Breakfast was an odd thing for him, especially since he could go a minimum of one week without food. So he never saw the need to go eat in the school's cafeteria like the others. Instead, he spent the extra time sleeping.
But today was a good day to go out and go eat. From the cheery expressions on all the students' faces to the jovial atmosphere in the air, it was instantly obvious what day of the week it was.
Amari was in such a mood too. Saturdays could do that to you no matter what universe or world you came from.
Or Auroday as they called it.
The day was named after the Goddess of Life of Heavomar. Because as some people put it, Auroday was the day the world truly came to life.
"Happy, Auroday, Raion'shalang."
"Happy Auroday, bro!"
"Good morning and happy Auroday,"
It was as weird as it sounded. Amari received a slew of greetings from both first years and second years alike, he found it as strange as the Heavomar sun suddenly rising in the (whatever)
"Heh, whatever. At least they aren't being annoying."
Amari accepted the goodwill and took it in stride, responding to their messages casually.
He inadvertently thought back to after the sparring session with Ken and Melchomary just yesterday.
Later, Amari had the rest of his second-year courses which were the second-year version of Rune Studies, and he didn't understand much of what was being said but he mentally noted every single thing for when he got to a point of his first year class to understand everything.
Other than that it was another course called Wilderness Survival.
The Faustian Academy's system was really bloody broken as far as Amari was concerned. Shouldn't Wilderness Survival be before they were sent out to go kill Higher Demon Beasts at the end of their first year? Why the hell would they bother teaching them that afterwards.? It made no sense to him at all.
In any case for Amari who was raised by wolves, it didn't matter to him at all. If he didn't know how to survive in the wild then it would be a waste of spending all those years with Reida and Felaud.
Eventually, Auroday came. Of course, he wasn't going to spend his weekend goofing around, he had much better things to do.
From learning mana control to creating a feasible spell model, all the way to manually quantizing the mana point consumption of spells he'd already learned.
None of those weren't something he could achieve in a single weekend so he decided to finally do what he'd been pushing back for so long.
Learning swordplay and proper technique.
After enquiring from Lilia and the others he learned the location of the Death Battle Arena. It wasn't exactly a secret, it was just a few metres into the forest behind the academy. After paying a small fee to the Riclef stable, he reached the location in an instant.
"Huh, but it's just a tunnel?" He looked down the dark hole confused but just stepped inside without giving it much thought.
There's no way they got the location wrong in the first place.
Amari grabbed each rock carefully, ignoring the ever-present scent of wet soil focusing on the dark hole below. Even a small mistake could mean he would slip and fall to his death, impaled on one of the jagged rocks.
Luckily nothing untoward happened, and he dropped down, in front of the first small door that he and Fuller had used to exit before.
It was the very same room and the large door lumbered menacingly in front.
Now that he knew what exactly was inside he wasn't half as worried as before, but it was still something to think about, especially what their General had said.
'Rust of time. How old are they for their power to have started declining? 100 years? 500 years? Or even more.'
A small bite gnawed at his stomach to gain that information but his brain refused curtly. He had much better things to do.
CREEAKKK~!
A loud creak echoed around the empty room as the doors came to a slow skid across the ground of the arena.
"That might never get old to me. Nothing beats a good old menacing door…" Amari muttered, stepping into the room and closing his ears for the second the door loudly shut on his face.
There was only a single person in the room. It was the man in armour. The General himself.
"You're finally here," the man said matter of factly. He sat on the floor, the plates of his pristine white armour shifting and dragging lines into the floor.
Amari took to his knees, head down. "I have come here to learn from you, master."
"Hmm,"
Well, that certainly wasn't the response he expected, but he held off from adding anything and simply allowed the man to speak his mind.
"Do you know what I feel about mana and blades?" the General started, gripping some of the sand in the palm of his gloves, "They are quite similar in a way. Blades can be used to create depending on the type you use. Shear blades for example are used in gardening. Knives are used to cook.
Mana is mostly known for its creation, but within that creation often ends up leading to destruction. However, it all comes down to the will used in powering the mana. Do you have an idea of what will is?"
Amari looked up, startled then nodded his head soon after.
'If he's going to teach me about Will, then I'll have some edge over the rest of the second-year students!'
"Well, that's good. Will is quite simple. To kill or to birth. To create or to destroy. You were raised by magical beasts so you might even know more about it than I do,"
His last sentence didn't make sense and Amari furrowed his brows trying to figure it out, but he finally did.
It was the very first thing he learned when he was learning how to use Basic Shadow Manipulation.
Amari's body shook with excitement as the answer became apparent.
"Talk to the mana!"
* * *
Author's Note: How y'all finding everything so far? The update rate should be increasing to two per day less than a week from now.