When Damien got back to his dorm he used the key that he had with him and went inside. When he entered he saw Michael asleep on his bed and decided to be quiet and slowly tiptoed over to the spacious part of their dorm room between the beds and the wardrobes and placed his Bisento against his wardrobe, causing the wood to creak under the weight of the weapon.

Then he sat down and recalled the practicing method of the Blood Angel Style.

As he was looking at the information he couldn't help but think that this was a weird martial art. He'd practiced a countless number of martial arts but this one was by far the weirdest. There were few techniques and even though they were basic, the way you had to train them was incredibly odd, which Damien saw there were two ways of training the martial art.

The first one was to keep training the basic techniques until you had a solid foundation on the techniques and could perform them as easily as breathing. It seemed quite normal but practicing these basic techniques seemed to have no effect on the body but Damien would still do it - just on the off chance that something special would happen.

The other way to train was what made Damien think that this martial art was either very unique or just weird. The method was to sit on the ground and meditate while trying to align your body, mind, and spirit under a single goal. This goal can be anything but the martial art's information says that 'Become better at killing" is a goal that shows wonderous effects.

Damien shrugged his shoulders, thinking about no harm could be done if he just starts meditating on the idea, so he sat down and got into a lotus position like it said in the martial art manual and started to align his body, mind, and spirit through one goal.

'Become better at killing, to protect what I must and to destroy what I must.'

Damien repeated this mantra while he was meditating and slowly he felt some things click into place, like some empty slots in a jigsaw puzzle had finally found the piece that fits.

He opened his eyes and got up and immediately felt the change. His control over his body was much better, nothing too drastic but it was a definite improvement. Damien's body coordination had always been good but now it was great and he hadn't even fully aligned his body, mind, and spirit yet. Thinking this Damien sat down and started again, repeating the same mantra but with more fervor and more belief behind it. As if listening to his fervor the alignment started speeding up.

When the alignment hit halfway Damien stopped meditating and started wondering why he was finding this so easy. A process like this should take a lot of time and a hell of a lot more energy than it was taking him currently.

But as he was thinking about it, a realization hit him.

'The Royal Grade Devil DNA must have made my talent for anything from the Immortal Devil King Technique immensely higher than before. It's the most likely reason to why I can align my body, mind, and spirit so easily and quickly. Doesn't hurt that I'm an old devil with countless years of experience under my belt either...'

Coming to this conclusion he moved onto the next part of his meditation. The part where he had to exercise his body while still chanting the mantra he had came up with and not breaking his concentration. The way he had to exercise only needed his hands, so he didn't even need to move from where he was, he just had to lift his body up with his hands and slowly use fewer fingers until he was only using his 2 thumbs.

This sounded easy to Damien but he was shown otherwise when he lifted his body up.

As he lifted his body it was easy enough but as soon as he'd fully lifted his body up, it was like the gravity on his body had increased manifold. So much so that it even caused his body that could lift 7500kg to feel like it would collapse under the pressure.

But Damien grit his teeth and pushed himself further. With his steeled resolve he kept his body off the ground and found the longer his kept his body off of the ground, the lighter he'd feel, the more in control he'd feel.

This was his body adapting to the pressure and getting stronger as a result but also his body aligning with his mind and spirit.

When the pressure of holding his body up with both hands had all but disappeared, he started removing his fingers from the equation.

All while chanting his mantra vehemently as he went down to 3 fingers and a thumb on both hands, causing the pressure to increase greatly once again.

Being used to the process now, Damien got on with it and after 10 minutes the pressure was gone again so he removed another finger. It didn't take long before he removed another and then he another and before long all he was using to keep his body up were his thumbs.

The pressure on Damien was immense. It felt like all the muscles in his body were being used and even muscles he didn't even know he had were being used.

It seemed like the training technique was forging his body into being the perfect vessel for the martial art, as it was making his already steel-like muscles and bones harder and stronger, it made his joints and tendons more durable and more flexible. It even made his tough skin harder, like a layer of rocks but somehow still letting it keep its supple texture.

By now Damien had sweat dripping off of his body but he didn't stop, instead, he smiled in the usual unhinged way he did whenever he was pushed past his limits. His eyes grew more bright like they were trying to light up the room and his teeth seemed to turn into sharp tools of killing as they were shown by the smile Damien had on his face.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

If you were to ask anyone who saw this who would be the perfect candidate for practicing a martial art made for killing, they'd point at this youth who had a strange aura of blood and slaughter surrounding him. No matter who else was next to him, they'd pale in comparison.

As Damien felt inside his body for the progress he'd made after using his thumbs, he couldn't help but feel a bit shocked.

'It's only at 68% alignment? Much slower than the finger parts. Oh well, looks like this part will take some time. Better start setting up a foundation for the hand-to-hand combat moves.'

He let his body go back to the floor and used his devil qi to speed up his body's recovery for his fatigue and the slight tears in his muscles. In doing so he found that he had lit up another Devil Node through practicing the Martial Art, increasing his strength up to 8500kg.

