'Time's really flying, huh?'
Anon propped himself against a wall in the combat room. Scratching his head, his nails dug into his skin, pulling at it.
'Damn…' Inwardly, he couldn't help but curse as he observed the staff resting on his lap.
Achieving mastery over the staff was proving to be slightly more difficult than he had anticipated.
Reaching the second world through cultivation was also proving to be a greater challenge than he thought.
Initially, he had deduced that it would take four months in the gravity room, but after experiencing said gravity chamber, his expectations were significantly altered.
By late July, or at the very latest, somewhere in the middle of August, he believed he would have shattered his bottleneck and enter the second world through cultivation alone.
Yet here he was in September, still unable to break that bottleneck or achieve mastery over the staff.
"Heh!"
Anon clicked his tongue in wonder and used the rod to prop himself up to his feet.
Standing tall, his grip on the staff loosened. Right then, he stabbed forward.
As his staff extended fully, he retracted before stabbing out once more.
Momentous, sturdy, robust...
Coming to a halt, he spun around and stepped once, twice, thrice. His body moved like a blur across the room as he swept with his staff, slashed, and stabbed out at times.
Like lighting, like a bolt, fast…!
Mid-air, his actions froze, and he landed on the ground. He was unmoving, like a statue, in the middle of a stance with his staff outstretched, before his body then trembled.
His muscles twitched and he took a step to his side before his pole descended from an angle.
Dreamlike, slow, illusory…
An illusion, because although it appeared to slowly descend, it wasn't exactly slow. The movement of his staff alone, caused the air in the room to churn and become chaotic.
His movements came to a halt once more.
For a time, there was an odd silence, a strange stillness, a peculiar tranquility that permeated the air.
Suddenly, he moved.
Anon skillfully twirled the rod in his hands, maneuvering it with familiarity as illusory afterimages formed in the air, surrounding him like a massive, all-encompassing defensive mechanism that could withstand even the most devious calamities.
As Anon spun his staff and parried nonexistent attacks, it almost seemed as if the illusory barrier would remain intact even if the skies broke apart and fell upon him. Even if heaven and earth perished, he would stand within this protective body, unscathed, impervious, invulnerable.
"Hah…"
Exhaling a gust of hot air, Anon came to a stop, taking in a deep breath of air.
His muscles relaxed and he stepped forward. One, two, three, he then began walking in circles before smiling and slamming the staff onto the ground.
No, not onto... The pole stabbed into the ground, standing like a tall and immovable pillar that he swiftly scaled up.
Showing an unnatural amount of balance, core strength, and flexibility, he practically stooped atop the two-meter pole.
He stayed there for some time before taking in another deep breath of air, tensing his muscles as he leaned in, causing the pole to tip over to that direction…
Bang!
The end of the pole, embedded in the earth, was forcefully raised from the floor by momentum before embarking on a journey that saw it rise into the air and then crash down with a booming explosion of force.
This explosion sent chaotic ripples through the vicinity.
But as the air in the room calmed, Anon stood in silence, observing his staff. Once again, his body moved, and he continued to execute high-level staff techniques.
He glided through the air, striking like lightning.
At times, he ran along the walls, deftly striking out with his staff.
At other times, he remained still, parrying countless invisible attacks as his staff spun like two disks, each as large as his body, on either side of him.
His hands became blurs, and sometimes it was his legs. He switched seamlessly from one technique to the next. This was not a body-related technique, which would have forced him into specific movements.
Whilst the Man Like Beast art forced him to move and walk a certain way until he achieved true mastery, these staff techniques created by Seth were much more diverse.
This was a high-level technique.
For example, if the Man Like Beast art had one way of moving which greatly limited one's movements until they achieved true mastery, then high-level techniques had ten and a hundred ways of moving that seamlessly interlocked.
This allowed for a much greater diversity in one's movements, and even allowed him to meld the movements of multiple high-level techniques, not as to create a completely different style, but instead to allow these separate techniques to better operate alongside each other.
Basically, it allowed him to switch styles mid-fight, from lightning quick, to slow and dreamlike.
From monumental momentum to illusory deftness.
From hard to soft, from full-on attack, to pure defense...
So, this was one of the main differences between low-level and high-level techniques.
After practicing his moves for over two hours, he took a while to catch his breath before entering a state of meditation.
As he dual-trained in cultivation and weapon mastery, each discipline affected the other, slowing his advancements in both.
But what could he do?
This was what everyone experienced.
Even if he was a genius, he wasn't unhuman, and he was limited by what any other human was limited by.
Anon coldly smirked. "This is frustrating."
He didn't know when.
The bottleneck had become more elusive, more incomprehensible, preventing him from determining when he'd be able to shatter it and allow his soul to trespass that threshold and step into the second world.
Mastering the staff was similarly elusive.
He was observing this concept known as the staff from multiple differing angles and had almost completed the puzzle, only that the last piece of the puzzle had been lost, and even after seeking it out for days, it hadn't shown itself.
"Hah…"
Breathing out a sigh of frustration, he slowly rose to his feet.
Since he was given freedom that others weren't, he was allowed to move around with a weapon like the staff, but that was only when he was within the combat hall.
It also applied to Seth.
So, after he returned the staff, he stepped out of the combat hall and made his way over to his dorm.
Currently, it was minutes to nine.
Class had ended since five, and he had finished his session with Seth not long after.
But he was stuck in the combat room, and because of him, no male student had had dinner yet. As a caring rank one, he decided to head to the dorm and have dinner... not for himself, but for the others, heh.
When he reached his dorm, there were several tens of dozens of students clustered together in small and large groups.
Some standing, others sat in corners, but they all encompassed the passageway to this dorm.
After perceiving Anon's presence, whilst some looked at him with hate and desperation, most swiftly parted way for him to pass.
'These poor low rankers,' Anon chuckled.
Most of them still wouldn't have dinner because of how late he entered the cafeteria.
But so, what?
Even if they suffered, so what?
Those in the bottom suffered but could not say a thing.
No, even if they said something, shouted and screamed, no one really heard them.
No one really took them on, no one really cared.
Oh, you want to be heard?
Well then reach the top hundred, top fifty, top thirty, top ten…
Become number one, and everyone would hear you.
It isn't someone else's fault that you lack ability.
If Anon suddenly said no one was to have dinner tonight, he'd simply not enter the cafeteria, and guess what, no one could refute anything…
Of course, all you needed to do was challenge him and acquire the rank of number one.
Rank one could not decline any challenges, and yet, no one dared to challenge him.
Stellar fighters could not kill other stellar fighters, and while it seemed that they also couldn't kill other students, no stellar fighter would face serious punishment for "mistakenly" killing a regular student.
It wasn't as if Anon was someone righteous either.
After all, from the first day, when Nickyle ruthlessly crushed three regular students, everyone in the camp knew that Anon watched this with an expressionless face.
Towards this Anon, there was hatred mixed with powerlessness...
The hatred of the lowest rankers and the powerlessness that came with being of the lowest class.