When fighting against the Light faction, Raze was able to test out his footwork, but he lacked skills in the sword department at the time. Dame had always stated that footwork was just the basis of martial arts.
It was designed to be used with other techniques. After having performed the first step against Liam, it was time for the second descending step. It flung Raze forward as he flicked his foot, and at the same time, the sword was held above his head with both hands.
The power drawing from the second step was mixing in and flowing through his body.
"The Devils waterfall, 1st formation!" Raze whispered to himself. Calling out the magic spells was somewhat essential for mages to form the magic circle in their mind, but for Raze, it had become a habit to whisper the name of the technique being used as he envisioned his body going through the motions.
He swung down the sword from above with the might of his Qi added to it.
Liam raised his sword, but an immense amount of strength and Qi had hit him. It pushed his feet and legs into the ground, and he had no choice but to grit his teeth. He could see part of his sword starting to crack.
"The Qi... it's internally entered my body! Just what type of strike is this!" Liam's body was reacting as the taste of iron filled his mouth.
Lifting the sword again, Raze now had it by his side, as if he had stuck it back in his sheath.
'This isn't enough; he managed to block it?' Raze thought to himself. 'I guess I need to do more.'
"4th descending step, away with the wind," Raze whispered, and his body moved from left to right, flowing outward. The fourth step was an evasive move and a handy one, as it was hard for a person to predict where they were going to be.
The idea was to let their body flow like a leaf falling in the wind.
"Alright, let's see you survive this. The fifth step, along with the second formation..." Raze didn't finish his sentence there.
Because he could see that Liam was already on the floor; his knees were already weak from the first attack, and no matter how hard he tried to fight it, he had eventually collapsed onto the floor. His teeth were dyed a little red, blood from his own body.
"You... you're a damned monster... were you hiding your strength," Liam grunted.
Raze walked up knowing it was the end of the fight. "A deal is a deal; if you know nothing about Alter, then leave me and Safa alone."
Raze continued to walk past while looking around to see if he could see anyone nearby, but there seemed to be no one. He would just have to meet the mysterious member from Alter later.
Entering his room, Raze continued to search the entire area. There was only a small square letterbox window in his room. It wasn't large enough for anyone to ideally peep through. Just in case though, Raze had torn part of his bedsheet with his bare hands.
He then covered the small little opening and pushed the cloth with his fingers. He carefully made sure the right amount of Qi was in his fingertips to make a small indent through the concrete.
Doing this for all four corners and sticking the cloth further in, it now would hang in place.
'Controlling my Qi to the smaller parts of my body is getting easier,' Raze thought. 'I can't stabilize it to the point where I can write on the wall like that old man, but making a hole without blasting a hole completely shows I've made improvement.'
He had to thank the instructions of the book for that. The next step now was the Qi pills themselves. A magic circle was drawn out on the ground, and all three pills were placed on the floor.
"It's a bit risky using it in the academy, but if a portal break does happen here, it's the one place where they should be able to handle the situation, right?" Raze thought.
Regardless, it was a problem for them to solve if it did come to that.
Going through the process the first time, Raze was hopeful, but as the ingredients lit up and the glow faded away, it all crumbled to the ground. The combination of the Qi pills into a 20-year one had failed.
'I can try one more time. I might as well since the Qi pills are useless to me as a 10-year one,' Raze thought.
With the remaining pills he had been given by Simyon, who had taken them from the others, he would try again, and if need be, he would wait a few days, and he could try again.
Right now there was nothing to lose, so he attempted to try it again. The pills started to light up again.
'Come on... I don't want to risk it by doing this every day, so just work, you stupid dumb pills,' Raze shouted in his mind.
Not long after, a single pill fell to the ground. It looked just like it did before, yellow in color, but it was almost more radiant as he stared at it.
'So this is it, huh? A 20-year Qi pill. I guess it's time to cultivate it as well and try to break through to the second stage.'
The next morning, the students were up as soon as the sun rose. They exited their rooms, and some of them started to do some morning training, running around practicing their moves and so on.
