.This ring will be yours from now on..

Mr. Declan glanced at the 'students' that had came to the class on the last minute. Although he wanted to sulk very much , he felt that it would be too conspicuous, so he reluctantly gave up the idea. However remembering that he had even prepared to 'sacrifice' so much for them, his face turned sour again.

Seui secretly wiped his sweat, ignoring Yew's resentful look who was glaring at him with a red mark on his cheek. He obviously set an alarm yesterday, who knows why it suddenly didn't work! And he didn't intentionally kick Yew who came to wake him up ,okay? It couldn't be helped that he had a morning temper! He even rubbed Yew's cheek for him , and they ultimately arrived on time to the class, so what's the problem here? Seui confusedly turned to face Mr. Declan only to find that he had a much worse face than Yew! Seui winced slowly, it seems that his day is doomed to be a hard one!

"what are dawdling around for? Hurry and get ready to the class!" Mr. Declan's extremely powerful voice 'graced' their ears all of a sudden. Both of them hurriedly scrambled to their seats as if their butts were on fire. Seui even managed to hastily pull out a notebook from who-knows-where , considering it was quite a rare item in this era.

Seeing that, Yew's face instantly turned red. He harshly stepped on Seui's feet and muttered under his breath "get that down right now! how dare you expose my diary like this! What if mentor asks you to open it!" Yeah, it was precisely Yew's diary that had been previously discovered balancing the table in the appartement!

Seui had been too busy these days , so he didn't have a proper chance to read the diary. It was his habit of faking concentration with a book from his school days that made him take out the diary all of a sudden. However, it made him wonder what might be in the diary to make Yew so restless! If its really that private, then why did he give it to him in the first place? He made a mental note to make schedule in this very evening and find out what's inside!

Mr. Declan seemed to have found out what he was looking for and came to Seui holding a small palm sized box adorned with extricate carvings. He gave it to Seui "since you're going to be my apprentice from now on, consider this as the welcome gift or something..." he waved his hand nonchalantly.

Seui curiously accepted it. 'this looks a bit like a ring box...' Seui mused as he carefully opened the box, and became stiff when he saw a black ring inside. He became awkward and turned to Mr. Declan with a dumbfounded voice "that.. you're not proposing to me or anything , right?"

Mr. Declan's face twisted terribly. He suppressed the urge to curse out loud barely " if you don't want it, give it back! And how dare you slander me like that! I already told it's a welcoming gift, and this old man already have a beautiful wife and obedient children. I'm not a least bit interested in you that way ,alright?" He had a totally red face and there were even a few veins popped on his forehead due to extreme anger.

Seui briefly considered returning the gift but changed his mind thinking that it would be too disrespectful to the old man. If Mr. Declan knew his thoughts, he would probably faint from anger. He was giving away a very valuable artefact for the sake of his new apprentice, but not only he was not appreciated but he was also suspected of immoral behaviour! Anybody else would never want to part with that ring. Who would understand the old teacher's wounded heart?

However, Sol appeared still somewhat suspicious. He wasn't being narcissistic but this body's face was something that could make even immortals to fall into the trap of lust! " but you also said 'or something...' Are you sure you didn't mean anything else? Actually I'm already married "

Mr. Declan suddenly paused , briefly stunned " you're already married? How come?"

"Didn't you say you weren't the least bit interested in me?" Seui refuted with the appearance of finally having caught a loophole.

Mr. Declan suddenly felt a toothache. Forget it , arguing with this youngster is useless, he better explain things clearly. Let him regret how he suspected his mentor!

"This ring is a very rare product assembled with even rarer materials. Right now, this might be the only one of this kind in this whole country. This was passed down from my own mentor, but it is useless for me. Who would've expected that it might come handy now. It only works for darkness abilities and it kind of suppresses the power from going out of control. However, not many find it useful since they're not born with dual abilities like you. For them, it's either use your powers and die or become a normal person and live, so they would use the power to death or completely abandon it and there wasn't a need for suppression. So this will prove useful to you. Using this you can concentrate on your mental abilities and develop them without any hindrance. Do you get it now?" He angrily questioned at the end.

