Gary started to distance himself away from the group. We hardly ever saw him outside of training and when he came back to his room he would always be covered in sweet. Sometimes I would spot him at the training ground practising.

The others had bugged Dan many times about the contents of the letter, eventually, he gave in and told the rest. Everyone knew Gary was going through a tough time so they gave him s.p.a.ce to rest.

In truth everyone was pretty busy, the Avrion academy tournament was only one month away. There were many prizes up for grabs but only the top five people could go on to take part in the all kingdom tournament.

I wasn't too bothered about the tournament before, my original plan was to make it into the to the top ten to keep the old man happy. But there were many things that had happened. I had now promised to help Gary. It was most likely Gary was training to be in the top five.

At our next black night training session, Sir K had given the four of us a nice surprise. He had brought the equipment form the Pureblood members. All the weapons and armour laid out whereof the intermediate cla.s.s.

"It's not everything that was there, because a lot of it was ruined beyond repair."

"Where's the sword that Lancy was using?" I asked.

"Although the sword itself is not ruined, its practically just a basic weapon now. For some reason, the magical properties of the beast crystal inside have gone. Gary and Ray, you get first pick."

I went over and picked up a shoulder guard piece. There was nothing else there that really interested me. Sir K had already paid for my items to be repaired, so my gauntlets and chest piece were back in top shape.

I originally wanted a better sword but Gary had already picked the duel blades and they were a set after all.

Gary had taken the duel blades, which were purple in colour with a slight curve to them both. Monk decided on taking a chest piece and some boots. Kyle was attracted to the chain weight for some reason.

"I suggest you get your armour dyed. The tournament is coming out and it's a chance for you to show off your powers. You want to stand out. If you no longer wish to be a knight when you finish studying, then it will be a good opportunity for you to get scouted from n.o.bel families and act as a guard."

Because of the crystal beast armour coming from all sorts of different beasts. There were many times where our 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 I didn't care much, I did like the colour red. So, I decided to get my equipment dyed red.

Our hunting session had been cancelled for the week due to the incidents that happened last time. Many people asked what had happened to Lancy. There was a rumour going around that he died bravely in a mission. Of course, only we knew the truth of the whole matter. Sir K was right. It seemed like no one knew of the faction called Pureblood.

In the evening I would travel to the foothills with Noir. When I put her back into the system the flames seemed to stop affecting her. She healed just as quick as my body which was a relief. Without the help of her and Gary at that time I would have died.

I needed to get stronger, so I 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 I wouldn't be allowed to use my abilities. The second I did the academy would know of my hidden powers. If I wanted to win this tournament I would have to do it using my pure strength.

When hunting around the foothills I came across an area where there were Ice golems. This was a gold mine for me as Ice golems where weak to fire. They also carried an elemental attribute of ice. After defeating 7 of them I managed to absorb 6+ points in my ice attribute. And gathered three crystals via the system and 4 carving out.

I would come back and return to the foothills often looking for new beasts. I found that many beasts in the area carried the attribute of Ice. It was important for me to find new type of beasts as the system would stop giving me crystals after defeating the same beast again and again.

Every day I would train with the old man to hone my hand to hand combat skills, Train with the black sash nights to work on footwork and sword skills and then hunt in the evening to gather crystals and improve my body and elemental powers.

After hunting every day for the last three weeks I had become Stronger.

I also currently held ten intermediate beast crystal items, none of these was of use to me as they were weapons or items that I wouldn't need or use. I kept them for now in case in the future I found an advanced tier crystal and needed money to craft it into an item.

I wasn't the only one who had gotten stronger during this time. During the last three weeks, the team had defeated many intermediate creatures and had gathered strong equipment. Ian had better axes, Martha a better bow and arrows, Monk with his daggers and so on. IT was going to be a tough compet.i.tion.

There were even the third-year students I needed to worry about like Harry and Jasmine.

It was a shame I hadn't figured out the condition to unlock more skills. There were some useful ones that I would have liked to use. But there was no time left. Finally, after the long wait. It was time for the Avrion academy tournament.