Drained

After joining the Institute of Bloodline, in the afternoon Emery went over to the Institute of Darkness. Emery hoped he could meet his mentor, Magus Xion, for some guidance. Unfortunately, Emery had to return empty handed, as the magus was currently not available at the institute.

This time Emery knew the magus was not in a class or at his residence. Therefore, Magus Xion must have gone somewhere. Seeing the person he had come for was not there, Emery thought about returning to Lord Izta's palace to practice his sword and battle art training. However, he immediately changed his mind, when he saw the place where the origin stone room was.

Emery Enter the Institute of Darkness' origin stone room, and took the half day access

[500 contribution point used]

This was actually Emery's first time entering and seeing the darkness stone of origin. He was very excited by the thought of directly seeing the darkness stone. Emery then quickly made his way inside the room and like usual, the closer he was to the stone the heavier his steps.

Emery walked until he found the place he felt comfortable at. Surprisingly, he can walk much closer to the darkness stone compared to the other institutes' stone of origin. Looking at the stone in the distance, Emery estimated he was currently about 80 meters away from the stone, while normally he stayed in the 100 meters radius.

Nodding his head in satisfaction, Emery swiftly sat down and closed his eyes, as he began to enter a meditative state. A sentence, or rather a thought slowly appeared in his mind.

[Darkness the home of void, within emptiness you will find yourself]

Upon hearing that, Emery who was already in a meditative state quickly fell into a trance-like state, where everything and anything was nothing. He was drawn into an illusion, where he was just a tiny speck inside an endless dark space. All his senses were gone, as a feeling of weakness, loneliness and powerlessness crept into his very being and began eroding it.

Darkness was the absence of light. Whenever light arrived, darkness would be driven away.

The feeling Emery was currently experiencing was disturbing… and uncomfortable. In the endless space where there shouldn't be anything, Emery found a mist, a black-colored mist. But before he could reach out to it, he was awoken.

[Time is up]

[Spirit force increased by one]

On the outside, it might be just one point increase of his spirit force. However, Emery found out he had a new understanding of the element of darkness, a knowledge that couldn't be measured by any number.

Feeling it was worth every point he spent, Emery decided he would go to the darkness origin stone room every day and after the meditation session, he would then go to Lord Izta's palace and do a few training courses during the night. Emery thought this would be the best option to rapidly increase his strength within his remaining time.

Solidifying his schedule, Emery immediately went into Lord Izta's palace to… sleep.

After all, it was already midnight and Emery wanted to make sure he would be able to carry out his plan without any flaw. Therefore, he walk as fast as he could towards his quarters and immediately dropped dead into his bed.

-

The next morning, after he woke up, Emery swiftly did the 'business' he had to do and darted towards the Institute of Darkness, again. Entering the origin stone room, Emery returned to his previous position and started meditating.

Second day.

[Spirit force increased by one]

…

Third day.

[Spirit force increased by one]

Even though it only gave him one spirit force a day, Emery still came back to the origin stone room over and over. With each day passed, Emery felt his understanding of the darkness element deepen and became more profound.

There were indeed moments where Emery thought of going to the other institutes to spend some time in their origin stone rooms. But after thinking deeply, Emery thought it was not worth it with the limited time he had. With that Emery thought it would be more beneficial to master one element first.

Emery hoped that, with the increase of his understanding towards the darkness element, all his darkness spells as well as the combination spells [Granite skin] and [Dark root binding] would become much stronger than before. This is the right way he thought.

This was the way Emery spent his remaining days before the second stage of the Magus Games began. Cultivating his element during the day, trying to reach a deeper understanding and sparring against the wooden puppets during the night, polishing his combat ability and battle art skills.

At dawn of the fourth day, Emery laid on the ground, extremely drained, as he had finally managed to defeat the level 6 combat puppet, which granted him a 3 battle power increase and another battle art skill. Despite his eagerness to choose a new skill, Emery just couldn't get up.

After several minutes of continuous struggle, Emery gave up and lay there on the ground resting his exhausted body. Half an hour later, Emery finally felt his body slightly recovered. Slowly getting up, Emery received his reward.

[Congratulation for defeating level 6 wooden puppet]

[Receive 3 battle power]

[You are rewarded with one battle art skill]

This time, Emery chose the dagger skill, [Hidden Blade]. Therefore he now had two battle arts for two different situations. A direct attack and an indirect one.

Seeing the morning sun rising in the sky, instead of continuing his rest, Emery immediately went to the darkness origin stone room again. Meditating there for half a day, Emery once again received another one spirit point. Stepping out of the room, Emery checked his status.

[Emery Ambrose]

[Battle power 37]

[Spirit force 126]

These past few days, Emery had been practicing really hard doing everything he could, with very limited rest time. However, he couldn't help but be concerned, he felt he was definitely still lacking for the next game. Remembering there were only 3 days left before the game started, Emery shook his head and sighed deeply.

It was unfortunate that until this day Magus Xion still hadn't returned to the institute. Emery then left the Institute of Darkness with a heavy heart. He returned to Lord Izta's palace and when he was about to practice again, he found out that Julian had been looking for him.

"Emery! There you are!" Julian exclaimed, when he finally saw his best friend.

"What's up, What's with the rush?" Emery asked, as he saw Julian dashing toward him at full speed, as if afraid he would disappear.

"You can't blame me, Emery. After all, these few days you have rarely been seen in the palace." Julian said. "By the way, there is a gathering tonight and we are invited!"

"Gathering? What kind of gathering?" Emery asked, puzzled.

"I heard they are inviting all acolytes of group 7 for some kind of strategy briefing." Julian replied, while scratching his head. "I'm also not sure actually"

"They? Who are they?"

"The other top group 7 acolytes like us, I guess."

"Like us?" Emery asked again, truly confused. Emery didn't think his team was that special.

"Emery! We were in the top 10 in the first stage. Of course we are part of the top teams of group 7." Julian answered with confidence. "So… what do you think? I couldn't find Thrax and Chumo, but I did find Klea. She said that she will be there."

It appeared the last four days, everyone was so drowned with their own training it made them no longer know what the others were doing. Thinking for a while, Emery nodded his head. "Alright. I think it's a good idea to know more about the game. Let's go."

The two of them then left the palace and went into the big residence located at the peak of the mountain. This whole mountain was the location of group 7, which consisted of class 71 to class 80. This location would be the most distinct place for them to do a massive gathering.

When Emery and Julian arrived near the residence, they were taken back for a moment because there were way more people than they thought. Looking around the groups of people. Emery estimated there were at least a hundred acolytes gathered here. Therefore, out of all the top 50 in the group 7, almost one third of them came to this gathering.

When Emery and Julian were seen in the distance, Anas, the acolyte from the Kaleos world shouted. The shout was loud enough it caught the attention of everyone present.

"Here we have the best group that managed to kill the ogre!"

All eyes immediately turned towards Emery and Julian, watching the two of them approach the residence.