Eight months passed away in a blink of an eye. Nothing changed in Azzy's life.
Oakley and his family were still missing. Gideon is still unchanged, being his best friend. The students continued to stay away from him. Previously it was out of fear to Leonard.
Now, it is due to his cold attitude towards anyone that approaches him, although this made him a bit more popular among girls.
Because of the school regulations, the students weren't allowed to take a trip to the level-3 region in the world of Arcana.
On top of that, as his master, the principal focused on improving his lack of control over his soul energy, Azzy wasn't taken to a private trip either. So, his soul/Arcana rank improved slowly.
The only thing that's different is the behavior of the Galarian beast. In the disguise of Leo, it always tried to befriend Azzy no matter how many times he ignored him.
Rumors began to circulate all over the academy.
One rumor stated that Azzy is a prince from another country and was engaged to the youngest princess. Leonard was against this marriage.
Another rumor says that the prince isn't straight and pursues Azzy after falling in love with him…
One more rumor says that they are best friends in the past. At first, the prince wants to suppress him and when it failed, he tried to mend their relationship
All of these ridiculous rumors created by the grade-9 students, specifically, girls who have too much time in their hands to have such wild fantasies…
Leonard, being a Galarian beast with no specific gender and only care about its survival and nothing else, didn't care.
As for Azzy, he was too busy to care about anyone or anything else.
Along with receiving the mansion as a gift from Affea, he also received a letter from her, a few months ago about how they will hide for a while due to underlying reasons.
Since they are alive and well, Azzy no longer worried about them and continued to focus on training.
Taking the help from the seals and working hard by sparring with the special robot, Azzy was able to control his strength as long as he locked the sixth seal that restricts his soul power to 100 thousand.
<strong>Training grounds, Aclein Academy;</strong>
In the evening, every student from higher grades gathered at the training grounds.
Gilaes, a peak rank-6 expert and the common combat instructor for everyone, stood in the middle.
*Clap*Clap*
"Now, listen carefully…" After gathering attention from everyone, Gilaes continued, "Today is your last week of combat training, especially for the tenth graders who will soon graduate within two months. As a special occasion, all of you will spar with a special person."
He took out the item card that the principal lent him and ran his soul energy into it to activate it.
Almost instantly, a robot appeared before everyone. It is the size of an average adult. However, as the students are still in the growing phase, they can't help but raise their heads to see its face.
"This is called 1AB, designed by our government. If we consider our Arcana rankings, its overall strength is kinda similar to the strength of gold-grade, peak-rank-6 beast. So, you can think of it as a king of a level-3 region.
However, the difference between this robot and the beast is that it can adjust its strength according to its opponent. It has perfect control. So, it is completely safe to train with it…"
When he mentioned perfect control, Gilaes glanced at Azzy, who was standing at the back of the group, along with Gideon.
He continued, "It was lent to our academy for security purposes but the principal thinks that they can be used for training the students.
We should thank student Leonard for winning the national tournament, which made it possible. Give him a round of applause…"
*Clap*Clap*Clap*
As everyone clapped their hands, Azzy who was in the group, also followed them.
"Teacher Gilaes, if junior Azrael participated in the tournament, then, the winner would have been different." As Leo try to be modest, the others just shook their heads with a sigh.
Meanwhile, Azzy looked expressionless as usual. He knew that Leo was telling the truth. However, being a person with fewer words, he didn't comment on it either and stayed silent.
Upon hearing Leo's words, the smile on Gilaes was frozen and he shrugged his shoulders, "he still can't control his strength and was still banned from participating in any kind of tournaments. Either way, the academy will be honored with this."
Gilaes didn't like Azzy as he also became a victim of embarrassment in a class when he tried to suppress his Arcana beast to rank-5 only for it to die.
Unlike the situation with instructor Herman, Azzy didn't even use Vajra to defeat his beast. After losing his face, he never asked the principal to let Azzy attend his class, again until now.
He wanted to teach Azzy a lesson but due to fear of losing his own image in public, Gilaes never challenged him personally.
After all, being a peak-rank-6, even if he wins, people will say that he was a bully and if he loses, he won't be able to show his face to anyone.
But, after hearing from the principal, he personally tested its power. When he saw himself being defeated badly, he planned to let Azzy know the fearsome power of the robot.
So, once again, after four months, he requested the principal to let Azzy attend his class, in the name of being the last one.
Back to the present, he looked at everyone, and asked, "Who wants to spar it, first?"
As a student council president and a model student, Leo obviously came forward. After being surrounded by many weaklings, it also wanted to try out its strength.
The crowd cleared the area and moved far. Only the robot and Leo left on the field.
Standing far away, Gilaes took out a remote from the storage card and pressed the button.
All of a sudden, the robot's eyes turned red.<strong> "Hostile mode activated."</strong>
An energy saber appeared in his hands.
