the gem began to glow with a green light and started absorbing even more elemental power.
"Try again and see if you can use the power inside."
Jean Stardust stopped the injection and attempted to communicate with the elemental power inside. It went smoothly; even after being injected into the gem, its power remained its own and could still be controlled with ease.
The wind element unleashed from within transformed freely in its hands, finally turning into a wind blade that flew out.
During this time, Esdeath stood in front of Jean Stardust, lost in thought, staring blankly.
Just after Jean Stardust had toyed with the gem for a while longer, Esdeath suddenly grabbed its shoulders. They stood face-to-face, their faces extremely close—so close that Jean Stardust could feel the airflow of her breath.
"Jean Stardust, let us freeze the entire Imperial Capital!"
Fortunately, Esdeath didn't take off a pair of glasses, otherwise, Jean Stardust would have thought it had met Keanu Reeves.
However, Jean Stardust saw the same madness in Esdeath's eyes.
Although Esdeath's plan was insane, Jean Stardust also saw the high potential rewards behind the madness.
Although many specific details remained, the general idea was to rely on the storage capacity of this wind-type Super Danger Beast's core to store enough wind element, then have Jean Stardust use the wind to sweep across the entire Imperial Capital, and finally have Esdeath use her full power to turn the Imperial Capital into an icy hell, wiping out the entire city in one go.
At the same time, bolstered by a field entirely covered in ice and snow, it would surely be possible to kill Muzan. After all, according to Esdeath, she had lost because of his regeneration ability; defeating him on pure strength alone was not difficult.
Although Jean Stardust felt that Muzan wouldn't be that easy to deal with, the move of freezing the Imperial Capital alone was worth it.
After readily agreeing to the plan, its daily training increased to include a large amount of elemental ability application training. Of course, this was still in the form of getting beaten up, memorizing Esdeath's methods while being pummeled.
And so began a life of waking up early every day to store wind element, followed by getting beaten up—a masochistic tool-like existence.
Of course, Jean Stardust was also very happy. It wasn't that it was truly a masochist, but in the half-month since it began practicing, Jean Stardust had gone from being one-sidedly beaten to now being able to hold its own for a few rounds, and even finding opportunities to counterattack.
This showed just how significant Jean Stardust's progress was.
Receiving a return on its efforts was naturally an incredibly joyful thing, and at the same time, Jean Stardust was still fixated on the condition it would be granted after being able to defeat Esdeath.
On the 20th day, Jean Stardust finally landed a beautiful side kick, sending Esdeath flying into the wall before she fell to the ground.
However, Jean Stardust didn't feel any joy. In the process of constantly growing stronger, when it was finally able to perceive Esdeath's power, it realized that she was actually weakening at every moment.
It helped Esdeath up and held her in its arms, watching as she just wore a faint smile on her face and said "Well done" before falling into a coma.
Esdeath felt very light in its arms, and her relaxed sleeping expression made her beautiful face even more moving. It resisted the urge to take the opportunity to kiss her and simply carried her to her own room.
Entering her room for the first time, Jean Stardust realized that this was hardly a room; it looked more like a dungeon.
The only bed had a large number of thick chains and various other restraints. Comparing the various traces, there was no doubt that these instruments of torture were prepared for Esdeath herself.
Thinking about how she locked herself in the room every night and never went out during the day due to her identity as a demon, it was likely that she was resisting the demon's instincts by confining herself.
Because of this, since she did not eat humans, every time she fought with Jean Stardust, she severely depleted her own power, and thus, she had been growing weaker bit by bit.
But, why?
With this question in mind, Jean Stardust kept watch by her bedside, waiting.
And Esdeath, who woke up before long, gave her answer.
"How could I possibly eat humans? Even blood is out of the question. If I did that, I would truly have lost—lost to that Muzan. That is something even harder for me to accept than death."
After waking up, Esdeath was free from that madness and obsession, sitting there talking to Jean Stardust like a big sister from next door.
"Then why did you train me at the cost of your own exhaustion?" Jean Stardust asked next.