Monk and Gary decided to keep me company in the hospital for a couple of days. Although the doctors said I was fine, they still wanted to do extra check-ups just to be sure. After a few days, Jasmine had woken up. We decided to go check up on her to see if she was okay. Gary was especially insistent. He felt bad about the whole thing and even apologised to Monk and me many times.
When we entered the room, Jasmine was fully awake and wasn't covered in badges or anything but couldn't move well. The doctor told us that she had a few broken ribs that would take a bit longer to heal before she was free to leave.
"How are you holding up?" Monk asked, eyeing her bandages with concern.
"I'm okay. I can't really remember what happened though…I thought I was dead."
We then told her everything with the exception of Noir, that Sir K had come and saved us, and that we weren't going to be expelled from the academy. I asked Gary and Monk to keep Noir a secret. I told them I had learned to use magic and could summon a pet. That if Avrion ever found out about my abilities they would make me transfer to Roland academy. Summoning or having beast wasn't rare, but it was a thing linked to mages. This satisfied their curiosity and they stopped asking about it.
After a few moments of pondering the recounted events, Jasmine's eyes narrowed as she asked, "How did Sir K know we were there?"
Gary paused a moment and responded, "He said something about 'the Lurker' had told him. Do you know who that is?"
Jasmine was quiet for a while before she decided to answer.
"The lurker is a myth between students at the academy. Apparently, he's someone who is always hiding in the shadows and protects the students from any dangers or reports anyone who breaks the rules."
Although I would have liked to believe this Lurker character existed, whenever I used my dragon eyes skill there was no appearance of someone hiding in the academy. There was currently only one person who could avoid my detection and that was Sir K himself. Perhaps he knew of this myth between students and thought it was a good cover up for the real person who had informed him.
After verifying Jasmine was all okay, we decided to leave her be and get back to our dorms. After all, we had been gone a few days and the others were probably wondering what had happened to us.
As expected, when we arrived at the dorm everyone was wondering where we had gone. We simply told them that we had been in an accident during our special black sash training. It explained why the three of us were gone and also explained Gary's cast. Kyle didn't believe us and kept pestering us about it. Of course, he knew we weren't telling the truth because he also was a black sash. In the end, Sir K reaffirmed our story so he decided to drop it.
Nights were more peaceful as Gary's nightmares had subsided. I too stopped having dreams about the red door. Nevertheless, I decided that I would attempt to go down there again once I was stronger.
Lying in bed for the last three days had given me time to sort out my thoughts on our previous excursion. Noir was surprisingly helpful in battle and her speed was amazing. It would be beneficial to improve Noir with crystals as fast as possible. The next thing on my mind was beast crystal weapons. I needed to get my hands on one of these.
After seeing how effective Sir K's weapon was against the minotaur and how ineffective our weapons were, I needed one for myself. The problem was I needed money and a specific type of beast crystal that could be changed into a weapon.
*****
I was currently in the martial arts hall training with the old man. He hadn't asked me why I was missing for a few days but was just happy to see I was alright. We were currently practising my three fighting forms. The first form was just me with a standard blade. This mainly concentrated on me focusing on attack power by infusing my Ki into the sword to make it as fast and as powerful as possible. My second from was the beast form. While I was on all fours, my attacks were faster and less predictable. And lastly, my martial form.
This form was well balanced between the two. I would carry the blade in my mouth while also using my fists for martial arts skills. It was a perfect balance allowing me to block well and still strike when needed. The only problem with this form was if someone's Ki was more powerful than mine, my hands would not be hard enough, making their blade slice right through. Presently, I wasn't worried about that. With the minotaur's mana now added to mine, I had a total of ten mana points.
These mana points could be added to my Ki, so I had an abnormal amount compared to other students my age.
I was currently fighting against the old man using my martial form. He was teaching me new techniques to use in close combat.
"Good, good" the old man said. "I think you will soon be ready for the upcoming tournament."
"The upcoming tournament?" I said confused.
"Do you not remember? It's the tournament between all the students to decide who will attend the All Kingdom Tournament."
With everything that had been going on, I had completely forgotten about it. The tournament was due to start in a couple of months. The tournament included all the second-year students as well as the third-year students. The top five combatants would be allowed to then further complete in the all kingdom tournament which included fighters from all over the continent.
"As a student of mine, I'm hoping that you will at least be in the top ten."
"I think I need some new equipment first" I pointed out.
The old man looked me up and down. Currently, I had no beast gear equipment at all. The third-year students had a huge advantage over the second-year students due to the fact that they had been hunting for a year longer than us. This gave them many chances to encounter different beasts and obtain all sorts of equipment.
"I think I have something you might like." The old man said with a smile.