Whilst Alissa was surrounded and overwhelmed by the excitement of her cssmates, Ace was being suffocated himself.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” Milianna said as she hugged Ace as tight as she could, as though she was scared he’d disappear again if she let him go.

  “I’ve missed you too, Mom,” Ace replied sincerely as he returned her hug.

  “You didn’t hurt yourself whilst you were out, did you?” Milianna asked as she separated from her son just long enough to examine his body for any injuries.

  “No, Mom, I’m fine,” Ace replied helplessly whilst silently thanking Arianna for healing him before he returned.

  He didn’t even want to imagine how she would’ve reacted had she seen the wounds from his battle with Sis earlier.

  “That’s good,” Milianna replied. “I’m gd.”

  “What are you doing here, old man?” Wukong asked curiously as he appeared by Cesar’s side.

  “Good question,” Cesar said as the ers of his mouth crept up. “Call me Grandpa, and I might tell you!”

  “Grandpa, this king’s arse!” Wukong snorted. “Just wait till this king bees a saint; this king will definitely wipe that hateful smirk from your face!”

  “Ooh, is that so?” Cesar said with a fiendish grin that made Wukong’s spine shiver. “In that case, I should probably make more of an effort to enjoy your days as a mortal.”

  “Ahh shit…” Wukong said as he hurriedly tried to leap back.

  Unfortunately, as fast as he was, in terms of movement, he was no match for the king of killers.

  “Ahh, you shitty old fart, get off me!” Wukong shouted as he was forcibly put in a headlock, much to the amusement of everyone present.

  Most of the students had no idea who Cesar was, but Wukong had a tendency to go around provoking most of the students in his free time.

  Joel and the others had long since wao teach Wukong a lesson. Unfortunately, the differen strength was too big. So when they saw his precarious predit, they all took no small amount of pleasure from it.

  It was only when Mathias cleared his throat that everyone remembered they had been summoo the mountain peak for a reason.

  “I know you all have a lot to catch up on, but before that, there are a couple of things I o announce,” Mathias said, grabbing everyone’s attention. “First, I would like to introduce you to Cesar – the Pavilion’s new Guardian.”

  As he said that, all the other kids looked at Cesar ihey didn’t reise him, but each of them uood what it meant to bee a Guardian. It osition reserved for those more powerful than Mathias himself.

  “Cesar?” Joel asked suddenly. “As in the King of Killers?”

  As a direct desdant of the Dawson family, he had a much more prehensive uanding of the most iial figures on the ti pared to his cssmates. As such, as soon as he put the name Cesar with the identity of a saint more powerful than Mathias, he immediately put two and two together.

  The name Cesar may not have meant much to them, but there weren’t many who hadn’t heard of the infamous King of Killers. Tales of his high-profile assassinations are still told to this day.

  “Good to know my name hasn’t been fotten,” Cesar said, basking in the looks of fear and awe of the other students.

  “You don’t o be scared,” Alissa said when she saw Julius and the others slowly bag away. “He’s my Grandpa; he won’t hurt you.”

  “As I was saying,” Mathias sighed helplessly at the rea of his students – not that he could bme them. “The sed and final thing I want to announce is your uping missions…”

  At first, the others were still trying to get over the shock of Alissa’s revetion, but when they heard they were about to face a new mission, they focused ba their headteacher, especially when they heard the details of their assigs.

  As geniuses, other than Ad Julius, the others all had a burning desire to challenge a all of the leading talents of this geion, so how could they be anything but excited when they heard that they would be challenging the top schools of the ti?

  “Who’s going to which school?” Joel asked eagerly.

  “That depends on each of you,” Mathias revealed. “As it stands, the rankings are as follows:

  First: Ace

  Sed: Julius

  Third: Amira

  Fourth: Joel

  Fifth: Killian

  Sixth: Osiris

  Seventh: Faye

  Eighth: Alissa

  Ninth: Yuna

  Tenth: Kannal

  Other than Julius, who’s excused from this exercise, the rest of you will have a school picked out for your challenge depending on your ranking.”

