I'm reading The Wheel of Time for the 2nd time, all 15 books from start to finish, even including the prequel book. I'm on the last 50 pages of book 2, The Great Hunt. So many things have stood out to me now that I really know the characters and plots. For instance, now just finishing chapter 45, Rand fights the High Lord Turak of the Seanchan. To get to Falme, Rand, Lord Ingtar, Mat, Perrin Hurrin and the small army of Shienarans, had to travel across the entire continent from Cairhien to Toman Head, and with a clock ticking and a health concern pressing them, they had to use a Portal Stone to basically teleport. The art of using Portal Stones is long lost, but we know they traverse the multiverse, at the very least exploring other Earths that could have been if one or more big decision were made instead of what is and will be on the Earth that they are from. Well, of corse something goes wrong when Rand tries to teleport everyone and Rand sees a ton of other possible lives he could have lived, dying at the end of each. It is unclear if he lives through these lives, or even portions of these lives, enough to experience them, or whether he is just glimpsing them in his mind, such as watching TV, or like remembering a very detailed memory. That said, it made me think! He had been mildly training to use the sword as his main choice of weapon. Lan, a very strong and powerful warrior had been Rand's master, training Rand in the art of sword fighting. While Rand becomes okay, he gets better by clearing his mind which he calls entering The Void and visualizing a fire 🔥 to throw all mental and emotional distractions into. This helps tremendously to boost his fighting skill level, but when he enters the Void lately, he opens himself the Male source of channeling the Light, Saidin (using Magick). When he grapples with Saidin, his skills in sword fighting improve like 10 fold; he becomes one with the sword, the fight, his surroundings, his opponent, ALL THINGS. This accounts for how he is keeping pace in his fight with Turak because Turak is a BLADE MASTER! I wonder! I think that by living through various lives while teleporting with the Portal Stone, he perhaps has gained hundreds of lifetimes worth of experience in all areas of life. At first it doesn't seem that way, but now rereading this story, it really makes sense to me. In many of the lives he saw or lived through while using the Portal Stone, he was a soldier or sword fighter of various kinds: a Queen's Guard, soldier and other things! If this is all true, then how he bests Turak is that he suddenly, unconsciously, instinctively and reflexively begins drawing off of skills that were put into his head by living through or just seeing the visions of all of those many lives the Portal stone showed him / made him live through! This to me is such a cool concept and accounts for a lot because just after this part of the series, there is a huge change in Rand. He VERY QUICKLY becomes less and less of the child he was just one book prior, and immediately begins growing into the Role of a Lord, a soldier, General and King!