Shane was baffled by the number of events that had occurred in the last few hours.

Not only had Umbra defeated the Colosseum Darkness python which was something Shane hadn't planned in advance, but they had also acquired the first opportunity to lay their hands on a huge, and constant source of income by gathering all the Nightshade flower roots.

Even if it was impossible for them to duplicate, creating a large Nightshade flower field inside his world would be perfect!

After that he even encountered a group of bullied geniuses..how lucky could someone be? Shane was overjoyed which one could feel by the faint aura he released.

Now, he just had to wait for Talia and her friends' response which he hoped to be positive.

The only thing he was unsure of was the greedy or impossible demands that they could come up with.

However, this was not something he should think of right now as it would only worsen his good mood.

When he was close to the colosseum he was greeted by thin mana currents.

This allowed him to release his world's mana absorption to a certain extent.

He had to pay attention to his surroundings in order to prevent distracting others from their training.

Nevertheless, the scarce amount of mana that he had absorbed within a few minutes was already enough to supply the Hidden Paradise for several hours.

This was a shocking difference compared to the sheer amount of mana the world seed demanded before it blossomed.

When he thought about that, Shane couldn't help but smile and decided to enlarge his world as soon as he had stored enough mana.

Inside the colosseum, he could already see Olivia and Aimy waiting for him.

When they saw him, they were astonished about the fact that he could absorb mana passively!

But this astonishment subsided only a moment later because it was not really something special to passively absorb mana and you could learn it with a little bit of practice.

Running towards Shane, Olivia couldn't help but exclaim

"Hey!!! Let's fight! I have to exact revenge for your behavior during the expedition!! Let me show you how I treat someone weaker than me! Hehehe!!

"

Aimy shook her head, starting to wonder why Olivia wanted to show Shane that she was stronger.

Based on Shane's mana fluctuations it was obvious that he was at the peak-Apprentice stage which was a huge difference from Olivia's cultivation stage that increased to the 7th Expert stage and a mana purity of 52%.

Olivia could already break into the 8th Expert stage but instead of doing so, she focused on increasing her physique that had already attained the 9th Expert stage!

As such Olivia would be abusing her strength while fighting Shane which both Aimy and Shane were fully aware of.

Yet, instead of declining Olivia's offer, Shane nodded his head.

Suddenly his lips curled upwards as he said.

"If you want to spar with me, we can do that, but don't think that you will feel better by beating up someone at a much lower cultivation stage!.... At least, I can understand if you don't dare to restrict your strength to fight against me...it's not like you would be able to win otherwise.

"

Shane was just teasing Olivia and even Aimy could see this.

However, Olivia thought that Shane was serious which caused her to become angry as she shouted at him

"I don't dare to restrict my strength? HMPH!! I will fight and defeat you in an overwhelming manner while restricting my strength to the peak-Apprentice stage!

"

It was extremely difficult for Shane to hold back from laughing out loud as he heard Aimy mumbling

"Even after Aisha trained us, shouldn't Olivia know that Shane's combat awareness is still on a different level than ours…

"

'Aisha trained them? She doesn't want to lure them into her Valkyrie unit after seeing that they have a little bit of potential, right? They don't even stand a chance of taking the necessary Valkyrie occupation...so it should be fine, I guess?'

Shane was curious about the reason for Aisha to train Aimy and Olivia, but more than that, he wanted to figure out how efficient Aisha's training was!

As such, he didn't comment on Olivia's decision to fight him head-on with the same combat prowess as they entered the first floor where they would spar against each other.

Using the arena for three hours would cost 1 silver coin which was not much to Shane who had more than 30,000 gold coins.

However, thinking about the gains the academy could earn in a long period, he could hardly refrain from praising the person who thought of such a sly way to earn funds.

It was probably Aunt Kia, but not necessarily.

In the end, Aunt Kia was not the only smart person humanity had, otherwise, mankind would have probably been extinct by now.

Both Shane and Olivia changed into combat suits before they entered the small combat arena that they had rented for the next few hours.

Only ten minutes later they stood inside the arena staring at each other from a distance of around 30 meters.

While the Crimson Yaeli longsword manifested in Shane's hand, Olivia's hands were enveloped by gloves, releasing dense mana currents.

'Is that a weapon of an extraordinary quality?' He was wondering, looking at the mana currents that had unique, destructive traits within them.

Instead of considering Olivia as a pushover, which she definitely had been during the expedition, Shane decided to think of her as a serious opponent.

With that in mind, he didn't even think about holding back.

His eyes turned serious as he entered his combat stance when the AI started the countdown to initiate their battle.

Olivia did exactly the same and the moment the countdown was over, she enveloped her whole body with a thin layer of mana while circulating mana through her body.

