After the assembly, we all followed Principal Hubert to the basement of the building. Unknown to all the students, a massive training area had been carved out with incredibly powerful formations increasing the density of all types of Elemental Energy present in the area. Private training rooms, formations to simulate any possible environment, and even low-level beasts had been captured to teach us how to tame them. Following Principal Hubert, all of our jaws had dropped as we toured the facility.
"Alright," Principal Hubert spoke from the front, "Everyone will go with Alaric for now, he'll be going over how to increase the efficiency of body refinement." Then, he left with the other new teachers as the barbarian started talking.
"The secret to building a better foundation with quickly advancing through the ranks of body refining is to fight, fight, and fight some more!"
Then, he activated a formation and the gravity of the room quadrupled while the scenery changed into a grassy plains filled with thousands beasts. Even with the new students, there were maybe a hundred of us. "Fight!" Came Alaric's voice.
It was a massive melee, with the rich or lucky students pulling out spiritual weapons that they'd somehow managed to acquire. Rick pulled out a giant shield covered his entire body, while Beth pulled out a massive Two-handed Sword, and Connor pulled out a shining long sword.
"Seriously, where'd you get those from?" I asked, confused and jealous.
"I got mine by winning a hundred matches in the Colosseum." Said Beth, glancing back at me before she took off with a war cry.
"I stole mine from Holy City." Rick said with a great big grin.
Connor said, "Pure-Sword Sect gives basic swords to every member."
"Lucky bastards!" I yelled as I followed behind Beth with only my bare hands. 'Seriously, if my dad hadn't banned me from entering MSE until Mom got home I'd have a staff or something too.' I thought.
With nothing better to do I followed behind Beth, trying to stay out of her way. She'd called up that same brown energy she'd used to plow through the snow and charged into the middle of the hoard hacking away with her sword as she laughed.
Following her might not have been the smartest idea, as she seemed to attract the attention of most of the hoard with her crazy antics. Without a staff, I couldn't really do much so I just put up an Air barrier and did my best to survive.
In the past, I'd focused on Air Elemental Energy, but without much to do over the last couple of days I'd managed to figure out how to control Water too. Maybe because of my new affinity to Storm Energy, I found that I could easily turn water into ice. So, I mixed shards of ice into my barrier and whenever a beast tried to jump on me, they'd find themselves thrown away and covered in cuts.
Figuring that I should try my new attack, I threw my palm forwards and used elemental strike. Mixing together Air and Ice energy, a spear of ice nearly a foot long and half a foot wide shot out of my palm at the speed of a bullet. A lion had just jumped at me from the melee when it was struck, the miniature ice spear tore through his head and kept going, spearing into a 10-foot tall bear behind him and bringing him to his knees.
"Sweet!" I yelled out, surprised by how effective it'd been.
By now, Connor was surrounded by corpses as he used his sword as if he'd been born with it. Every movement was calculated to use the least amount of energy possible while still cutting throats, limbs, and in one case he'd cut a massive bear in half with a wave of energy.
Not far from him, Rick was using his massive shield as battering ram smashing into people while covered in a holy light. I could've sworn I heard him yell, "Holy Smash!" as he slammed his shield into a beast that'd fallen to the floor and the ground cracked, blood flying everywhere as the beast evaporated.
My lapse of concentration cost me as a pack of wolves surrounded me, managing to knock me to the ground, dog piling me. Covered in bodies, I snorted in disdain, shouting "Pulse!" Combining my barrier with elemental strike, a torrent of wind shot out. Everything within 40 feet of me was sent flying, chopped into small pieces by blades of wind and ice. Standing up, I looked at the circle of destruction around me happily, and reestablishing my barrier I reentered the melee with a grin.
About twenty minutes later, most of the students had 'died' to the beasts or just collapsed in exhaustion. At first I was worried that someone might actually get seriously hurt, but it turns out that the formation was illusory. While it hurts to get hit, it won't kill or maim anyone. After realizing that, all of us felt free to go all out and just have fun.
