Chapter 83

Chapter 83 Gary started to distance himself from the group and the others hardly ever saw him outside of training. When he came back to the room each night, he would always be covered in sweat. Sometimes, Ray would spot him at the training ground, practising. The others had bugged Dan many times about the contents of the letter petsering to give up the details of what was inside and eventually, he gave in and told the rest. Now that everyone knew Gary was going through a tough time, they decided to give up on bothering him, allowing him the space and time to rest and rediscover himself. But to be honest, everyone was pretty busy themselves. The Avrion Academy Tournament was only a month away. There were a lot of prizes up for grabs, but only the top five people could go on to take part in the All Kingdom Tournament. Still, Ray wasn't too bothered about the tournament. Before, his original plan was to make it into the top ten for he wanted to keep the old man happy, that should have been a high enough position. But there were too many things that happened. Ray had promised to help Gary. Furthermore, it was most likely that Gary was training to be in the top five. Now, Ray just wanted to be there as support for him, to keep his word. That day at their Black Knight Training Session, Sir K had given the four of them a nice surprise. He brought the equipment from the Pureblood Members. All the weapons and armour that was laid out were all Intermediate Class. "It's not everything that was there but a lot of it was ruined beyond repair." Sir K said. "Where's the sword that Lancy was using?" Ray asked. "Although the sword itself wasn't ruined, it's practically just a basic tier weapon right now. For some reason, the magical properties of the beast crystal inside were gone. Gary and Ray, you get to pick first." Ray went over and looked at the pieces of equipment, until finally deciding on the shoulder guard piece. There was nothing else there that really interested him and he thought the others would fare better with the rest. Sir K had already paid for his own items to be repaired, so his gauntlets and chest piece were back in top shape. Originally Ray wanted a better sword, but Gary had already picked the dual blades and they came as a pair. The Duel blades taken by Gary were a dark purple in colour. They were quite thin and had a cruce going upward to them both. Monk decided to take a chest piece and some boots. Light armour to protect himself and keep him nimble on his feet. For some reason, Kyle was drawn to the chain weight for some reason. Even though he had never used a weapon like it before. In his head he could picture himself using it quite well. "I suggest you get your armour dyed. The tournament is coming and it's a chance for you to show off your powers. You want to stand out, right? If you no longer wish to be a knight when you are done studying. "Then, the tournament will be a good opportunity for you to get scouted from by the noble families and act as their guards." Sir K explained. Because of the beast crystal armour coming from all sorts of different beasts, there were a lot of times when their equipment would mismatch. A lot of knights and armies chose to dye their equipment to represent their colours. Some students just did it as a fashion statement. Although Ray didn't care as much, he did like the colour red. So, taking Sir K's advice, he decided he would get his equipment dyed as well.

Their hunting session had been cancelled for a week due to the incident that happened last time. A lot of people asked what had happened to Lancy. But no one really had a concrete answer. There was a rumour going around that he died bravely in a mission. Of course, only Ray and the others knew the truth of the whole matter. Sir K was right. It seemed like no one knew of the faction called Pureblood. It was also hard for the group to go around asking about it, afraid that they might ruffle the wrong feathers and bring attention to themselves. In the evening, Ray would travel to the foothills with Noir. When he put her back into the system, the flames seemed to stop affecting her. She healed just as quickly as his body which was a relief. His first non human companion who was loyal to him. Without the help of her and Gary at that time, Ray would have died. He knew from this incident he needed to get stronger, so he didn't have to rely on the help of others. The easiest way to do that right now was to gather more crystals. The problem with the upcoming tournament was that Ray wasn't allowed to use his abilities. The second he did, the academy would know of his hidden powers. If he wanted to win this tournament ro get a high position, he would have to do it using his pure strength. All of these reasons led him to sneak out and hunt. When hunting around the foothills, Ray came across an area where there were Ice Golems. This was a gold mine for him as Ice Golem were weak to fire. They also carried an Elemental Attribute, Ice. After defeating seven of them, Ray managed to absorb 6+ points on his Ice Attribute and gathered three crystals via the system and four by carving them out of the Golems. Ray would come back and return to the foothills often to look for new beasts. He found that a lot of beasts in the area carried the Ice Attribute. It was important for him to find a new type of beast as the system would stop giving him crystals after defeating the same beast all over again. One top of this, every day, Ray would train with the old man and hone his hand-to-hand combat skills. He would train with the Black Sash Knights to work on footwork and sword skills, then hunt in the evening to gather crystals and improve his body and elemental powers. After hunting every day for the last three weeks, Ray had become stronger. He also currently held ten Intermediate Beast Crystal Items. None of these was of use to him as they were weapons or items that he wouldn't need nor use. He kept them for now, in the case that he would find an Advanced Tier Crystal in the future and needed money to craft it into an item. However he wasn't the only one who had gotten stronger during this time. For the last three weeks, the team had defeated a lot of Intermediate Creatures and had gathered stronger equipment. Ian had better axes, Martha had better bow and arrows, Monk with his daggers and so on. It was going to be a tough competition. There was even a third-year student that Ray needed to worry about, like Harry and Jasmine.It was a shame that Ray still hadn't figured out the condition to unlock more skills. There were some useful ones that he would like to use but there was no time left. Finally, after the long wait, it was time for the Avrion Academy Tournament...