Damian had watched Cecil’s fight, while he was bummed that Noah had been eliminated and the person who beat him curb stomped him. He was looking forward to the finals; someone who could beat a captain like Milo so easily would be a decent fight.

The tournament had a variety of strong individuals. It was just disappointing that he had far surpassed many of them. His spar with that blind swordsman served as a type of enlightenment that greatly enhanced his growth to the point where he could hear the song of battle that came from others. The rhythm of their movements exposed their weakness and allowed him to counter before his opponent could even act. Dodging as though he could see the future in perfect clarity.

As he stood across Volain, he heard his opponent’s song. It was loud, violent, and destructive. He would open up with a charge and repeat with relentless fervor until his body failed him. It was only one note getting hit harder and harder like an angry drum.

In theory, the fight should prove simple. Hit Volain, and avoid getting hit. Keep the tempo, and don’t let his opponent change it. However, he hoped that his opponent could do so.

“Sword Saint Damian against Volain the Relentless! A match between two captains of exceptional ability, what will win? Technique or overwhelming power!”

The two appeared atop the same mountain as the first fight, leaving no space to hide and also exponentially limiting Volian’s charging capability. One wrong step and Volain could fall to his loss.

“Ready? Fight!”

Unlike the previous match, these two were quiet, as both had sound-based abilities and didn’t want to be called out for cheating by their opponent. Not that they had to worry about that.

Volain opened not with a charge but with a stomp that created a cone of erupting shards that left a crater behind.

Damian avoided the debris by jumping backward. Both swords were in his hands as he floated back down.

Pushing off of the land, Volain shot forward towards the landing Damian. As he charged, water mana began to flow behind him and rise in height like a wave at his heels.

“Punch of the relentless waves!” Volaine twisted his form into that of a charging punch as he entered within ten feet. From there, he leaped forward, using his body as a projectile fist by his ear as he gathered mana.

Damian dodged to the side, avoiding the charge as his opponent jumped off the mountain. Moving forward like a dancer, Damian gracefully yet quickly lowered his left sword. A wave of energy shouts out, resulting in a blade of mana splitting the wave into two.

Volain’s body twisted while behind Damian as a black and white helmet covered his head. Pushing off the mana in the air, Volain shot toward Damian like a ballista bolt; while he didn’t like attacking people from behind, it was his opponent’s fault for letting his own guard down.

As Volain moved quickly to take out the distracted Damian, the space between them shattered like broken glass as the viewers saw them slow down briefly. At least, that’s how it appeared to practitioners and below.

When Volian entered Damian’s ten-foot radius. Damian spun around and intercepted the fist, pushing it aside.

Volian pushed Damian back with a kick powered by a bit of force, and the area around Damian Was ripped up and sent away.

Damian charged forward again. This time, his emotions seemed almost robotic and efficient.

Volain threw a punch with enough power to break the sound barrier.

Damian began to hum, resulting in the shockwave from the punch fizzling out the blast of force as it got closer.

“That isn’t possible…” Volain muttered in surprise before he began to charge forward again.

“We live in a world of sound. No light, no dark. Just the rhythm of our souls.” Damian hummed a tune as a field of gray surrounded both of them, creating an area obscured in a dense fog.

“Not going to work!” Volain yelled before clicking his tongue.

Damian brought both swords into empty air and spun to the side as a kick barely missed his midsection.

Volain followed the kick with a stomp, causing the fog to disperse briefly, revealing no one in the general area.

Damian landed an elbow in Volain’s ribcage before moving behind the young man and cutting two shallow cuts into his back despite putting a lot of power into his strikes.

Volain’s head slammed back, hitting Damian head-on and sending him backward. Ending at the edge as Damian had stabbed both of his blades into the ground early on to slow his trip. Had he not, it was clear that the force would have knocked him off the mountain.

“You’re tough.” Damian held his head and sighed as he had been injured for the first time in this tournament.

“And you’re surprisingly durable… I was going for lethal.” Volain popped his neck.

“Can’t blame you. It’s not like I held back with my sword strikes… Well, I did, but that was when I thought you could be beaten without me revealing my limits.” Damian held his nose as the blood stopped leaving it, and his head cleared.

Volain squinted as Damian began to sing in a language he couldn’t understand.

Swords began to grow from the ground like weeds as Damian moved forward in zigzag, and his body was enveloped in golden light.

