n

n

nThe old man had gone to the other room that was attached to the side of the martial arts hall. The room that since I had been here, assumed it was the toilet due to the bad smell. It turned out that is was actually a storage room. After around ten minutes of waiting around the old man came out and shouted,

n

"Finally here they are.

"

nThe old man came out from the room holding a pair of fairly large gauntlets. They were red in colour with a turtle-like pattern. The fingertips were pointed like small daggers with black tips.

n

"Finally, I knew I still had these around here, You can borrow these in the meantime, heck, you can even keep them if you give me what it's worth.

" The old man then handed them to me.

nAs I held the gauntlets in my hand I could feel they had a weight to them. The design made me suspect that they were beast crystal items. Beast crystal items often resembled the animal they had come from. In this case, it looked like it came from a turtle-like creature.

n

"Well, are you just going to stare at them or put them on.

" The old man shouted.

nWhen I put both the gauntlets on they seemed to be a little big for my arm size. Then suddenly, I started to feel the gauntlets grip around my forearm and fingers. They started to reform and shrink down until It was a nice snug fit. It was as if they were hand made for my arms.

n

"They look good on you boy, unfortunately there only intermediate tier crystal items. If I let you borrow anything higher tier then that, then it wouldn't be fair to the others.

"

n

"Thank you, I promise to repay you for this in the future.

"

nAlthough the old man said some might see this as unfair, I thought it was totally fine. There would be many participants at the tournament from all sorts of different backgrounds. Would people think it was unfair of nobles gifting their child equipment? I could understand where the old man was coming from though especially since he was an elder of the academy. They might think he was playing favourites.

nWith the gauntlet's in my hand, I was eager to test them out. I sparred with the old man while wearing them. It was a shame I couldn't use my full strength otherwise I think the two of us could have had a good match.

nThe gauntlets were just as strong as when I would use Ki on my hands. If I was to further power the gauntlets with Ki they would become even stronger. The sharp fingertips allowed me to use them as claw-like weapons. And the sturdy ness made them good for blocking as well.

nBecause of how strong the gauntlets were already, it allowed me to focus my Ki on other areas. Before I could only focus on one thing attacking or defending. Now I could do both.

nNow all I needed to do was save up some money so I could get the blacksmith to create a chest piece out of the fanged boar. It seemed like I was would soon have a nice little set of armour for myself.

n******

nAfter training had finished and the evening came I was currently in my favourite spot in the academy. The roof. I was currently wearing my hooded cloak and the black sash around my neck. Why was I wearing all this? Well, because tonight I had a plan.

nTomorrow was our rest day where students were free to do what they wanted. Four days a week of training and one rest day before hunting on Saturday and one rest day after. I was eager to test out the true strength of the gauntlets and wanted to get my hand on some intermediate crystals.

nAlthough we would go hunting on the weekends we would be stuck mostly hunting basic tier beast and that was pretty much useless to me now apart from selling their crystal cores.

nAfter draining the mana of the Minotaur I now had ten points to add to my Ki. If I focused this on my shadow skills then it would allow me to cover me and one other person. After witnessing Noir amazing speed I had come up with an idea. If I was to use my shadow skills on me a Noir we would be able to swiftly go past the guards without being seen.

nI had tested this while walking around the city a few times and it seemed like no one had noticed. After all the black sash knights were rare in the first place so not many people knew how to detect or what to look out for when someone was using these skills.

nI summoned Noir and a big black Horned wolf appeared by the side of me. I climbed on top of Noir and started to use the shadow skill. black shadows started to appear and surround me and Noir until we eventually blended in. It worked even better at night.

nNoir set off like a bullet hopping from building to building till eventually, we had reached the City wall. Without any hesitation, Noir jumped form the top of the wall and landed on the ground. I was surprised there was no damage. As Noir ran off into the distance away from the guards I used my dragon eyes skill to see if anyone was making a fuss.

nMy dragon eyes skill could now reach a great distance ever since my body had evolved into that of a dragon knight. As I looked into the distance it was as I had expected. No one had noticed anything at all. The nights on the wall had only felt an odd gust of wind pass by them, nothing to be suspicious about.

nThe shadow skill wasn't perfect, it would often distort the area it was being used in, but with it being night time and Noir's fast speed. We were practically invisible.

nWith this, it was time to go out hunting.

n********

nIMPORTANT: Thank you for everyone who voted, the competition is now over, So you can use your stones back to normal. thank you everyone who had voted.

n