Lloyd checked his core really quickly to see if hismandment had changed for that too, but as he had suspected, his core''smandment remained the same despite his body having ascended a stage.


    Lloyd sighed in relief when he left his shadow and saw that no one was in his room. It was quitete already, as the time had reached midnight, but Lloyd knew that Jay probably wouldn''t return until the morning since it was a weekend.


    Jay had a habit of staying outte. Due to his looks and personality, he was a natural yboy that many girls in the academy found hard to resist, but it was Lloyd who had to deal with the brunt of the problems. Jay tended to bring girls to their room asionally, and Lloyd would be forced to leave.


    However, this time it didn''t seem like it would be the case, so instead of continuing to cultivate like he usually did, he got up and left his room.


    Walking toward the source of the noise, he looked at the hundreds of students drinking and partying with a hint of disdain.


    While Lloyd never understood why people drank and partied, now that he had awakened and was using all his waking hours to cultivate, he could not help but feel a tinge of hatred toward the kids who were wasting their times at the academy with things like these.


    But he wasn''t there for the party, nor was he there for the drinks. Instead, he was looking for someone.


    "There you are." Lloyd muttered while weaving throughout the crowd to reach his destination.


    Even touching the students around him would have made him feel filthy, so he made sure that he maneuvered between them like a snake with a fear of contact.


    When he finally reached his destination, he scrunched his nose and tapped her shoulder.


    "Oi." Lloyd called out to her.


    Fatima slowly turned around to Look Lloyd in the eye. She was clearly drunk out of her mind, and the annoyingly loud music wasn''t helping his situation.


    When she finally saw him, she narrowed her eyes slightly before widening them and shouting-


    "Holy shit! L-Lloyd left his room!"


    All her friends turned to see what she was talking about, but when they saw Lloyd next to her, they couldn''t help but grin slightly.


    "Oh, man... If he wasn''t your boyfriend, I would have definitely stolen him from you." One of the girls snickered


    ''Why does everyone always assume that I''m dating someone? Do I look like someone who has the time for a social life?'' Lloyd asked himself while dodging everyone close to bumping him.


    "And he sure is a handsome too." Another girl suddenly came from behind him, causing Lloyd''s senses to scream at him the moment her hand touched his shoulder.


    "Get off." Lloyd''s voice turned cold as he turned to her and looked into her eyes with a gaze filled to the brim with disgust. A string of killing intent seeped out of him involuntarily, causing the girl to go slightly pale while taking a step back.


    "Damn, sheesh. Take a chill pill man." The girl raised her hands up in surrender, suddenly feeling her stomach churn due to the effects of Lloyd''s killing intent. Yet it wasn''t just her who was affected. It was everyone within a meter of him, Fatima included.


    Turning to Fatima again, Lloyd finally asked-


    "Can I borrow your extra hours in the gym? It''s the end of the week, so your hours are going to be reset. I''ve already used up all of mine." Lloyd asked.


    Fatima was a little surprised by the strength of his killing intent, to the point she had be semi-sober the moment she felt it seep out of him.


    Despite it only being a small percentage of what his full killing intent was capable of, it was still terrifyingly powerful, but it made sense to her since she knew what happened in the dungeon... Well, she at least knew the military report side of it.


    Lloyd had never chosen to expand on her knowledge of what happened, but she never asked him to, either.


    "Sure." She sighed and tapped her watch with his, sending him her remaining hours in the gym.


    "Are you sure you don''t want to stay for a while? You can get to know people from other sses. Hell, maybe you''ll find a-"


    "If you say girlfriend I''m going to skin you alive and put you into a container filled with lemon juice." Lloyd said with full seriousness. Of course, he was joking, but everyone other than Fatima felt a shiver go down their spines.


    "You do you I guess." Fatima chuckled before shrugging and turning around.


    Lloyd quickly left the cesspool that was the party and quickly moved toward the gym after cleansing his clothes.


    When he entered, he saw only one other person.


    "Not surprised to see you here?" Luna sneered.


    "Neither am I. You are the most anti-social person I know." Lloyd chuckled.


    "I could say the same to you, peasant." She harrumphed while kicking one of the dummies back and throwing a darkness energy ball at them.


    It was a basic spell that used the [Darkness Maniption] ability of hers, but the moment the energy ball touched the dummy, a loud explosion echoed throughout the gym ball was a shockwave shot out in every direction before being stopped by the gym''s runes.


    "Maybe You''ll improve when you fight something that can actually challenge you." Lloydmented.


    "Is that a challenge?"


    "Nope. Just an observation." He chuckled.


    The military academy gym was pretty advanced. However, the quality of the gym depends on your group rank. Since Lloyd was in the C group, the gym for him was limited to weight and cardio training, as well as fighting dummies up to the secondmandment.


