Chapter 19 - Beacon Dance is near

'Haah, let's do this.' Nephrite thought to himself, the Sun had already fallen, and he had arranged a meeting with Pyrrha on the rooftops.

A feeling he didn't feel in a long time coursed throughout his body. He was nervous, even though he knew she would accept.

Each step he took soon mirrored his beating heart as he walked up the stairs. Strange feeling of calmness overtook him and soon his thoughts turned blank.

As he took his last step and opened the door, the calm feeling vanished and he could hear his heart beating like a drum. Pyrrha was standing there admiring the clear skies and the stars that littered it.

As she heard the door behind her open, she turned around. Even though she stood there with her school uniform, she seemed even more stunning than usual.

"Hey there, Pyr." He broke the silence and stepped closer. She smiled and waited expectantly. Her mind had wandered the moment he arrived.

She was as nervous as he was, maybe even more. 'What if he just wanted to talk about the new movie some more, or wanted to schedule a training session? Oh gosh, I hope he noticed my new eyeshadow.'

Both in daze, their heartbeats sped up, and in no time they had synchronised with each other. Step by step, he walked up to her. They watched each other in silence until he was right before her.

"So, I wanted to ask. Would you be my dance partner?" He reached out with his hand.

The most beautiful smile had bloomed at that moment.

"It would be a pleasure." She took his hand. Hand in hand, they sat down and admired the starry skies as their hearts settled down.

...

*Clang *Cling

Sounds of metal and occasional grunts were resounding throughout the room. Pyrrha's weapon changed its form seamlessly, almost as if she wasn't fighting alone but had 2 more warriors helping her.

Her sword danced across Cardin's body, and the moment it threw him away, a spear appeared, destroying the rhythm of his teammate.

In the next moment, it changed into its gun form and shot at the weak points of Cardin's armor. In a futile attempt, his teammates charged at Pyrrha just to get flung back the next second.

Cardin had enough and used dust to strike the ground, volcano like explosions quickly headed Pyrrha's way. Her figure turned blurry and Cardin's attack hit nothing.

As confused as he was, he couldn't let his mind wander. Pyrrha appeared in his peripheral vision right next to him, she used her sword to gain momentum before creating a distance and striking with her spear the next moment, sending him flying off the stage.

The stage lit up, and a screen appeared beside her.

"Congratulations miss Nikos. Your battle was splendid and you are more than ready for the tournament." Glynda stepped onto the stage.

"Well students, we have time for one more match. Does anyone wish to fight?"

"I want to fight and I would like to fight her." Mercury pointed at Pyrrha.

"I am afraid that is not possible. Miss Nikos had just finished her battle." Glynda said and looked at him with a sharp glint in her eyes.

"I'll entertain him." Nephrite stood up and looked at Mercury mockingly.

Mercury clicked his tongue, but he wouldn't decline a challenge from someone who looked down on him.

Soon enough, they were facing each other. Everyone waited for Glynda's countdown. Nephrite unsheathed his weapon and held it in one hand.

'This will be fun'

The clock that signified the beginning of the match had reached its end, and the battle had begun.

Nephrite stood on one spot, with Mercury dashing in his direction.

Mercury performed a roundhouse kick but missed. Nephrite just bowed down like he was tying his shoes.

Mercury interrupted his roundhouse kick midair just above Nephrite. Adjusting his core, his foot descended, but Nephrite turned blurry.

"Wait, isn't that the same move that Pyrrha did?!" Yang asked as she was the first to notice the similarity of their moves.

"Yeah, Nephrite taught me his footwork." She said and cheered for his victory.

His footwork was quite enigmatic and if someone was capable enough to see his movement, they would see him move in a bizarre way.

It wasn't the most effective movement technique against an opponent who can overpower you with ease, but it was very effective on opponents of lower and same level.

And Mercury certainly wasn't someone that could overpower Nephrite. Nephrite appeared beside Mercury and slashed his body multiple times.

Mercury couldn't withstand this level of continuous attack, especially with such power behind it.

He turned serious and used his arm to redirect the sword for a split second before he used his own footwork to create some distance.

Nephrite didn't give him any breathing space and enigmatically appeared all around Mercury as he tried to fend him off.

As an experienced murderer as he was, this was the first time he had encountered such an enigmatic fighter and as he lost the first momentum. Nephrite took the flow of the battle in his hands.

"Is that all you can do, silver boy?" Nephrite taunted him and continued to attack him from multiple angles.

Mercury wanted to use his guns to disrupt his flow so much, but it wasn't time yet and angering Cinder was worse than losing a fight he would surrender in anyway.