Volain wasn’t sure how it happened, but he was now thirty feet in the air as though there was a gap in his memories. He then noticed pain in his legs and back.

Volain pushed off the air, rolling as fast as he could as a beam of light shot down from above, cutting into the ground with an X pattern before it turned towards him.

“That’s a person.” Volain muttered as he repositioned himself and summoned water around him to follow his charge downwards.

Shrouded in light, Damian began to dance as he raised his blades upward, and the swords in the ground rose to the sky.

Volain activated his armor to its full extent, black and white armor covering his entire body, the water around him growing in magnitude. His bloodlust began to take control as the thrill of the hunt flowed into him, and his own mind was filled with the desire to kill and consume the prey below him.

Hundreds of swords flew towards Volain, many cutting shallow cuts while the rest redirected the water coming from above.

His drop slowed as Volain continued to fall as his will clashed against his opponents. Where he was an unrelenting wave. Damian was a sword capable of cutting through anything with grace.

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Damian brought both of his own swords down and then back up as a wave of mana shot outward and around Volain, separating the link between Volain and the spell he was concentrating on went wild. The wave turned into a downpour, and Volian was now being pushed forward by his magic.

Volain willed himself into a falling knee as he fell towards Damian.

A loud crash filled the arena as a wave of dust filled the area, followed by a brief silence.

“Second movement, weeping blades.” Said a voice that wasn’t Damian’s and came from his general direction.

As Volain began to turn, he noticed that his body wasn’t keeping up with his thoughts as a slow melody, like a dirge of death, entered his ears.

On the other hand, Damian was moving faster than ever; in a series of moments, Volain had been cut over a thousand times before both swords found an opening in his chest and triggered the wards.

When Volain exited the arena, he felt his body and mind sync back up as pain shot through him all at once before everything faded to black.

When the dust settled, Damian was visible alone, his right arm broken as one of his swords lay uselessly on the ground. He was breathing heavily and coughing as the dust had managed to get into his throat. The young blade-dancer had to use two of his trump cards and still barely managed to win. He severely underestimated his competition. To think his opponent also gained access to his own soul’s strength.

With a flick of his right hand, Damian called his fallen sword back into his core and went to his school’s designated healers. A minor regeneration spell wasn’t going to fix this before tomorrow.

“That bastard! He held back that much?” Ander was ready to fight as a blood vessel in his forehead looked like it was going to burst.

“I suspected he had access to that level of power, as Tiffany does as well.”

“Kyrion? I can do some tricks with sword arts but that is beyond what I am capable of.”

“So that’s what those are. I can’t do sword arts as of yet but I can pretend like I can. You could go train in my dungeon with this.” Kyrion passed Tiffany a purple soul coin.

Karl interjected within Kyrion’s head. “I have recently learned that the level of time dilation I used broke a few laws of time and I can no longer speed up training for an entire year. I legally have to inform you of this as you are contracted to me.”

“Maybe use a time dilation room and come practice in the dungeon if you want a challenge.” Kyrion added.

“What about the rest of the team?” Hel asked.

“I don’t know if you’re ready for these as of yet. And I forgot who I’ve given these to already…”

“I haven’t received one either.” Lin stated.

“Do you need one? Now that I can use it to my current degree of strength I can sense that you have access to this power, to some degree.”

Lin sighed. “I could always use more.”

“Since I love…appreciate your assistance.” Kyrion coughed into his hand. “I will give you your portion in private.”

“Are we not going to talk about that slip up?”

Kyrion held out the hand that he coughed into for a handshake. “Nothing suspicious is going on here.”

Lin took the hand, raised an eyebrow, and shook it before wiping it with a handkerchief.

The headmaster, who wasn’t snooping, noticed that Kyrion’s cough was a feint as he conjured a portal into his closed hand. He had a lot to talk about with his students later.

Cecil suspected something but decided to ask later as he was busy answering his parents’ endless questions about his time here and how this world worked.

“What do the coins do?” Hel asked.

“They give you access to divine tier power. And can be used to enhance what is already there. Weapon arts seem to be on that tier of power as well.” Which made Kyrion wonder. Damian once told him that he awakened his spirits while practicing sword dancing. Kyrion’s grandfather had also tried to get them to learn how to use weapons before going to the academy. Kyrion still had those chakrams but hadn’t trained as much as he should have with them. Just enough to hit a target, moving or otherwise, as he used them as seed spreaders for the most part. Spirit mastery is the mastery of one’s soul or spirit, incorporating an aspect of the universe into one’s soul. Going to the world of the lost is a way to accelerate the process due to the saturation of D.E. The process of full manifestation is an attempt to draw out their soul through their spirits. Kyrion wasn’t connected to his core and gained most of his affinities from his spirits, which hadn’t transferred into that world due to his separate soul and body.

