Just as I had expected, learning the two techniques was very easy. Not even a few days have passed since I had borrowed Undisturbed Snow and Seven Splits, and they had already shown up on my Hunter System. 

 

Name: Gideon Lenoir 

Age: 15 

Title: Death's Acquaintance (C) 

Bloodline: N/A 

Class: N/A 

Strength: E- 

Agility: E 

Endurance: E- 

Intellect: E- 

Wisdom: F 

Luck: B+ 

Abilities: Battle awareness (E), Observe weakness (E-), Sprinting (F+) 

Techniques: Imperial Kingdom's Soundless Sword Technique (Beginner) (E), Unarmed Combat Fundamentals (E-), Undisturbed Snow (F), Seven Splits (F) 

Status: Healthy 

 

Undisturbed Snow (F) (Max: E): A movement technique that makes the user's steps quick and soft. Upon reaching its highest level, one could walk on snow without leaving behind any footprints. 

 

Seven Splits (F) (Max: E+): A sword attack that comprises seven attacks, each following one another. Every connecting attack will increase in power, with the seventh attack being the strongest attack.  

 

I was satisfied with the results of my efforts. The addition of these two techniques made me more rounded. I especially liked the description of the Seven Splits technique. The idea that every following attack would be stronger than the previous attack was very appealing to me. It was like performing a combo on your enemy. 

 

Now, I was a lot more confident in taking down students that I stood no chance of beating in the past. It was time for me to start acquiring points. Since coming to the Umbra Battle Academy, I have learned that there is no shame in underhanded strategies or methods when it comes to winning. After all, the winner is the one who writes history, not the loser.  

 

Although I had successfully increased my battle prowess, I still thought about my situation realistically. I understood that my chance of winning in a frontal battle with another student was not in my favor. The two techniques I had just learned are not enough to cover the distance between the stronger students and me. The only way I would have a realistic probability of winning is by ambushing my targets or weakening them before fighting them head on.  

 

Out of those two methods, I wasn't confident in successfully poisoning another student, especially not a student at the level I was aiming for. Therefore, I decided to come up with a plan and ambush my targets. 

 

My plan was straightforward. Stalk the target, understand the target's daily routines. Ambush the target when they are alone or are in a sub-optimal condition. However, this wasn't going to be easy. I can guarantee you that I am not the only one who is following this strategy right now. Plenty of other students will attempt to stalk my targets as well. Just like them, I am unwilling to set my sight on the strong students, let alone the strongest few, because they were too strong. That's why the most targeted group of students were the average and the slightly above average.  

 

Having so many students target the same group made me feel a lot of pressure. Not only do I have to stalk my target successfully, but I also need to make sure I don't get ambushed and that none of my competitors beat the target before me. Although the task was challenging, I couldn't give up; this, by design, is the only way to advance in the underworld academies.  

 

As I was thinking of how I would proceed to hunt my targets, it occurred to me that I was limiting my perspective on the issue. The school never explicitly said that you couldn't team up with other students to hunt other students. Thinking about it, isn't it expected for assassins to work together to take down a target in the real world? Continuing this train of thought, I thought of who I could potentially have as a hunting mate.  

 

It's sad to say aloud, but since being here, the only person I ever talked to is Vesemir, whom I met at the library. I don't know anyone else, not because I'm antisocial or unfriendly, it's just that it's hard to get to know someone when you know, and they know that we're trying to kill each other. I thought about the prospect of inviting Vesemir some more before concluding that I should go for it. Worst case scenario, he says no, not the end of the world. 

 

Although Vesemir is a top performer in academics, his ranking isn't much higher than mine. The reality was academics didn't provide students with many points since this is a school for training assassins, not scholars. Now I just needed to find where Vesemir was. I had a gut feeling that he would probably be at the library since he told me he goes to the library often. 

 

When I got to the library, low and beheld, there he was reading a book. It seems like he was reading a book that is over some obscure magic theory that I wouldn't know about it. Like last time, I waited for him to finish reading the chapter being mindful not to interrupt him.  

 

After finishing reading the chapter, Vesemir put down the book and asked me in the same professional tone as he did last time, "How can I help you?"  

 

I proposed the idea of working together to take down stronger students to earn points. At first, Vesemir wasn't very convinced, but after pointing out that he couldn't rely on his academics to get many points and that without the points from beating other students, he wouldn't be able to view or purchase the high quality books that the school didn't store in the public student library. I gave him a bit of time to consider my offer, and I was happy to hear that he had accepted my proposal.  

 

I made the right decision in inviting Vesemir. He was a brilliant lad. No wonder he can do so well academically. Utilizing his knowledge and understanding of the other students in our grade, we narrowed our target to one student. We settled on this student because we believed our battle technique would counter theirs, giving us an advantage. The plan was, once we manage to isolate our target, I would directly confront him and initiate battle. When things become tense between him and me, Vesemir would step in and attack the student from behind. Whatever points we gain, we would split 50/50.  

