Hell's Academy

Howard had a full seventy two hours to study the three great tablets of the Slavensen people. However, after 24 hours, he felt that he got the gist of the first tablet, and after 48 hours at least understood the foundations of the second one.

Of course, this type of studying speed could be compared to the smartest people in the Great Slavensen Nation's history, and it wouldn't lose out to any of the greatest experts.

'Hmmm, so basically… If I want to get my body completely into the SS rank, the first tablet, the first tablet known as the awakening tablet pretty much shows a way of using plants to strengthen the body in order to activate your inner Ki Hearts.'

'However, the second tablet called the domain tablet then talks about using your domain to breakthrough those ki hearts, and access your domain ki… As for the third tablet, hehe, I'm in no rush to try and master that! It seems you couldn't understand that without breaking into the peak of the SS realm anyway!"

Howard had fortunately noticed something even the greatest genius' didn't notice, and that was his limits for studying the three great tablets. 

If he wanted to try to completely absorb the last tablet without having created his own Ki Heart Domain, it would be nearly impossible to fathom the depths of the last tablet. However, because of this, Howard also very easily chose to try and memorize the tablet for a later point in time. And truthfully, if anyone heard Howard say he memorized the difficult to read tablet, they might smack themselves out of sheer shock. The reason for this had to do with the fact that often times memorizing something like the tablets could be considered harder than learning it! Each character contained a haunting amount of information stored in the form of Ki, and knowing it meant that he had the capacity to learn it.

Basically, this proved if he'd been in the peak of the SS rank, he'd be able to easily learn the third tablet as well.

Lasinda, who stopped by regularly to make sure her father hadn't 'attacked' Howard for what she did with him the night before, basked in seeing him work so hard. However, her father had also been having dozens of meetings with the commanders of the army and something didn't make any sense. Normally, her father after winning a dangerous battle had a massive celebration, and yet this time he hadn't even bothered ventured out to purchase supplies from any of the nearby nations.

"Hmph, I swear…. If my father ruins my relationship with Howard, I'll never forgive him."

Lasinda watched Howard sit down and close his eyes before noticing his Ki suddenly rapidly skyrocketed.

Suddenly, she felt no need to worry, and just watched him in the distance by where her father normally sat. 

'Ugh… that aura, when he activates his full strength, why is it after kissing him, it just makes me feel so damn warm inside. It's almost like he's making enough heat to warm an entire planet, and I just want to run up to him and kiss him. Yet… what the hell is he doing?"

Lasinda had been rather conveniently told to watch Howard while her father went to another meeting and sighed while looking down at her pretty outfit. She had on a beautiful yet short blue dress with a small little headwrap called a maiden's cape.

Though it had the name maiden's cape, it really hung down in front of her head and got worn to show that she'd just recently fallen in love, thereby telling all other men that she was off the table. However, looking at Howard, she really wanted ot be completely and totally taken under his wings right now and feel his powerful body completely enmeshing with her lips.

Yet… seeing him study so hard, she sighed and couldn't help but also smile.

"He's trying something out isn't he... " Mernan appeared next to Lasinda, and gently tapped on her maiden's cape, knocking away her vision. "Is he trying to replace the plants normally required for strengthening the body with various types of Ki? Normally, most people would take weeks to think of something like that, but I guess Hoawrd has something many of us don't."

"What is that father? To be honest, when I look at Howard, he just seems pretty normal asides for his overwhelming strength. What do you think makes it so easy for him to learn things?"

"Hmmmm," Mernan glanced at Howard, trying to read his strange energy, before he made an acute observation. "To be honest, his speed might have to do with more of his acceptance of Ki then him being smarter than any of your peers. Basically, he's so interested in learning about Ki that many roadblocks are removed. It's almost like he's constantly being in a state of being young and innocent even though he can seem like a fierce leader. I wonder if something horrible happened to him?"

"Yeah… he doesn't talk much about his past, does he?" Lasinda sighed and then couldn't help but hug her father ."Anyways, sorry for kissing him in front of you, but he really almost escaped. I don't want to let him out of my sights or else he might never marry me."

"Hmmm? I'd rather watch then let him out of your sites either, hahaha!" Mernan gently caressed Lasinda's back before feeling a strange energy coming out of Howard's body. 

"Anyways, if I'm not mistaken, he's about to try a strange technique to breakthrough. How about, since you're only in the S rank young lady, you get out of here or stand behind me. I don't want him worrying about making it hard for you to breathe."

"Hmm, but he already takes my breath away at night."

"Enough! Stop acting like him and get behind me!" Her father fumed, causing her to laugh, but the Ki in the air coming from Howard made her feel rather strange. He really was about to try something.

"Howard, please don't hurt yourself on our behalf." Lasinda sighed, knowing full well a great amount of Arthraku were heading in their direction. 'My father, I hope he doesn't mind but I'll tell you the truth later… After all, did he really think I wouldn't find out about their approach? I'm not stupid after all."