  As they heard that, several of them were looking around at each erly as if they were preparing to make a challenge in order to get a higher ranking.

  The only two whom everyone appeared to be avoiding were Ad Julius. Ace’s strength spoke for itself, and as for Julius, even if he was fighting, it was uhat he would be challenged.

  He had already reached the middle stages of the seventh rank as a mage, and although his prehension of the ws of fire and the edict of fate hadn’t reached the profound realm, acc to Lazerim – the head of the Pavilion’s mage department – in terms of the ws of fire, he wasn’t far off.

  “Not so fast,” Mathias said suddenly before they started fighting right there and then. “Amira will be ba two months, so you have till then to improve your strength as much as possible. When all ten of you are present, we’ll hold a little petition to determihe new rankings.”

  As he said that, Mathias nodded appreciatively as he saw the resolve in each of their eyes. Although two months wasn’t enough for most of them to make any major breakthroughs, if used wisely, they could still see some improvements.

  “Alright, that’s all from me,” Mathias announced. “How you spend the wo months are up to you, don’t waste it.”

  .

  .

  .

  Over the wo months, Ace spent all his time at his mother’s in the forest behind the Pavilion.

  During his time there, he couldn’t help but marvel at the results of Laraining over the st year, having already reached the early stages of the seventh rank as a warrior, prehending ‘Wielding heavy as though it were light’ and even being a mage of the third rank.

  His current strength would be enough to rank him amongst the upper echelon of any for the ti, a he trained harder and harder with each passing day.

  Before leaving for the Rohault Empire, Ace used all his tribution points, asking Lauriel to buy anything Lance could use to improve his strength as much as possible.

  I year, Lance had ed a number of herbs to aid his training, but the biggest factor tributing to his improvement was, without a doubt, the spear in his hands.

  The shaft of the spear was crystal white with dark blue ruched into it and an azure blue bde.

  Despite only being a spear made from mortal materials, it was the on Lauriel was most proud of f.

  Its shaft was made from the smelted bones of the Azure Dragon, and its bde from the Divine Dragon’s core.

  That in and of itself made it a treasure that many saints would kill for, but with the teiques Lauriel used te it, after bonding with it, Lance’s own affinity for the element of water increased from the average grade to beyond exceptional, faintly matg Ace’s affinity to the ws of fire.

  Although he had to be in direct tact with his spear to be from that perk, it was more than worthwhile.

  Because of that, Lance was able to bee a mage of the third rank in the space of a year.

  Despite all his improvements, Lance didn’t let his improvements go to his head. He uood better than ahat his aplishments had less to do with his own natural ability and more to do with the treasures he’d been given.

  But instead of allowing that to fuel his insecurities and feelings of inferiority, he used it as motivation – he refused to let Ace’s gifts go to waste!

  Ace spent a lot of time apanying his mother, feeling guilty after havi her for almost a year; he eve some time most ms training with Laill, he made sure not to his own training.

  Even though he didn’t put the students of the War God’s Academy in his eyes, he didn’t dare uimate the students of the War God’s College. Even if they weren’t as talented as him or his cssmates, they were still elites, and more importantly, they were all double his age.

  He had spent the st two months solidating his prehension and further refining his fighting style, and although he hadn’t made any breakthroughs in terms of realm, he felt as though the current him could trouhe him of two months ago.

  At that moment, Ace was sitting cross-legged in the middle of an open field just outside his mother’s uhe night sky.

  There wasn’t much he could do now to further his prehension, but after reading through his master’s notes of the usages of ‘Impose’, he had one final aspect of his training to plete before he was ready for his uping battles.

  ‘It’s now or never,’ Ace thought to himself as his eyes fshed with resolve.

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  P.atreon./ACoilingDragon

  Book 7: Chapter 12 – Six Months