At the same time, she used three occupational skills at once, strengthening her body, increasing her speed, and adding a second layer of impact to her punch.

As if that was not enough to inflict some serious damage, the faint layer of mana surrounding her began to glow, further strengthening every trait of hers.

When Shane saw this he couldn't help but exclaim

"Mana skin?

" 'What the hell happened to her when I was not present?'

Mana skin was a special skill one can only obtain through proficiency and arduous training, which was however nothing against the benefits one could obtain.

At the basic mastery, the mana skin skill would increase all traits by 1% which was not much, but the higher one's proficiency was, the higher the increase of all traits would become.

Until now, not a single human had reached the perfect mastery, and only a handful had reached superior mastery of this skill, but the profound mastery was enough to increase every trait of the user by 12%.

This not only showed how great the mana skin skill was but also how difficult it was to practice it, which was the reason for Shane to be astonished that Olivia had attained its basic mastery.

Only a few weeks had passed since he hadn't seen her but she had definitely grown stronger.

Charging towards Shane, Olivia revealed a confident smile which Shane could only return as he returned the favor.

If she had revealed every weapon in her arsenal, why should he hold back?

He unleashed the whole extent of his bloodlust-killing-intent, that spanned the radius of ten meters around him before it shot back at him to envelop his entire body firmly.

Shane's whole demeanor changed as he utilised a large amount of mana within his mana pool to infuse it into his bloodlust-killing-intent while circulating the rest within his body, turning him into a merciless slaughterer.

Aimy who saw everything from a distance tried to shake off the growing dread in her mind as her body trembled in fear.

'Please don't injure...or kill each other…' Was the only thing she was able to think of as the amount of mana Shane released, increased by a small margin.

Shane didn't transfer any mana from the Hidden Paradise to his mana pool, but he decided to use more mana than he initially planned when he noticed that Oliva's strength was higher than his expectations.

Exerting the Slaughterer's Path technique, he moved for the first time since their battle started as he accelerated towards Olivia who was barely 10 meters away from him.

A moment later, they clashed against each other and neither was able to overwhelm the other party in their first clash which was what both had wanted to achieve.

Olivia's confident smile stiffened as she punched at the curved longsword that slashed at her in rapid successions.

However, she was still confident of defeating Shane, thinking that he would be unable to take on her attacks for more than a few seconds.

Unfortunately, even after a minute passed, nothing changed and Shane deflected every punch and blow that tried to attack him, easily.

Olivia's back was already drenched in cold sweat when she looked into Shane's eyes for the first time since their spar started.

The confident smile that was already stiffened, completely disappeared as she saw that Shane was neither exhausted nor was he sweating buckets like her.

Shane was using all his strength but it looked like he was doing it effortlessly.

This was something not even Shane had expected, but after sparring against Olivia, he could understand the reason as to why she was able to use the mana skin skill.

'Aisha must have focused on giving pointers to the mana skin skill and how Olivia can use her skill and mana to use her whole strength at once.

She seems to have decided to fix everything about Olivia's way of fighting, combat awareness, and so on later...What a shame!'

Maybe he had expected too much from Oliva because it was already an enormous feat that she reached her current combat prowess after only a month but he was still a little disappointed.

In the end, Olivia had to rely on her occupation's amplification and skills to fight against Shane who didn't use a single skill and utilised only one martial art technique.

As such, it was obvious as to who was stronger of the two.

After two minutes, nothing seemed to change which caused Shane to increase the pressure from his side.

He began to fight back, instead of being defensive which he had previously refrained from, and overwhelmed Olivia only a few seconds later.

After the spar was over, Shane stored the Crimson Yaeli longsword back inside his spatial ring before he helped Olivia.

Smiling brightly, he said reassuringly,

"You did great today, much better than I had expected. If you look back at our last expedition, I can safely say that you have become much stronger now! If you use your whole strength I can't do anything against you!

"

Hearing these words meant a lot to Olivia because Shane was the person who had lectured her the most during the expedition.

The sourness about her loss dissipated almost immediately as she exclaimed in awe

"Your bloodlust-killing-intent is amazing! I never expected to see something so terrifying and beautiful at the same time!!

"

Not being able to suppress a proud grin, Shane took the opportunity to praise himself

"I worked extremely hard to attain this bloodlust-killing-intent!

"

Suddenly, he saw Aimy approaching them, telling Olivia that she had given him a tough fight before she turned to talk to Shane.

"You told us that you have something 'interesting' to tell. I think the spar is over now and we can go somewhere else to talk, right?

"

'Why is she in such a hurry?' Shane began to wonder, but before he could say anything, Aisha appeared behind them.

"Hello Shane, do you have some time for me?

"

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