Simyon had already left Raze’s room at this point. He had gone through a tough day with all the beating he had received from Dame, and he was mentally at a breaking point after sorting out the issue that had occurred with Raze.
Now it was just Dame and Raze in the room together when he had popped the question.
“I’m going to cultivate the Life and Death technique again, and I wanted to ask if you could watch over me,” Raze asked.
Ever since he had attempted to cultivate using this technique in the Demonic faction, Raze hadn’t touched it since. For one, a person had been killed the last time he had performed it, and there was an uneasy feeling about everything he had seen at the time.
“You want me to watch over you while you cultivate. You’re already at the second stage; you should have the hang of it, unless you’re worried about going mad and crazy,” Dame commented as if it was no big deal, even though it was a very real possibility.
“Yes,” Raze answered honestly. “The last time something strange occurred, so I would like you to just look over me again and be ready for anything.”
The words sounded so dramatic from Raze as he got into a seating position. So much so that even Dame was feeling tense. He stood by the door and carefully waited as Raze went ahead and did his thing.
Closing his eyes, he went through each of the steps in his mind as he started to forge imagery. 𝒐𝑽𝐞𝗅xt.𝒸𝗈𝚖
‘Will that red-blooded hand come again?’ Raze thought.
First, Raze started with the cycle of life, trying to sense all the energy from those who were born in the area. In this specific area, where the academy stood, there didn’t seem to be much, but he could still draw some power into his dantian.
Once he was done with that, the hard part came in, the second half of the cultivation technique: death. In the academy, one would suspect there not to be many deaths, but it also depended on the history of the place, what had happened here over the course of time.
The sound of painful screams whispered into Raze’s mind, and it wasn’t just him who was being affected either. Dame could feel the whole room get slightly cooler, quite noticeable, as if a cube of ice was on his skin.
‘What is this?’ Dame thought. ‘I’ve never heard of this happening when someone is cultivating before. A rush of energy, voices in one’s head and screams, but to affect the environment around them? Is this because of the magic he uses?’
The room hadn’t gotten any colder, but Dame felt like he was suddenly being watched. His sixth sense as a warrior was activating, and he had a heavy feeling that something in the room was looking at him.
Getting off from the wall, Dame proceeded to walk around in a circle, twisting and turning his head, trying to find something in the room. He couldn’t see anything, but the chilling feeling of being watched persisted.
“Who’s there?” Dame asked. He started to fortify the Qi in his body, externally glowing with power.
There was no response, no answer, and Raze was still sitting in the middle of the floor. Around an hour had passed, and the feeling still hadn’t left Dame. Finally, Raze opened his eyes again; he had stopped, and the chilling feeling had left the room, along with the sensation of being watched.
“What’s wrong, did you see something?” Raze asked, noticing that Dame’s body was tensed up.
“Was I supposed to see something?” Dame asked.
Unlike before, Raze wasn’t brought into another world of imagery. He could only hear the screams and the energy of those who had passed away around him. There was no voice this time either, leading him to believe that everything had worked out, until he saw the look on Dame’s face.
“Just sometimes, strange images pop into my head when I use the technique. I thought it would happen this time, but nothing seemed to happen.”
Dame had his finger on his chin, he remembered Raze saying something strange like this last time as well. He himself wasn’t the right person to get to the bottom of this; a person who might know was his father, which was a hard person for him to talk to.
“Don’t cultivate the demonic energy unless I’m with you next time,” Dame said. “I think you might be onto something; it’s pretty dangerous.”
The conversation was left there, with Raze being none the wiser about his situation. If Dame felt something, then it certainly was dangerous.
As the days went by, each individual continued their training. Dame was helping not only Simyon but was also helping Raze as he showed him some neutral techniques that he could use.
Once in a while, the teachers would ask the students to perform some of the skills they were working on, and that included Raze.
He had shown what Dame had taught him, a fist technique called Boulder Smash. It was basic, but in certain situations, it could be used well, and a fist technique was always handy to have if one were to lose their weapon.
When demonstrating it, although Raze had done it perfectly, the teacher Tod just shook his head.
“A skilled enemy would just slash your arm off before you could even use your fist,” Tod commented and put another X by Raze’s name.
Days were passing by rather quickly, and the students no longer gave Raze any trouble. It was simple; they were more afraid of him than they were of Mada, so why would they do his bidding?
The group hadn’t seen Safa either since she had been taken away, neither had Teacher Lee, so they continued to work as hard as they could. Then finally, there was only one week left until the big day.
Before the fight against the other students would take place, the two teachers had decided to give the blue headband students one more assessment.
For this assessment, the blue headband students were taken to the back of the academy, the forest where the Hop bunnies would live. It was an area that they knew well since it was part of the assessment that they had taken when joining the academy.
“You have all worked hard!” Tod announced. “You have trained to reach the position you are in now, and in order to defeat the yellow headbands.”
There was no mention of the red headbands; perhaps the teachers thought that was a crazy goal, which angered Liam a little, who had also been working equally hard. But he didn’t just want to take out a yellow headband; he wanted a red one.
“This will be the final test that will decide which 20 get through to the next stage of the assessment. You have 1 hour to hunt and bring back as many power stones as possible. A warning to you all,” Tod said, looking at Raze. “Don’t get lost again.”
Finally, it was a test where the teachers could have no bias, Raze thought. He needed to do well because he had plans, plans to fill his special statue with the blood of the main five disciples.