A few weeks passed by like this and he slowly got into a regular schedule. He would wake up, eat some food, teach his willpower classes, take some time to train his new technique, eat some more food, and then train again.

He would also occasionally go over and annoy the people at the Medical Hall. They tried to chase him away, but he kept on going back, trying to learn some tricks or even get the opportunity to heal someone.

When he wasn’t doing any of that, Cassandra would come over to the Sunfire Pavilion to give him some private lessons regarding fire mana.

Her help was very useful. His understanding of fire mana grew everyday and while his skill levels might not reflect his growth, his confidence in handling his ruinflames steadily increased.

He also gained a few levels during this time period.

[Phoenix Renewal lvl 27 -> lvl 28]

[Inexorable Aura of Ruin lvl 26 -> lvl 27]

[Field of the Shattered Will lvl 5 -> lvl 7]

[Spirit Fortification lvl 16 -> lvl 19]

It was a lot more levels than he expected. But then again, he was pushing himself pretty hard trying to figure out that new technique from Tezuko’s manual. He hadn’t quite gotten it down yet either. The requirements were extremely difficult to manage. He had failed countless times and had either blown off his limbs or was forced to cut them off himself because he messed something up and his ruinous aura infected them.

Fun fact, infusing himself with the worst parts of his ruinous aura wasn’t healthy for his body. It was fine when he did it correctly, but that was less often than he would have preferred. Fortunately, his healing skill had benefited from this as well as his aura skill.

But more surprisingly, it was [Spirit Fortification] that improved the most. Apparently, the skill had a lot in common with what he was attempting. Three whole levels without someone or something trying to kill him was a lot.

He made sure to work on his kinetic skills too. He wasn’t publicly showing his kinetic affinity, but Cain would have his hide if he learned Julius was slacking off in his training. Thankfully, the skill was quite simple to practice, especially with the exercises Cain had shown him before he left.

On another note, his reputation around the sect was slowly getting around. Almost everyone in the outer courts knew who he was or at least knew that he was giving lessons to the top talents of the outer court. The only issue was that these rumors weren’t that flattering.

He had heard on several occasions people whispering something about him being a tyrant or unrelenting demon when they thought he wasn’t listening. He didn’t think he was that bad. Hells, he had been taking it easy on the disciples ever since the first lesson.

At Maya and Elder Sarei’s insistence of course.

They still haven’t improved as much as he would have liked. Not as much as Maya improved, but they still managed to make some decent progress. He already had some ideas for their next stage of training, but until they got to a sufficient level to handle it, he was stuck doing the same exercises.

Thankfully, this period seemed to be nearing its end. And it was about time that he could start showing them some new things. He just hoped that they would enjoy it.

There were a couple disciples who really improved during this period. The boy named Rhys was one of them. Julius had learned that the boy was actually one of the people who was being considered for the Cinderheart Gem he had almost been given. His rapid improvement over the past year or so had really impressed the other elders and was close to being elevated to the inner court. The only thing they were waiting for was his advancement and to see how well he managed it.

Additionally, the Thera girl was another one whose willpower improved nicely. It wasn’t so much the power, but the skill in which she handled it was the best amongst her peers. She was being considered for the treasure as well.

Maya had told Julius that Thera was one of the strongest Tier 3 disciples when it came to combat power. Her skill with blades was unparalleled and the sect believed that gaining a better fire affinity would help her other skills blossom.

Perhaps not at the same level, but at least prevent her fire skills from flagging behind her skill with a blade.

The skinny and stubborn girl, whose name he learned was Mara, was another person who improved a lot. She was also the only person who actively asked Julius to push harder, which made her his favorite student. Everyone else, including Rhys and Thera didn’t have the courage to take their training as far as she did.

On another note, people were already talking about how Maya, one of the sect’s core disciples, was going to the outer court in order to take lessons from a Tier 4 guest. This obviously spread even more rumors about him. Many other disciples were trying to enter his lessons, he even spotted several inner disciples trying to sneak in when they thought he wasn’t paying attention.

Fortunately, Elder Sarei handled this for him. But still, everyday he noticed a crowd gather around the courtyard where his lessons took place.

As he watched as the disciples groaned out in pain in front of him, he held back a smile. And once the stopwatch rang out loudly he spotted a lot of hopeful and relieved expressions on their faces. So deciding to be a little more generous today, he pretended to ignore the stopwatch and continued to pressure them with his aura.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

It wasn’t until he was satisfied that he finally let up. When he did, he heard almost the entire group curse out loudly. Some of the curses were directed entirely at him, but he didn’t mind. They had all learned that he didn’t care if they insulted him as long as they didn’t take it too far.

“That was cruel, Teacher,” Mavis, the normally bubbly and energetic girl said after she dry heaved into the dirt.

“What do you expect? He is a sadist,” Thera groaned and spat at the ground.

Maya was the only one who seemed relatively fine. He had been going harder with her than anyone else, but she was also used to it. She simply panted and meditated as she recovered.

