Four months had passed for Alex, and his progress was steady.
Ever since Professor Will had taught him the basic concepts of Martial Arts and Swordsmanship, he had been going hard at the training every day, without breaks.
He was determined to reach a point where he could incorporate these two techniques into his actual combat, and today he had finally achieved that goal.
His Martial Arts had reached what Professor Will had called 'Intermediate Mastery', with Alex being able to reach the deep, focused state of mind he needed to be in, in just 10 seconds.
It was still a huge distance away from being able to enter such a state instantly, but he was slowly reaching towards that goal.
'Let's go see what Mira's been up to, I haven't spent enough time with her over the last few months.'
Because of his fervent training schedule, Alex had regrettably neglected a lot of the time he should have spent with Mira.
It was the one thing he wasn't happy about with his new training, but he knew Mira wasn't too upset by it either.
They both had their own goals and training regimes to achieve them, only Alex's was a lot more extreme.
Mira had also revealed to him a few months ago that she had finally caught up to him in terms of Soul core rank, which he was certainly surprised by.
But although he was happy for her, it also made him realise how much his progress had stagnated.
He really needed to do something about his slowed progress soon.
But he just wanted to spend some time with Mira for the time being.
Alex headed over to Mira's dorm, eager to spend more time with her after months of intense training.
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
He knocked on the door, but no matter how long he waited, no response came.
Curious, he activated his spatial perception to scan the inside.
But the place was empty.
'That's weird.'
Mira was usually home around this time, as she hadn't mentioned any changes to her training schedule.
His strikes were fast, but they lacked the finesse that Mira displayed.
Alex watched intently as Mira dodged a heavy blow from Nicklas, countering with a swift kick to his midsection that sent him stumbling back.
The crowd roared in approval, clearly awed by Mira's skill.
Nickolas recovered quickly, a scowl on his face as he charged at Mira again.
This time, he attempted a feint, but Mira saw through such a basic attempt to trick her.
She landed a clean punch on his jaw.
The uppercut sent Nickolas sprawling to the ground, unconscious.
The crowd erupted in applause, many from whom were just entertained by the fight, but the majority of the most enthusiastic cheers and applause came from those who had experienced Nickolas's brutish behaviour personally.
So they were very happy to see him handed defeat so one sidedly.
As the crowd began to disperse, Alex made his way to Mira.
"That was quite a show you put on." He said, his tone laced with sarcasm and admiration.
"Thanks, hehe."
Mira replied with a chuckle.
She hadn't taken that fight seriously from the very beginning.
She found joy in tormenting Nickolas, but she didn't even need to fight seriously to beat him.
This was how far ahead Alex and Mira were from the rest of the freshmen.
They had a fat chance of ever catching up to them, even people of the likes of Nickolas Stein would fall far behind.
Mira smiled, her exhaustion giving way to relief. "I'm so happy to see you Alex! I've missed hanging out like we used to."
"I'm sorry for sounding so irritated when you called me earlier. You caught me at the time when Nickolas came over and challenged me, so my mood was a little low."
She embraced Alex in a light hug, and held the position for longer than usual as she hadn't had the chance to do this for a long while.
"How about we go get somet-"
Alex was about to ask her something, but he was quickly cut off.
Because alarms started blaring all across the university.