Nearly all of the students were used to some sort of routine that they had done in their clan before. However, there was something different this time. For one, they noticed a few more blue headband teachers that were in the area.
Teacher Lee wasn't there, but it did seem like they were watching the students carefully. This caused them to work a bit harder to show off their skills.
On top of that, there were also a few students who had some injuries on them here and there. It was clear they had gotten into fights away from the eyes of others.
When Raze got out of his room, he felt refreshed; he was stretching and was surprised to see in the courtyard, where there were those who would practice their skills, Dame was already out and was talking with Simyon.
"Wait, are you serious?" Simyon said. "Are you saying this book actually might be useful for me?"
"There's a chance, but you would have to practice certain arts and have a body with the foundation for one," Dame explained. "In the past, there was a clan that focused on refining the body. They broke down their bodies, refining it again and again, just like a weapon.
"In turn, they had the strongest bodies Pagna's had ever come across. There's not many that practice it anymore because just having a strong body isn't necessarily flashy.
"But if we alter some of the things in the book that you received, as long as you have the right type of body for it, you could very well use this to your advantage."
Simyon was in disbelief. He had lost all hope when he had selected a weapon refining technique book. However, with the earring, he had a body that others didn't have. So maybe he could do just as the clans in the past did.
"You know what, you're not so bad after all," Simyon said with a smile.
As Raze walked over and was ready to butt into the conversation the others were having, one of the teachers clapped their hands using Qi. It was the usual loud echo that told the students that they all needed to pay attention to what was happening next.
"Everyone is to head to the banquet hall, where you will proceed to eat breakfast," the teacher announced.
In response to this, Simyon gulped down. The banquet hall, it was an area where all colored headbands would meet.
Walking toward the banquet hall, Simyon hadn't seen any of the main disciples but could see some of the other colored headbands. It came as no surprise that many were pointing and talking about the return of a particular white-haired student.
"What the heck, he's here, how is that possible?"
"Does that mean the teachers found him? But I thought the clan members dealt with him."
"Maybe that wasn't the case; maybe he actually got lost or something."
Many students didn't actually notice the addition of Dame. There were around 300 or so of them after all, and they wouldn't remember every face. It was just that Raze stood out due to his hair, and the fact that he was a no-name who had gone quite far in one of the assessments.
When entering the banquet hall, the group could see that the main disciples were already seated, with their food in front of them. The entrance of Raze had immediately caught the eyes of the others.
Immediately, Mada had dropped his chopsticks onto the floor. "That freaking ant!" Mada said under his breath. "How did he manage to survive... just what is going on."
The other clan members were also surprised, but they couldn't help but just smile and laugh at the situation.
"Now this is very interesting," Ricktor said, as he could feel the energy below his waist starting to rise.
Trying to ignore all of their whispers and the rumors that they had heard before when they met with the others, they managed to get their food from the buffet line. They then sat on a long table that could fit around thirty students each. There were benches, so the students needed to sit together.
Dame and Simyon sat on one side with Simyon on the edge of the bench, while Raze sat on the other with Safa by his side as well.
They were all ready to dig in, but soon, they could hear the sound of footsteps coming toward them.
Liam had been staring over at Raze for a while now, and he couldn't believe his eyes.
'Now this…is going to be really, really interesting.' Liam smiled, feeling a slight pain in his arms still.
The other students that were about to sit on the same bench had quickly chosen to sit elsewhere, all due to the person coming toward them.
"It's nice to see you again, it's nice to see the trio back together, right Simyon?" Ricktor said. "I believe you have some gifts for me, right?"
Simyon's heart was racing as he looked at the open palm of Ricktor. The words were spoken so casually and in front of everyone, as if he knew there were no consequences for his actions.
In the end, Simyon had plucked up the courage and eventually spoke out. "I... I don't have anything for you. I have nothing to give you," Simyon said.
The smirk on Ricktor's face had gotten larger, to the point where his eyes couldn't be seen and they just looked like upside-down moon crescents.
"And... why's that?" Ricktor asked, putting an emphasis at the end of his sentence and placing his hand on the edge of the table.
"Because, he gave your gift to me," Raze answered.