The fight was between two boys, and while Lloyd recognized both of them, he only knew the name of one of them since they were his roommate, but he was still unwilling to interfere in the fight.
This was between them, and Lloyd wasn't too certain of the rules of the military academy yet, so he didn't really want to do anything that would put him in the limelight of teachers and professors any more than he already had.
Jay looked at the boy with piercing blue eyes, but he didn't move. From their current stances, it seemed like the boy was the one to attack first, not the other way around.
"You think your a hotshot? You're not even from a powerful family. You're middle class at best." The boy laughed, yet Jay didn't react to his taunts. It seemed like it would take him much more to show emotion toward such an obvious provocation.
"How dare you try to sit with us!" The boy roared while charging forward like a mad bull. Lloyd couldn't remember what his class was, but from his movements, it seemed to be something like a berserker or barbarian, yet he was also sure that it wasn't any of those two.
He had seen Zack fight enough times to know that.
When Jay saw the boy charge at him, he got into a fighting stance, ready to stop his attacker even if he was forced to take a lethal measure.
However, even though the spectators seemed to be enjoying the fight, everyone knew how it would end. There was no way that some random kind could beat a Dreamweaver; they just wanted to see one in action.
"Both of you! Stop!" A slightly deep voice boomed throughout the hallway; however, while everyone first tried to disperse after thinking it was a teacher, they quickly realized that wasn't the case.
Instead, it was a boy the same age as Lloyd marching toward the center of the fight with both his hands extended toward both people in order to stop them from fighting.
"On the first day of your academy and you are already squabbling like children. Are you not ashamed?!" He roared, yet the boy who had momentarily stopped his charge threw the words aside and began his charge once more, this time with a blue aura surrounding his body.
'A martial artist?' Lloyd thought, remembering the fighting styles of every martial artist he personally knew.
While most of them didn't really charge into battle heads first, Lloyd concluded that it must have been something like the beast fighting martial art that allowed the user to forget their pain and simply move like a beast filled with nothing but bloodlust.
Of course, the boy before him couldn't emit bloodlust. Hell, it would probably take him a hundred years to even learn how to emit it. He was green behind the ears in every way. He was a kid from a powerful family that looked like he had every single thing in his life prepared for him by his maids and servants, so what would he know of bloodlust?
'How weak...' A voice echoed in Lloyd's mind as Lloyd's resentment for the boy suddenly increased. Maybe it was jealousy that the boy could live such a lavish lifestyle without losing anyone or suffering until this point, or maybe it was Null amplifying his emotions to force him into doing something reckless.
Lloyd could see slight panic as Jay's attacker charged at the boy in the middle of both of them; however, at the same moment, a resolute expression appeared on his face before he closed his eyes, raised his foot, and slammed his heel onto the back of the attacker's head so hard that his face created cracks on the floor when he slammed into it.
The cracks immediately repaired themselves. However, the boy who had received the kick was now out cold.
'Hypocrite.' Lloyd thought to himself.
"DAMNIT GREG! You're a second-year representative, stop hitting the first years!" An older woman roared, marching her way to Greg, the boy who had kicked the attacker unconscious.
Greg stepped back with his hands up as he tried to explain his situation, yet the woman didn't seem to be having any of it.
That's when Lloyd realized something.
'Oh? He doesn't have white stripes. His are blue.' Lloyd thought while looking at his military uniform and seeing the white stripes that outline parts of the jacket, such as his chest pocket or his shoulder linings.
'If I remember correctly, blue means second year, right?'
However, before he could think about anything else or even analyze the Greg's uniform further, he watched him be dragged away by the older woman that held him by the ear as he screamed for her to let go of him.
'Hmm?' Lloyd furrowed his brows. He felt like he was being watched. No, it was different from being watched. It felt like someone was analyzing him to the core, or at least trying anyway.
Looking back, Lloyd found himself meeting the cold icy glare of a young petite girl with raven black hair that draped down her shoulder.
When Lloyd looked into her golden yet dull eyes with a questioning expression, she simply rolled her eyes and looked away in annoyance. Or, that's what Lloyd thought she was feeling. Sure, he was good at reading people to a certain extent, but when it came to people like her and Veronica, Lloyd found it hard to comprehend their expressions.
After that, everyone returned to their dorms. Jay and Lloyd naturally walked in the same direction. Yet, while Jay was walking at a good speed, Lloyd's walking speed was exceptionally slow as he tried to circulate mana throughout his body while walking simultaneously.
After seeing minimal changes, Lloyd sighed and decided to do something he had been thinking of doing since the day they went to the Glade family's planet.
*Beep*
The double doors before Lloyd opened up outwards. The sight of an enormous library was magnificent. The architecture was something else, making it look like one of those magic libraries.
A giant glass plane with several designs on it occupied one of the walls, allowing the light of the sun to shine through and create a beautiful spectacle. Since the sun seemed to be still rising, it created a warm yellow hue in the library that made it feel even more homely and magical than before.
"And to think this is only the first year's library." Lloyd muttered to himself, unable to imagine what the second and third-year libraries would look like.
The library itself was surprisingly empty, but he should have expected such a thing. First, years don't usually take anything seriously, unless they are already from poor backgrounds or have a military background and an image to uphold.
"Well, I have all day to kill, so I might as well start now."
It took about 10 minutes for Lloyd to find the section he was looking for, and another 10 minutes for him to find the book he wanted, or at least one that fit the criteria he had.
While the library had many books, a lot of the ones that featured cultivation techniques, martial arts, certain styles, techniques, and more, all cost quite a lot of points, and so far, Lloyd was certain that no one in the first year had gained any.
When Lloyd finally found a few free books on cultivation techniques, he want to one of the tables nearby and sat down. The books varied. Every cultivation technique was different in one way or another, yet they all practically fell into a few sections, and those sections eventually fell into certain categories.
Body and core cultivation fell under mana cultivation. Killing intent, aura, bloodlust, etc., all fell under soul cultivation. The last one was mind cultivation, but that was a lot more complicated, and people usually didn't go for it before the third commandment, and nor was Lloyd going to bother with it until he had more time on his hands.
Mind cultivation was useful because it allowed someone to fight off manipulation, made them more intelligent, and gave them a stronger will and a much more advanced control over their abilities, techniques, and spells. However, despite the drawbacks, Lloyd already had [4-dimensional thought] that made him have all that and more.
His primary objective, for now, was to get the hang of core and body cultivation, so he would do those first before moving on to other things.
[4-dimensional thought]
Activating his ability, Lloyd began to read through the books at a speed that wasn't humanly possible without mind cultivation.
Body cultivation. The act of absorbing mana and circulating it around the body, allowing mana to seep into the cells of the cultivator by destroying the cells and recreating them repeatedly, making their cells more and more powerful after every circulation.
It was painful, of course. That was the cost of body cultivation, but it was practically worth it. Yet, Lloyd couldn't really destroy his cells since he wasn't technically made of cells.
However, mana core cultivation was different, yet the same. All you had to do was strengthen the core through condensing the mana inside it... But that was the problem. Lloyd had already tried that through several different methods, yet no matter what he did, he couldn't get it right, and he felt like the runes inside his mana core had something to do with it.
Everything was different for Lloyd, but maybe what was holding him back was his human way of thinking... He could count on two hands the amount of classes that use both types of cultivations, and since he wasn't even human anymore, he had to change his way of thinking into that of a void walker.
And there was only one person he knew that could help him with that...