"Huh!" Everyone was taken aback by its sudden behavior. Only Azzy knew why it activated the hostile mode.
As a person who actively sparred with the robots for the past year, he knew that it was due to Leo's nature being a beast.
His Master explained to him that the robots were actually designed by a private company named Energon, to take replace the guardians at the Arcana world and also help in maintaining law and order there...
With such thoughts, the scientists installed a feature of the auto detector and hostile mode. According to it, the machine will always be on the side of humanity and can never take a life.
Along with it, it will always be hostile to the beasts from the Arcana world.
However, many nations objected to letting this man-controlled machine allow into the Arcana world. After all, not only it is riskier to let them into that world, but they also don't want the guardians to lose their jobs…
Unlike guardians, the machine cannot mistakes, cannot favor one person over the other, and cannot allow the rules to be broken either. Which upper authority like it if everyone is treated as fair…
Upon their proposal being rejected so many times, Energon finally gave up on their dream and instead, started selling them to the nations to make use of them in this human world.
They also slightly modified the hostile mode when it felt threatened by an Arcana beast whether it is a free one or a tamed one…
Back to the present, the robot turned into hostile mode as soon as it sensed a platinum-grade beast.
Since Leo isn't a human, the robot didn't hold back its strength and proceeded to be extremely offensive.
"What's going on?" Gilaes frowned at its strange behavior. He didn't know of such a feature but considering Leo's strength, he thought of waiting and see what happens.
Meanwhile, Leo clenched his fist as the robot dashed towards him.
Reaching its enemy, the robot slashed at him with the saber. The students were stunned to see how fast and aggressive it is.
On the other hand, Leo appeared calm. He didn't summon his Arcana beast. Everyone thought he wanted to challenge it by himself. Only Azzy knew that Leo didn't have one to summon.
As the energy saber almost reached him, Leo sidestepped at the perfect moment and then, threw a punch towards its waist.
The attack by the robot missed while his punch was landed on the target.
Because it is made of steel, Leo didn't do much damage for he only threw a normal punch without any soul energy present in it.
Watching it from far away, Azzy shook his head and mumbled, "foolish…"
Claire, who was coincidentally standing beside him, asked, "What is being foolish?"
Azzy answered, "He should have struck the shoulder joint."
"Why?" She asked him but he stayed silent, not intending to talk too much.
Gideon, who was standing on the other side of him, also asked him the reason. This time, he opened his mouth.
Azzy explained, "The eyes are the weakness of a beast. The limbs are the weakness of a human. Likewise, the joints are the weakness of a machine. When those weaknesses are heavily damaged, they will no longer able to fight at their full strength."
Pointing at the machine, Azzy further continued, "And if he had punched with soul energy at that spot, it would have done considerable damage. In rare cases, one in ten chances, a chain reaction will follow up it and damage its internal system…"
"C'mon… That's too much…" Claire playfully hit Azzy's shoulder. "You are speaking as if you knew about the robots."
Azzy didn't comment on it and stayed silent. Being with him for a year, she knew his personality very well, so, she didn't feel disappointed about it. However, sometimes, she can't help but get jealous of Gideon, who is the only one that gets treated specially by Azzy.
Even though he treats her better than others, she still feels like this junior looks at her as a stranger or maybe, an acquaintance.
As Azzy stayed silent and concentrated on Leo, the two of them also continued to watch the spar.
At first, Leo successfully evaded its attack and counterattacked it with raw punches and kicks. However, slowly, the robot got used to his movements.
Soon, its attacks started to land on him. It kinda alarmed the instructor but then, since Leo used soul energy to make his body as hard as steel to not get injured, he waited.
Although he wasn't injured very much, superficial cuts started to appear all over his arms when he tried to block the saber with them.
Meanwhile, Azzy was watching Leo's movements through aura sensing. He was observing the changes in his body. For a while, he saw the sparks of lightning appeared in his body.
It kept on generating for a few seconds before it cools down by itself. Azzy was trying to understand the meaning behind it.
"This beast is really a special one…" Suddenly, he heard the Reaper's comment in his head. "It's really for one to suppress their rage like this Galarian."
"Suppress the rage?" Azzy wondered those sparks are related to it.
Knowing what's going on in his host's mind, the Reaper explained, "It is controlling its power to use the soul skills. The original Leonard is a wind attribute user.
If it reveals its lightning nature, then, suspicions will surely grow. No matter the reason, it can't afford to be suspected. So, guess, what will it be its next move?"
Azrael wondered, "To get knock out directly and end the spar?"
"Bingo…" The Reaper was satisfied with Azzy's answer.
"But, can it trust the combat instructor to step in at the right time and save it?" Azzy didn't think it would do it.
"Only fools will put their hopes on chances and wait for them. Smart people always create chances. And the beast isn't a foolish one…"
As soon as his word ended, all of a sudden, Leo screamed in pain while flying back towards them. His stomach started to bleed but it isn't much to be considered fatal.
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