When Raze had first mentioned the word "cave," Dame thought he meant if he wanted to go back to the Demonic Faction. They did have a week break, and he had to admit he was somewhat curious about what was going on there now that he was away.
However, Raze had quickly cleared up the misunderstanding, explaining that there was a different reason why he wanted the two of them to head there, and why he wanted Dame with him and not the others.
Right now, the two had snuck past and had entered the assessment ground they were in before. It wasn't hard to do, especially with Dame's help. He could clear areas and scale sections of the academy much higher than what was capable for others. He would just either have to pull or carry Raze while doing so.
Even though Raze didn't , he knew when he had no choice in the matter to do such a thing. Now walking through the dense jungle-like forest, they had reached the edge, where when looking down, they could see nothing but a deep fog.
"This really brings back memories for me, huh? I never thought I would be back here so soon, but here we go?" Dame said as he bent his knees slightly.
"Wait, are you going to jump?" Raze asked. "Do you remember how high up we had to climb last time?"
"And… what's the problem?" Dame replied back. "You know the higher stage one is, the stronger their body is. Something isn't a problem at all. Wait until I reach the middle stages, and the Divine stages can even fly."
"And have you seen any of these Divine stages? I have heard a lot about them but never seen them," Raze replied back.
"That's because, well, they are Divine, like Divine beings. Just how the Pagna warriors don't care about no-names, the Divine beings don't care about the lesser beings like us. You would have to do something seriously wrong to get on their bad side."
Once again, it looked like Raze would have to reluctantly get on Dame's back and head on the way down. He was lucky the first time that he had gotten out of his situation with just a few small injuries here and there. He didn't want to try it again.
Bracing himself again, Dame jumped down. The wind ruffled their hair and clothing as they zoomed down towards the bottom, and a few moments later, they crashed into the floor. Surprisingly, there was no loud bang, and underneath his feet, the floor looked to be intact.
Raze quickly got off, and could see that Dame was completely fine as well.
"Impressive, right? This is the type of thing you can do when you learn to control your Qi well. In fact, you probably could do this fairly easily. The only issue is that you need a larger amount of Qi for the impact, and then you just calculate how much to use to create an equal force."
Once again, Dame was showing how he wasn't just all brawn, but he had smarts as well. In fact, it appeared that to be a talented Pagna warrior; one had to have a brain as well. Otherwise, they would never really be able to progress to the next stage.
The two walked toward the cave, and once they reached it, Raze started to walk through the mist straight ahead. He did so, one foot after the other, and when his foot hit the ground, he would twist and turn it, trying to break it a little. He was making a pathway. After going around two hundred meters away from the cave entrance, Raze had eventually stopped.
"Alright, so you just need me to be ready for anything, right?" Dame asked. Banging his hands together, suddenly appearing on them were the black-colored gauntlets. There was no holding back for what was to come for him.
"Right, just be ready for anything," Raze said as he summoned the statue with his hand and placed it on the floor. He then got the wooden sword out as well as a bottle of water, ready to do its thing.
The reason why Raze had chosen such a place to do this was just in case of a portal break. If a portal break were to occur, then what better place than to keep it hidden away from the main academy. With Dame, he should be able to deal with the threats and neutralize it, unless a Divine-level portal had appeared. From his last visit down here, he knew that no one at the academy came to this location.
"It's quite amazing, I can't believe that these portals they open up because they are attracted to your magic," Dame said out loud. "Although it would make sense, with your power, you can even open up portals to begin with. Wait a second… you don't think that the portals opening up all over Pagna have something to do with an Alterian like you, do you?"
It was quite annoying having Dame comment in the background, but he was just going through the same motions that Raze had done when he had found all of this out.
Once the blood had somewhat been liquefied, it was faint in color, and there was hardly any of it at all. Still, Raze walked up to the statue and pressed his finger right on top of its head, and moments later, he could see it starting to light up.
The statue began to lift off the ground from an invisible type of force, and at the same time, in the air just behind it, several sparks were going off. Small little portals were opening up and closing, until a large one started to open.
Immediately, Raze rushed forward; he could see the light on the statue start to fade, and he grabbed it before it hit the ground. He quickly retreated back at that moment, as he saw it in front of him.
'Crap, I thought this would happen, it's a portal break!' Raze said to himself.