The start of the second year ranking battles!
After having the conversation with his mother, Damien's guilty conscience was put to rest and he was now in his right mental state.
With the three compulsory classes all attend to during the week, Damien had the rest of the days to himself and he spent it absorbing mana stones and learning techniques!
Before the new week arrived, Damien had learnt the Mind Whip technique, Soul push technique, Introspection technique, boxing technique, blink technique and the Rune: Speed technique!
The Mind whip technique was much more difficult to learn as compared to the mind needle but Damien had been able to succeed.
The soul push and introspection techniques were perhaps the most shocking surprise of them all!
Not only had Damien been able to learn those strange soul techniques, he had also been able to use them!
Even though the soul power he had awoken was unknown and mysterious, Damien felt that he would be able to learn most, if not all the soul techniques in the store!
Whatever power he had awoken in his soul was truly versatile.
Now, with introspection, he could see his insides as if his eyes were an X ray. He could see his mana pathways, how mana flowed into his body, his various organs and bones, even he could see the amalgamation of red, blue and gold lights all wrapped around his body!
Soul push was even more crazier than it looked.
It was a god level technique for subduing people!
And the requirements for the subjugation didn't require that Damien was a level or realm above those he was going to use the technique on.
Rather, he would be able to knock their very souls out of them if his soul was stronger than his opponents!
Yes!
This meant that whoever he used this technique on, he could stun the person or 'put them to sleep,' because their bodies would be dormant until the soul returned back into the body or Damien slapped the soul back in!
The only requirements were that he had to have a stronger soul than them and the technique also required physical contact.
It was known that whatever path the Awakened awoke power in, he would have some advantages in that path.
Thus, those who awoke in the body path had more physical strength than those who awoke in the spirit and soul paths.
Those who awoke in the spirit path had higher concentration, mental strength and resilient spirits than those who awoke in the body path and soul path.
Those who awoke in the soul path had far stronger and superior soul strength as compared to those who awoke in the body and spirit paths.
Now here Damien was, awakened in all paths and having the best of all three worlds.
If every path gave a double boost to those walking it, then it meant Damien had received three double boosts of power making him six times stronger than the average awakened who awoke in only one path!
The boxing technique was the new 1-star body technique he had chosen to learn.
He had noticed that he had bombs for fists now. If he was able to learn how to make the most out of it, his power would practically double!
Now Damien had learnt boxing in combination to his karate.
He was thinking of even adding about four more 1-star body techniques to make the fighting style of his body versatile.
Hell, in fights, he could blend all those techniques together to create a seamless attack which kept his opponents guessing which technique he was using!
After that, he would move on to the 2-star body techniques, where the truly good stuff was at.
Already, he had seen one spatial body technique which had caught his fancy and it was called Dimensional fist!
A body technique made for those who walked the body path and had the spatial element!
Damien had long made plans to buy the technique when he advanced to the peak level.
Finally, Damien had been able to learn a spatial technique, Blink!
With this technique, he was going to be the nightmare of all his opponents.
The technique allowed him to cross short distances in the range of his spirit sense in the blink of an eye!
Thus, in a fight, he could just blink up to his opponent and knock them out with his boxing technique!
The rune: speed technique allowed Damien to cast a rune which practically tripled his speed!
With the boost of this rune, Damien could run at speeds of 138 mph!
With the frequent absorption of mana stones, Damien felt he was inching closer to the peak level of the Enlightenment realm.
It was safe to say that he would be able to reach the Peak level before the start of the ranking battles. It was going to make his power and the strength of his technique elevate to new heights!
If that happened, Damien was confident in his chances of being in the top 3 on the first year Ranking list but of course he was gunning for the first spot, nothing more nothing less!
Even though he was advancing and becoming stronger, he still had to work harder.
His comm rang and Damien picked it up.
[The ranking battles for the second years have finally been opened! Challenges can now be placed by all second year students to make it into the rankings!
From now till the end of the semester, anyone can be challenged.
Same rules stand.
May the best students win!]
Damien leaned over in shock.
Wasn't that the ranking battles that Frank and Hank would be in?
This was great!
He would use this opportunity to see how wide the gap was between him and the truly strong seniors while also taking a critical look at how the ranking battles were.
This was an opportunity to learn!
Damien wasn't the only excited person.
Even though it was in the early hours of the morning, the school was in a state of frenzy and excitement, especially the second years!
The ranking battles!
A chance to elevate their position, earn a lot of CP passively and boost their reputation!
They had to make that Ranking list!
Taking one last glance at his comm, Damien switched his nano suit from the pajamas he wore into a simple training outfit.
Ranking battles or not, he was going out for his morning exercise!
By the time the sun rose and the morning class was done, Damien knew that the school was going to be very exciting!
**
"Hm?" Liu Shandian glanced at his comm in annoyance.
Why was the damn thing so loud?!
He had even set it to automatically reject any calls and mute any messages because he didn't want to be disturbed in his training.
The only people who could obviously bypass the restrictions he had set up on his comm would either be a solid hacker or the school itself.
Liu Shandian presumed it would be the latter.
He opened his comm and there it was, a message from the school to all students.
"The ranking battles are today? Isn't that too soon?" he blurted aloud in confusion.
He had been in seclusion since reopening as he wanted to rapidly advance into the peak level of the Advanced realm. Thus, he had barely noticed the passage of time!
Liu Shandian had set an ambitious target for himself, that by the end of the semester, he would be firmly at the peak level of the Advanced realm and in his first two weeks in third year, he would be at the Early Level Grand realm!
If he was able to achieve this, by the time he graduated from the Imperial Institute and was going to do his national service of being a soldier, he would be at the middle level of the Grand realm!
This would ensure that he wouldn't be at the very bottom of the barrel but an elite soldier.
If all things went well and he completed his one-year national service, he would be at the peak of the Grand realm ready to break into the Domain realm!
The ranking battle had interrupted his training session and until he was sure that he wouldn't be bothered by incessant challenges and opponents, he would have to come out to take part in the ranking battles.
"I wonder who will be the first to challenge me for the strongest second year student," Liu smirked.
Noah Turner and those other students in the top ten had been eyeing his position for quite some time.
Very soon, they would make their moves but Liu Shandian was ready!
He was eager to see how strong he had become after being in seclusion for quite a while.
Liu Shandian smirked. "I hope they give me a good fight."