Julius walked away and over to Marcus. He had taken it easy on the poor girl in the beginning, but had to increase his effort slightly. He hadn't been planning on it, but he had been forced to use his aura. He couldn't really use his other dangerous skills, not during a meaningless spar, and he didn't trust himself only to use kinetic energy just yet. He would feel terrible if he somehow blew her up because he was unable to control his output. It wasn't like he was sparring against Arthur; if she failed to handle the influx of energy, she would pop like a balloon.

Although, to her credit, she had demonstrated some fascinating abilities. That field of lightning was very intriguing. He suspected that it would serve as the foundation for her domain if she ever reached Tier 5. Which, in all honesty, wouldn't surprise Julius. She was definitely one of the more powerful Tier 3s he had come across.

Her Lightning Concepts had taken a slightly different direction than Derek's. In her case, she had infused many other properties into the actual lightning. Whereas in Derek's case, he had pushed his lightning to do as much damage as possible.

For example, she had managed to stack multiple effects into her lightning. There was the physical stun effect, which seemed to be the normal effect of lightning magic, making it harder to move one's body. She also infused a disruptive effect into the lightning itself. It wasn't as powerful as he had seen from other specialized mages, but for a passive effect, it was quite strong. If you took into account the stunning as well, then it was doubly annoying.

Then there was the effect of shocking one's mana. He noticed that her lightning had this weird ability to not only stun the body, but also one's mana. Furthermore, there was a fascinating property that allowed her lightning to hone in on him. He wondered if she managed to take advantage of lightning's natural tendency for conduction to achieve this.

All of this wasn't even considering the sheer damage her lightning did to someone just by itself. If he was being honest, he was quite impressed. He believed that if Derek managed to learn some of these same techniques, he would become drastically more dangerous. He would have to mention something to his friend later.

It was just a shame that her body lagged behind. He was able to tell right away that her mind worked faster than her body could react. While she had a teleportation skill to move around, it would only help so much.

He hadn't even chosen to disrupt his teleportation attempts like he could have.

Julius approached Marcus. "Is that what you wanted?" He asked the man blankly.

Marcus shrugged. "Essentially. I would like to mention that your aura control has improved really nicely. Your ability to hold back the more dangerous aspects of it while still utilizing it efficiently is impressive," Marcus complimented.

Julius did his best not to show his appreciation of the praise. He had worked quite hard for the past several months on making sure he had perfect control of his aura. While he hadn't quite gotten there, there was clearly a large difference between his control now and what it was a few months ago.

"Is that all?" He asked.

"Well… I was hoping to see more of your improvements, but it seems you want to stay secretive," Marcus admitted with a grin.

"Too bad," Julius said flatly.

"We have time," Marcus said with a confident smile.

Julius sighed, and they quietly stood next to another before Julius spoke again. "You didn't need to taunt her like that," he rebuked the one-armed man, while glancing back at where the girl was standing, sort of stunned as if she had been hit by one of her own lightning attacks.

Marcus shrugged uncaringly and glanced at her as well. "Honestly, the two of them needed to see that there were levels beyond them. I was given the order to help them improve as much as possible, but their belief that they are at the top of Tier 3 holds them back and makes them harder to teach."

"So you wanted to use me to show them that isn't the case?" Julius asked with a narrowing of his eyes.

"Yep."

Julius rolled his eyes. "You are unbelievable."

"I try my best," Marcus said, barely hiding a grin. Julius would have retorted, but he stopped when he sensed the girl, Christina, approaching them. Both turned toward her.

He was going to say something first, but she beat him to it. "I'm sorry," she said quickly and with a deep bow.

"For what?" He asked, confused by her actions. If anyone should be apologizing to him, it should be Marcus.

"For my conceitedness," she said with her head still down.

He waved her off. "It's not even your fault," he said and pointed at Marcus. "This donkey was just trying to rile you up. He likes to play too many games," Julius insulted Marcus.

"Donkey?" He heard Marcus mutter to himself, sounding less offended and more puzzled by the insult.

Christina looked worried when Julius insulted Marcus, and waited a moment to see what the man would do to Julius. She looked baffled when Marcus didn't do anything.

She chewed on her lip. "Regardless, I wanted to say sorry either way."

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Water under the bridge," Julius assured her.

An awkward moment of silence stretched between them, and Julius was about to walk away when she reached out to stop him. "Um, actually, I would like to ask you some questions, if that is alright?" She asked hesitatingly.

"Sure, go ahead," he said, feeling a little confused.

"Can you show me how you did that?" She wouldn't look him in the eyes and appeared a little embarrassed to be asking that.

"The last aura attack?" He asked to make sure he understood what she was asking.

She nodded in response.

He could tell that she was being sincere, so he didn't have any issues with that. "Sure, but be warned, I don't know if you will be able to replicate it. I got a unique aura, but it should be possible to mimic some of the effects," he explained to her.

She looked up with excitement. "That's more than fine!"

