As Richard said that, the statues began to move outwards and made a circle around him. The 100-man strong team stood there and emanated a strong aura similar to his.

Richard stomped the ground once again directing another wisp of his yellow-brown aura into the dark earth beneath him. The ground cracked with the stomp.

The earth began to tremble beneath them once more. Ventus suddenly shook as he felt his body being moved further away from the circle where Richard stood.

The ground then began to harden and take the shape. At first, Ventus could not identify what exactly was going on, But, he soon understood what happened.

The ground caved in and became a perfect square shaped holed that encompassed the 100 statues and Richard that was about a meter in depth and had a 100-meter area.

The ground shook fiercely. The perfect square hole began to lessen in depth and before Ventus`s eyes it rose up and became a one-meter high platform. Everything then finally stopped trembling as the earth settled down after the man's meddling with the black minerals beneath them.

"The Terra Control Technique" Richard spoke, "Is a very practical technique that allows the user to affect minerals around them with their mana and control them at their leisure" he explained.

"It is very easy to learn it, but a technique that requires immense training and skill to master and bring out its fullest potential" he instructed, "With enough mana, even building a whole city by yourself is not impossible" He grinned.

Ventus was astonished. This whole time he had been observing not only the changes that were happening to the environment around him. But also the fluctuations in Richard's aura, but to his surprise, even after making so many changes to the scenario the man's aura hadn't diminished whatsoever.

"The keywords to this technique are" he spoke.

Richard's aura exploded and released massive amounts of energy towards the surroundings. As the aura shot out of his body it visibly became hundreds of threads that flew towards the earth around the square platform.

At every spot a thread landed, the earth would shine slightly. Soon enough, a big circular area was shining around the platform. The hundreds of yellow-brown threads were connected to it and all of the gathered at Richard's aura.

"Grasp the earth, mold the world" he concluded.

The aura on his body then contracted and congealed at his hands. Now, the threads were equally divided as half of them were being held by his right hand and the other half by his left.

Richard spread his legs apart and lowered his stance. He closed his eyes and breathed in slowly. He took an abrupt deep breath and cracks appeared beneath his feet as his toes had dug into the ground. His frail looking arms bulked up as mana began coursing through them massively.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"HA!"

As the shout rang across the silent shining dark plains Richard finally moved. His arms began moving upwards, but they moved slowly and strenuously as if he was making a big effort.

Ventus at first was puzzled as to why his master was doing such a stupid looking gesture. But then his thoughts immediately changes as the earth once more trembled massively. The shining circular area shone even brighter as Richard's hands moved upwards ever so slowly.

The rumble became ever louder. Richard's body seemed to be undergoing a massive effort as his veins bulged out and sweat beads began to form on his forehead. The hands were getting ever closer to each other and the trembling only intensified the closer they became.

Richard's eyes shot open and a fierce light shined on them.

"Grasp the earth!"

One final push to his efforts and his hands touched above his head.

"MOLD THE WORLD!"

He then moved his arms downwards rapidly and crossed them in front of his chest making an x-shaped movement and pulled the mana threads with his full strength. The circular area shined as if a star was rising from the ground as the earth trembled like an earthquake was going off.

Ventus couldn't stay still anymore and rose to his feet shouting barely being able to maintain his balance whilst standing.

"OLD MAN STOP THIS! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME!?"

The earth moved and massive rolls of perfectly shaped walls began to rise. Before Ventus could even react to the new development everything stopped.

The shining had dimmed and died out. The trembling earth had stilled and went silent. the hundreds of mana threads disappeared and retracted back into Richard's body. Ventus found himself stunned as he now noticed his new scenario.

He was standing on top of one stone bench of a pitch black arena. Richard had used his technique to build in a few minutes from the ground up not only 100 statues, but a platform and even a whole arena so that Ventus would be comfortable to watch his demonstration.

And as if that was not enough, not only was everything sturdy and quickly built, But also very well detailed. The benches were plain, but the rest was nothing but extraordinary. The arena was basically a mini-coliseum full of columns with a Greek style, on them, there were several carvings of beasts and fighters engaging in battle.

"Calm down kid" Richard laughed as he saw him standing and gawking at everything.

"If I don't show my power you'll think I'm not worthy to be your master"

Richard stretched and then looked at his 100 clones.

"Well, now that I've shown you the full potential of the technique overall" He spoke, "I'll show you it's applications to combat and how you can use it to strengthen your fighting capability"

"You won't be able to reveal it's most intrinsic uses with just three weeks of training" He said,"But, with my guidance, you can certainly shine in the trials" he grinned.

He then began drawing runes in the air that shone and flew off. The runes flashed and landed on the statues fusing with them. after a few instants, he stopped and looked at his works. The statues now had a fierce expression as their eyes glowed with ferocious intentions.

"With this done, now they are out of my control" He explained, "They are on automatic mode and will attack me with the intent to kill" he chuckled, "That should provide a more precise demonstration"

He cracked his knuckles and grinned widely.

"All right kid, sit down and pay close attention," He instructed, "I will now show you how a master fights".