“Like I told you before, you guys are more than welcome to leave whenever you want. Nobody is keeping you here,” he told them.

“Yeah and let you have the satisfaction of that?” Rhys asked while whipping the drool from his mouth. The others didn’t say anything out loud, but their stubborn looks showed they agreed with Rhys.

“Well, if that’s how you all feel. Then you should be excited to know that you have all graduated from the first stage,” he said with glee.

He got a bunch of panicked looks in return.

“First stage? What do you mean by the first stage?” Mavis asked worriedly.

He smiled. “You didn’t expect that withstanding my aura was the only thing I was going to help you with, right?”

The silence that followed answered that question.

“I mean willpower training is useless unless we work on practical applications. Which is why I am going to go around and actively test your willpower resilience. You will hold a skill or some kind of construct and try to hold out against me. Understood?”

“That’s it?” he heard someone ask in a hushed voice. He hid a smile when he heard that same person shout in pain when several people kicked them and told him to be quiet.

“Yep, that’s it. Now line up and sit down on the ground.”

They reluctantly listened to him and he spotted that the other group who was training with Sarei were looking over at them curiously. For some inexplicable reason, her group seemed to want to stay with her and not train with him. He couldn’t understand the reason why. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

“Now form something that you are comfortable holding for long periods of time. It can be your most powerful skill or whatever you want.”

He watched as various skills activated. It was fascinating to see what each person created. Rhys created a ball of fire over his palm. Thera manipulated some mana over her blades in what looked to be like a variant of [Mana Slash]. Mara enforced her entire body with mana, which was an odd choice considering she was more of a mage than a close combat fighter.

Maya did something similar and activated a couple more skills as well. They had already done this type of training before, so she knew what to expect. There was a challenging glare in her eyes. She hadn’t been able to hold out for long, but kept on trying each time.

He grinned at all of the disciples' confident looks. They must have thought they could handle it. Withstanding pressure and being able to keep control of one’s skill were totally different things. At least that’s what they thought.

He let out a smirk and started to show them why willpower was so important.

***

Rhys POV

He and the rest of the class panted as they watched as their teacher walked out of the courtyard. They couldn’t believe what had just happened and they all simultaneously looked at the one person who might be able to explain it.

Maya was a core disciple and normally they wouldn’t dare to act so casually with her. But this willpower training had a weird way of breaking down social norms.

Additionally, the time they had spent together during the past several weeks had them realize that Maya was very helpful and selfless. She was the person they often asked for help after the lessons.

“How is he doing all of this?” He asked her immediately.

She laughed and teetered unsteadily on her feet. “Good question. I have no idea myself. He has a certain talent for aura and willpower, that is all I can say.”

“Talent? We are all talented. But talent doesn’t explain how he ripped apart my skills like it was nothing. Not only that, but he did it to everyone, at the same time,” Mavis said in utter disbelief. He didn’t blame her either. He was still emotionally recovering from the fact that Julius was able to disrupt and shred through his fire mana as if it were wet paper.

Nothing he did was able to stop him. No technique, not even his fire mastery skill was able to offer the slightest bit of resistance. It was like a sledgehammer made of pure willpower bashed apart whatever defenses he created.

Julius kept on talking about willpower being able to rip apart skills, but they thought he had been talking about a combination of skills and willpower. Not literally pure aura and willpower. There hadn’t been anything fancy about it. It was simply plain and vicious willpower.

He knew that people like Thera and Jei had dedicated skills that should have prevented something like this too. But much like everyone else, they were helpless to do anything. It was baffling and another mystery revolving around Julius.

He knew they were Tier 4, but everyone of them was able to contend with Tier 4s. You weren’t considered a top talent of the sect if you couldn’t. It wasn’t only that, if that was it, then it could still be forgiven. What was more unfathomable, was the lack of authority being used.

If they were losing to Julius’s authority, they could handle that. They would be able to justify it. Telling themselves things like “he only beat us because he leveraged his superior cultivation”.

Something that they could lie to themselves about to soothe the disappointment and helplessness they felt when he crushed them.

The ones who attended these lessons were even starting to talk about crazy things. It first occurred a few weeks ago when they began these willpower training sessions. Somebody said that Julius could rival the Tier 4 core disciples. Potentially rivaling personal disciples to powerful elders. Even to the likes of Zev and Kora. However, at the time nobody believed them.

At the time.

Now they were all seriously discussing it. Not regarding pure combat. Just based on his aura and oppressive nature of it.

Plus, they had all heard about the rumors regarding Julius hanging out around the Medical Hall. Apparently the guy had a life affinity that he was focused on. Life affinities weren’t exactly known to be fighters. But honestly, Rhys wouldn’t put it past the young teen.

After all, who in the nine hells got an aura that powerful and terrifying without being able to fight? Others didn’t seem so convinced, but he had a deep suspicion that Julius was a monster in combat too. And if he was right, he really didn’t want to find out.