He saw Marcus looking pleased with himself off in the corner, but he ignored the man. Julius had a feeling that this was also Marcus's intention. He hid the sigh that tried to come out of him and proceeded to show Derek's cousin some aura drills he had developed to oppress others' abilities.

***

He let out a relaxed groan as he soaked in the warm water. He had spent much of last night with Cain, the man had shown Julius a new training exercise that would help him gain better control of his kinetic energy.

However, it was a stretch to call it an exercise; it was more like an archaic form of torture. The exercise was quite simple; he had to constantly keep the same amount of kinetic energy in his body while simultaneously being flooded by Cain's kinetic energy. This required Julius to remain constantly mindful of the situation and be prepared to adapt at any moment.

It wouldn't be too bad if Cain didn't insist on forcing Julius to keep as much kinetic energy as possible without blowing up. Since Cain knew about Julius's healing skill, he was always a little more daring when it came to training. He knew that Julius likely wouldn't die and pushed him harder than one normally would.

The good news was that during their trip to the capital and the short time they had spent there, he had already gained a couple of levels in [Kinetic Energy Refinement].

He had actually received another level this morning after completing a short training session by himself.

[Kinetic Energy Refinement lvl 10 -> lvl 11]

Although truth be told, he had actually gotten more tired from helping Christina than he had from anything else. The girl was persistent, and the moment Julius started to show her some things, the previous tentative behavior vanished as if it never existed.

She showed Julius that she was a very passionate fighter and loved to train. But that also meant she was constantly asking him questions about his aura. Apparently, she was trying to make changes to her own aura so that she could leverage her lightning magic to increase its potency.

She had been having a tough time doing so, but seeing Julius use his aura had given her some inspiration. He was more than happy to help her. It was weird to see just how drastically her attitude toward him had changed, but he didn't mind it all that much. It was better than the opposite.

He did notice that her brother didn't seem to be a big fan of him. He caught Cyrus giving him small, dirty looks when the other boy thought Julius wasn't watching.

"It looks like you and Christina are getting along nicely," Lily said with a teasing smirk.

"Yeah, she is also very pretty," Aubrey said while waggling her eyebrows.

Julius threw some water at the two of them. They were all relaxing by one of the many pools around the estate. It wasn't just any regular pool, either. This pool had special properties that helped recover stamina and alleviate fatigue. He couldn't help but be curious about how much it cost to have this thing created.

"I thought with all of that," Julius said with a disappointed shake of his head.

"We also thought that you and Grace— I mean Reinera, were getting along well. We were hoping that the two of you might hit it off," Aubrey said sadly.

"Why do you make it sound like she is dead or something?" Julius said with a frown. "You do know that she is probably not that far from us at the moment, right?"

"She might as well be. With all of her 'royal duties' she has to attend to," Aubrey mumbled.

"Are you planning to see her soon?" Lily suddenly asked.

Julius shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't talked to her in a while, but she said she was going to try to contact me when the tournament started."

"Good, I miss her. She is such a nice girl," Lily said happily.

"Speaking of the tournament, have you been informed of the general layout?" Edgar asked him. Julius's big friend was splayed on his back as he floated around the water.

Julius shook his head. "Not really. I was going to ask you guys for help. I remember the school telling me that I need to go to the registration a few days before the tournament starts, right?"

"Yeah, we have already done ours, but we can go with you and help you with yours," Lily offered.

"That would be very helpful, thanks," Julius said with a bright smile.

"Urgh. I don't want to go back. There are so many people around that area at the moment," Aubrey said with a groan.

"You can stay here, it's not like your help will be particularly needed," Julius said with a side eye toward her.

She made a splash as she made her way to him. "What is that supposed to mean?" She asked, offendedly, and moved to grab him.

Julius decided to show off some of his newfound powers and kinetically restrained her. She froze mid-reach, but he felt her willpower react swiftly despite being caught off guard. He was quite impressed by how much firmer and deeper it felt compared to before. It was apparent she had made her own improvements.

Despite that, it wasn't enough to escape. He already had her trapped, and he laughed as she struggled to get free. He saw her face redden in exertion as she finally managed to tear herself free, and she gasped as she flopped face down into the water.

When she resurfaced, she made her move and jumped on top of him. He allowed her to shove him under the water. When she had her fill, she let him up.

"Why in the hell was it so hard to break through?" She asked him with a look of disgust on her face.

"I made some modifications to my kinetic energy," he said with a proud smirk. "You like it?"

"Fuck no! I thought I had made enough changes to my willpower that I could surprise you," she said fiercely and splashed the water in irritation.

He simply smirked at her, and that was enough to send her off the deep end. She leapt at him once more, and he once more restrained her with his kinetic energy. However, to his shock, he found himself faced with an unbelievable betrayal.

The others, who had been watching from the sidelines, decided to join in on the fun. But instead of helping him, they all ganged up on him. He found himself desperately fighting all of them off with everything he had.

Unfortunately, it didn't matter in the end. Eventually, he succumbed to the relentless assault of their combined efforts.

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