Whoosh!
The blade of Amelia's sword sliced through the air where Caecus' head was just a moment ago.
'Now at rank two I have way more soul essence than before.'
Caecus used the same amount of soul essence he had in his entire soul core at rank one just on his arm.
Without any soul essence in his skin or any other senses, due to not needing it anymore after the advancement, he could distribute it better.
One of the only senses he didn't reverse assimilate was his sense of touch, which helped him in fights.
Before, Caecus would enhance his facial skin with his soul essence to track his opponent's movements, but now his natural sense of touch was so well developed that it was on par with when he enhanced it before, if not even better.
Even with the reverse assimilation, Caecus' sense of hearing and smell were still better than they were at rank one and also on par with his senses that were enhanced with soul essence at rank one.
Caecus moved the dagger in his right hand upwards quickly, reinforcing his arm and blocking Amelia's strike.
Then he assimilated around five percent of his soul essence, which was in his arm, and the strength he gained pushed Amelia back.
Not wanting to waste soul essence, he assimilated another five percent into his legs and dashed forward.
The buff from the assimilation to his arms was still there, and he cut towards Amelia's waist.
She managed to block, but not deflect. When his blade pressed against the blade of her sword, the effects of the assimilation were quickly shown.
The momentum he gained from the dash combined with the strength of his enhanced arm twisted her wrist due to the sheer strain of blocking, and the blunt force of his blade against hers could be felt by Amelia.
She was sent flying, getting pushed into the air and landing on her feet around eight meters away.
The servant rubbed her wrist, but then ignored it and continued fighting. Quickly she dashed forward and performed a stab towards Caecus' throat.
He did something extremely dangerous.
Being able to feel where exactly the tip of her blade would land, he put ten percent of his soul essence right on the spot where the contact would happen.
Since the tips of blades need to be extremely small to be sharp enough to cut flesh and bone, the first contact of a stab would always be microscopic.
Caecus used this as an advantage and crammed the ten percent of the soul essence right at the point where the stab would first enter his flesh.
Cling!
The sound of metal against a hard surface could be heard, and Caecus just stood there unharmed by Amelia's attack.
Not letting this opening go to waste, he moved.
Again. Five percent of his soul essence into his legs and assimilate.
One second he stood right in front of her, and in the next second he disappeared, making it seem like he teleported to the normal human eye.
Right at her blind spot, he stabbed with his left dagger.
'Did I wi-'
Amelia spun around at unimaginable speed, and Caecus could sense that she had assimilated eighty percent of her soul essence just for this.
She then grabbed his wrist right before his dagger would come in contact with her and twisted his arm behind his back.
"O-ow! I give up! I give up!"
The pressure from Amelia's grip stopped and she released his wrist.
"You did very well. If we had gone all out, you probably would have won." Amelia was seriously impressed by his progress.
"Yes… I noticed now that we are the same rank, the differences in our soul density really show."
"The assimilation of eighty percent of my soul essence is the same as ten percent for you. This is why the corpora put that much weight on producing offspring with the highest soul density." she explained.
"That makes sense… where do I stand in terms of soul density compared to other teens from the corpora?" Caecus asked, clearly curious.
"Your soul density is about eight times that of mine. I am actually one of the rare cases of a genetic mutation, so my soul density is a little below the average of one from the corpora."
"Does that mean mine is really high? I mean eight times seems like a lot…"
"Well, even though you haven't received treatment according to it, you are from the main family. The main family of every corpus is always the one with the highest soul density. In the entrance exams, purely when it comes to soul density, you will probably place in the top twenty at the very least."
"Top twenty? How many people participate in the entrance exams on average then?" Caecus asked.
"Well… the Psychéion entrance exams include people from corpora all over the world, not just Anima. Of course each country has their own academies, but Psychéion is the most prestigious of them all. It is just teens from the corpora of Anima that are forced to take the entrance exams. If we take all of that into account, it should be around fifty thousand every year."
"F-fifty thousand?! How many of those get accepted?"
"Well, the criteria of Psychéion is really high, with the highest number of accepted applicants in a year being ten thousand, and the lowest one thousand. Normally it is five to six thousand applicants that are accepted."
"That seems like much for these supposed 'high criteria'." Caecus mumbled.
