Chapter 270: Awakening Mana vision.

[It's just like when you lift weights, the muscles get torn causing pain, but later heals only to get stronger and be able to withstand the previous amount of strain.

In the case of the energized cells, since you had completely drained them, the cells will try to adapt by increasing their capacity which in turn will lead to increasing its absorption rate.] The system explained.

The system had been carrying out a policy of letting Blake discover or realize things by himself. Because if it didn't do so, Blake would be no different from talentless nobles who got whatever they wanted without any work.

Only when he had realized the most important part, would the system give him an in-depth explanation on the topic in order to keep him ahead of his peers.

"This explains instructor Zirrack's nonchalant attitude to our progress. He had literally given us all that is required, all we just need is to try out different approaches and practice more." Blake said when he remembered how instructor Zirrack just stood in the same spot throughout the entire class.

With the discovery, Blake began continuously circulating mana around his right arm while heightening his senses to observe the process of absorption.

It took him over 2 hours to completely energize his depleted arm and by then he was completely drained for heightening his senses for so long. He took a 30 minutes break to recuperate his mental strength before going to the left arm.

After 2 more hours, Blake was done with the left arm and took another 30 minutes break before heading to the practice room to expend the mana of the energized arms. He used the opportunity to also work on his close combat technique by facing the puppets they fought during one of their classes with instructor Zirrack. 

During his fight with the nobles, Blake had noticed that his close combat skills hadn't improved one bit since the beginning of the first semester. This was because he mostly used Ebony and Ivory and because of how powerful the sword was, all Blake needed to do was just land a hit and he will cut through everything.

This is was why both his current trips to the practice rooms will be aimed at making both his hand-to-hand combat techniques and swordplay so deadly to the point that every attack could take a life.

Learning techniques like these weren't prohibited by the school, and since the future commissions they would be taking were getting more dangerous he needed to master them.

After he had depleted the energy of the cells in his arms Blake decided to call it day and take a rest. because the process of getting both arms energized and depleting them took close to 7 hours.

He was forced to stop that day, but for the rest of the week, Blake continuously repeated the process. Immediately he was done with school, Blake wouldn't waste any time and start circulating mana around his arms.

Just like he had expected, the absorption rate and mana capacity were increasing. Also, the time it was taking for him to recover his lost mental energy was decreasing with each cycle. 

By the end of the week, Blake was now able to observe close to 40% of the absorption process with his senses and each cycle had been reduced to 5 and a half hours.

...

The next week at Professor Gibson's class.

Unlike the previous weeks where he gave the students normal exercises, Professor Gibson decided to step things up by involving himself in the exercise.

"Today's exercise would be for you to get past these 3 lines." Professor Gibson pointed 3 very long lines that ran from one side of the practice room to another and were 20 meters apart from each other.

"It would be 10 randomly selected students at a time and the aim of the exercise is to get past the 3 lines and get to me behind the 3rd line." Professor Gibson appeared behind the 3rd line.

"Before most of you make the mistake of thinking this will be an easy exercise, I hate to burst your bubble because I will be your opponent." Professor Gibson's words shocked a lot of students and made Blake frown.

"The attacks that will be aimed at you will be on par with your strength. This is to even out the difficulty amongst all students, and to make sure no one gives excuses." Professor Gibson explained. "Also, the rules will be the same as the other exercises. No use of elements, items or artifacts, just arcane magic."

"Any questions before we begin?" Professor Gibson asked.

The students began asking questions like if they were free to cross at any side of the line, but that was when Luciano raised his hands.

"Yes, Luciano?"

"When you said each set was comprised of 10 students. Does it mean we are a team?" Luciano asked.

"Finally a good question. No, it doesn't mean you are a team, but that doesn't mean you can't be. Each set is free to decide what they want to do, they can decide to work or sabotage each other, but it doesn't give extra points. All that matters is that you get past this 3rd line." Professor Gibson explained.

This made Blake's frown deepen as he began thinking about the implications of teaming up or going solo.

'Since he has decided to get involved in the exercise, it means it is meant to push us to our limits. Now, teaming up would be nice because it helps us deal with things we weren't expecting, but that is only on paper.' Blake thought.

'Because it is a random selection of 10 people which is double the size of what we get during tests and exams, there would be a lot of characters to deal with. Especially the enemies who would try to sabotage me and the ones who are not good enough.

I can't put my trust in people when there are so many uncertainties. So I will be going solo.' Blake made up his mind.