Even though Hanzo's lazy demeanor was still there, a slight frown crept up on his face as he sighed and looked at the weakened Malavai. There was a rather long freezing wound on his upper torso, which could be seen there rather clearly.At first glance, it looked like Malavai came out of the clash as the loser, but a deeper analysis made me look at Hanzo and shake my head.The man scratched his chin as he looked at the two of us and said:"Why don't you just let them come with me? Joining my sect won't interfere with their membership in your alliance, will it?"Malavai snorted lightly as he said:"It might not, but your sect doesn't fit the two of them, they are free spirits who would never follow the many rules that your sect would impose on them, they don't follow your 'dao'!"Hanzo chuckled slightly as his face turned bright red for a few seconds before it became pale as wax."I guess you might be right, but they are both so talented, I just can't part with them, you know? I have b

Seeing we were no longer welcome, Malavai ushered us out of the principal's chambers before motioning for us to follow him toward that Fufflesnake's laboratory. Before I could ask about our new teacher, Shira beat me to it as she asked in a sweet tone of voice: "So, who is this professor anyways?" Malavai continued walking into the hallways, taking turns, opening doors that made us go through certain empty rooms, and sometimes returning the greetings of the students we met on the way. "Old Fufflesnake? He used to be a top fighter in our army, but he retired and decided to teach seedlings in the academy after gaining enough merit and the things he wanted from the Universal Catalog. He is a pretty eccentric person, but he is also quite normal at times, it's like he has two personalities that he randomly switches between. However, neither is too problematic to deal with, so you can easily learn from him whatever you need." Malavai made his way towards a particular door that had the

Seeing how we learned the techniques he gave us rather quickly still impressed Fufflesnake, regardless of his personal feelings toward us. And as a teacher, he needed to be unbiased, at least on the surface. He could see from our expressions and the fluctuations in our energy that we have learned the techniques. Fufflesnake nodded to himself shortly before his croaky voice was heard: "Since you two can learn these techniques so quickly, I guess we can move our classroom to the practice area, Lisar, and Malaria should also be able to learn some things from sparring with you two." Fufflesnake tapped one finger on the teacher's desk, transferring us from the room towards a huge and somewhat empty room filled with training devices, heavy weights, meditation mats, sparring rings, etc. "For starters, you two should go and practice the technique you learned while I teach some things to Lisar and Malaria, after that, you four can spar. Of course, Shira and Minato, you two will have to sea

Shira's head moved slightly as she opened her eyes and glanced at me before smiling, giving me a peace sign as she said cutely:"Success!"I nodded at her, then I sat near her as the somewhat weakened and slightly injured Lisar and Malaria sat opposite of us on the meditating mats.Professor Fufflesnake made his way toward us, standing slightly farther from the center of the half-circle we made.He looked down at our sitting forms and coughed a bit to regulate his voice, then he started to explain using a raspy tone:"The metal and poison laws interact quietly through fusion, but instead of going directly to the relationship between these two, I shall start with the easier law."Using his pale skinny fingers, he drew a grey-colored shield made out of energy into the air.He then started to dissect the shield slowly as he explained:"The metal law is made of 3 big segments, sturdiness, sharpness, and malleability.""Sturdiness is how hard you can make your metal be or how hard you can

My train of thought was broken by a quick slashing attack that almost cut through my sides with its sharpness. I had reinforced that part preventively using the metal law's hardness, but it wasn't enough considering how far Fufflesnake was ahead of me regarding the metal law. His appliances were pretty smart as well, which made me copy them and attack him in the same way, slowly adapting to his fighting style while learning more and more about the metal law. Unfortunately, the more I learned, the harder it became to master it. I was slowly touching upon the limits of the laws. They couldn't be mastered immediately in quick bursts, there needed to be delays between them, it was just like muscles and other aspects of the body. Training too much without any rest would lead to the muscles breaking. Any sudden and constant changes would need to be adapted, and it seemed like this applied to the laws as well. The moment I reached 60% mastery, I realized that I couldn't take any more