In the end, Tinson had decided to leave. He could feel that the situation was tense and that perhaps the student known as 'Pink' would want to speak alone with Raze; at least it felt that way.
The two had been staring at each other for a while, not saying a word, so he felt like it was time to leave. Before doing so, he gave another bow and said his last remaining words.
"About the question you asked, I can't speak on a one-to-one basis, but right now, day by day, we are understanding how the academy has abandoned us, and that very well may be the clans as well.
"I can't imagine them being able to do something like this without the permission of the clans. If that is the case, and you are the one that saved us, then I would be willing to even go against the academy. However, I'm not sure the others will feel the same way."
Dame watched Tinson run out of the room, and he couldn't help but have a large smile on his face.
"He is quite the honest person," Dame commented. "You would think with the situation he was in, that he would have said anything to try and convince you, yet he answered honestly. It could be a sign of stupidity, or you shocked him to the point that he wouldn't dare lie to you."
"What are you trying to do?" Raze said, turning around and continuing to look at the book in front of him.
It was a sign to show that Raze wasn't afraid of Dame and somewhat trusted him. One would rarely turn their back in such a tight-knit situation, but with everything they had gone through and they had given up, Raze knew one thing: Dame had no intention of killing him.
Whether it was to use him for his goal, who cared as long as they could benefit each other, at least that was Raze's line of thinking.
"I think you should seriously consider his offer. Our group, we're in the stages of building up power," Dame explained. "I'm sure you don't plan to rely on the Crimson Crane for everything, especially with how far spread out we are.
"We also need help in the Dark Faction. There have already been a couple of close calls, and if we didn't have an ally like Gunther on our side, we would be in big trouble. At any time, the favor that the Dark Faction has for you, as their star, the White Dragon, could flip.
"If they try and get rid of you, not even I have the strength to protect you."
Raze already somewhat knew that, which was why he was trying to build up his strength as much as possible, but the quickest way to do that was through the beast crystals.
Yet in a place like this, he was unable to get any; he kind of wished that the academy would have done an assessment where they used the portals they had instead of this.
"Are the academy heads really that strong?" Raze asked.
"Very. You have to remember that I am not yet at the middle stage myself," Dame commented. "I haven't had the time to really focus on it too much, yet the principal is nearly at the Divine stage; he is far stronger than the elder from the Light Faction that you had faced.
"On top of that, the principal is close to all of the Clan heads who are all high-stage warriors that are as strong if not stronger than the Divine head that you went against. At the moment, you have been able to overpower them, but when it comes to the clan heads that are at the top of their cultivation, they will use skills that will be difficult for you to deal with.
"Of course, I also don't know the full extent or power of your magic and Divine weapons."
Raze was unique because it was hard to gauge his actual strength. Usually, one would just assume a stage 4 warrior was stronger than a stage 3, and 90 percent of the time this was the case.
There were situations such as better use of skills, Qi control, and fighting IQ that made up the other ten percent of the time one would lose.
Yet when looking at Raze, he was almost in the upper end. He had many uses in the fight against the elder; if he were to take a guess based on the magic he had seen, his power was probably at that of a stage six warrior at the moment.
This wasn't just Dame's guess but Raze's as well. His use of magic along with his Pagna powers meant he could go around that of stage 6 warriors head to head at the moment.
"There's more to be done as well; I didn't quite expect us to be in this situation either," Dame commented. "We need to head to the Demonic Faction and give a delivery to Fixteen, collect some money from them in the meantime to expand as much as we can. I know you have a way of getting there; if you want, I can make an excuse as to why you're away, or just make sure no one tries to go looking for you."
That wasn't the only meeting that Raze had; soon he also needed to use his astral projection technique to head to Alter and try to gather more information from that end.
If anything, it was almost as if everything was pointing him in the direction of leaving this place, but there was still one thing he wasn't sure about.
"I'm pretty confident that I can do those things and find a way to come back here," Raze replied. "I can gather food while in the Demonic Faction and deliver what you need, but what use is it helping these students?"
"You mean you don't want to help them out of the kindness of your heart? Did you not feel anything with that heartfelt plea?" Dame said.
"It's hard to feel something for those that would have killed you a few hours before."
"Right," Dame said as he started to walk around the small square space room in circles, a habit of his when he was speaking his mind or thinking. "In a way, it's not just the principal that controls the academy but the clan heads as well.
"Right now, they're hungry, but I imagine that the situation could become even worse. At that point, when you give them food, in their time of desperation when their anger for the academy is at its highest, I think we might even be able to get the clan heads on our side!
"I told you that the clan heads are powerful, and to face them, we almost need to start building up our own clan within the academy, those that are more on our side rather than their clans or the academy.
"In my eyes, this is the perfect situation. You have the Crimson Crane to help you if need be, but that might not be enough. In the meantime, while you're away doing such things, I will work on improving the strength of the other three young ones. We need to build up strength capable of taking down the Dark Faction Pagan academy."
Although this wasn't in Raze's original plan, he actually didn't think it was so bad. He remembered the words from the librarian. To get access to certain information that was held in the library about the Dark Faction founder, he needed to become the principal.
'I wonder, what Alter will think of my doings, or if they would just be happy that they have someone that they can use that will be in a higher position?' Raze thought.
He thought about it for a while; at a guess, Raze concluded that this assessment would take a month. It was pretty much the limit for warriors at their stage to barely survive without any water, only relying on cultivating energy from the world around them.
If it was a regular human, that would have been around 3 days or slightly more. The teachers seemed to know what they were doing, and it was no wonder Gunther had stated it would have been better off for them if they had just left this place.
"Alright, I'll do it; I have a way to head back; I think I can work something out."
The moment Raze said those words, a loud click was heard. The sound traveled through the hallways and went straight to the training room.
"That sound, it's coming from the Dark Space!" Raze said.
He, as well as Dame, quickly rushed out of the room, and they could see many others coming from the training area, including that of the five disciples. They quickly all headed into the Dark space, and that's when they could see five people standing there.
They were in the center of the Dark space with glowing crystals held in their hands. All of them were adults and were the teachers of the academy. In the center of them all, there was an individual that stood out more so compared to the rest of them because it was a clan head.
"Is that... it is... it's Feebie from the Lethal Bite Clan!"
"The teachers faintly came here; wait, Feebie isn't a teacher, she's just one of the clan's heads though."
"Yeah, but the other teachers are with her; this means we're saved."
"Hey, but if the assessment ended this early, it wasn't what we thought it was, right? All the students that were murdered, won't he be punished."
"Yeah, it's a good thing they sent a clan head then; otherwise, who knows what would happen."
There was a large relief spreading through the whole room as they saw the leaders, but the door that had opened from above was closed, and Raze didn't think it was the good news they thought it would be.
"Oh, this is quite surprising; I thought more of you would be dead by now," Feebie commented.