'Makes sense, that exercise was pretty grueling~'

As he joked about, Damien focused on washing away his fatigue with his Qi before finally deciding to stand up.

When Damien did stand up he felt a rush of power and control. He could feel the power coursing through every cell in his body and wondered what this did for his Ability. Figuring he might as well test it out, Damien summoned 1% of the physical energy from his body and enhanced his body with it.

Unlike the unsteady shaking his body usually went through when he augmented it with the energy, now his body barely even moved unless he wanted it to. His muscles were fine, thrumming slightly from the power and his bones stood strong and still as if they were pillars to hold up the heavens. Damien raised his eyebrows at this improvement, happy with it but also slightly confused by it.

'My durability wasn't the main thing that the exercise improved, the exercise was focused on control, so why can I withstand the energy much better than before?'

Damien stood there, pondering for a while before he thought of something.

'Could it be my body has a direct effect on the properties of the energy?'

Thinking this, Damien felt it was plausible. It would explain why the energy was so volatile back when his control over his strength was much worse. But as he thought this, he couldn't help but think whether this meant he could forgo durability and instead focus on control to gain more power at a quicker rate.

He thought this because he didn't have a technique or an ability that purely gave his body more durability, but he did have one for control.

Deciding to try it, Damien tried to summon above 2% of the physical energy.

More energy creeped out of his cells and joined the energy already augmenting his body. It slowly settled into his muscles and bones but when Damien thought his control was helping, the muscles and bones started to shake and pain wracked his system.

He quickly discarded the enhancement and the energy returned to his cells. Damien let out a deep breath before shaking his head helplessly.

'I don't really understand this but if I took a guess I'd say that control only supports my durability, my durability itself has to be high enough for me to use more energy...Oh well, I'm sure I'll find something to increase my durability sometime soon. I could even go have a look at the martial arts in the Academy Library if I really need to.'

Getting back to what he was originally planning, Damien started practicing the forms of the martial art's fist variant.

There were 2 forms with 9 basic moves each and each move had 9 variations. One form was for offense and the other defense, all the moves in each were incredibly basic but when Damien started practicing the offense form, he felt that they weren't so simple.

The moves were simple, yes, but they were also ruthless, efficient and brutal. Each move was a kill move or at least aimed to take the opponent out of the fight. Every move and their variations flowed smoothly into the next, where it would then, again, try to kill or incapacitate the opponent. The moves could endlessly loop and because of their variations, the user could switch up their fighting style constantly and easily catch their victim off guard.

All of this made the form incredibly versatile at killing or fighting an opponent.

After he practiced the 9 moves and their variations while also mixing up the order every now and again, Damien then moved onto the 2nd form.

This form focused solely on defense and as he practiced it he found the same thing he found with the 1st form - the moves were simple but they seemed to be steady, unyielding and immovable when he practiced them. He also found that just like the 1st form it had 9 moves each with 9 variations of the said move and that after each defensive maneuver there was a small gap where if you were quick enough, and had a strong enough foundation in both forms, you could slip in an attack from the 1st form.

This made Damien think about the hand-to-hand stances a little bit.

'Hmm...It seems like eventually these 2 forms will mix together and become a single form with both an incredible offense and killing power but also an outstanding defensive power with potential for some lethal counters. Seems like I judged this martial art much too quickly. It seems simple but looks like there's more than what meets the eye to it and there seems to be a subtle intent coming from the moves...Maybe if I practice them to a certain extent I can gain this intent and it could boost this martial arts power...'

After he thought this he tried even harder at practicing these 2 forms and soon reached the Initial Success stage where his progress all but stopped.

"Well, the manual says that I've got to temper the martial art through battle and through life and death struggles. Probably won't be too hard then" As he said this in a carefree voice with his usual lazy confidence in it but was slightly startled as he heard Michael speak out behind him.

"Damien? What are you talking about and why is there a massive polearm leaning against your wardrobe?" Michael asked this in a curious and innocent voice and hearing his questions, Damien turned around and explained to him about how Mrs. Quila let all those who want a weapon to get one and that they can get a martial art, weapon art or mental refinement art of their choice. Hearing this Michael got oddly excited, to which Damien questioned him.

"Why're you getting excited, you're a mage aren't you, do you need a weapon?" Damien said this not in a rude way, but in a curious way, hearing Damien's question Michael seemed to turn a bit shy and quickly said something about how he'll show Damien when he can but first he needs to go to Mrs. Quila to ask her something.

And before Damien could even say 'Eh?' Michael ran out of the room.

Seeing Michael run away, Damien simply shook his head helplessly and went to have a shower after removing the sweaty black body suit he'd been training in.

After he got out of the shower, he realized he only had 10 minutes until the cafeteria opens, so he quickly put one of his uniforms on and started walking to the cafeteria as for some reason he had an even more ravenous and voracious appetite than usual.

In the end Damien shrugged his shoulders and chalked it up to the intense training he had just done and continued walking to the cafeteria as he thought of all the delicious food he's gonna be able to eat.