"Your five minutes are up." The teacher's voice echoed in the surroundings followed by the resume of time around them.
*Roar*
The beast roared as it continued to walk towards them.
While everyone was ready with their Arcana, Azzy, on the other hand, observed its feet that didn't sink much in the lava.
'The depth of this lava lake is only like a ft or two. So, I just need to take care of my legs in case I fall. But, I wonder…'
Azzy then looked at his hands, 'if my fist can work…'
Since he can't use his Arcana which scares away other Arcana and because they are in the illusionary realm, he can't even bring out a storage card either, the only option left for Azzy to fight is through fists.
Through training at the place with higher gravity, his physical strength is a lot stronger than his peers but since he never used it in a spar, even Azzy didn't know how much strength he possesses, right now.
He wanted to test himself with the beast. It was another reason, he unsummoned the black wolf.
The beast slowly walked towards them.
Lark told everyone to move back, right to the edge of the island, and wait until the beast steps on the island.
As per his plan, they waited until the beast stepped onto the island.
"Oscar, Use Flame Thrower."
*Wow* It barked before dashing forward to get into the range and breathe out a stream of fire and hit Volcanus.
Due to being resistant to fire, it felt nothing other than just feeling burning up all over its skin.
*Roar*
It roared once again. As the tiger-striped dog successfully grabbed its attention, it moved to a different location, away from the rest of them.
Lark then gave an order, "Gideon, you are up… Make sure to avoid those spikes."
He glanced at the spikes on its back. "Yeah, I know," Gideon nodded. Then, as he glanced at the beast once again, he saw a peculiar action of the beast.
While moving, he saw it was moving its head, retracting its neck and then, elongating it.
He mumbled, "The neck seems to be its most vulnerable part."
Azzy shook his head as he thought, 'not exactly. A monster's vulnerable part is always its eyes as long as it isn't a rank-7 or above…'
"Charge." After giving out an order, Lark went after his dog while the rest of them charged forward towards the beast that exposed its back to them.
Azzy followed them from behind.
"Eh?" In the next second, the classmates before him disappeared.
"Woah." To his surprise, he heard the exclaims from behind.
Only then, Azzy realized when he pushed his leg against the ground and dashed forward, he already passed them and covered half of the distance to the beast.
Azzy himself was surprised at how light he felt in this ordinary gravity environment.
Without waiting for the rest to catch up, he clenched his fist as he dashed towards the monster again, intending to injure the monster so that it would be easier for the rest of them to attack.
"What is he doing?" Lark halted for a second before dodging the attack of the fire blast from the beast.
Quickly reaching the beast, Azzy used his soul power on the feet to jump high in the air.
"Eh?" Once again, he used too much of his strength and jumped a bit too high.
As he was falling, Azzy raised his leg and tried to land a kick on its head.
Volcanus felt a chill on its neck all of a sudden.
The beast spun around itself like a tornado and pushed away Lark and his doggie while dodging the attack just in the nick of time.
*Bam*
As his kick missed the target and hit the ground, cracks appeared everywhere before it was destroyed into dozens of tiny floating rocks.
The beast lost its balance and fell into the lava, splashing the lava onto everyone around.
As a result, five of them are unable to escape the crisis. Other than Azzy, only Lark and his doggie managed to get away with it as they received the minimum impact.
Meanwhile, Azzy's legs are submerged under the lava lake. But he felt nothing at the moment as the soul energy that flowing through his legs is currently nullifying the heat.
'Oops! I used too much strength…'
Azzy can't help but feel apologetic to his classmates but due to having a blank expression on his face, Lark went into a rage. "What have you done?"
"I missed the target and the ground was too weak to withhold the attack…" Azzy blankly answered him.
"I don't mean that." Lark's anger further deepened by his reply, "You are supposed to support Gideon."
"But Gideon is a rank-3 with a lightning attribute Arcana. How can he face a high rank-4 beast?" Azzy once again spoke in a flat tone as if he was implying that his plan is stupid.
"You…" Lark's body shook in anger as Azzy didn't even apologize for the mistake he caused. Not only he didn't follow the order and went on his own, but also caused the death of his teammates.
If this is a real-world, he would be a dangerous teammate.
Meanwhile, the monster stood up on its four legs. Without wasting the time or soul power on his legs, Azzy dashed forward towards it.
Looking at the boy coming towards it, the beast felt danger and it immediately used its strongest skill, "Earth Dome."
Molten rocks below the lava rose and formed a large dome over the beast.
Lark was taken aback, seeing it from far. "The monster is going on the defensive?"
Azzy clenched his fist and punched the earth dome gathering the soul energy into his hands.
All of his soul power is consumed at the instant while the dome was blasted into a speck of dust particles.
There wasn't even a trace of the monster inside of it.
Azzy was stunned at the moment, getting a glimpse of his strength. "This is my strength?"
Suddenly, the surroundings before him changed to the classroom and he found the others are sleeping with their heads on their respective desks.
He also felt that his soul power is also full. He felt strange about it, considering his soul power emptied just a moment ago.
"You are Azrael, right?" A voice brought him out of his thoughts.
In front of him, Azzy saw the teacher was staring at him with his eyes widened in shock.
The teacher asked, "The one who defeated Instructor Hermon's Golem?"
Azzy nodded in response, "Yes."
The teacher then continued, "You are too strong and your control is also too weak. You might accidentally kill the students if I let you spar against anyone.
At the moment, it is better if you don't cooperate with your teammates and rather work on control. Hmm, I have the perfect training route for you. But, first, let me test the limits of your strength."
The eyes of his cobra staff once again glowed in red and he lost his consciousness.
Azzy found alone on the grassland of some unknown place. Before him, instead of a beast, Azzy saw a man in black armor from top to bottom. Even his face was covered by the helmet.
Azzy wasn't able to gauge his strength, indicating that his rank is higher.
"The man before you is an enemy I fought and killed back when I was a 10th-grade student.
He's a mid-rank-5 Arcana Master and also a swordsman. Fight against him with all of your strength without using your Arcana."
As the time in the surroundings is unfrozen, Azzy thought, 'this teacher has some unique soul skill. Throwing an opponent into memories and let him fight against the monster or a person.
There must be a condition to achieve this, right? Or else, this would be a cheating ability. Or maybe, it because I'm a lower rank, I was pulled into that illusionary realm?'
His thoughts are interrupted by the sudden movement of the man in the armor.
He dashed forward towards him and tried to slash him with the sword.
"Huh?" For some reason, Azzy felt everything in a slow-motion and he was able to see the sword and his movements clearly.
Azzy dodged to the side and gave a solid punch to the chest while pouring the soul power into his fist.
This time, he tried to control the amount and was able to stop the rapid absorption of soul power. This time, only around 51000 amount of soul power is absorbed leaving him with 26000 or so…
*Bam*
But, he wasn't in a mood to care about it as the armor cracked as soon as his punch landed on the man.
The man fell on his back on the spot.
"What the…" Sorcerer Uphiar almost lost his balance because of the shock and tightly grabbed the desk.
Azzy was also stunned on the spot as he returned to the classroom.
"Looks like the Protos Energy improved your body's constitution. No, it leveled up entirely…" The Reaper's voice rang in his head. "Your Physical body currently has the strength of a high rank-5 Arcana Master."
"Eh?"