"When you deliver a punch, make sure that your able to quickly recover your stance. If you fail to hit your target and your balance is off, it is likely that your opponent will seize the opportunity to make a counter. When you kick you must remember that your centre of gravity is everything. The lower your centre of gravity, the more power you’ll have behind your kick.”

While saying this, instructor Isark circled around Daelos, correcting his stance.

In the middle of the training area, Daelos’s naked upper body showed off his chiselled muscles. Each muscle was dense and compact and rippled with a sense of power and authority that caused other’s to feel both envy and respect.

Currently, he had wearable weights attached to each of his limbs. The weights attached to his arms weighed at least 10,000 pounds whereas the ones on his feet were double that!

According to Isark, only official knights were allowed to use weights weighing from 20,000 onwards. But luckily for Daelos, Isark agreed to his request before he fought Arthur, leaving him no way to refuse.

For the past 6 months Isark had been personally training him in the ways of a knight. The first thing he was told to train in was his body. Unlike mage knights, knights were strictly close combat (minus archer subclass) fighters. Because of this, their bodies needed to be able to endure long battles and unfavourable weather. Due to this fact, beast-men were seen as the ideal knights. Humans and elves on the other hand lacked the physical traits and potential that came naturally to the beast kin.

But by slowly cultivating their bodies to the extreme, a small percentage of humans and elves had the ability to become official knights.

The reason for Daelos wearing these absurdly heavy weights was thanks to his use of vibrational energy. By creating vibrations around the area the weights were attached to, he managed to offset some of the weight's mass.

This allowed him to train both his vibrational energy and physical body.

While he trained his body he was also forced to fight several students which forced him to adapt to their various types of attacks while being weighed down. It also forced him to focus on many aspects of a battle. This included terrain, his opponents dominant arm/leg, his positioning, their position and their breathing.

By the end of these six months his battle senses had reached a whole new level. Not to mention that he discovered several new ways to increase his combat capabilities.

Currently, Daelos was completing a set of complicated punching and kicking routines designed for the pugilist subclass. Despite only using his physical body, he was able to perform the routine without breaking a sweat.

The only issue was that he’d been doing this for the past 37 hours. Isark wanted to ingrain the routine into his muscle memory so when he fought he’d have better control over his body.

“Your leaving soon right?” Seeing him still practicing, Isark couldn’t help but admire the boy’s determination.

Without stopping the routine Daelos answered him. “Yeah I’m quite far away from the islands of Mato so I’ll need to leave tomorrow.”

“That’s a shame. Your one of the few students I’ve seen with a real potential for becoming a knight.”

“Me?” Chuckling at that comment , he increased the speed of his routine. “No offense but the knight class is to limiting for what I want.”

“Oh? What do you want?” Said Isark with a curious expression.

Recalling the three years he spent trapped inside that dark cell a cold expression covered his face as his voice dropped a few octaves “Freedom.”

Feeling that he’d just asked something personal, Isark changed the topic. “We’ll for your final full day here at Berilia, I got you a goodbye gift.” Grinning from ear to ear he called out 4 armoured individuals. “I know that recently you’ve found training to be quite unchallenging, so I asked for several 4th years to spar with you.”

Seeing this, Daelos couldn’t help but feel surprised. Turning that surprise into a smile, he stopped his routine and put on his bracers.

“Not gonna take off your weights?” Looking at the weights still attached to his limbs, Isark couldn’t help but ask.

“I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my gift to the fullest extent if I took them off.” Still smiling, he got himself into his combat stance. “Come at me!”

Three 4th years charged at him in a well-practiced formation. Each individual held real tier 1 weapons and attacked with the intent to fatally injure and incapacitate Daelos. Two spears and one sword all swung down at him, while a couple of arrows were fired from another 4th year behind them.

*Swoosh*

*Swoosh*

*Swoosh*

Daelos stood his ground and met the attack head on. Crossing both arms together he used his bracers to block both spears before grabbing onto them and pulling them forward in order to block the sword strike.

*CLANG!*

With all of them so close together the arrows fired from behind, hit the 4th years in the back. Luckily for them they were wearing armour.

Seeing this, Isark could only shake his head in disappointment. Idiots

Pushing them away, Daelos launched multiple quick attacks aimed at their chests. Although they were wearing armour, his blows contained an unstoppable force, causing them to feel the full impact of his attack.

*THUD* *THUD* *THUD*

Once all three bodies hit the ground, Daelos switched his attention to the archer in the distance. Unlike his comrades, the archer wore light clothes that were easy to move around in.

Feeling the muscles in his right leg tighten, he leapt forward with unrivalled speed.

*BOOM!!!*

An explosive sound echoed out as a massive crater was left behind as his body soared towards his opponent at a speed that broke the sound barrier.