Now, it was just Beth, Rick, Connor, Me, and a few others left standing. That redhead from the bus was nearby, her body covered in fire as she flitted to and fro the smell of cooked meat following behind her.
Mike, the guy I'd met back at the Trial of the Storm, was still around. He'd somehow merged with the air, and would slowly suffocate beasts while they couldn't do anything too him. Freaked me out the first time I saw it, but it got me thinking about different ways to use my abilities.
By this point, the gravity had been increased multiple times. Each step was torture, and several of us were knocked out from a lack of blood in the brain, our hearts working overtime to compensate. The beasts weren't affect by the changes in gravity, so the fights got harder and harder. The longer it went, the less energy I had. I'd gone from one-shoting entire groups of beasts to leaving my barrier off and fighting with my hands, only using energy when it was absolutely necessary.
*Bang* My knee's hit the ground as the gravity increased again, I couldn't stand anymore. Without any options, I was forced to use an elemental strike. Chopping with my hand, I shot out a burst of wind that cut through several enemies and then collapsed to the floor unable to move. A white light covered me, and I was moved to the side of the room. Without even bothering to get up, I closed my eyes and started cultivating.
One thing that'd changed since I had joined the Storm's Refuge was my body refining method. I now had the right to use the real Storm Tyrant's method, which used Water Elemental Energy to refine your blood, greatly increasing your recovery abilities.
Groaning in pleasure, I lay on the floor covered in sweat as for the second time in my life impurities poured out of my body. Using my inner sight, my entire body was infused with an incredible amount of Air energy, meanwhile my blood vessels had turned a dark blue and where slowly pulsing as they expanded.
While I was breaking through, only three people remained in the gravity formation fighting the beasts. Beth was panting heavily as she swung her sword, every strike killing multiple beasts. Rick was barely standing, using his shield to stand while a white light pulsed around him holding off the beasts as they relentlessly attacked him. Finally, one of the new students had lost his shirt. Covered in tattoo's of various beasts, every movement seemed to exude the spirit of a different beast.
After a few minutes, I opened my eyes just in time to watch as he crouched low and jumped. A phantom of a leopard pouncing from a treetop appeared behind him as he landed on the back of a tiger, ripping it's throat out with his hands. That was his final movement, as he collapsed to the floor. Not long later, the white energy around Rick disappeared and he fell to the floor.
In the end, only Beth was left and she'd fallen into some sort of trance. With every swing of her sword, she seemed to grow stronger. Every cut on her body drove her onward, and as the gravity increased again her knees' buckled but she still stood strong. She screamed in fury as her body was covered in a brown armor and her pace picked up. Over the course of the next few minutes, she chopped, hack, sliced, and diced her way through hundreds of beasts. Finally, she fell to the floor as her armor disappeared and she passed out in exhaustion.
While everyone had been watching Beth, they ignored me but as the formation disappeared and gravity returned to normal people started edging away from me and complaining about the smell.
Alaric reappeared at that moment, snorting in disdain as he saw several of the students trying to get away from the smell from my breaking through. "You pussies!" His voice boomed as he glared at several of the students who'd been complaining the most. "You, you, you, you...." He pointed at 10 people, "All of you are expelled, you're not welcome back!"
"What?!?!??!" They all exclaimed in shock, staring at the huge man like he was insane.
"Why aren't you covered in sweat?" Then he pointed at me, "He's a mindscape cultivator, he doesn't even need to refine his body and yet he went all out! Fighting past the point where his energy ran out and his body gave out on him, and now he's broken through to the 2nd level of body refining!" Then, he turned to point at the people he was kicking out, "Meanwhile two of you are heartforce cultivators, you should've lasted till the very end, but you just gave up when you got a little tired. The rest of you just gave up as soon as you realized that the beasts couldn't hurt you, do you think activating a formation is cheap? Do you think my time is cheap? GET LOST!"