    Sections like the virtual reality pods and the mana-rich cultivation rooms were closed off to people like him, so he had to use what he had.


    Entering one of the training rooms, a screen shed in front of Lloyd, appearing out of thin air.


    The section of the gym he was currently in looked more like one of his halls than a gym. It was split into dozens of different sections, each one of them being around 100x100 meters, being a little bigger than a football pitch.


    The gym itself was enormous, and even though this part of it was one of the major reasons why it was so big, the gym barely took 5% of the entire campus.


    "Incognito." Lloyd muttered, causing the ss of his small section to quickly turn into one-way ss. While it was only Luna and a few second and third years in the hall right now, he still didn''t want to show off his cards.


    "Half step secondmandment." Lloyd ordered, making a dummy spawn a few dozen meters in front of him.


    [Core or body cultivation?] the system asked.


    "Body."


    [Weapon of choice?]


    "Staff"


    [Mastery?]


    "Intermediate..." Lloyd replied. He wasn''t sure how strong Derek Cer, his sparring partner for staffbat, was, nor did he know what his mastery was, but it couldn''t be more than advanced.


    Anything above Advanced would be within the realms of instructor Yung''s mastery, and not even Lloyd wanted to experience such a thing.


    Also, fighting a dummy with the intermediate mastery allowed Lloyd to increase his own mastery, so it was a win-win situation.


    Taking his staff out of his dimensional storage within his watch, Lloyd got into a fighting stance and got ready to show the dummy a month''s worth of hard work, training, and his newfound early firstmandment power.


    Shooting forward with all the power he could muster, Lloyd instantly appeared behind the dummy, but instead of attacking it, Lloyd regained his bnce and quickly realized that he might have overshot it a little.


    Sliding to a stop, Lloyd turned around the to face to dummy again, but he was quickly forced to block and iing attack with his staff.


    Pivoting on his heel, Lloyd spun for a moment, parrying the staff that had intended on hitting him and sending the butt of his staff into the dummy''s side.


    The dummy instantly shot toward the wall, mming into it with enough force that it send a small quake through it.


    ''Oh yeah... I keep forgetting that it''s actually ss...'' Lloyd thought when looking at the wall before returning to the dummy.


    "Mastery: Advanced. Commandment: 2nd, five topaz seals."


    [Are you sure you want to spar against a secondmandment dummy?] The system asked.


    "Yes."


    The dummy instantly disappeared before being reced by another standing in the middle of their little arena.


    Instead of waiting to be attacked like the other dummy, this one shot toward Lloyd with the speed that only someone in the secondmandment could achieve. To make matters worse, it was also a body cultivator, so it was much faster than the average mage.


    To Lloyd, it felt like he was back to when the monarch of the autumn forest had attacked them, but the difference between then and now was simply. The dummy was 5 topaz seals weaker, and Lloyd was much stronger.


    Lloyd blocked the iing staff''s butt end and stepped out of the way.


    He could feel the wind brush against his cheek as he barely dodged the staff, but he acted quickly by attempting to swipe the dummy''s legs, but it was still one step ahead of him.


    Jumping over the staff, it quickly flipped over Lloyd, taking the time to smack him on the forehead while doing so.


    This carried on for a several minutes as the dummy cornered Lloyd. Lloyd found himself unable to use his full power against the dummy, because he always found himself on the defensive no matter how hard he tried to break out of that loop.


    "Well... Fuck it." Lloyd muttered while taking a hit to the side of his torso while mming the butt end of his staff into the dummy''s kneecap before swiping up and performing the staff''s equivalent of an uppercut that sent the dummy into the air of a moment.


    When the dummy regained its senses, it saw something move in front of it and quickly swung at it with the staff, yet the moment it hit the object, it knew that it wasn''t Lloyd.


    It was far too light...


    It was his staff?


    Within the blink of an eye, Lloyd had moved out of the dummy''s vision and left a staff there to distract it. He knew it would instantly look for his location once it hit the staff, yet it didn''t matter since he would get everything done by that point.


    [Shadow Enhancment]


    Covering his arm and spine with shadows, Lloyd sent out a lightning-quick punch thatnded square onto the center of the dummy''s face before mming it into the ground.


    A huge shockwave, even more, powerful than Luna''s dark energy orb, shot in every direction.


    The dummy resisted for a few milliseconds, yet after a second had passed, it was already "Dead."


    Getting off the dummy, Lloyd looked at the shadows on his fist slowly retracting before muttering-


    "I''m stronger, but I can feel that abilities like shadow enhancement have be less effective on me. Man, I really need to find some monsters or beasts to kill." Lloyd rubbed the bridge of his nose in annoyance.


    Little did he know that the answer to all his problems would be given to him on a golden tter.


    -------


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