There were still a few hours left before the combat classes would begin and Jason looked out for a quiet place to read his books.

It was only around lunchtime when Scorpio began to sting him once again in order to throw Jason out of his focused reading.

Scorpio was like a timer for him and every few hours he would either wake him up because he was bored or hungry.

Looking at Scorpio, Jason thought that it would take probably only a few days until he reached the five-star wild beast rank, which should be fine, considering that Artemis would also finish her evolution soon.

Giving Scorpio something to eat, Jason took out something for himself, before he practiced the Heaven's Hell technique.

After that, it was already time for him to rush to the combat arena, where he found Seron and some of his classmates.

Seron was also absent at the theoretical lessons, which was probably because of the same reason, Jason had.

The subjects provided at the 6th affiliated Vanguard school for first graders were basics that could be learned within a few weeks, with some tiny bit of effort.

Seeing Jason, Seron was shocked. Not only was he now taller than himself, but he also looked much better than by a few grades causing Seron´s jaw to drop.

It seemed like Seron was still at the 3rd Adept rank and Jason began to smile. With Seron´s enhancement from his unknown soulbond, he should be able to reach the 4th Adept rank in both mana core size and physique, which meant that both Jason and Seron had now the same strength.

When Jason was weaker in both, Seron could easily win while holding back which frustrated him a lot, but maybe it would be different today.

They greeted each other and began to start a light conversation until all of their classmates arrived.

Going inside, they went to their groups like always and waited for an Instructor or their teacher to arrive.

But not Jason and Seron. 

Both of them went silently towards the combat arena, where they would have their spar.

They didn´t want to wait for anyone as increasing the mastery of one´s martial arts techniques was mostly done under pressure during a fight.

With this thought in mind, the AI started the countdown for their spar

[3….2….1...Start!]

Starting the fight, both Seron and Jason summoned their weapons at the same time before they executed their movement technique without hesitating for a moment.

But Jason´s execution seemed slightly faster and only now did he really feel the difference between cleansed mana channels and impure mana channels that obstructed his mana circulation.

Jason's movement technique was slightly weaker but it seemed like his control over his technique skyrocket as his speed increased by almost 20%, which was much more than normally possible with the weightless steps technique at his current mastery

It took them less than a breath to reach each other, while Jason's daggers twirled around creating sparks at Seron's sword that could barely evade the onslaught of multiple dagger strikes. 

Seron hadn't expected Jason's speed to reach such a degree and from the impact caused by his strikes, Seron could tell that Jason´s physique was not much worse than his own if not on par. 

Seeing a bright smile on Jason's serious face, Seron disregarded everything his master told him when attending school on Astrix. 

'Don't attract too much attention. Hold back your strength. Hide your identity from anyone!` 

His identity was long known by Jason and fighting with him was just too satisfying and beneficial for himself, that he couldn't help but release the shackles he put on himself.

Exerting the Floating sky technique to his fullest potential, Seron´s speed skyrocketed while Jason noticed that Seron´s mana core increased slightly in size, while it became even more difficult to his strikes.

Instead of overpowering Seron with his newly acquired strength, Jason took note, that Seron stopped holding back in order to fight with his whole strength.

This caused his already bright smile to turn even wider.

"Don´t even think about holding back" Jason shouted as his mana erupted, injecting even more in his movement technique in addition to his lower body.

Jason seemed much slower than Seron but his choice of weapon was much better a close combat fight as he could nimbly attack while evading the slightly slower sword of Seron.

But this didn´t mean Seron had no chance, rather than that, Jason was overpowered as Seron´s physique and mana core size reached the standards of common 5th Adepts infinitely close to the 6th. 

Under extreme pressure, Jason´s mind was thinking of multiple paths to find a way out of the barrage of slashes caused by Seron.

Unfortunately, Seron´s technique seemed extremely precise utilized and once Jason found a flaw, Seron retreated immediately, when Jason slashed out with his dagger.

Fighting Seron head-on was extremely difficult to and Jason´s lack of combat experience to fight any human head-on came into play.

Neither Greg nor Seron fought him completely seriously until now and fighting Seron with all his might, it was apparent that Seron had a much wider variety of combat experience.

But Jason´s will was much grander than anyone could think of while giving up was not something found in his vocabulary.

As such his exceptional eyesight searched for a way to get out of this fight as he evaded all kinds of sword slashes, cleaves, and thrusts by a hair width to find a flaw in Sharon's defensive.

Minutes passed and both had used up a large margin of their mana...

At least it seemed that way but Jason knew it better while the smile that stiffened during the fight blossomed once again.

While Seron held back with his mana consumption while trying to focus on the passive mana replenishing technique which was too taxing, Jason´s mana pool was already replenished.

The fight continued and Seron had to use some of his mana reserves inside his mana pool, causing Jason to use even more mana in his attacks.

Jason´s speed increased further while his proficiency with the weightless step technique had already crossed the basic mastery and was on the way to the familiar mastery.

Seron´s speed decreased due to the lack of mana and Jason´s speed increased at the same time.

He thought it would be soon over when Seron´s mana exploded suddenly, refilling most of his mana instantly.

With widened eyes, Jason couldn´t help but smile.

'Is that his soulbond´s effect? Not bad!' he thought without thinking about the shock this caused in their surroundings.

The spar between both of them took over ten minutes and the mana consumption of both was astronomical, while their fight even pressured the surrounding youths that sparred half-heartily.

Till arrived shortly after the two youths began sparring and a frown could be seen on his face, seeing Seron giving his all, even revealing his soulbonds special inherited ability.

'Seron don't procrastinate the fight….Jason has almost infinitely mana with his current consumption…'  He sighed but Till had to say that it was shocking seeing Jason being able to defend against Seron for so long.

If Seron was more proficient with daggers or other high-velocity weapons instead of the longsword, he would probably have won, but Seron liked fighting with longswords which was also why he received a longsword soul weapon from his father, when he awoke his soul, even though his mana channels were almost completely crippled.

While Seron trained his body and sword martial art techniques without mana consumption since he was four, Jason lacked in combat experience and their fight demonstrated both of the youth's determination to increase their strength while trying to find each other's flaws.

These flaws were fixed as soon as they were attacked and the comprehension ability both showcased was shocking to the surrounding students.

Till smiled as he was once again reminded that it was a good choice to drag Seron to Astrix, even though it was initially only for his second soulbond….

Meeting Jason was probably much better than finding the second soulbond.

Their fight dragged on for another ten minutes and both of them were sweating heavily.

Jason´s mana replenishing lost slowly its effect as his consumption increased over time, while Seron had used his soulbond´s special effect multiple times in succession which seemed weird to Jason, as both distanced themselves from each other.

Taking a few deep breathers, Seron warned

"Look out! If you don´t want to injure yourself, better forfeit or use your whole mana to deflect my next attack!" 

With his mana eyes activated Jason noticed that Seron used up his whole mana pool in addition to two instant refills which seemed even more suspicious than before as a white-bluish loose membrane began to envelop his longsword.

Circulating the mana in a certain path Seron pulled back his sword and was about to swing down when goosebumps spread all over Jason´s skin with the sensation of danger filling his mind.

'Oh s**t' He cursed inwardly as he noticed that the mana membrane peeled off from the sword, shooting straight towards him.

With a terrifying speed, that even Till astonished, Jason could only helplessly look at the sword ray shooting right into him, when he instinctively felt something in his soul-world shaking violently.

He lifted his arm and a black flame appeared right before the sword ray pierced into Jason´s hand, as he released his whole mana pool at once.

*BOOOM*