*BANG!*

Arriving in front of the archer Daelos delivered a swift well-aimed kick into the 4th year’s side, causing him to shoot forward and cough up several mouthfuls of blood.

Watching all four 4th years get taken down so quickly hurt Isark’s pride as a knight. What made it even worse was the fact that the archer had shot his teammates albeit not deliberately, it still made knights look bad. *Sigh* Looks like I’ll need to redouble their training schedules.

“Where are you going now?”

Without turning back he headed towards the dormitory. “I got a long day ahead of me tomorrow, so I’m gonna get some rest.”

“Say hello to Arthur before you leave!” Yelling to the distant mage knight, Isark looked at his students laying flat on their backs. Idiots

…

"Where?" Daelos opened his eyes and was met with silence and darkness.

The only object in the darkness was a golden throne drenched in blood and decorated in skulls. He scanned the area, but his senses didn't seem to work as well as they usually would.

"Yo." The voice of a young man echoed from within the darkness.

Daelos turned to look but couldn't find the exact source of the voice. "Who’s there?"

He looked around, but nothing could be seen beside the throne.

"Look closer." The voice responded, sounding much closer.

Looking at the throne, a faint outline of a person could be seen sitting on it. The more he focused on it, the clearer it became until the outline completely disappeared and something took its place.

Siting there was something that could only be described as a glowing monster. Eight ft tall, dressed in a suit that didn’t belong to this world, the thing had fire for eyes. No nose, no mouth, ash coloured skin, and two twisted horn rising from its head. Its abnormally long arms were jagged at some places and had curved spikes protruding out of its shoulders. Its hands resembled beast claws and its feet bore a resemblance to hooves.

"Who are you..." Daelos stared at the monster feeling a sense of familiarity. If anyone else were present they would've definitely not have been as calm and collective as he was.

"It's you! Your look different from before but this presence is definitely yours." A look of realization dawned on his face. He slowly looked around him while nodding.

"So…Why does my mind space look like this?" Daelos scratched his head and asked curiously.

"6 months." The monster responded.

"Huh? The fuck does that mean?" Daelos looked toward to purple glowing monster with slight confusion.

An awkward silence lingered in the air as both the creature and Daelos stared at each other.

Its fiery eyes and Daelos’s golden pupils stared at each other unblinking for indefinite amount of time. Breaking the silence, the creature spoke. “ For 6 months I did everything I could to corrupt you.”

“You act like I don’t know that.” Feeling that the creature was wasting time, Daelos encouraged it to speed up.

Looking at his irritated face, the monster didn’t change its tone. “Why are you still sane?”

“Sane? I thought the answer was obvious.” Looking at the monster a sly smile that practically reached his ears spread across his face as a crazed look emerged in his eyes. “I was never sane.” A hint of joy could be heard in his voice. “My entire life I was treated as lesser than everyone else. I was beaten, ridiculed, abused! Even when I arrived in this world the first thing I experienced was three long years trapped behind the doors of a jail cell! After so long it would be impossible for me not to break. But there was always something in the back of my mind controlling my urges. Call it my moral compass or whatever but when you arrived everything changed! With you, you brought so many beast that I just couldn’t help myself. I just had to devour them. The feeling of tasting those emotions was simply…electrifying.”

At this point his face had distorted into one that resembled the monster’s. But instead of fire in his eyes, a maniacal glint was present in its stead.

“You corrupted yourself on purpose.” Ignoring his change, the monster continued as if nothing had happened.

“Corrupted? I freed myself from my shackles of morality! What I am now is what I’ve always been deep down. All you’ve done is help me dispose of those unnecessary sentiments.”

-silence

Seeing the monster unable to respond, Daelos calmed down his sudden outburst of emotions.

“Where’s Lyla?” For some reason, whenever he thought back to that naïve girl who shed tears for after he reprimanded her, a gentle light echoed in the depths of his soul.

Ignoring his question, the monster asked him one in return. “What will you do now that you have been ‘freed?’”

“I’ll do whatever the hell I want! Now since I answered your question, answer mine. Where is Lyla!!”

Seeing him become agitated, the monster looked on with its expressionless face. “She doesn’t want to see you.”

Hearing that, Daelos’s anger vanished a forlorn expression briefly flashed across his face before it returned to normal. “When you see her tell I want to talk.”

“What makes you think we’ll meet?”

“Both of you stay in my mind space- well Lyla can return to the Agnos Requiem, but I think that when she wants to stretch her legs, she’ll tour this place. And eventually you two will meet.” Taking a closer look at the monster’s face, Daelos suddenly realized something. “What’s your name?”

“I do not have one.”

“Oh! Can I pick one out for you?”

“If you wish.”

With a smile plaster on his face, he declared “from now on I’ll call you Soleed, back home it meant crack.”

“You can call me what you wish.” Hearing his new name, no emotion could be heard in his voice.

“Okay Soleed, send me home.”