Laying on a bed in the infirmary, Skye activated his skill. The wounds he got when sparring with the red-haired guy were not as serious as the wounds he got when beaten up by Captain Stonewall. So, he quickly got healed fully within minutes and went on his way.
He had a quick dinner and got back to his room. After today's crushing defeat, he got more determined to work harder and become stronger. Even though their starting points were very far away, with his skill, Skye believed that one day he would definitely catch up to others.
With determination he got on his bed and sitting cross-legged he activated his skill.
The Divine energy around him was slowly getting sucked into his body. From the pores of his skin, it went in to his blood stream and circulated to every inch of his body, nourishing him with the rich energy.
But all his stats increased equally, every stat increasing by 0.01 for 1 year of his life force. That was not what he wanted. He lacked a lot in physical stats and he wanted to increase them as fast as he could.
He tried to control the process and only increase his physical stats but, in return he only got a severe headache for his efforts, and no results.
As per the books, only one's soul can control and manipulate one's skill. And the more powerful the skill the more soul strength it required to control.
As Skye's skill was very rare and powerful it would require more soul strength, but unfortunately, what he lacked the most was actually soul strength, it was even lower than his physical stats, a meagre 3.42
Skye was contemplating on ways to either quickly increase his physical stats or to quickly increase his soul strength, and after contemplating for a long time suddenly a thought struck him.
"I got the most increase to my stats when Captain Stonewall beat me up, and that too the increase in stats were exactly in the areas where I lacked, physical and soul stats"
"Then the quickest way to increase my strength is to get beaten up by Captain??", a cold sweat dripped from his back thinking of the beating from Captain Stonewall.
He couldn't help but take pity on himself, "O, the things I have to do to get stronger."
With a firm resolve to get stronger, he slept, or atleast tried to. With the image of the beating he was to get tomorrow and remembering the pain he went through, he got anxious and couldn't sleep properly.
Morning came soon after and Skye deliberately did everything slowly, and came late to the ground.
On the ground Captain Stonewall was thinking of new tasks, so that he can punish people. They got disciplined too quickly and now no one came late so he had to do something new, and just as he was going to order them to do something, he saw Skye from the corner of his eyes.
He was inwardly delighted, but on the outside, he showed an angry expression and with a commanding voice he asked, "Tell me, what should I do with you?"
Skye was very nervous and sweat dripped from his brow, with all the courage he could muster, he spoke in a stutter, "I..I...I deserve to be punished Captain."
Captain Stonewall was pleased with Skye's response, but he still beat up Skye mercilessly. Skye couldn't even last for 10 lashes from his baton stick.
He felt a drilling pain passing through his body and soul and fell unconscious. Captain Stonewall still threw a few more lashes even after Skye fell, and when Captain stopped, palace workers came to take Skye away to infirmary.
Everything happened normally this time, since the palace workers were already familiar with the whole process, they just informed Captain Eleanor and she gave them the medicine to heal Skye. She knew Skye had some sort of skill to heal himself up so she did not take things seriously and did not even check-up on him personally.
After the palace workers gave him the medicine, a few moments later Skye subconsciously used his skill and a lot of Divine energy slowly gathered around him and got sucked into his body. As expected, it was slowly healing his wounds and after his wounds got healed it slowly nourished and strengthened his body.
After his skill used a considerable amount of his life force, he got a severe headache and woke up, unable to bear the pain, he immediately cancelled his skill and then fell unconscious again.
He was very anxious about the beating from Captain and he totally forgot about the severe headache he had the previous time.
After a few hours he woke up groggily and his head was still paining from over exhaustion. He carefully got up from hid bed and asked the palace workers to bring him food.
The good things about all this is that, he could now eat on the bed, skip the boring theory classes and the most desirable of it all his strength increased a lot.
He checked his life force and then he willed it and the status screen appeared in front of him
* Name: Skye
* Title: None
* Passive Skills: Accretion
* Active Skills: --
* Strength 6.65
* Stamina 6.15
* Speed 6.25
* Wisdom 13.15
* Intelligence 18.35
* Soul Strength 5.25
His life force decreased by another 100 or so days but his physical skills increased by almost 1 and his soul strength increased by 1.8 points, the unusual thing this time is that his speed stat also increased in the same amount as his strength and stamina stats. But he did not think much about it as the overall effect was still what he wanted.
Finishing his meal, he got up went to the martial arts training class. He was really looking forward to this class, as it was the direct way for him to find out how much he lacked and how much he could improve.
Surely the morning exercises can also be a scale to measure your strength, but it was just a linear measurement.
At the end of the day what mattered most was how well you fought. What does it matter if you could exercise for a full 3 hours, but could not even land a punch on your opponent, you would still lose.
That's why, Skye believed that the martial arts training class would be the best way to gauge his strength, and the first opponent he wanted to measure against was the red-haired guy he fought yesterday.
He searched the entire training hall and then located the red-haired guy sparring with some fat guy. The fight was over as soon as it started, and the fat guy's state was miserable when it ended. As expected the guy never showed any mercy to anyone, even in sparring matches.
Seeing as he was now alone, Skye approached him and greeted him, "Hello, my name is Skye. I want to spar with you."
The red-haired guy just stared at Skye with a serious expression, but did not offer his name nor greetings. Instead, he just got into position to spar.
Seeing the guy ready to fight, Skye did not talk anymore and started the fight. He raised his arms to guard his face and he lowered his body to be quick on his feet and dodge any attacks to his core.
But all his plans and preparation still failed him. It was a terrible fight, an exact repeat of yesterday. Even if Skye blocked the punches he still got hurt, and no matter how fast he wanted to dodge the attacks, they would curve in irregular paths and still land on him.
Any time he slacked in his defence he would get a resounding punch to his face and then collapse. Even though his strength stats increased, the current stats of Skye did not matter much to the guy. Even if a baby doubled his strength, would it matter to an adult?
But still, Skye never gave up, he was different than the other guys. Others just took these classes as normal training classes and never gave their 100%.
But the red-haired guy and Skye never thought that way, they fought with their full intent and gave their 100%. Even if Skye fell down from severe beating, he would rest for a while to gather his strength and then resume fighting again.
Skye activated his skill, but for some reason, the help it gave to restore his energy was less than usual. When he tried to concentrate on the skill and raise the speed with which he gathered Divine energy, he would get a sharp pain in his mind, as if his soul was getting cut in half, so he did not force it and restored his strength normally
Since he couldn't take the help of his skill, he could only fight for at most 3 times and then he got fully exhausted and collapsed.
Skye was lying down on the mat breathing heavily, when the red-haired guy walked up to him and then said "My name is Ryou. "
Skye slightly lifted his head to look at the guy and the guy was looking back at him, staring at Skye with his usual serious face. They both gave a nod to each other and then Skye laid his head back down and Ryou walked away.