Under Old man's house, in the training basement. Eight people where fighting against eight mages. The mortals were obviously getting hurt but they kept on going.
Boom!
Every ten or so seconds a muffled thud would erupt from the small room at the side of the training hall. Everyone knew what Zane was doing in there as they had also gone through the same thing.
What impressed everyone was the interval between the sounds. Usually one would need at least an hour to heal their knuckles before punching the pillar again, but Zane did it in seconds.
A few hours later and the muffled sounds because louder, the more sensitive mages could even feel the ground vibrating.
"He has already advanced to the kicks!?" the mage who was training Kieth mumbled. The second of surprise cost him as Kieth capitalized and landed a punch on the Mage's midsection.
"What happened Damian?" Kieth asked his teacher. He could tell he got distracted by something.
"That Zane is gonna be your real competition next week" Damian said.
Kieth was surprised after hearing Damian say that, he didn't think Zane would learn that fast. Kieth didn't doubt his teacher for even a second.
Curiously, Kieth closed his eyes and listened closely to the thuds coming from the small room. "He has already passed the punches!?" he was as shocked as Damian to realize that.
It took himself four days to pass the punching stage, but Zane did it in a few hours. A flash of determination passed Kieth's eyes and Damian didn't fail to notice the newly found vigour.
"Let's continue" Damian said as he continued training his student.
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In the small room, Bella was looking at Zane with wide eyes and an open mouth. Zane had pretty much breezed through the punching part of training.
The most impressive part was his healing speed, Zane would punch, then heal his arm as he pulled back. After shaking it for a few seconds, he would throw another punch.
It didn't take long for the light to get to two meters, and Zane continued trying until i passed two meters by a few inches. That's when he started kicking.
Once again, Zane breezed through the kicking part and in less than four hours, he had reached three meters, being better than Kieth by half a meter in that part.
"Okay I think we are done!" Bela said after Zane reached three meters.
"Done?" Zane said, clearly confused.
"Yes that's the only important stuff I will show you, your body will learn the rest on it's own during training" Bella explained.
"Ohhh ok what's the next part?" Zane asked.
"For the rest of the week we will be fighting, this is for you to gain experience. Usually this is the most time extensive training which is supposed to be done for at least three months, but well..."
Zane nodded "Is that what the others have been doing all this time?" he asked.
"Yes" Bella confirmed.
"Bella do i have a chance?" Zane asked. Originally didn't care about winning the tournament or not, what he cared about was the training. However now he wouldn't mind winning.
"Against everyone else yes you have a chance, against Charlotte it will be hard, against Ken it will be very hard and against Kieth it'll be almost impossible" Bella explained, surprising Zane.
"So those are the top three?" he asked.
"Yes, even though they never fought, we know how powerful they all are" Bella said.
"Let's hope I won't have to fight Charlotte" Zane mumbled.
"Why don't you want to fight Charlotte?" Bella narrowed her eyes.
Her student didn't want to fight against one other student. This wasn't a good thing, if they get paired together, Bella was afraid that Zane would just throw the match.
Even though Zane's chances were low, Bella wouldn't accept her student losing because he didn't want to fight, it was better for him to get beaten black, blue, pink and orange than not to fight at all.
"No I mean since she is in the top three I wouldn't want to fight her" Zane rubbed the back of his head.
"What about the other two then?" Bella wasn't convinced.
"I want Ken to eliminate Charlotte, then Kieth to eliminate Ken. Leaving just me and Keith in the final" Zane tried to explain.
"Fine, just keep your crush on Charlotte in check" Bella turned and walked to the door.
Zane sighed and also began walking, then he remembered something.
"Instructor Bella, what is a formation matrix?" he asked. Not forgetting to use 'instructor'.
Bella stopped and turned around "A formation matrix is a series of complex drawings called runes. These runes invoke a special action once mana is infused into their lines" she explained before leaving. Zane didn't even have time to ask a follow up question.
"Well at least I now know a little bit" he mumbled before changing his clothes with the storage ring. His previous clothes had blood on his arms and legs.
'Even as one of the richest men on the planet I didn't change this much' he internally joked as he opened the door and exiting.
Surprisingly, he found Kieth and Ken sitting on a bench in the training hall. He was a little disappointed not to see Charlotte though.
"Hey" he greeted as he sat down.
"How was training?" Kieth smiled.
"It was quite easy" Zane said truthfully.
"I got word that you used my previous records as your targets" Kieth smirked.
"Yes, and I beat both of them" Zane smirked back.
"I was right about you" Kieth said.
"About what?" Zane asked.
"About you being as determined as he is" Ken butted in from the side.
"Really?, well then thank you" Zane smiled.
"That doesn't mean you can try and get it on with my sister though" Kieth pointed at Zane threateningly.
"Who's your sister again?" Zane feigned ignorance.
"Good answer" Kieth nodded.
"Kieth we gotta go man, we wouldn't want to be late" Ken said.
"Yeah let's go, see you soon Zane" Kieth stood up followed by Ken and began walking away.
Zane noticed that Kieth was limping and Ken was lightly rubbing the side of his abdomen.
"Hey guys wait up" Zane went over to them and attempted to touch Kieth's shoulder.
However, upon reflex, Keith caught Zane's hand and threw a punch with his other one. Zane, seeing the punch, tilted his head to the side just on time.
"Chill dude I'm not attacking you!" Zane laughed. Kieth chuckled in embarrassment as he lot go of Zane's hand.
"Sorry, my body is always ready to fight these days" Kieth chuckled.
"It's okay, what I was trying to do is this" Zane placed his hand on Kieth's shoulder and he was shocked to feel his injuries healing.
Less than thirty seconds later, he was good as new. "Wow, i knew you could heal, but I didn't think you also heal others this easily" Kieth exclaimed, stomping the ground a little with the leg which was broken less than a minute ago.
"My turn!" Ken said. Stretching his hand out to Zane. Zane smiled and also healed him. He wasn't worried about his mana expenditure as he still had a lot of it.
<
"Thank you" Ken and Kieth said at the same time.
"Don't mention it" Zane waved them off.
"Hey how would you like to have some fun?" Ken suddenly asked.
Zane furrowed his brows "What kind of fun?"
"The beating up people kind" Kieth smirked.