"I knew your family's mansion was big, but I didn't expect it to be this big!" Nex exclaimed with his jaw dropped after just one glance at the marvelous mansion.
"What do you mean? I told you it was basically the size of the central hall in the capital before," Anas questioned.
"I didn't think you were actually telling the damn truth!" Nex exclaimed.
"Hey! Language Nex, he is still the heir to the Blackwood family," Karasu warned Nex.
"Good evening master Anas, let me help you with your-" the head butler stopped, " Oh? And they are?"
"My friends, Al. Don't worry, they aren't criminals," Nex explained to Al.
"Well, friends of master Anas are always welcome to be invited," Al said with a welcoming smile.
"Come on guys, let's go to the courtyard, let me introduce you to our new trainer," Anas said with enthusiasm.
In the courtyard, they saw a tall figure surrounded by ten people with training swords, in a few swift movements, the figure took out everyone. After the figure saw Anas, she quickly told them that training was over for today and walked towards the trio.
"So, these two are your friends whom you talked about? They don't seem too fragile, but they definitely need some work. No need to fear as you got one of the best female awakeners in the city!" She said with pride.
When Nex and Karasu saw her, they were surprised at her stunning looks, she was the captain of the second division of the Blackwood family: Amelia.
"Alright you three, training begins now!" She shouted.
Hours later, the three boys were already regretting ever asking to train. All of them were already struggling—Anas's chunks of sapphire were basically the size of a pebble, Nex's bone arms crumbled to dust after forming them and Karasu's scythe lost its form.
"THIS IS LITERALLY TORTURE!" all three of them shouted simultaneously with what little air they had.
"You three are so dramatic! When I was your age, I did this three times a day, you three haven't even done two-thirds of it!" Amelia said with a disappointed voice.
On the sidelines, Anas' sister was watching them suffer even though she didn't know what was going on, but her cuteness gave Anas the motivation he needed.
More time passed and finally, they were done for the day. "Though it was torture, we need to keep training in order to stand a chance against a magnitude 5 and beyond gates," Nex said, trying to motivate them.
"At the rate, we'll die from exhaustion before we die on the battlefields," Anas said after some thinking.
The boys carried on the training for a week straight and classmates around them were concerned about their terrible conditions. However, both Karasu and Nex were starting to actually pay attention in class from the discipline Amelia taught them which shocked not only their classmates, but also their teachers. Whispers followed them with people wondering what caused them to be like this and rumors about a Cruel cursing them were flying around.
"Alright you three, let's see how much you've improved!" Amelia shouted. Anas managed to make his sapphire larger and made a buckshot attack, Nex was able to make waves of bones to come out of the ground and the bones are much more durable than before and Karasu made blood armor and blood orbs that exploded on impact.
"Well, you guys have improved more than I've expected, maybe you guys are truly prodigies in eye magic," Amelia said with a satisfied look.
"Now we're talking! When the next gate opens, we'll make sure we will do better than before. And I will definitely beat you, Crow!" Nex said with determination.
"Yeah totally, you definitely will.... In your damn dreams!" Karasu said mockingly.
"What happened to the no swearing part?" Nex questioned.
"That was past me, now I am a new me," Karasu replied.
"With this improvement, we should be near the copper rank. However, we can't close a magnitude 1 gate singlehandedly like them," Anas said.
"Don't worry, we still have plenty of time before we can officially apply as mages for ANGEL," Nex said.
"But our seniors are growing faster than us, we might need to train even harder," Karasu suggested.
"That's only because they are in their growing stages, so of course they are growing faster than us. We are way above average for our ages," Anas said with Nex agreeing.
With this improvement, they went to see just how much they have improved by taking the assessment test at their school. It was common for students to test their powers and every day, hundreds of students always came here to see their strength. The assessment test is a student testing their powers on a teacher and different materials, and in special cases, even Cruels they had caught up over the years.
Nex went first, he challenged their homeroom teacher and he got a 90/100 for his magical potency and the creativity he used to limit his teacher's movement, but he lacked a strategy to get a clean hit on his teacher.
Then came Anas, he challenged the science teacher: Ms Cheung and he got a 84/100 for his quick and smart thinking along with his strategies, though his moves were somewhat predictable.
Finally, Karasu challenged the vice principal: Mr X and got a 92/100 for his power and the unpredictable moves he made, but he was too careless and got hit in vital parts, even his armor couldn't save him, slowing him down and the formation of his blood attacks slowed down significantly.
"Ha! Guess I won yet again!" Karasu gloated over his slight victory.
"Soon, I will crush you," Nex said with a dissatisfied look.
"You two are cowards. So what if we are getting tortured from this training? If we don't improve quickly, we will be too weak to make a difference," Karasu shouted.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTEvGgxrMVq
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