Chapter 23: The Plot Moves
The next day, Athar remained holed up in his room. As Angelica had suggested, he kept Sarpinash out in the room but did not do anything else to grow the bond stronger between the two. He could tell that he already had a pretty strong bond with Sarpinash, and he figured he could focus more on that in the future. Sarpinash, on the other hand, was happy to enjoy his presence in the outside world and slither on whatever he could find.
The thing Athar worked on was the two Yellow Grade techniques he had selected. Although both the techniques were of Yellow Rank, the Sword Slash was easier to learn than the Phase of Illusion. Thus, the first step he decided to learn was the Sword Slash. The turn of the Phase of Illusion would come later.
He left his room only in the evening for a brief period of time. It was for his scheduled spar with Ryler. He had another intense spar with Ryler, and Athar could feel that these spars were really helping him a lot. Although Athar was still slightly holding back in the spar, he could not take anything away from the brilliance of Ryler.
Ryler was a genius in his own right, and he was not your average nobody. With his silver-grade beast taken into consideration, he was a top-notch talent. Ryler was agile and although Athar had upper hand against him, considering he had been holding back, agility was something on which Ryler rivalled Athar.
After his spar, he went to the dinner area. As Ryler had told him, he kind of expected some drama to happen again in the dining hall but no such thing happened. It was probably because the number of the students in the dining hall was quite less and it seemed that most of the students who had went outside had their fill outside.
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Athar had just returned to his room after dinner when there was a knock on his door. A frown appeared on his face, and he had a good idea who it might be. He guessed that it must be related to the 30% quota that he was supposed to submit to Dervin today.
He straightened his back as he unlocked the door and pulled it slightly open. He peeped through the small opening.
Standing in front of him was a man of average height. He was slightly burly in his appearance and had curly hair. Athar did not recognize him.