Hearing his roommates' complaints, Shane figured out that the news about him spending his Sunday afternoon with Aisha and the Valkyries had already spread throughout the whole academy.

However, he decided to ignore these baseless rumors. Shane was already aware that most students liked to exaggerate facts and would just continue to spread false accusations of him being a womanizer or a playboy, which he didn't really care about.

The only thing he looked forward to was the next day because it was the day of the expedition. Aisha had informed him that they would most likely spend around three weeks inside the wilderness of the Radiant mountain ring dimension if everything went according to their plan.

With this information, he knew that Frer could only teach and explain to him the perks of bloodlust for the next three weeks which was not enough in his opinion.

Other than that, Shane hadn't even read the Slaughterer's Path manual which he should have. He worried about it while he bit on his lower lip as he pondered over the issue.

In the end, learning and imprinting something the wrong way was the worst that could happen because it was extremely difficult to fix bad habits, a fact he had learned when he was quite young.

His aunts, uncles, and father had shown him clearly that it took much more effort and time to fix flaws of half-heartedly learned martial art technique sequences.

As such he racked his brain to figure out the best solution as he thought 'Do I really have to sleep?'

Right now, it was almost 9 pm and there were roughly 12 hours left before they would assemble to enter the Dimensional Portal together.

He ignored the three youths around him, and opened the academy's forum without any hesitation, as a holographic screen appeared in front of him.

Clicking a few tabs on the forum, he finally found the section with the Dimension-spheres schedule, and his eyes lit up.

Smiling foolishly, he saw that there was one Dimension-Sphere free from 9 pm to 7 am, which was almost perfect for his needs.

Happy to find a way to efficiently utilize 10 out of his 19 remaining hours at the Dimension-Spheres, he immediately changed into another combat suit in front of his roommates who eyed him weirdly before he rushed out of the dorm.

"What happened just now?" Uir asked Paul and Lars who were next to him, but they were also not sure of what Shane was up to and they could only label him a weirdo.

While rushing towards the colosseum as quickly as he could, he circulated mana within his body in order to further accelerate his speed. Thus, Shane was able to arrive in front of the elevator within the colosseum in 10 minutes.

As he waited for the elevator impatiently, he noticed a blond-haired youth with an athletic physique who looked to be older than him.

Looking at his shining aura, Shane couldn't help but marvel at the youth for a second, before he greeted him.

Astonished to see someone seemingly appear out of nowhere in front of him , the blond-haired youth seized him for a moment, before he nodded his head, and said "Not bad!"

Shane didn't have enough time to think about his encounter with the blond-haired youth with an unique aura. He left him alone and entered the elevator which was about to close.

Shane arrived in front of the Dimension-spheres and found the same middle-aged guardian he had met earlier. Shane greeted him in a friendly manner and inquired about the whereabouts of the Dimension-sphere he had rented.

The middle-aged man was already curious to know how Shane had manifested killing intent when he had spent less than two months within the Primordial Dimension, a fact he had figured out by scanning his bones' age. However, seeing that he was in a hurry, the guard refrained from asking any questions.

Entering his cabinet, Shane stood inside a white room once again.

Selecting the Slaughterer's Path technique, this time he chose the 'reading manual' section instead of the visualization function.

Once his selection was done, an old man with a long white beard appeared in front of him wearing long linen clothes, which seemed to look similar to a few clothes he once saw on Earth.

'Why am I suddenly thinking of Eastern traditional clothes?' He muttered astonishingly before the old man began to speak as a manual appeared in front of him.

[Slaughterer's Path] was written on the manual, and as he opened the manual, he saw multiple pictures illustrated in front of him, moving as if they were alive.

Hearing the old man's voice, while staring at the moving pictures within the manual, he noticed that everything was explained to the smallest detail, and it was obvious that he had missed out on multiple important facts.

Apparently, bloodlust was not necessarily someone's desire to shed blood or thirst for blood, rather, it could also be seen as the deep desire to defeat one's opponent by all means.

Reading this confused Shane because bloodlust was literally called 'lust' for 'blood' and shouldn't be comprehended as the desire to defeat someone.

However, with the old man continuing his lecture, he slowly began to understand what exactly the Slaughterer's Path meant and tried to listen intently.

'Is the Slaughterer's Path a technique that combines the desire to defeat one's opponent by all means, whether it is mercilessly killing, subduing, crushing the foe's willpower or is it simply overwhelming the opponent?'

Shane seemed to be in two minds about it..

When he recalled Frer's bloodlust killing intent, he thought that she hadn't killed him but only overwhelmed him...or was that already subduing him, by forcing his body to become motionless?

Nevertheless, what he also realized was that Frer's bloodlust killing intent was not only filled with the desire to kill, but also to protect someone or something, which confused Shane because something like this was not even remotely described within the Slaughterer's Path technique.

'Is that her own comprehension? But, how is the desire to protect used in order to ignite the desire to defeat one's opponents by all means? Does the Slaughterer's Path technique also include my ideals? If Frer's desire to protect someone is strong enough to annihilate everyone who stands in her way also works, what exactly are my ideals and desires?'

Shane couldn't help but frown deeply when he thought of his ideals and desires.

'What do I even want, except to become stronger? What else is there for me to obtain? Is there even something I truly want?'

Shocked by his own thoughts, he felt that if he were to continue with this train of thought right now, he would most likely end up thoroughly confused without a way to come back to his senses.

Even if he wanted to think of a solution, there was none, because he knew deep down that he had yet to find what he desired other than becoming stronger.

For what did he want to become stronger? Only to snatch back the reins of his life from his father? If that was the case, Shane would probably turn lazy, unmotivated and someone without any goals, after he became stronger than his father.

In the end, his father was not even considered stronger when compared to advanced races and his desire to become stronger by thinking about a certain cultivation stage, race or something similar to that was not the best way forward.

He needed something to hold on to in order to become stronger, even after he had caught up with his family.

Shaking his head, he forcefully directed his attention towards the old man who didn't stop talking while he was immersed in his train of thoughts, and it was only because of his passive [Hunter's mind] technique, that he was able to.

10 hours had passed until the old man had disappeared, with the AI behind him requesting Shane to leave the Dimension-sphere.

While walking out of the white room, he felt as if his brain was crammed with lots of information, and trying to process everything he had just learned was easier said than done.

There were many things that he had to grasp and think over calmly, such as his ideals.

Furthermore, Shane understood that killing intent was much simpler than bloodlust because one would only reveal the intention to kill someone, even if it was not really meant to be.

It was a simple, yet quite effective way to show others that one wrong word or a misstep could result in an imminent battle of life and death.

Having understood this, Shane could only mull over everything he had learned during the last 10 hours.

__________________________________

W E B N O V E L= https://bit.ly/3xrU5Yx

[If you like the novel, please support the Author with your powerstones]

__________________________________