53 Operation: Deathwalk

Arata and Visha were on the side meditating. Visha needed to continuously circulate his Energy to keep control of the poison. If he was at a higher cultivation level, he wouldn't need to do this and could keep control without needing to constantly circulate. But this didn't bother him. Instead, it gave him a justified reason to sit down and do nothing. Arata was also just sitting still and seemingly relaxing, but he was actually concentrating on what everyone was doing.

Tallis had connected the entire class, as part of his training regime, and was sending and receiving messages constantly. Arata was giving him specific instructions that he needed to deliver to specific students. Tallis was instructed to keep and maintain a full connection with the class for 24 hours, while simultaneously being Arata's messenger and also guiding and directing both sides of three different battles taking place in three different areas. Tallis had his hands full at the moment. He had already run out of Energy once before, having lasted for over 8 hours. And although it was impressive for someone his age, it wasn't enough for Arata.

One of the battles taking place, that Arata and Tallis were guiding, was a battle between Telem and Biron, the two agility fighters. They were told to run around the entire training area 1000 times. Although that was difficult and tiring, for the two agility based fighters, they would be able to finish it quite easily, even with the poison hurting them, they would still be able to finish it within 5 days. However, they were running in opposite directions. Every time they met, they would need to fight the other person. The person who won the fight wouldn't gain anything, but the person who lost would have 5 more laps added to their total laps that they needed to complete. At this point, both Telem and Biron had more than 1000 laps they needed to do. Arata and Tallis were giving tips during their battles so the two students were constantly gaining the upper hand in the battles and, subsequently, they were exchanging wins and losses, so both of their total laps were increasing instead of decreasing. A vicious cycle made by Arata.

Another battle that Tallis and Arata were directing was a team match between Aisha, Bardric, Caldre, Cephas, Matoki and Najm. Arata and Tallis would change the teams after each battle, guiding them and working on incorporating the different abilities, Arata and Tallis trying to bring out the best in the 6 students, pushing them non stop and getting them to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each other. As well as themselves. Although painful and tiring, a spark was ignited in the 6 students as they were discovering more and more about their own strength and different ways to use their abilities.

Every 2 hours, they would stop fighting and cultivate for an hour before continuing. They found that after their battles, the rate of their cultivation would increase drastically. Especially for Aisha. She had been given a new cultivation method for her to use by Teacher Takuma. She was amazed to see how much it suited her. It felt comfortable and her cultivation speed was constantly increasing. Caldre's cultivation speed was also much faster after he discovered his mutation. Using what Arata had told him, he was able to slowly coax it out. It then exploded as it connected to his Elemental Reservoir, causing it to grow and expand.

There were two methods that a person needed to do to make their Elemental Reservoir and Energy stronger. The first method was Refinement. Through the Refinement of the Energy within the Elemental Reservoir, the power of the Energy would be stronger. The four Levels of Refinement were Dispersion, Concretion, Dilution and Immersion. The other method was expanding the capacity and size of the Elemental Reservoir. The size of an Elemental Reservoir had ranks, which were Well, Pond, River, Lake and then Ocean. With each rank broken into 3 parts, Early, Mid and Late. Most warriors would work on getting to the Second Level of Refinement before expanding the size of their Elemental Reservoir, whereas Arata went the opposite route. His Elemental Reservoir was so large, with the passageways and meridians in such a perfected state, that he was naturally much stronger than others, even though he was only in the Refinement Level of Dispersion. But he had recently entered the level of Concretion, so his strength was vastly different now.

For Caldre, his Elemental Reservoir had previously been at the Mid Stage Well Rank, Dispersion Level of Refinement. But now, he was already at the Early Stage Pond Level, and it was still growing. He was excited at this jump in growth. Matoki was similarly growing at an increased rate due to the training, but he could see that he was falling behind. He and Caldre had been best friends and rivals. Matoki had always been slightly stronger, but now Caldre was growing extremely fast and Matoki steeled himself to catch up.

Bardric, Cephas and Najm were growing the slowest in terms of cultivation, but they were growing a lot in terms of battle strength. Through Arata's direction, they discovered new ways to implement and use their abilities. They continued to try out new avenues of using their abilities as they continued training.

On the other hand, Antioch was sitting cross legged in the corner. He was clearly agitated, not used to sitting still for this long. He had been wanting to move and do something, but he was instructed to be still and do nothing. It was painful for him. He needed to move, to run. It frustrated him intensely every time Telem or Biron would rush past him. He was faster than both of them combined, yet he was being made to sit here. He couldn't understand what Arata wanted from him.

