The day went by and classes resumed but it came with an interesting announcement.
After their class with Professor Gibson, he made an announcement to the entire elite class.
"The scheduled team exercise later this week will be a team knockout exercise. So, when you are sure about your team then come to my office to register yourselves." Professor Gibson said.
"Note, if you don't have a team by the day before the exercise you will automatically be paired with others." With that said, Professor Gibson warped out of the class.
"So, when are we getting registered?" Tessie asked in a tone more confident than before.
"We aren't in a rush, so whenever we are ready we will go register." Blake replied while taking note of Tessie's tone.
"Alright time for Lunch I am starving." Brian said as he led the way to the cafeteria.
Brian was the first to other, but things got strange when they saw the enthusiasm he displayed when the pot-roast beef with onion gravy he ordered appeared.
For a moment they thought they were looking at Blake, but he was also staring at him.
"What?" Brian asked when he felt the eyes staring at him.
"Nothing." The team said in unison before looking away.
"Do you guys think we have what it takes to beat Damon's team? I mean the team is made up of only top 10 students." Tessie asked.
"Hahaha!" Luciano burst into laughter when he heard the question.
"Only Blake will be able to handle more than half, if not the entire team." Luciano said as he tried to contain his laughter.
"True, only these 2 can take care of the entire team. So, you don't have to worry about the exercise." Brian said.
At this moment, Tessie was stunned, not only because of Luciano's sudden outburst of laughter but because of how much hype Blake was receiving.
'Are you saying we've never seen his full strength?' Tessie thought to herself as she looked at Blake who was quietly sipping his vegetable soup before turning to Damon's team.
Unbelievable!
…
After lunch, Tessie headed for her alchemy class while the boys went to the forge for their class with Tacitus.
'Finally!' Blake screamed in his head as professor Tacitus warped into the room.
"Last class I said I will give you a demonstration of the integration method." Professor Tacitus said as he moved to a forging table.
"Every integration method begins with finding the power source that will be suitable for the selected arrays." Professor Tacitus brought out an emerald crystal from his pocket dimension.
The greater the power source the greater the number of arrays that could be integrated and also the less damage the item being forged would receive.
"After selecting the power source, then you beginning merging the arrays with each other." It was at this point that He knew that the students were no longer following.
He paused the process and turned to explain to the students. "Every stage of the integration method will be taught to you, but for the sake of the demonstration I will give a little explanation."
"Arrays can be considered to be the language we use to convey our request to the mother-stream. A strengthening array is a single request, but when we merge different arrays together it acts as a chain of requests." Professor Gibson explained.
"Now, you might ask what is the difference between chaining arrays and the normal method of inscribing them one at a time. There are 3 reasons, the first is that you can't use the normal method during the integration method.
Second, not only is it 100 times more efficient, but a chained array will be more powerful than unchained ones and it will be less mana intensive on the power source."
"Back to the demonstration." Professor Gibson continued and the students watched as different arrays merged with multiple other arrays, forming a chain of arrays floating in midair.
"The next step is the real integration method. It involves integrating the arrays with the chained arrays to the power source."
Using mana manipulation to pick up the emerald crystal and began etching an array on it before placing it at the empty center of the arrays.
Once the two parts came in contact which each other, the chained arrays attracted a tremendous amount of mana and looked like it was about to blow. But that was when the array etched on the emerald crystal caused it to emit an eye-blinding light before the floating arrays were nowhere to be seen.
"Wow!" Blake was stunned when he saw that the clear emerald crystal was now covered in arrays.
"Now, for the final stage." Professor Gibson began forging a sword right in front of them.
After the grinding stage, the sword had taken the desired shape but was still very soft. That was when Professor Tacitus placed the emerald gem on the hilt.
Right in front of their eyes, the glowing emerald crystal began shrinking and symbols began making their way to all parts of the sword.
By the time the symbols had reached the tip of the sword, the emerald crystal had become a little diamond at the hilt of the sword.
"And that is a demonstration of the integration method." Professor Tacitus said as the concealing array kicked in and the symbols on the sword disappeared giving it a plain appearance.
'I wonder how the real surface of Ebony and Ivory looks.' Blake imagined as the surface of Ebony and Ivory were completely filled with arrays.
"Next class we shall take a deep look at every step in the integration method." Tacitus said as he warped out of the class.
'Can you tell me more about the integration method?' Blake asked the system.
[Usually, I wouldn't teach you this because you will soon be thought, but from seeing how he did it I have to.] The system said.
'What was wrong with how he did it?' Blake asked?
[You know how they thought you guys a lesser version of the fusion process? This is a repetition.] The system replied.
'I am all ears.' Blake said in an excited tone.
[The second stage of the integration process requires a lot of knowledge and skills with arrays.
The power of an array begins from the central region before moving towards other parts. Your goal is to manipulate the symbols of the array in such a way that it won't affect the array, but will also synch with the flow of the other array.] The system explained.
'How is that even possible?' Blake was shocked by the info.
[Just like he said, single arrays are just single requests, while chained ones are multiple requests. So in order to make the requests sensible you have to add or change things in the sentence.] Although Blake didn't fully understand it, at least he got an outline of what it meant.
[The problem I identified in the second stage was when he used an array to merge both the crystal and the arrays.
There isn't much wrong with it, but if you were to use the bonding process the amount of energy released will be reduced. Meaning the limit to the arrays a power source can hold will be increased.]
[The same can be done when merging it with the forged item. Instead of allowing the bond to initiate naturally, you should use the bonding process which will reduce the amount of damage the material will take.]
'When are we starting?' Blake asked the system.
[Right after you find a good book that I will assist you with, and after you restock your forging materials because there will be a lot of errors. Especially with the power source.] The system answered.
'So I will be pathing with you guys so soon.' Blake silently wept when he thought of the exchange points about to leave him.
[I knew you would act like this. You can use beast cores in place of a standard power source since it is just for practice, but note that that will limit the number of arrays you can integrate.] The system shook its head when it saw Blake's joyous reaction.
"I was planning on making a trip to the library and exchange store. I will meet you guys later at training." Blake said as he made his way to the library.
Blake was excited because finally, he had found something he could be doing after such a long time.
…
The days went by quickly as Blake went through days of both personal and team training.
After their breakfast, all the students moved to the battle grounds outside the castles.
Nervousness reeked the atmosphere because it was finally the day of the long-awaited exercise.
Students who hadn't gotten a team were automatically paired with themselves according to what Professor Gibson had said.
No one, even the members of those teams were confident in themselves because there was no way a team put together the previous day would outperform those who had been training a long time ago.