"Let's start with you then," Arima said to Gaodu. The rest of his students were temporarily training with the clones he made. "In order to awaken your inheritance, you will spar with Lanya."
Arima hinted at Lanya and she nodded. She activated her inheritance and used her draconic form. Gaodu looked in awe at Lanya who had changed so beautifully.
"Spar with him whilst sending your full aura at him. You can be a bit rough if you want but not too much," Arima instructed and Lanya complied.
"Let's go," She declared and released her aura. Gaodu was suddenly crushed by the aura but he stood firm on the ground and used Spirit magic to withstand it.
Arima smiled then went toward Isla. "While he is awakening his inheritance, you won't be able to train your teamwork but you'll do something else in the meantime," He told her and took out a thin book from his storage. "Here. Learn this. It isn't in the general books I gave you last time, so it's basically a secret one."
Isla grabbed the book and tilted her head. "What kind of technique is it?" She asked as she opened it.
Arima smiled and simply let her discover it. Thirty seconds later, her expression was mixed with shock, excitement, and serious contemplation.
"I think you can do it. You have a remarkable imagination and your affinity with water is very high. For now, I'll let you train alone. If you want me to give a demonstration, just tell me," Arima said then walked away. Isla grinned and water already had started condensing around her.
Next, it was the princesses' turn. But Arima merely observed them as they flew around in the sky, fighting their clones. He shrugged and assessed that they wouldn't need help to develop their teamwork. So, he went to the last pair, Balan and Melody.
"Balan, you take this," Arima threw two books similar to the one he gave to Isla. "They are the fifth arts of the Destruction and White categories," He explained but Balan was just confused as he didn't know what were the Kind Demon's arts.
"And this is for you," Arima threw another book to Melody and she caught it. She looked at it and the gracious green deer beside her also bent his neck to read it.
"The Second Destruction Art. If you learn this magic, even just a little, your proficiency with gravity will increase by leaps and bounds," Arima stated before going away.
The two students then looked at the books' contents and their thought process stopped for a moment before going wild afterward. The Nature Deer watched them with its glimmering eyes.
Arima approached the groups of ten. He gathered them all in front of him then his sigil revolved and his spirit spread around. Each student received a telepathic link which transferred them a certain magic formation. It was a formation to establish a telepathic link between ten people.
"Practice this until making the link is as easy as breathing. When you fight together with nine people, the things you need to improve before everything else are communication and teamwork. The individual strength is secondary," Arima said and snapped his fingers. Books appeared in the hands of everyone
"This is the Fifth White Art. One of my personal magics. With it, you can share mana with others and absorb some from the environment. In a real situation, for example, eight of you can be fighting whilst the remaining two collect mana for support," Arima explained and his students were enlightened.
"Now," Arima jumped and stepped on thin-air. He sat down cross-legged as if there was an invisible floor and casually looked down. "I'll watch from here. Show me what you can do," He said and his voice reached every student.
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Far away, Ferzia was swinging her greatsword at Arister and continuously created numerous craters around the canyon. Arister was meekly smiling and deviating the sword barehanded most of the time.
Of course, the point of this training was to raise Ferzia's awareness in a fight. So, he often created shadows with darkness magic and made them attack from different angles.
After an hour or so of practice, Ferzia suddenly turned around as she was facing Arister and destroyed a clone that was sneaking up on her.
"Ooh," Arister exclaimed in surprise and dodged the next blows. His eyes glowed a bit and numerous shadows furtively formed at different places around them. The first shadow charged but was destroyed before it could even touch Ferzia. The second one jumped but suffered the same fate. The exact same thing happened afterward to more than ten summoned shadows.
Arister snickered and grasped Ferzia's blade with one hand. The two stopped moving for a moment. "You learn pretty quick," Arister praised and Ferzia smiled.
"Thank you," She responded and invoked lightning. Arister laughed and retreated by a few hundred meters. Ferzia kicked the ground rushed toward him. Her speed post-resonance was indeed very high.
Arister smiled and stood still. A second after Ferzia had started sprinting toward Arister, an explosion occurred under her feet. She jumped back and looked forward with narrowed eyes.
"I guess it's time for the next difficulty then," Arister said and waved his fingers.
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At the same time, Irian was feverishly fighting Karma in close quarters.
"You lack accuracy," She commented and stylishly evaded his attacks with her footwork. She then jumped lightly and kicked him. Irian flew away for a few hundred meters and landed with difficulty.
"You are too impulsive as well," Karma smiled. "You should learn to take things slower. From now on," She paused and bent her body a bit. "You will be on the defensive."
She kicked the ground and arrived in front of Irian within the next second.
She restrained herself and started kicking him with endless combos. When it wasn't with a sword or a knife, Arima's strongest close combat techniques were kicks, and it was exactly the same for Karma.
Irian fell under a barrage of strikes and tried to parry her but failed most of the time. In the end, he was forced to focus solely on defense instead of attack. Karma was satisfied and increased her pace.
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"What should I do, Sir Night," Kine smiled and asked. Night stared at her with a tired expression. He then sighed and sharpened his look.
