Woah, been a while. Winter break is here. You know what that means! More procrastination! More laziness! Hopefully I pull through and write more. Anyway, here you guys go.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Wow, Shadow is so powerful!" Jol exclaimed.

"Hahaha, of course! Who do you think my brother is?" Light responded happily.

Looking over at Rose, Kyte saw that she had wide smile on her face. He didn't question it, though. For Shadow to jump in power so greatly after mutating, and he hasn't even unlocked the full mystery to his mutation, is like a heaven-sent gift to their Branch. Not only that, but Shadow jumped from a Bronze B to a Silver A rank. That huge leap in power is very rare within GG.

However, Shadow didn't try to hide it all. The reason is mainly because Lanzer caused a lot of pain to him and primarily his brother, who he deeply cares for. However, before, they couldn't do anything about it. Shadow always refused to ask for help, determined to take care of Lanzer himself. And now, thanks to the mutation, he was finally able to take revenge.

"Well, it's time for me to go. Shadow's match was pretty entertaining, but I didn't really get anything out of it. If you guys need me, I'll be in the training hall." Kyte stood up and began walking away, lost in his thoughts.

Because he began thinking back on Shadow's battle, he completely forgot about Azali. She watched him get up and begin to walk away, so she got up as well and caught up with him. However, someone else was faster than she was.

Rose had immediately stood up right behind Kyte while giving Azali a weird look. Rose knows best that Kyte never usually pays much attention to the things around him when he's contemplating serious things, so she took the initiative to guard him from Azali. Although Azali only had pure intentions, she suddenly felt at a loss at what to do about Rose's behavior.

So, she simply tried her best to ignore it. There's not much she can do without straightforwardly asking Rose about it, but how could she? She knows about certain "do's" and "dont's" just from the experiences within her own family. Most people don't like others who pry.

After walking out of the stadium, Kyte continued on the path toward the training hall. Both Azali and Rose were with him as he leisurely talked with Rose. He exchanged a few words with Azali, and, as she couldn't stand the awkwardness, she parted ways from Kyte and Rose. Rose followed Kyte all the way to the entrance of the training hall.

"Rose, you don't have to be so mean to her, you know." Kyte said.

"What, do you like her?" Rose asked.

"No, why would I?"

"You're oddly close to her…

"Rose, you're just scared. Azali and I have only met twice, and we've not even really talked much either. Besides, she's David's youngest daughter. How is someone like me even going to become real friends with someone like her?"

"...Alright. But I better not see you two becoming so friendly with each other."

"Rose. I know you're concerned, but I won't let you limit my freedom. If you think otherwise, then maybe you just need to take a break at our housing?"

"Ah...sorry."

"Haha, don't worry about it. Your mind is just making up random things that aren't true. I'm going into the training hall now, so we're going to have to part ways here." Kyte said with a light laugh.

"Alright." Rose quietly replied as she moved into Kyte's embrace.

After a long hug, the two separated and Kyte walked into the training hall to continue his formation training. He still had a week until his first match, so he’s confident in being able to improve his formations by then. Also, he doesn’t know who he will be battling against first, so it will be a surprise when he gets there.

Once inside his room, Kyte brought out the large combined formation and sat down to think. Does he really need the formations he’s using? There’s a lot of different formations just within the intermediate and basic levels, and there are even more combinations. Certain formations compliment the other. For example, a wind formation and a speed formation would naturally go together.

The formations that Kyte had used in this combined one don’t exactly help each other. Besides, this first one was basically for practice. He hasn’t even tried to compress it down into a smaller form in order to lay it within his robes.

Now that I think about it, can’t I compress these formations down to the point where I can lay multiple combined formations within my robes?

Although that theory is true, the amount of energy required to activate that amount of formations would be enormous. Unless Kyte had an unlimited source of energy, there’s no way for him to actually use so many formations. There’s the strategy of using certain formations at the right moment, but even then it would be detrimental. What’s the point of having those formations if he can’t use them after a few uses?

However, there is a single solution to that problem. Kyte suddenly felt a large mountain of dread fall on his shoulders after thinking about the solution. Killing innocent people to absorb their life force for energy would make Kyte forever hold a feeling of enormous disgust and guilt within himself. He doesn’t want to resort to enacting that solution. Maybe Sol’Keer would be able to, but Kyte? Although he’s killed several people before, innocent people that have nothing to do with him are a different story. Kyte may be able to look down on regular humans like a God, but that doesn’t change the fact that Kyte is still human himself. At least he thinks he is, anyway. He was a regular human not too long ago.

Getting back on track, Kyte decided to create a new formation. He discarded the one before him but used the same defensive foundation, as it was currently his strongest defensive formation. The new offensive formations that he wanted to use would improve the quality of his energy and also gather the energy from his surroundings for him to use.

Although this energy can’t be used to power the formations, and it’s quality is quite low, it can still be used to help increase the power of Kyte’s attacks. As it’s only an intermediate level formation, it’s not that powerful. However, it’s the only thing Kyte can use at the moment. Besides, every increase in strength mattered. Kyte’s original offensive power wasn’t that strong without all of his buffs, so these offensive formations will definitely help him.

Only higher leveled formations will prove to be significantly useful. Kyte has no idea how powerful they will be, but judging by how difficult the beginning Advanced formations are, they must be quite powerful. However, Kyte doesn’t have the time to worry about them before the S rank tournament, so he tossed it to the back of his mind and focused on creating and compressing a new combined formation.