The area around Kyrion began to increase in temperature as a poster on the wall caught fire.

“Kyrion!” Lin grabbed Kyrion by his face with both hands coated in ice, filling the room with fog.

Kyrion slowly blinked before his eyes moved across the room. “You went and used my real name…Headmaster, was anyone snooping?”

“No. But what was that, it seems like you were about to go up into a pillar of flame.”

Kyrion sighed and emptied his mind. “I gave myself a headache overthinking and it manifested as flame. Guess that’s why I used to boil water.”

“Boil water?” Lin asked.

Cecil, finding an opening, slipped out from his parents to answer. “When he was younger, usually when he struggled to figure something out, water would pool on his forehead and evaporate into steam. I guess his fire’s origin is somewhere in his head.”

Kyrion cycled all of his fire affinity upon hearing that, sensing that his fire affinity started in the amygdala, a portion of his brain, before bleeding into his water affinity, which had occupied his Pituitary Gland and Hypothalamus. From there, Kyrion felt his mind affinity in his frontal lobe; the wind seemed to resonate with his temporal lobe. Kyrion then traced where his space affinity began, only to find it was in his Parietal lobe. Finally, there was Kyrion’s life or healing affinity in his cerebellum. Taking a step back, Kyrion realized that his bones and skull circulated his earth affinity.

“All my affinities touch my brain. Why is that?” Kyrion had read up on where affinities are usually located; that place was usually their core.

“Ah…That would explain why they didn’t really try to teach you your letters. Knowledge is power and power without empathy breeds destruction. Or so the mindless preach.”

“I see.”

“Probably more than most. Explains why your sensory abilities were so easy to develop as well. Most people have a core in their chests, right below the heart, about the size of an apple, naturally. It doesn’t get much bigger than that until the expert tier. Some have a core located in their lower abdomen at the base of their spine. Rarer are those with a core located in their brain.” The headmaster stopped.

“And?”

“Your core connects from your brain to your chest, and stops at the base of your spine where it cycles back to your brain while spreading downwards through your body.”

“Meaning…”

“Body, Mind, Spirit, and Soul. Many think soul and spirit are the same and to a degree they do mean the same thing. Technically, the spirits in spirit mastery are entities that we share a natural attunement with. While connected to us, spirits are not actually a part of what we call our soul. The process is simple, they grow in strength like we do, giving us a way to use mana. After a while it imprints onto our soul allowing us to use an even greater tier of power. Imprinting takes a good amount of time, and training, the true hurdle of entering the expert tier is the unification of Body, Mind, Spirit, and Soul. To enter the expert tier properly all four of those must work together.”

The room went silent as the headmaster actually gave a direct lecture. Most had been used to his indirect teaching style and penchant for letting his students figure things out independently.

“Most so-called experts have managed to fuse, body and spirit, or mind and spirit. Soul is usually skipped altogether by those who aren’t ranking. As improving that takes time, or an abundance of resources most don’t have access to. The average ranker as in those sixty and above can’t match what Damian can do with access to their soul. Showing that he’s been growing it for most of his short life and refining it through a mastery of the sword and song.”

“What about someone like me?” Kyrion pointed to himself.

“I don’t know how you cheated the universe, nor why you put my son’s name on it but I can say for a fact that you probably have more Divine Essence in your body than many of the experts I’ve encountered. And yet you can only use a fraction of it.”

“Checks out. So, the only thing keeping me from the expert tier as I am now, evolving my spirits and pushing my soul to its next tier of power. Is that correct?”

“That would make sense. I assume you’re waiting until you can get access to the reawakening tablet.”

“You mean these, right?” Kyrion opened his left hand, revealing 7 seven-sided objects that appeared to be made of thin material.

“Did your grandfather have a will, or hidden cache of buried treasure?” The headmaster seemed done.

“Bought these off the king. Can’t believe he charged me full price. I am planning on using one to evolve all my spirits. If we win, I’ll evolve them again.”

“The universe is never stable when you’re around.” The headmaster sighed.