"For now, show me your killing intent," He ordered and Kine nodded. A cold light flashed past her eyes and her killing intent was released. It was shockingly strong for someone of her age. Even Night raised an eyebrow when he felt it.
"As expected, to develop signs of the Blood Eater, you already killed many people," He remarked and Kine retracted her intent.
She smiled wryly. "Please, you make it sound like I am a bad person. I didn't kill anyone that didn't deserve it."
"I'm aware," Night instantly replied and it startled Kine. "If you were some kind of psychopath killer, Arima would have already separated your head from the rest of your body without any second thought."
Kine's expression darkened as her body involuntarily shuddered.
"Anyway, to master your blood aura, you don't need to drink more blood. For now, I'll just 'reinforce' your killing intent and your resistance to it," Night declared and transformed back into a dragon.
Kine admired the jet-black dragon and gasped. "Let's begin. If you give me good results, maybe I'll consider giving you a drop of my blood."
Night smirked and released a tenth of his killing intent. "Well, compared to Arima's, mine isn't really much. If you were to drink his blood, maybe you could actually raise your life force by two whole levels."
Kine listened wide-eyed as she did her best to not collapse and faint. She was also struggling to resist the instinctive fear welling up inside her. Her blood aura was already being dragged out because of the pressure.
Night spread his wings and the wind blew. "Come on, try to attack me. The best remedy to fear is to get rid of the source."
Kine pulled out two daggers and leaped in Night's direction.
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Airon was battling Chulainn with a scimitar whilst casting his darkness magic as he had been instructed.
Chulainn was casually deviating and parring the scimitar with his tail and focused on analyzing the kid's abilities.
The way Airon used darkness magic wasn't senseless, it was in fact very keen and Chulainn silently praised him for it.
Although he wasn't specialized in darkness magic, Chulainn was still the Hellhound. He lived thousands of years and dwelled in a place filled with dark entities. He could easily teach that magic to a kid who wasn't even eighteen years old.
The way Airon used darkness magic was basically like this:
First of all, he wasn't the type to fight under shadows. Most users of that magic would prefer night time to exhibit their power. But Airon was different, he was strong during the night, but he was even stronger during the day. His magic theory was how the darkness hides within the light and he mainly used the shadows of the opponent.
For example, when the enemy's shadow was in Airon's sight and range then he would step in it, literally. He would infiltrate the shadow and then stab the poor man. He could do it from every possible angle if he wished so.
In the end, a clear shadow is only available during the day and that's why Airon is stronger in that way. He could also set many magic traps with darkness magic, a bit like what Arister did with Ferzia.
Chulainn would step on those traps from time to time, not because he didn't see them, but because he wanted to see its potency. And he had to admit that if Airon was fighting someone of the same level, the other party would have a very hard time detecting those traps.
"I see," Chulainn muttered and then pushed Airon away with his tail. "You use your magic pretty well. Usually, most of the people with that affinity would become someone sneaky, and ultimately an assassin."
"But you are not suited to be an assassin. To be exact, you use assassin techniques to fight head-on with your opponent. It's an interesting way of doing things, but you're doing some things wrong," Chulainn added.
"First, let's settle your biggest shortcoming. With your fighting style, you just use darkness as a mean to disturb your opponent or to move around him without his knowledge. You actually don't use darkness to inflict substantial damage. Even your traps don't pack really much. You most likely think that you can't cause much harm with darkness, you are self-restraining yourself."
"So," As Chulainn was talking, darkness gathered around him. "Although I'm not an expert at it, I still can use it. I'll show you how darkness can be powerful to attack. You'll feel it with your own body and it should change your point of view," The Hellhound stated and Airon was suddenly covered with darkness.
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Lanya was wielding her rapier to destroy every Spirit magic that Gaodu was throwing at her. She also continued to compel him with her aura as much as possible.
Gaodu was gritting his teeth whilst under the pressure. He felt like he would faint soon. Commanding Spirits to protect him from Lanya was all he could do.
At some point, Lanya propelled herself with her wings and appeared next to Gaodu. Her eyes flashed and she struck him with her palm endowed with Light magic.
Gaodu couldn't react in time and suffered the full blow. He crashed hundreds of meters away. When Lanya saw that he wasn't getting up, she panicked a bit and prepared to go see if he was okay. But Arima sent her a telepathic message to stop her. Lanya looked up and spotted him nonchalantly sitting in mid-air.
Gaodu's figure abruptly started shining with a pink light and that same light transformed into some kind of gas which spread around. Arima frowned and dispersed the gas with a wave of his hand.
When Arima saw Gaodu's appearance, he smiled. He had a completely new attire which looked like a traditional robe. Along with those blue clothes, he also held a small gourd in his hand.
His eyes were also a lot different from before. They seemed to reflect amusement. Gaodu reached for his gourd, took a sip of the content and grinned afterward.
Arima squinted his eyes. He studied the drawings on the robe and then guessed the god from which this inheritance came from.
"Dionysus, huh?"