______________________________________________________________________________

--The Same Day--

--The Apartment--

Dan was relaxing on the couch and reading a book when he heard a knock on the apartment’s door.

“That must be the mail.”

Dan got up and reached the door, opening it. After opening the door, Dan was extremely surprised to see who was on the other side.

“Uhm...Mr...Wux, sir.” Dan slightly stuttered.

“Good afternoon, Dan. How have you and the others been? Also, just call me by my name.” David Wux calmly asked with a smile.

“Yes, David. We’ve been doing very well recently. Uh, please, come in.”

“Ah, thank you. That’s good that you guys have been doing increasingly good work. AHAD is persistent in creating Guardians, and it’s only a matter of time before the Core gets even more out-numbered.”

“I agree. There’s just too few Gifted that actually push through the first boundary of their mind. Even I have yet to do so.”

“Don’t worry, Dan. Even though the first boundary may be the hardest, it’s still possible. Plus, you have still have plenty of time to break through.”

“Heh, not many people have your kind of talent though, David.”

“Well, that may be true, haha….Now, why aren’t you and Akina at the rank-up tournament?”

“...About that,...something has happened to Akina.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“During our most recent group mission, an S rank Guardian appeared. Akina sacrificed herself to destroy it. Now, she’s in a weird unconscious state. Follow me.”

Worry grew on David’s face as he listened to Dan speak about what happened. They entered into the room where Akina lay, and David saw Akina surrounded by a white cloud-like substance. The area around her body had become riddled with random sparks of electricity. Akina’s body itself could barely be seen through the thick clouds of energy.

“What did she do?” David asked.

“From what I saw, Akina must have used a forbidden technique that sacrificed her own life force in order to defeat the S rank Guardian. When it activated, her body was covered in a layer of light until the Guardian was destroyed. After she won, she collapsed on the ground and the light disappeared into her body.”

“Hmm...interesting. Well, let me take a closer look.”

David walked right next to Akina, completely ignoring the small sparks around her. He moved his hand directly through the cloud of energy, as if it didn’t effect him at all. He placed his hand above her stomach and released a string of energy into her body. After searching throughout her whole body, he retracted his hand and stepped back.

“How is she?” Dan asked.

“Well...it’s not bad, I can tell you that. I don’t know what she did, but her strength is actually steadily increasing. I couldn’t find anything wrong with her body, physically. I know nothing about the soul...the only person I know that has some knowledge is within the Core right now. The Core needs everyone they can get. There’s no way she’ll come back to look at a mere Gold A ranker.”

“I see...also, you said that her strength is increasing?”

“Yea. I estimate by the time she returns, she’ll have reached Bronze S rank or higher. I can help her recover faster by a few days, but I’ll have to use one my Soul Recovery Pills.”

“What? No, David, I wouldn’t allow you to use such a valuable item-”

“Wouldn’t allow me? Dan, you do know how laughable you sound?”

“Ah...sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Hahaha, that’s quite alright, Dan…..If only I had one of these back then. You wouldn’t be here if I did.”

“David, don’t. It’s not your fault. Just get on with it.”

“...Alright.”

David stepped back toward Akina and reached into his front robe pocket. In his hand appeared a small, white pill that gave off a weird, invisible energy. He slightly opened Akina’s mouth and slipped the pill inside. Once the pill entered her mouth, it instantly broke down into energy that rushed toward her brain. There, the energy simply disappeared into nothingness. However, a lingering feeling of power wafted from Akina’s head.

“With this, Akina should recover by the end of the week. She should also enter at most Silver S rank. Of course, that’s just my estimation. I actually don’t exactly know what’s happening, so take my word with a little leverage, haha.”

“Alright. We’re already greatly indebted to you, and with this…”

“Dan, don’t worry about the things I’ve done to help you. This is nothing compared to my life, which you saved.”

“...If you say so, David. Thanks again for your help.”

“No problem. This is but a small matter. Now, I have somewhere to be, so the next time we’ll see each other is at the S rank tournament? I hope you two can make it. You’ll be in for a sweet, sweet surprise.”

____________________________________________________________________________

--One Week Later--

Within Kyte’s training room was a loud vibrating sound that shook the entire room. A blinding light shone around Kyte as a small octagonal drawing seeped through the two top layers of his robes and rested on the bottom layer at his chest. A bead of sweat slowly dripped off his face and onto the ground as Kyte began heavily panting.

“Holy shit, I didn’t expect it to be so difficult.”

Kyte had barely been able to compress the formation and lay it within his robes. It was only one combined formation, but its power was far greater than regular intermediate formations. Rather, it could possibly be on the level of basic Advanced formations. For a formation being able to jump through in power to a higher level, or rather a pseudo-higher level, is a great feat to accomplish. Of course, the easiest way to do this was to create a combined formation.

Just laying that formation down took a great deal of energy from him. Actually using it in combat is another story. The first thing he had to do, however, was to lay better formations across all layering of his robes. So, Kyte took off the other formations that he had already laid and began to create new ones. There was only one day before the S rank tournament started, so Kyte had to be quick and decisive about which formations to use. If he had a few more weeks he could’ve probably learned the first Advanced formation. But alas, there was no time.