"I surrender." In the end he conceded when Nephrite didn't seem to get tired no matter how hard he struck.

"Mr. Mercury, please refrain from participating if you are going to surrender. And you, Mr. Nephrite, those remarks were uncalled for."

Glynda said and admonished both of them and their fight had ended.

Nephrite nodded in a half-hearted manner and went up to his friends. As the fight wasn't long enough, she talked about the Beacon Dance and warned the students before the bell rang.

A couple of boys had approached Ruby in the past week, but she rejected all of them. The power of social anxiety didn't help her when they approached her, mostly when she was alone...

Yang was well... Yang. When she approached boys she would tease them, but when they approached her with a lustful gaze or impure intentions, they would receive a sucker punch in the face.

She later confessed that she took out one of her friends from the Signal as a date. It was quite an eye opener for the rest of the squad.

Blake had also secured herself a date with none other than the golden monkey. All it took was constant pestering, and a badly written poem, when someone told him that Blake likes books.

After his not so impressive performance reciting a poem which took him an entire night to create, she chuckled and accepted in the end.

His struggle to recite seriously was quite cute, and she relented.

Neo texted Nephrite and asked to be his dance partner, but he already secured Pyrrha. It took him a week to convince Neo to stop ignoring him.

Although Fade had no date, Blizzard had bribed her with some strength training equipment to at least attend the dancing party. It was quite easy to bribe her, but Onyx wasn't so easily convinced.

He kept saying no, and no matter what she did, he wouldn't say anything else in response. She took drastic measures and took Onyx shopping. To this day, no one knows what traumatised Onyx and forced him to accept.

Nora and Ren were naturally a date and Nora's invite during the lunch confirmed it.

Days passed by and Nephrite had seen Cinder snooping around a few times, but she usually stayed in her room.

Emerald and Mercury were much more active, and were basically interrogating everyone they could. Sometimes they had even trolled them into fighting them. They either won with overwhelming difference or surrendered when the opponent wasn't easy to defeat.

They became the unofficial eyesore duo in the Academy and everyone took a different path when they saw them.

Nephrite and Pyrrha hung out with each other even more and sometimes held hands in the public.

He wasn't sitting around doing nothing though, during his free time when there was no one he had found the closest entrance to the tunnel outside Vale, safe to say the tracks now had a few thousand tons of debris and rocks in various positions.

Just to be sure, he had also destroyed the train rails and took one day off to scout the other end of the tunnel. He found a few Faunus and a train with two wagons connected to it.

It would take them a long time to finish loading everything, especially their mechs. He didn't alert them and just removed some blockades he placed that were quite near. He didn't believe that they would inspect it until the end of the tunnel.

After he confirmed their existence, he scouted them every week and noted down their progress. It would be at least a month before they were even remotely ready.

His progress was also pretty rapid.

[Name: Nephrite Antaeus]

[Current Job: 🌟 Huntsman Student LVL: 18/50]

[EXP: 12247/14439]

[Body: Healthy]

[Physique: 35]

[Vitality: 21.6]

[Aura Strength: 25]

[Aura Pool: 45]

[Status Points left: 9]

[Skill Points left: 15]

[Aura Manipulation LVL: 42/43]

[EXP: 50845/176400]

[Vulcan's Pillar Mastery LVL: 20/100]

[EXP: 69872/1000000]

He directly boosted his Pillar mastery to lvl 20 after the progress slowed down and he knew that the combat that would speed up its increase could be fatal.

After he got to lvl 20, his skills needed some time to adjust. It was also the first time he could move like a blur in others' vision. If it wasn't for his physique, it would drain his stamina in a blink of an eye.

He had also noticed that physique was truly an all around improvement and it slowly opened his limits of perception. It wasn't much, but it was quite noticeable with his sixth sense.

The skill itself was also being mastered bit by bit by Nephrite as he explored its ability.

His 1 star profession also needed more and more EXP, and it was apparent that if he didn't do something substantial, the normal grind would at most get him to 2 stars and maybe not even that.

Aura Manipulation was the most unexplored of all of his skills in Nephrite's opinion. The more he levelled up, the more he felt like there were some possibilities that he knew about but couldn't explore yet with his level of skill.

There was also the problem with his second or rather 'side' job that he would have. He thought about it a bunch of times, but there wasn't anything that he urgently needed.

Things like weapon smith would be nice, but it would take too much of his time, same thing with other professions like a robotic engineer.

Although he could choose some kind of job that related to things he did daily, it would be quite a waste and all he would get would be a few status points and even fewer skill points.

In the end, he delayed before he was sure he could triple star his primary job. As for his blank skill, he believed he could make use of it in a dire situation combined with his free skill points...