As Atticus's eyes pierced through the darkness, his gaze meeting the blood red eyes of the Shadow Seraphon, his lips curled up into a satisfying grin.
"Found you," Atticus's words sounded, causing the Shadow Seraphon to feel shivers coursing through every inch of its whole being. It was a feeling it hardly ever felt, one it hated feeling to the core.
Before the beast could even recover from its severed tendrils, multiple silver slates suddenly appeared in Atticus's hand as he instantly channeled his mana into each of them, tossing them in every corner across the expansive space.
Each of them instantly lit up with intensity, illuminating the once pitch black space.
Atticus's gaze instantly focused on the massive figure of the beast dangling down from the ceiling, using some of its massive tendrils to hang onto some of the stalagmites sticking out from the ceiling.
"It healed," Atticus muttered to himself.
The Shadow Seraphon's looks didn't change much from the last time he had fought the beast.
It still maintained its earlier appearance with its blood red eyes, massive round torso, and an incalculable number of tendrils sticking out from its top and bottom.
And this was exactly what Atticus had been focused on— the Shadow Seraphon's tendrils.
The last time Atticus had fought with the beast, he had completely decimated the Shadow Seraphon, mutilating basically all of its tendrils.
But now, they had all grown back and looked even more imposing and bigger.
Atticus shook his head and decided to stop thinking about useless stuff for now. He had come here to train, and he would do just that.
Atticus instantly deactivated the currently useless ethereal cloak and focused on his storage ring.
SCREEEECHHHH!
The Shadow Seraphon snapped out of its fear with a loud screech.
Its intensity was so alarming that the ground shook and the whole cave trembled.
Its eyes glowed with red intensity as a palpable dark aura suddenly erupted from the beast. Its form grew in mass, its already massive tendrils becoming even bigger.
The Shadow Seraphon parted its monstrous maw. Within the gaping darkness, an ominous and palpable aura condensed, expanding with an unsettling intensity.
In the blink of an eye, a malevolent dark beam surged forth from the creature's cavernous mouth.
It cut through the air with a swift and threatening speed, aimed directly at Atticus, casting an eerie glow on the surrounding shadows.
Atticus was well aware of the properties of that dark beam. He knew what it was capable of, and he had no intention of going through what happened the last time once again.
Atticus stretched his hand in front of himself, and a golden slate instantly appeared in the next instant.
Swiftly channeling his mana into it, it radiated an intense golden glow that immediately enveloped Atticus's form, and then, he simply disappeared, the dark beam meeting the unfeeling air.
Atticus appeared instantly 30 meters up in the air, the Shadow Seraphon's form immediately swirling, its eyes focusing on Atticus's figure up in the air.
It opened its mouth once again, and just like before, the palpable black aura gathered in its maw once again. It shot towards Atticus in the air with supersonic speed.
But just like the last time, another golden slate appeared in his hand as he instantly channeled mana into it.
A golden glow encompassed his form, and he abruptly disappeared once again from his original position, appearing 30 meters away on the left side.
Multitudes upon multitudes of dark beams were shot out, hundreds of tendrils were sent out, and even dark veils upon dark veils were conjured, and yet, none of these attacks were able to even touch a single strand of hair on Atticus's form.
The entirety of the cave trembled; walls were crushed, part of the cave ground terrain changed.
Atticus continuously spammed the teleportation runes, rapidly appearing and disappearing the next instant, evading each of the attacks with ease.
He intended on increasing his exposure numbers as much as he could so he could unlock his space element.
Because of the staggering cost of each rune, Atticus had only been able to purchase about 200 teleportation runes.
Many would have expected him to use all his academy points to purchase the runes and maximize the exposure numbers, but that would be nothing but foolish.
Anything could happen where he might need to use the academy points for something important, and he had left the rest of the points for such an eventuality.
Currently, using his perception to the maximum intensity, he was able to easily catch the movement of the master- rank beast.
At his current strength, without making use of the life weapon art or using the burst of mana, Atticus would struggle hard to follow the movement of the master- rank beast.
Ranks of power were graded for a reason; it wasn't so easy to fight a being above one's rank. The only reason Atticus was able to easily streamroll this fight was because of the teleportation runes he had bought from the academy shop.
In order to evade a strike, even if his body couldn't keep up with the speed, the speed at which he could channel mana could.
And it was exactly because of this that Atticus was able to easily evade the master- rank beast's attacks without utilizing his full powers.
"No wonder they sold it at such a high price," Atticus couldn't help but think.
If the runes could be bought cheaper, many students would definitely purchase them, leading to chaos on the battlefield.
Atticus had been using the teleportation runes for a while now, and he was already running out of them.
It didn't take long before the inevitable happened. As a golden rune appeared in Atticus's hand, he thought, 'This is the last one.'
Seeing the multitudes of dark tendrils all piercing through the air heading towards his form from every conceivable angle, Atticus locked eyes with the beast and simply raised his hand, channeling mana into the golden slate.
A golden glow encompassed his form, and just as he was about to get pierced, Atticus's form suddenly disappeared, instantly appearing just a few inches away from the torso of the Shadow Seraphon, his gaze cold.
"Let's move to the next phase,"
Atticus released a burst of mana from his mana core, increasing his speed to unimaginable levels, able to see and keep up with the Shadow Seraphon's movements with ease.
With hands drawn back for a punch, Atticus muttered under his breath, "Earth mimicry."
He instantly felt his body becoming rigid, more firm, and more sturdy.
He manipulated his mana to coalesce around his arm, forming some kind of palpable blue shield around it, at the same time augmenting his strength to staggering levels.
Before the Shadow Seraphon could even react, Atticus unleashed a devastating punch, his fist landing on the beast's torso in the next instant.
BAAAAAAAMMMM!!
The impact was brutal, the force landing with such intensity that a clearly visible wave rippled outward from the point of impact, spreading in all directions around the massive torso of the beast.
As the wave spread across the form of the beast, it stood suspended in air for a brief second before it shot back through the cave like a comet.
The massive form of the beast hit the wall on the other side of the cave with an explosive impact.
BAAAAM!!
The cave trembled, and the intensity traveling through the cave reached the stalagmites hanging from the ceiling as they all began to break off from the top.
Their sharp ends descended at a fast speed toward the cave grounds.
SHREEEEEECHHHHHH!!
The beast released another deafening screech as it vomited liters of black substance from its mouth.
The intensity of the cave trembling reached another level as the beast's tendrils wailed and whipped about, struggling to pull itself out of the massive hole its torso was currently lodged in.
Atticus's cold eyes landed on the beast, completely ignoring the sharp stalagmites falling from every part of the cave.
He muttered under his breath,
"Air mimicry."
Atticus's form turned light, and in the next instant, weightless.
The air immediately coalesced behind him, and with a fast burst of speed, his form shot forward towards the beast.
Despite being stuck in the hole, the Shadow Seraphon still had multiple ways of attacking from a long distance.
Multiple tendrils immediately shot towards Atticus's rapidly approaching form from every conceivable angle, intending to intercept him.
Without so much as a change in expression, Atticus muttered under his breath,
"Fire mimicry."
Like unrestrained flames flickering and changing with unpredictability, Atticus's initially speeding figure flickered with such rapidity that it appeared as though small orange lights were lighting up and then immediately going off in a dark space.
With every single flicker, Atticus easily dodged every single one of the attacks.
Appearing in front of the Shadow Seraphon once again, Atticus muttered under his breath,
"Lightning mimicry,"