Arata's words had left a deep impression on Antioch. Not only had he stopped him, but also helped reveal his weakness, he even said that they need to work on making Antioch faster. Then why was he sitting still? It confused and frustrated Antioch thoroughly. Was he missing something? He chewed through Arata's words. If he could connect to the Speed around him. What did that mean?

As Antioch continued to meditate, or try to meditate, Aramis was practicing martial arts. He was given a couple of manuals with martial art techniques from Arata. He was told to learn these fighting styles and then defeat Tallis in hand to hand combat. Tallis had been training in hand to hand combat all of his life and was a powerful martial artist. Aramis, however, hadn't learnt much hand to hand combat as he never saw it as important for a Weapon Smith like him. He focused on using weapons. But Arata told him that he was thinking too narrow and limiting himself. So he was now learning hand to hand combat. He was able to understand and learn the techniques fairly quickly as he was used to using his body to fight. But the past 3 times he went against Tallis, he was utterly defeated. He was fired up as he trained intensely.

On the side, the twins were having an intense showdown, the third battle Tallis was guiding. They originally didn't want to fight each other, but after some slippery words by Arata, the two twins grew serious as they viciously fought each other. Having a clear understanding of each other, they both played to their strengths while trying to utilize the others weaknesses. They were evenly matched yet neither would give in as they continued to push each other. The wind around them blew tyrannically as they fought without restraint.

Yuki was currently training with Tallis. Arata had set up an elaborate obstacle course for Tallis to direct Yuki through. Yuki also had to transfer items from location to location. Tallis had worked together with Arata to push Yuki to her limits. She was quietly struggling with the size of some of the items she was moving around. Applying her Energy onto such large and dense objects was both draining and difficult for Yuki, especially because she was told to wait underground, having to maintain the state for a long period of time.

Teva and Loki were training in the forest just outside of the arena. Teva was merging with the forest, cultivating and drawing on the Natural Energy of the forest. Loki was currently trying to set traps while simultaneously control 3 terrible looking Illusions of himself. He was only able to create a single clone of himself, but Arata wanted him to create 5 Illusion clones while simultaneously working on traps. He was struggling a lot. He could make 2 decent Illusions, but only if he was concentrating fully on it. He wasn't able to multitask and use his Illusions while doing something. Arata revealed this was a huge weakness that he needed to fix immediately. Arata also informed him of a prize that he would give him if he could succeed. Loki looked over towards the training Teva. His eyes went serious as he went against his lazy nature and trained hard.

Finally, Ryouma and Akari were sitting by Arata. They were sitting across from each other and meditating. They each had a hand on the Kurou no Tatsu, which was lying on the ground between them. They both had faces of pain. Ryouma was drawing out the Dark Energy within the blade, circulating it through him and tempering his Elemental Reservoir. Arata wanted him to become more assimilated with the Kurou no Tatsu's Energy so that he could control it. Akari was fighting with the Dark Energy. Arata told her to oppress the Dark Energy within the blade. But with Ryouma drawing out the Dark Energy, this would be even harder for her Light. Suppressing the powerful Darkness was already an extremely difficult thing, but Ryouma's circulation made it near impossible for Akari.

Visha opened his eyes and looked at all the struggling students. He chuckled.

"You're really an evil one. This is some terrible torture you're putting everyone through."

Arata grinned, but kept his eyes closed.

"Trial by fire. Pain is needed for growth."

Visha smirked.

"Is that how you were taught? The Sato Clan sounds pretty sadistic."

Arata chuckled.

"And that still didn't stop you from helping me."

Visha shrugged.

"I didn't say that your sadistic ways are wrong, I agree with them. But this is really sadistic. I wouldn't be surprised if you have chains and whips hung up in your bedroom."

Arata frowned. He wasn't sure what that meant, but he sensed that it wasn't anything good as he heard Visha laugh. That was clearly some kind of insult. As Arata innocently pondered what Visha meant, Visha closed his eyes.

"It has been 24 hours."

Arata nodded.

"Take it up a notch."

Visha did a mocking salute before circulating his Energy. The training students fell down one by one as the pain within their body increased. Just as they had adjusted to the constant pain and were able to train and cultivate under its influence, the pain had now tripled in intensity as screams could once again be heard throughout the training area. Tallis, still in pain, maintained the connection with everyone as he communicated to them all a message.

"Arata says that 24 hours has passed. We have 4 days left. The pain increases again in another 24 hours."