As the match began Brad took the opportunity to strike first. He was thinking of showing off today in particular since Rose was watching. He suddenly started with a round house kick and everyone lead by their ignorance thought the match will be over in an instant.

Alex ducked and used a sweeping kick to knock Brad on the floor. Gasps and surprise ensued.

‘What the hell?! How could he… it must be a fluke, yeah that’s all!’ Brad immediately got up serious than before and started to throw a volley of punches and kicks at Alex, all of which he either dogged or blocked easily.

The teacher was quite impressed with Alex’s reflexes.

‘Two months back, I would have been already knocked out after a punch like this…’ Alex thought to himself.

Seeing as how he was able to doge all this with ease Alex decided to keep it short. He stopped evading and went in to attack, moving swiftly in and out of Brad’s attacking range. He blocked Brad’s incoming fist by trapping it in between his elbow and body. He then quickly threw a punch to his gut releasing Brad’s arm. Alex followed by grabbing his left hand and pushing Brad with his right palm to the chest downwards and simultaneously kicked the back of his right knee joint throwing him off balance.

Brad’s eyes almost rolled back as he grabbed his stomach and chest in pain slightly squirming on the mat. It was an unseen sight for the martial arts club folks. Seeing him unable to fight, the instructor acting as the ref, stopped the match.

The match was over! Alex emerged as the winner. The crowd was silent. Suddenly Nova started clapping loudly followed by Rose and then the rest of the students filling the hall with the sound of claps and cheers. Even the instructors clapped a little. After all he was the only one from the trial classes who had defeated a club member.

‘Don’t get too cocky with your victory over a mere insect. Those moves were still sloppy.’ Miracle reprimanded.

The moves Alex had performed just now weren’t those of someone who fought raw. They were skilled and practiced. Everyday Alex would practice the moves, Miracle taught him in his dimension by himself. Alex was about to cheer himself thinking that his practice had finally paid off but not in the eyes of Miracle.

‘Yes, yes… I get it, I’ll practice them more.’ Alex replied.

Miracle nodded to himself.

‘You don’t have time to be caught up in these small things, if what you heard was correct, according to that Xerxes, more trouble will come your way.’ Miracle reminded.

‘Yeah… but I don’t understand why?’ Alex said.

‘He must know something, we don’t… anyways, our goal right now is to get you as strong as possible, you’ll need more than just a few moves to venture into Emerald and find my sister.’ Miracle said.

Alex nodded inwardly. ‘I remember.’

‘Speaking of getting stronger, I need to find a way for him to train even harder. 10 minutes inside my dimension to show him some moves is hardly enough…’ Miracle thought to himself.

“Yeah! You were awesome dude! You liar, brief period of time my as*! You were on full master mode!” Nova exclaimed happily putting an arm over his shoulder.

Snapping out of his thoughts, Alex only managed to give an awkward smile. He couldn’t possibly say that there was a soul of a dragon with whom he had formed a contract to save his sister in return for unimaginable power.

Alex looked around and people were cheering for his win.

‘Maybe this isn’t so bad…’ Alex thought to himself as smile flashed on his face. Xerxes words about more threats coming his way had always been weighing on his mind ever since he returned from Emerald. This little victory made him realize that he needs to take a break too. He’ll face the problems one at a time.

The next day was a holiday being Sunday. Xerxes’s funeral was being held, since his soul had never originally departed from the world, the people after learning the truth were now giving him a proper funeral. Merissa was informed and she was going to attend as she had some other business too, so she asked if Nina and Alex wanted to come and attend.

Since Alex didn’t have much else to do, he accepted and Nina didn’t mind tagging along. So that morning the two snuck out of school to Merissa’s place. From there they teleported to the Up Hill town’s Mountain where no one was there using a strange cube. Since the world transporter was big it can’t just transport anywhere. The mountain top was a safe place. Plus, Merissa had created a zone spell in a small area around them which separated them from the outside world.

A while later a world transporter emerged from a portal. It was their ride to Emerald.