Seui belatedly realised that he had miscalculated! So he promptly shouldered the arduous responsibility of flattery their mentor! " mentor, you're such a generous person, thank you very much for your favor. I will definitely make you proud someday " then he winked to Yew, who very tactically understood his signal and bravely joined the field "indeed, mentor is the best. We will do our best to learn properly "

Somewhat appeased by their relentless flattery, Mr. Declan calmed down a bit. So he turned to Sol and instructed " although it's main use is now suppression, but that's not it sole purpose. So don't just use it as some kind of suppression tool. However, whether it can be used to some greater purpose someday will depend on you. It's like the dagger in fool's hands will be used to clear weed , while the dagger in a hero's hand will be used to save lives. Remember, it's power shall grow with your abilities "

Seui slowly raised his eyebrows 'so this can grow with the holder's ability? that sounds amazing' He solemnly thanked the mentor this time and took the ring out of the box. White and gushing sea waves were carved on the polished surface of the black ring. But, it also seemed like the vast sky filled with smooth white clouds up to the horizon. All in all it was a magnificent piece of art. Feeling strangely attached to it , Seui tried to put it on the middle finger of the right hand. However, it seemed that he couldn't fit it in?? What the h*ll??!! He wanted to curse out loud!

Seeing him fiddling with the ring and trying to squeeze his already slender finger into the ring, Mr. Declan gloated happily for a while on the side. Finally when Sol's smooth hand turned red all over from squeezing, he seemingly nonchalantly dropped a sentence "ah that...the ring will automatically choose a finger, you can try it on other fingers and see which one it is~"

Seui was dumbfounded and humphed in the next moment 'this mentor is too petty right? If he knew that from the start, why didn't he say so earlier? This is revenge ,isn't it ? He probably watched him make a fool of himself for a long time!' Not making his displeasure apparent lest this mentor takes offense again, he tried to put the ring on other fingers and finally succeeded in putting it on the ring finger of the left hand. He felt a bit inexplicable but he was already fed up and didn't want to entangle with this anymore. He was about to put the box in his pocket when he suddenly remembered a grave problem "this.. can this be taken off afterwards?" It'd be a disaster if it couldn't be taken off!!

Since he had already taken his revenge, this time Mr. Declan answered very generously "of course, it can be taken off if you want" he placed a special emphasis on the word 'you'

Yew was still full of spirit and eagerly asked " so does that mean others can't take it off?"

"Well" Mr. Declan nodded affirmatively.

"Wow, that's so cool" Yew exclaimed. This time, even Seui felt that it was fairly a good deal cause that meant he didn't have to worry about his things being snatched forcefully or something.

Mr. Declan knocked on the table "now let's get to the today's lesson which is about the basics of power stabilizing. The basics are easy to understand and we can almost finish it one hour. So why do you think it's that hard to stabilize the power? It's because although understanding is easy, actually practicing it is very hard. So the most important part of this lesson is to remember the key points and practice on your own. If you don't practice, no matter how hard they try nobody can help you. Understood?"

Both Seui and Yew nodded unitedly. This was probably the case in all types of studies. If you don't try hard, even the god is unable to help you. Seui knew this very well with his seventeen years of lifetime. So he made up his mind to listen carefully and not to make other's efforts in vain. Yew was even more or so! He didn't even receive a so called 'welcome gift' when he became an apprentice of the old man, not to mention that the old man always lost temper with him! So he wanted take use of the time when the old man was in a good mood and quickly learn the skills. This was very rare chance, not everyone could divert his anger like his bro Seui could!!

Mr. Declan started explaining the basics "....first thing when using the abilities is to control the activation of the power, and then comes the controlling the output and condensing the energy. At this point , you can barely use condensed energy to actively attack, but such attacks have very low destructive power. This is where it comes to shaping and controlling the flexibility of energy. After you've mastered it , you can use this to both attack and to defense. For example you can shape your power into something like wind blades, snow balls , weaponized seeds etc. Or else you can turn it into a water shield, a curtain of vines, ice shield etc. From this point onward you can continue increasing your power through experiencing." he walked over and took a pair of orbs and placed in front of them.

"But the two of you should start from the very beginning, that is to say controlling the activation of the power. When you mastered this point, you will be able to use your power at the mere thought of it or saying metaphorically at a flick of your finger. You can start now. Direct your energy at the orb, every time your power activates the orb will light up. By tomorrow, you should be able to use your power at will at least once" then he walked out of the practice room "you can contact me if there's any grave problems "

After they were alone in the practice room, Yew's face instantly soured "you may not know this, but I have learning activation of power for a week now. Even for a highly skilled person , it takes at least two weeks to achieve this. He has dug a pit for us here"

Seui's eyebrows jumped up with an ominous premonition " but didn't he say that we could contact him?"

Yew's mouth twitched uncontrollably " are you naive? You're saying that because you don't know the definition of his 'grave problems'! His grave problems means something like the capital suddenly going in to war or earth's protective cover suddenly getting removed out of the blue!"

Seui looked at him burning with curiosity "there's a protective cover over the earth?"

Yew simply palmed his forehead "f*ck!"