 

With the planning done, now we had to find an opportunity to execute it. For the next week, both of us took turns discreetly monitoring our target's behaviors and daily routines. Our target constantly changes their daily routine. He would never go to the same place two days in a row. From observing his movements, he had at least six different paths to get from the dorms to the schools and vice versa. It was challenging to pinpoint when exactly we could ambush him, but we successfully managed to do so in the end. Vesemir discovered that although our target never had a consistent routine, he takes one path more often than the others. If we patiently wait for him on this path, we would be able to ambush him. 

 

So that was the plan. Both Vesemir and I would patiently wait hidden in the bushes next to the path until our target comes. There was the possibility that our target wouldn't use this path today, tomorrow, or the day after, but that was fine. Patience is something both of us processed.  

 

The day we first started camping next to the road, our target didn't come, so we had to leave with empty pockets. The same thing happened the next day and the day after. When both of us started to feel doubtful about our plan, we saw our target strolling on the path in the distance.  

 

We had accomplished the first step of isolating our target, now it for the second step, to defeat him. As our target was getting closer to us, I walked out of the bushes and stood in his path. Without exchanging words, I unsheathed by swords and gestured towards him proactively. The target didn't need an explanation of what was going on. Like me, he readied his weapon and gestured towards me to come at him. That marked the start of the battle. 

 

The target used a sword just like me, except his fighting style leaned towards a much more aggressive style. At first, we seemed to be evenly matched. However, that couldn't be further from the truth. Although we have not managed to hurt each other yet, I knew that I would undoubtedly lose if this fight dragged on from the first few exchanges. The target's attacks were strong and fierce. Every time I blocked his attack with my sword, I would feel my hands go numb. Very quickly, He put me into a passive position. I did my best to avoid confrontation with my opponent and opted instead to maintain distance between the two of us.  

 

During the fight, I was looking for an opportunity to surprise my opponent. I hadn't used any of my battle techniques yet, because I wanted to use them as a wild card. Right now, my opponent had already grasped a good idea of my battle capabilities. With that knowledge, he is better able to combat me. If I were to increase in strength suddenly, it would throw my opponent out of sync and provide me the opportunity to harm him seriously. That was what I was banking on. 

 

I purposely let my opponent slowly push me into a corner as he raised the intensity of his attacks. From his facial expression, I could tell that he thought he had this fight in the bag. Little did he know that the moment my back touched the wall, I was going to turn the tables on him. It was a risky endeavor, but as they say, the greater the risk, the greater the reward.  

 

Though things did not go exactly as I had planned, in a good way, right before my back was about to touch the tree behind me, a sudden light erupted in the bushes nearby, and from it, a fireball hurled towards my opponent. The opponent's skill was not something one could scoff at. Upon sensing the fireball, he immediately pulled his attention off me and dodged the fireball darting towards him. I was confident that the fireball originated from Vesemir. 

 

Vesemir had provided me the perfect opportunity. Vesemir's attack had wholly revealed the opponent's side to me. I didn't let this chance go to waste. When my opponent was dodging Vesemir's fireball attack, I went all out. Using Undisturbed Snow, I quickly moved next to my opponent before combining Imperial Kingdom's Soundless Sword Technique and Seven Splits to create a silent but deadly attack. I slashed the target three times before I stopped. He had already lost. Any more attacks, and I would've been putting his life at risk, and that was not my intention.  

 

From the bushes, Vesemir revealed himself to us. The target knew he had lost. My three attacks had immobilized him. He let out a sigh before transferring me all the points he had. I felt bad for him since we possessed no animosity towards him in the first place. I returned some points to him, enough that he wouldn't be worried about lacking necessities. He appreciated my gesture and left for his original destination after nodding towards me.  

 

I transferred half the points I had received from the target to Vesemir. In total, we had gained 534 points from this battle. I now had a total of 632 points, a decent amount. From the corner of my eye, I could see my Hunter System flashing. I didn't know what was going on, so I opened my Hunter System.  

 

System: Due to a combination of Imperial Kingdom's Soundless Sword Technique and Seven Splits, Seven Splits has evolved into a new battle technique, Seven Unuttered Splits. 

 

Name: Gideon Lenoir 

Age: 15 

Title: Death's Acquaintance (C) 

Bloodline: N/A 

Class: N/A 

Strength: E- 

Agility: E 

Endurance: E- 

Intellect: E- 

Wisdom: F 

Luck: B+ 

Abilities: Battle awareness (E), Observe weakness (E-), Sprinting (F+) 

Techniques: Imperial Kingdom's Soundless Sword Technique (Beginner) (E), Unarmed Combat Fundamentals (E-), Seven Unuttered Splits (F+), Undisturbed Snow (F) 

Status: Healthy 

 

Seven Unuttered Splits (F+) (Max: D-): A sword attack that comprises seven silent slashes that follow one another. Each connecting attack will increase in power, with the seventh attack being substantially more substantial than the previous attacks.  

 

Although the potential of Seven Splits had only increased by one level, it managed to climb from an E tier skill to a D tier which is an enormous leap in quality. The technique now belonged to a whole new league. This was the first time I had witnessed a skill evolving, and I was ecstatic about it.