--
"Before I knew it, camp was over. We were moving on to the second semester a week later."
TJ mused to himself as he was left by his lonesome on the training area. Sieg went with Lily to get something from the dean's office, leaving him alone here.
It's been roughly a month since he lost control and hurt William. The poor guy's reputation took a nosedive, and nobody wanted to be friends with him anymore. Last time he heard, William was isolated by the rest of the class, left to train and practice on his own.
Most of the people have already put the event behind them; TJ has too, but it doesn't mean he forgot about it already. He could still remember how it went vividly, as if it only happened yesterday.
But that's just it, a remembrance. TJ wasn't affected by it anymore. He moved on just like the others. He just didn't forget.
Instead of being stuck in the past, TJ focused his efforts on his training, and the results had been great.
**
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[Profile]
Name: Tristan James Whitlock
Age: 16
Race: Human
Bloodline: Human
Allegiance: East Victory
Profession Archetype: Combat
Class Archetype: Warrior
Rank: 2☆ Novice (70/300)
[Skills]:
• Intermediate Breathing Technique (Perfect 250/2000)
• Intermediate Fighting Technique (Perfect 275/2000)
• Intermediate Footwork Technique (Perfect 300/2000)
• Fencing Lv.1 (Perfect 300/2000)
• Shooting Lv.1 (Perfect 250/2000)
☆☆☆☆☆
In terms of skill, TJ has grown a lot. In fact, his progress has caught up to Lily's mastery. He still couldn't beat her though; she's of the Fusion Class, after all.
Because of the higher mastery point ceiling required for progress, there's still some way for him to go before he levels up his skills again, but he's getting there.
This was the overall progress he made during his two months at the Warrior's Training Camp. And since it has practically been confirmed after they got special treatment, TJ and his friends were guaranteed to move on to the second semester of their final year.
Whether there were only the three of them in this batch who were going to move on or not, though, was a mystery to him. Mr. Eden didn't tell them anything. But aside from him and Sieg, nobody else was brought to the special training room, so it might really be just them.
This meant that the training camp for others will be extended; worse, they'd have to repeat a year. They might allow them to move on to the final semester, though, but under correct assumptions.
Well, there's also a possibility that TJ just thinks too highly of himself and that he's completely wrong and the management had other plans for the students who failed.
That has nothing to do with him anymore, though. He just had to focus on what he can do.
The three of them had been given a week of rest before they attended the final semester.
This couldn't be mistaken for allowing them to slack off. It just allows them to relax the intensity of their training, not completely stop it.
The one-week break also meant that they couldn't use the training room, making them miss out on a week's worth of exp. To that, though, Mr. Eden told them not to worry because things will change in the second semester.
He said that they'd understand once class resumes and that they'd earn this one week's worth of exp and more. He didn't say more after that.
TJ speculated some ideas, but ultimately, he could only wait until class resumes.
He followed Mr. Eden's advice, though. He spent the following days relaxing the intensity of his training. At this point, training has become part of his daily routine, so much so that he wouldn't be able to sleep properly if he didn't do it. He got used to being so tired upon getting home that by the time his back hit the bed, he'd be snoring seconds later.
Of course, he still regularly visited the Dream Echo Battlefield. This too had become part of his routine at this point.
He still hasn't gotten his revenge on the Fusion Class, who defeated him. TJ was still wary of it, so he stuck with the Warriors and the Casters.
Speaking of which, TJ's improvements due to the invisible rewards he got by defeating dream echoes were similarly huge. Physique-wise, he's close to reaching Sieg's, and that's saying a lot because it's already been speculated that Sieg had a special physique; TJ does not, so the fact that he's catching up means that he's really improving.
Of course, it wasn't just limited to physical improvements. The amount and quality of his mana have also risen considerably because he deliberately defeated more Casters in the Dream Echo Battlefield just for this.
It's not like he holds a grudge against Casters; he just really wanted to increase his mana reserves and quality so that he too could pursue a Fusion Class Type for his first Class Transition, which will save him so much time.
During the break, TJ doubled down on his efforts in researching the curse.
He had started this project since the incident with William, but because his schedule was too full, he couldn't really put too much time and effort into it. But now that his schedule freed up considerably in the meantime, he took advantage of it to see if he could learn more.
Alas, he couldn't.
He tried every keyword, search engine, AI tool, and so on. He even combed through buried forums and articles that were pinged in his search, but all he got were unimportant scraps.
Either his curse was unique or his access wasn't enough. Either way, without information, he's stuck like this for a while, and it's unknown if he'd even be able to get rid of it in the future.
That said, his search wasn't all that useless.
He managed to enrich his base knowledge about curses in general. And according to his research, it seems that other cursed individuals exist too. He wasn't alone.
Even though none of the curses he found matched with what he had, it's comforting, in a twisted way, to learn that he wasn't the only one suffering from this.
Curses are mostly sinister. It's a product of hatred, indignation, and/or overwhelming grief that moves the very fabric of reality. Cursing someone means wishing extreme suffering and pain to be inflicted upon them.
Creating a curse was complicated. There were many variables that must be observed, rituals that must be performed, and conditions that must be passed before the curse could even be cast. Furthermore, the process could also fail and cause a backlash to the caster.
Curses can appear in many forms. It could be a restriction to a specific action, skill, or just mundane things that make living more challenging or excruciating.
So far, TJ's own curse was considered mild compared to the majority of the curses he discovered online. But this might also be because he's yet to learn the full extent of the curse he got. If there's one thing for certain, though, his curse will only grow stronger and more awful, and he's got to be ready for that.
Fortunately, he also discovered that all curses can be lifted. There were many ways to do so, the most common being satisfying the conditions of the one who inflicted the curse in the first place.
TJ's problem was this curse he has, if his parents' words were to be believed, had been passed down to their bloodline. If this was true, then it's very unlikely for the caster of this curse to still be alive to this day. Meaning that the common way to lift a curse was useless to him.
Of course, his parents could also lie to him. He wouldn't put it past them; they did, after all, con him into agreeing to take this curse from them because they said he's doing them a favor and it would only be temporary.
As for other ways to lift the curse? All of this involves hiring a professional to do so. Preferrably ones that specializes in handling curses like Saints, Priests, Shamans, Cursemancers, Vexers, etc.
Most of them fall under the Caster Class, and that's to be expected; curses are sinister spells, after all.
And the minimum prize for those specialists was 100 million geos plus more depending on the demand and the difficulty of the job.
Obviously, TJ doesn't have that much money, so he could only forget about it for now.
Besides, if it were truly that easy, then Lily's father, the medical saint Anthony, should've already dealt with it a long time ago.
TJ never held much hope to begin with, so he wasn't really disappointed. Just a bit sad.
Either way, it doesn't really change anything. He just needs to keep doing what he's doing so far, and he'll be fine. Hopefully, one day, he could hire someone to help him lift the curse, but until he's got enough funds to do so, it's life as usual for him.