"No, you got something wrong. Those fifty thousand need to be accepted into the entrance exams first. Only the citizens of Anima get automatically selected for the entrance exams. Citizens of other countries need to apply, and those applications reach into the millions. Out of these millions of applications, only fifty thousand get the privilege to attend the entrance exams, and then out of those fifty thousand, on average only five thousand get accepted."
"Wow… are you sure I will be accepted? The scale of things just seems unimaginably high…" worry showed in Caecus' tone and expression, and he fidgeted with the hem of his shirt.
"Yes… even though you may not think so, your talent is absolutely terrifying. You will not be able to rank very high, but with some luck you will get accepted."
Unconsciously, Caecus smiled a little.
'The entrance exams are from December twelfth to the fifteenth. Each examination has its own day. My fifteenth birthday is December seventh. Assuming I will not train on my birthday and the day before the examinations for best results, I probably have around ten days left to train, as tomorrow is the first of the month.'
"Amelia, don't you think it is time to pick up theory again? I mean the examinations are in twelve days…" he asked her.
"Well, your comprehension speed got boosted even more after reaching rank two. We should probably start focusing on theory three days before the examinations. For now we should focus on what matters, which is combat and your physicality."
"Alright, so what will we do next?" the black haired boy asked.
"Eat."
And that they did.
Caecus didn't even notice how hungry he was, due to the adrenaline from the fight, but when he picked up the scent of the food, his mouth started watering and his stomach began growling.
Back in his room, Amelia placed the tray with his food in front of him, and he devoured it all.
When he was finished eating, Amelia brought his tray away and told him they would be focusing on soul essence control while his food digested.
"I saw that you compressed your soul essence into one tiny point of your body when I hit you. This is really good and I would like to expand on that."
Caecus had a frown on his face and his fists clenched.
"Don't tell me…"
"Yes, exactly. I am going to hit you with a few different attacks, and you will have to compress your soul essence at the right time." Caecus could feel that a cruel smile was etched onto Amelia's face.
Over the months, Caecus had grown used to Amelia's training methods becoming more and more torturous, so he knew exactly what was going to happen.
…
Back in the training hall, Amelia stood in front of Caecus.
"This will be just like a normal hand to hand combat spar, but this time you will only use your hands, while I will use a variety of different weapons." Amelia explained cheerfully.
Caecus was sure that she was secretly a sadist of some sort, and that was why she wanted to be a teacher.
"A-alright."
Getting into a boxing stance with his right foot forward, as Caecus was left handed, he prepared himself for the exchange.
Feeling Amelia infuse soul essence into her legs, but not assimilating it, the teen knew she would charge forward.
He was right, and Amelia dashed toward him, covering ten meters in a split second.
She swung her sword at his neck, but he skillfully blocked using his arm, infusing soul essence directly into the spot where she attacked.
Caecus had around thirty percent of his soul essence spread throughout his joints and important muscles, so he would not be sent flying, and ten percent crammed into the exact spot in his arm where it came into contact with her sword.
Amelia did not stop her barrage though. It was only due to the boy's increased comprehension speed that he was able to make out the exact spots where her attacks would land.
Swiftly, he infused soul essence into every point where her attacks were about to hit.
A few seconds into the barrage, he adapted.
Before, he was solely focused on deflecting, but with time he saw Amelia's attack patterns clearly.
Whoosh!
Caecus' fist cut through the air where Amelia's head had just been.
She barely managed to dodge and stopped her barrage, putting some distance between the two of them.
"Good." she said, her voice seeming emotionless due to her concentration.
This time Caecus attacked and dashed in her direction.
He punched toward her, and she deflected with her sword.
Caecus managed to assimilate one percent of his soul essence into the exact spot where the contact would happen, and then followed up with a few more attacks.
Amelia, already being low on soul essence from the fight before this, was forced to go on the defensive.
She focused on dodging and countering, only deflecting when it was absolutely necessary.
After around five minutes of this exchange, her soul essence was too low to continue and she forfeited.
Haa.
Huff.
Amelia and Caecus both sat on the ground and recovered.
Their breathing was heavy and accelerated.
"I… I must say your improvement in combat specifically is crazy."
"Thank you." Caecus said and flashed her a smile.