Seeing how eager and curious Matilda was to find out what had happened to his skin that made it look so amazing, Damian didn't want to disappoint her.

If he told her that he hadn't done anything, she wouldn't believe him and almost every girl would want to find out how to make their skin better and even males would want to find out the same.

"Um, well, I have been cultivating externally and after breaking through, my skin improved" answered Damian as he moved his face away from Matilda who had unknowingly been stroking his face.

Taking her hand back she blushed slightly, but then thanked Damian for letting her know.

"Although you might not see results straight away, just keep cultivating externally anyway. And also try to eat beast meat when you can as it is very beneficial for the body as well as the skin" said Damian encouragingly before bidding her farewell and leaving to get some food.

Despite their altercation being quite awkward, Damian was happy to have people around him and seeing that Matilda was still as giddy and energetic as she always was, he was glad.

It was clear that she had been through a lot and no matter how much she smiled, her eyes, just like Julia's, showed pain and Damian wanted to find out what caused it and help them to eliminate it or get their revenge.

However, he knew that it was too early to do so and it seemed to be what was driving them to do well, so he didn't question them about it and was happy to see that they were still progressing well.

They were going to make tough competition for him in any future competitions, but Damian was excited to face them and wasn't planning on losing as he walked towards the canteen while thinking about how powerful his friends could be.

Reaching the canteen, since Damian didn't need to buy any more resources after what his mother had given him, Damian ate 2 of his daily meals along with a serving of beast meat.

It was a very delicious and filling meal, and although the canteen food wasn't the greatest, most things tasted nice when someone was hungry.

After eating, Damian felt stuffed and needed to digest and cultivate for a short while before he tested out how capable his body was after cultivating externally, so headed towards the training centre.

Entering the private training room that he had become accustomed to and had become reserved for him by the lady that oversaw that training centre, after he had become the Direct Disciple of the great elder.

Once he had entered the Inner Academy and even in the Outer Academy, those that were confident in their power would want to use Damian, who was quite renowned and had a high status within the academy as a stepping stone to increase their own fame and reputation.

Knowing that, Damian had to prepare himself for the tough and exciting battles that he would have to fight and cultivating both types of cultivation and training in different skills and techniques was a key part of that.

After circulating his Internal Energy and relaxing his body in the centre of the private training for an hour, Damian digested all the food that he had eaten and most of it was used by his body in some way, while the rest would be released as waste later on in the day.

[Time to finally test out how powerful my body is] thought Damian to himself as he took off the robe and shirt that he was wearing, then flexed his muscles that were very compressed and tight.

His body was very toned and had great explosive power after cultivating both internally and externally using the Fire Element.

Wielding his bow, Damian pulled back the bowstring as much as he could using only his physical power and was surprised that he could nearly pull it back as much as he could while he was using his entire Internal Cultivation to reinforce and enhance his body.

"This must mean that despite my External Cultivation only being LVL 32, it should be enough to face an early rank 4 external cultivator in terms of power. So if I were to use my Internal Cultivation as well, just like Utsusu said, I should be able to face a rank 5 cultivator evenly" gathered Damian.

It was amazing to think that despite being at a lower level, he was just as powerful and also thought that he was more skilled.

Dashing around the private training room and through punches and kicks, using only his External Cultivation, Damian did so until he began to feel tired and was impressed by his body's stamina.

His bursts of power were also much more powerful, which matched with his resistance to fire and heat, proved just how amazing the Golden Flame Body Tempering Method was.

Attacking the dummy in the private training room, Damian was using only his External Cultivation, then slowly began to also use his Internal Cultivation and was trying to make them coherent.

As long as they weren't clashing or overpowering each other, they could enhance each other and increase his power, allowing him to fight against those at higher cultivation levels than him.

However it was easier said than done and Damian was finding it very hard to use them both at once and enhance his body using his Internal Cultivation as his External Cultivation would clash and his physical body, although could handle more energy, rejected the Internal Energy.

"This is harder than I thought," said Damian to himself as he wiped the sweat on his forehead.

Previously his External Cultivation was negligible and it was much easier to overpower it with his Internal Energy and harmonise them, but now that his External Cultivation was higher, it was much harder to do so than he had expected.

[This is going to take a lot of training, but I will be able to harmonise my cultivation] declared Damian within his mind as he took a short break to recover, before continuing his training.