Looking Around

"Till your roommate comes, I was assigned to monitor you and report to the authorities, just think of it as supervision, after what happened during the exam the academy can't just leave you to be on your own, right?"

Lydia answered with a smile on her face.

Hearing her claim of supervision, Shiro smiled, he was probably being studied since he was the only one around who was directly under the influence of the masked man that appeared during the exams.

"Fine, do whatever you want"

Shiro said with a sigh as he went into his room to do his own things, he sat down on his bed in a lotus position and began cultivating, the spiritual energy in the environment was enormous so he had to take advantage of it to keep up with the rest lest he could risk getting expelled.

Torrents of energy formed at insane speed as all the spiritual energy in the room went straight into Shiro's body, the energy formation in the room creaked and sparked as it tried to keep up with Shiro's cultivation speed.

Shiro was almost close to a breakthrough in his body cultivation, he just needed a little push to break the bottle neck holding him back and with the surplus amount of spiritual energy rushing into him and his high speed of energy conversion, Shiro was able to attain breakthrough pushing his body cultivation to the 4th stage blood replacement realm.

Shiro paused for a second, he couldn't continue cultivating like this, he could split his consciousness but that didn't mean he would be able to cultivate both at the same time, he had to set a ratio to how he would split the spiritual energy entering into his body.

His main source of power was his sword techniques but without his body cultivation his attack power was reduced considerably, that and his outstanding defense.

Shiro couldn't just put the ratio to 50-50 since his sword cultivation was already falling behind, Shiro had always regretted not choosing sword cultivation as a cultivation path in the past so he studied sword arts to compensate for it, but now that he had been given this opportunity to have both body and sword, he could not allow one to fall behind that much.

After a few calculations, he decided to set the ratio 40-60, to allow his sword cultivation catch up. He smiled and nodded before getting up and leaving his room, he couldn't just spend his entire time cultivating he also needed to look around.

Seeing Shiro come out of his room and preparing to leave, Lydia also began preparing to leave with him.

"Are you going to follow me around always?"

Shiro asked after seeing her actions.

"Are you going to leave a beautiful lady such as myself alone in this gloomy environment?" Lydia asked as she tilted her head in a cute and appealing way.

Shiro sighed, he didn't have the confidence to continue with Lydia's antics, this woman just liked to tease people and joke around.

He wore his sandals before heading out, his advanced grade sword and robe was shining brightly under the morning sun which attracted a lot of attention.

"Is that advanced grade cloth armor and sword?"

"Yes"

"…"

Lydia was speechless, even she didn't have advanced grade armor talk less of cloth armor which was even more expensive. Just who was Shiro? She thought as she continued to escort him around while showing him the important places to take note of, of course, she had to hold Shiro's hands in other for him not to get lost.

The places Lydia led Shiro to where places that most people don't understand their real use, this places if used in the right way could help boost a person's cultivation by a huge amount.

One of this places was the battle arena which was were people battled each other to gain ranks and points which could later be exchanged for rewards. Shiro wanted to just end his tour here since he also needed to test his battle prowess after his cultivations increased but Lydia insisted that he should continue to walk around with her and in exchange she would come to watch him fight in the arena anytime he wanted.

Shiro complied since he would need her to walk him back after the fight, although he had memorized the wind patterns of everywhere he passed and would be able to make it back without her help, he felt like it was better to travel with a higher leveled cultivator just in case of an emergency.

The two continued their stroll as they visited different places, their tour lasted a whole day since just the important parts of the academy was almost as big as a large city.

The two returned to their apartments, tired and exhausted as they had spent the entire day walking around.

Shiro was tired so he couldn't do his usual habit of practicing his evasive technique before bed so he just lay on his bed and began running battle simulations of different battle conditions in his head all while cultivating. Shiro's high IQ made a lot of things which were normally impossible for the human mind way too easy for him.

The next day, Lydia cooked breakfast for the two of them, she knew that Shiro wanted to test out the battle arena so she wanted him to have enough energy for the fight. The two ate quickly and left for the arena, Lydia led the way and helped him in passing the registration processes, points from arena battles will be added to their battle points which were part of their insignia.

The two proceeded to enter the arena battle grounds which was crowded by students of the academy who were battling each other in different arenas. The entire structure was massive, it housed ten arenas and a two large halls for resting after battles. There was a ranking board on the wall which showed the current ranks of the students of the academy, he looked for his name and was not surprised to see his name dead last on the list.

The ranks were divided into four; copper, silver, gold and platinum rank which was the highest. Shiro guessed that most of the people who occupied the copper rank were his mates while the others were occupied by seniors, he looked at the first rank and was surprised to see that the name on it had changed, the name on it was now Mio Naomi and this person had seven battles with seven wins, no loss, no draws.

There were two ways to advance in the arena, one was the amount of wins one had accumulated but such a person could easily be overturned by someone who accumulates more wins, while the more secure method was the challenge method were students challenge each other for their positions on the ranking board, such a person could only be dethroned by challenge which could only be issued to a particular person once a week to avoid some problems.

Shiro understood the rules of the arena, he asked Lydia to lead him to where the first position was which she complied to, although she had just finished battling she was offered no protection since she climbed up using accumulated wins.

Shiro smiled and stretched out his hands for a shake

"My name is Shiro, please battle me"

Naomi was shocked, she had been fighting continuously for a long time to get to her first position and now she was being challenged which she could not refuse, she looked at Shiro in anger. Every other person in the building looked towards the three, they thought it was a weird thing to see someone being escorted around by a high leveled cultivator but they just assumed that he was from a wealthy family who used some methods to bypass the rules of the academy.

Naomi looked around, her rage was plane for everybody to see which was quite understandable for the spectators each of them looked at Shiro with disapproving eyes.

"I will take you on whenever you feel like you are ready"

Shiro said before turning to the crowd;

"That is okay right?"

They had no qualms with this new arrangement since Shiro was giving her time to prepare first however Naomi saw it as him belittling her so she drank a healing potion before shaking Shiro's hands;

"I am ready"