A week passed in the blink of an eye for Damian and his friends.

Clay had already returned to the Royal Academy and was interrogated about what had occurred and where the other royal academy students and mercenaries were.

He feigned ignorance of most of what had occurred and even if he knew or was partly responsible for their disappearance, Clay was more valuable to the academy than all of them combined.

However, what he did say was that he saw the mercenary group leader who was crazy flee the scene with blood all over him and it was concluded by the Royal Academy that the mercenary had gone rogue and was responsible for all the deaths.

After that, the tension between the Royal Academy and Akegria Academy eased slightly and Damian's name was cleared, since the mercenary group leader had taken all the blame and was in no position to prove otherwise.

Damian was relieved by that and couldn't help but be thankful for that crazy individual, but also didn't want to have to rely on luck again and wanted to be prepared for anything.

The Inner Academy was much larger and would have much more powerful students to face, but Damian still didn't see them as worthy rivals and only his friends and the other handful of young talents around the country were actually interesting to compete with.

Kong was an eye-catching beast pet as, although there were many with beast pets, they wouldn't be as intelligent or as cute as Kong was in his small form.

It made it so that many wanted to approach Damian in order to play with the beast pet, but Damian would mostly ignore them and focus on his training.

He went from his residence to the library to the canteen to the training room each day and the cycle would repeat.

In the library, he read and leant all he could about blades and wanted to be skilled in all ways and not reliant on a single method of combat.

Through that, Damian was able to create a new fighting style that was unique to him and extremely complex, but also very effective.

He fused all his understanding of blades and matched it with the Serpent Movement Technique and other footwork he had leant in order to form the Adaptive Blade Style.

Being able to copy, understand, and replicate any attack pattern or movement that Damian was faced with made it so that he was an incredibly difficult opponent to face.

Damian knew that and wanted to start making the most of his abilities and capabilities that were hidden within him and due to the copy book.

The Adaptive Blade Style used the Serpent Sword Style that he formed as a base and would continue to adapt and change according to his opponent's attack, exploiting his opponent's weaknesses and using their techniques against them.

Along with that, Damian wanted to increase his capability as a Mage, as although he wanted to be capable in close combat, he claimed to be the Copy Mage and the name currently didn't fit him.

Being a Mage didn't only involve ranged attacks.

There was also support and manipulation of one's surroundings.

Other aspects of fighting as a Mage could be linked to those three main parts.

Damian could manipulate his surroundings quite well with Clay's Innate Ability, but he still wanted that of Larry and also wanted to acquire some sort of healing or buffing ability before the Inner Student Examination.

He wasn't planning on using any of them unless he had no choice, but the more Innate Abilities he acquired, the more powerful, versatile and talented he would become.

Damian could feel the copy book within him eager to copy other people's abilities and had also practised temporarily copying other people's abilities.

All it would require was for him to observe and understand how another individual's ability worked.

That would need for them to have their Soul Spirit activated and would usually require him to take on an attack from it.

"If it isn't the kid who needed to be saved by the swordsman," said Larry.

He was afraid to approach Damian after what had occurred before, but rumour had it that Larry's younger brother was on par with the swordsman Darren, and therefore Larry felt as though he had no reason to fear him.

It was also stated that the swordsman had entered some sort of reclusive training and he wasn't planning on exiting his training until the end of the year when the Akegria Academy Tournament would take place.

Without the swordsman to fear, Larry saw it as the perfect opportunity to take down Damian, and this time, he had help from one of the large factions of the academy.

The factions had established themselves in all the academies and were all capable and could aid one greatly within the academy, but the taxes that one paid to them and loyalty one needed to swear weren't things some would like to be restricted by.

Damian and his friends had been scouted many times by various factions, but he refused them all without hesitation and his arrogant actions angered some of them.

It was to the point that they wanted to get rid of him and were willing to provide Larry all the support he would need to do so, while using him as a scapegoat and keeping their hands clean.

Students of the same academy could still be very cruel, and Damian had already learnt that lesson.

After forming his small circle of friends and those that he respected and competed against, Damian was wary of all the others and also became a good judge of character and situations.

He had been hoping to seek out Larry as he needed some of his blood to permanently copy his Innate Ability, but he never expected that he would come to him

"We meet again, Larry.. And the poor, talentless boy had to bring friends with him once again to take down a lone Outer Academy Student that was much younger than them," responded Damian.