Students at the academy were free from curfews, allowing them to visit the dungeon hall late at night to train and complete tasks as long as they could make it to their classes on time.
However, during one of my late-night training sessions, he locked me outside the gate for returning to the dorm late.
It happened twice, then I retaliated.
I conducted a background check on him.
I learnt that he was married.
I contacted his wife and gave her an offer she couldn’t refuse: as long as she divorced her husband and married anyone else but him, she could claim a vast fortune as hers.
Enough to elevate her far beyond her current social station.
Greed was one of the insatiable vices of man.
There was no need for a plan b.
From then on, he didn’t dare trouble me again.
I didn’t know if they got together after that.
It didn’t matter to me.
Perhaps that was one of the reasons he had resigned, after his family’s lives were endangered once more.
This time, I’ll ensure to pass a warning early on.
Sinbad shivered, sweat beads gathered on his face as he saw that the intensity didn’t diminish in the slightest bit.
It increased with further intensity.
"Next time, ensure you do your due diligence by investigating who you are targeting. And help me send a message to my classmates, Nathan and Mireal. Tell them that I’ll be returning this favour later," I said.
"Don’t worry, I’m quite merciful. I’ll help you clear the remaining patch on your head," I smiled.
The crackling flame shot towards Sinbad’s head.
Sinbad’s hair caught on fire.
He covered his head with his hands to get rid of them. But how could a mana-infused flame be so easy to quench?
"HELP ME! HELPP ME!!" Sinbad screamed for help as he looked at me.
I didn’t bother asking about why he had also given Milas the key because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to control myself from setting his clothes on fire as well if he gave me another unsatisfactory answer.
I stood up and walked over to the door.
I spared him a glance as he took a jar of water to his desk, threw away its lid and turned it over his head.
The fire was quickly put out.
Sinbad collapsed on the floor, sitting on his butt and breathed roughly, trying to catch his breath. His expression contorted in pain.
He looked upwards and locked his gaze with mine.
His face instantly paled in fear.
I doubt he would put a price on looking for trouble with me again.
I walked out of the room, closing the door behind me.
I returned to my room.
After a refreshed bath, I ate my meal, and I logged into the VR world to get more about the descendants of the Zahara Clan plots.
However, it wasn’t easy to obtain such valuable intel unless one was from a particular circle, or individuals like MistPrincess02 sold it.
I ended up returning empty-handed to my dorm.
After making my preparations, I exited the dorm for my late-night training session.
Usually, I used the dungeon to avoid being spotted easily. And because I could also complete some simple tasks in the process.
But I hadn’t done so before, so there was no way I could take a magical beast to the dungeon hall without being caught.
Even the name of the Zahara Clan wouldn’t be able to protect me from the severe punishment if I were caught.
I didn’t take any task this time around.
My late-night training session went just as I had anticipated.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Name: Ezekiel Zahara ]
◆ Talent: Cybernetic Evolution (Semi-sealed)
┗ Path Traits: Beast Cybernetic Enhancement, Fusion Synchronisation.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◇ Primary Path: Beastmaster Path
┗ Path Traits: Beast Affinity, Beastmaster’s Contract.
┗ Rank: First Rank (0%)
◇ Secondary Path: Magical Swordsman Path
┗ Path Traits: Blade Synchronisation.
┗ Rank: First Rank (70%)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
┗ Metal: Supreme-Tier
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
┗ Overclocked Mode - Active
┗ Aura Mastery: Apprentice (13%)
┗ Weapon Mastery - Sword: Apprentice(47%)
┗ Mountain Snow Dragon Art - Sky Grade - Beginner (20%)
┗ Fire Spark - Basic Spell (30%)
┗ Wind Rush - Basic Spell (66%)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
┗ Swift-Horned Panther → [Cybernetic Swift-Horned Panther Form]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
My sword proficiency had increased by 10 per cent.
[ Fusion Compatibility (Felix): 73% ]
[ Cybernetic Body Armour Equipped. ]
[ Combat Module: Half Torso Armour. ]
I had also increased my compatibility rate with Felix by 27 per cent while swinging my sword and wearing the cybernetic gauntlet.
After passing the 50th threshold, just as I had anticipated, I unlocked a new form.
Although it was still a long way from being called armour, it covered my body more areas of my body than a gauntlet.
While it was effective, I felt a little rigidity in my movements while wearing the cybernetic body armour, so I released it after a few hours. Else, I was certain that compatibility would have reached more than 70 per cent.
I calculated that it would take me a few days to reach a 100% compatibility rate, as long as I maintained this training regime.
By then, I would resemble the characters I watched in various media in my last life, who wore mechas and robotic exoskeletons to face their adversaries.
I didn’t train in my other skills and spells because I couldn’t fit them into today’s training session. Fitting them into the training regime would hinder my rapid progress in swordsmanship.
I decided to train them while completing my tasks.
That was the only resolution I could come up with.
My life was already somewhat secured with Felix.
Besides, it would arouse suspicion if I suddenly became an all-around magical swordsman genius. They would assume that I was possessed.
Within this world were magic items, techniques, and other mysterious entities capable of granting or seizing possession of another person’s body. The Zahara Clan would jump at the opportunity to eliminate me.
I couldn’t take that risk.
I had the freedom to gradually improve one skill at a time to further gain an edge over the rest of my classmates.
"It’s time to head back and get some rest."