It didn't work. The moment Dirin and Ritchard attempted to execute their plan, it failed miserably. With each delayed swing that Ritchard tried to take, he was met with a quicker force from Mr. Till in the form of a fist covered in aura or water that knocked him around senselessly. Dirin also didn't find his side working either. Whenever he thought he would get more time to dodge or take a breather, he would just find more pressure being applied to him.
He tried to take a couple of glances at Vale to see what type of rhythm she was doing, but her face was pale, and her eyes were wide as she was clicking her pen faster than he had ever seen her do before. It didn't take long for them to switch back to their normal strategy, though. Ritchard didn't delay his swings anymore, and that cut off any pressure he and Dirin faced.
When Mr. Till covered the ground in his own Aura again, though, Ritchard wasn't as amazed this time and quickly covered his legs in his own life energy to lessen the effect on him. Dirin was in the same helpless situation as before. He couldn't just rush in yet; he still needed to gain a proper footing before he could do that.
Before he could, though, Mr. Till took his sword made of water and dipped the tip of it into the surface of the aura pool. He slowly raised it, and it seemed like a thin line was connected to it and pulled at the surface of the pool. Slowly, he started to swing his blade in a direction, no doubt to show them what he was about to do, and the aura pool rippled for a bit before violently bursting and tearing apart in that direction.
The ground that was once covered by the aura pool was now dug into, with the sand still flying in the air and multiple patches of dirt showing up and being damaged. The direction of the sword then faces Dirin, and a slow swing was brought down. Before he knew what he was doing, Dirin was already tossed into the air and somersaulting uncontrollably. It took him a couple of seconds in airtime to understand what just happened and start to adjust his limbs to gain some sense of control.
By the time his feet made contact with the ground, he was already falling fast, but the aura was now back in its pool-like state and softened the fall for him immensely. He looked up and saw that Ritchard was also now in the air doing the same thing as him, but he wasn't going to recover as gracefully as Dirin, even though Dirin wasn't very graceful about it either.
When Ritchard finally landed, they both started to run around. They both were flanking Mr. Till, so they decided to run towards him. Ritchard ran in a straight line while having his sword level and pointing at him, acting like he was going to impale him, while Dirin ran in a zigzag, still trying to avoid whatever might spur up and stop him.
Ritchard had more attention on him and was met with multiple waves of water that he found himself having to cut through. Mr. Till's eyes then focused on Dirin, who was now getting close. Mr. Till opened his palm and gently raised it, causing the aura on the ground to rise and prevent him from moving any further. It wasn't a good situation like always, whenever they fought Mr. Till.
It was always one-sided, and they lost in only a couple of minutes, once again. After a bit, Mr. Till had to excuse himself to go take care of some business, leaving the three of them alone in the training field. Dirin was walking over to Ritchard, who was still on the ground. Dirin was breathing heavier than Ritchard, but Ritchard was sweating more. They both started to discuss what else they could do.
Dirin looked over at where Vale was, but she was already long gone. He sighed as he went over to grab his phone from his bag. He got a couple of texts from Keith, with them mainly being notes that Dirin would have to study once he reached Rank 1, though he had already spent a lot of time studying them. A couple of them were also pictures of what he saw in classes.
The pictures were chaotic with multiple things going on. Fire, water, magic, life energy, and many other things were happening in one single photo. He didn't have context for it, but he didn't care for some either, since it was still a cool photo. He saw a couple of familiar faces from class and the training fields there as well.
"Well, I think I should get going now, Dirin. I have a couple of classes that I need to take, or else I won't see them for at least a month." Ritchard grabbed his own things and left.
Dirin had no plans that he needed to get done today, so he was originally going to hang out at his dorm, but he looked around at the empty training field and found that it would be a little bit of a waste to have this whole place to himself and not use it.
He quickly did a couple of stretches before he started to get to work. He thought of all the things he could train right now without a partner and decided he would go over each weapon first to stay familiar with them, then he would meditate, then exercise, and then he would play chess against the school bot.
It went by quickly for him since he didn't need to do much preparation outside of chess. He already knew every weapon by heart at this point after all of his training with Ritchard, and he spent many nights meditating with the candle as well. Exercising was similar to meditating with him, already knowing what he needed to do for each muscle group and how long he would need to do it.
The chess game, on the other hand, was different than the other things. Chess was in a room not too far away from the training field, which was why he left it last. Dirin was never good at chess, even after trying to memorize all of the names of the openings, and the chess bot actively graded his performance, so the moment he thought he was making a move that would let him win, it would tell him it was the worst blunder he could make.
After a couple of disheartening games, Dirin got up and left the stupid bot. It wasn't very quiet either, so all the Rank 1s who knew how to play chess heard his nineteen blunders and five mistakes as the game went on. The only move he didn't blunder on was his opening, and that was because he went first.
Back at the dorm, he found no one there. Markus was out in the city with Rose to "pick up supplies", but he was confident there was more to it. Keith was still at his classes as well and wouldn't be back for a couple of hours. How is it that I'm supposed to be doing the most things, but I'm the only one not doing anything right now?
Dirin got down on the couch and started to watch the news. He saw several accidents and sightings of cultists, which caused him to lean forward. There were people attacking others not too far away from the city, and most of the people were people who were Rank 2 or Rank 1. Dirin watched as he pulled out his phone and called Markus.
"Hey, Dirin. Why are you calling?" Markus' tone was bright and happy, showing that obviously something good had happened, but Dirin rolled his eyes, more relieved than annoyed.
"I just saw a couple of people being targeted by cultists, or whatever they are being called. The attacks aren't too far from the city, so be careful on your way back, okay?" Dirin was a bit concerned. His friend was outside Falem, and some murders were happening almost daily.
"I heard about that as well. Someone actually got attacked by one of the cultists while I was here. Shouting something crazy in a different language, I think. I wasn't close enough to hear, only to see."
"What?" Dirin was now wondering why he was so happy and what was taking him so long to get back after witnessing an attack. "Was anyone killed?"
"No, no, no. Rose saved him with some slingshot, and now we are eating free dinner at his restaurant. Works out well for use, right?"
Dirin sighed and talked with him for a little bit longer before hanging up. I call, and he tells me someone got attacked! And then he tries to say it was good because he got free dinner!
He switched the channel to a comedy show and just sat back and watched. He needed to have something else to focus on after listening to all of those murders and what Markus had said.