Stella remained silent for a couple of seconds, a hint of hesitation in her demeanor.

“I'm sure you're curious about how your friends are doing during the first phase,” Executioner Leywin said as she took out her phone.

Stella nodded.

“What are your friends' names?”

“Alia Westox, Kaira Varling, Lyra Rembran, Caleb Zenith… Oh, and Seth Pierce.”

‘Interesting…’ Executioner Leywin recognized the last name Stella mentioned but didn’t say anything. After less than a minute of scrolling and typing on her phone, she projected a hologram featuring four of the five names Stella had mentioned, along with statistics and numbers.

“I couldn't find any information on Seth Pierce. Seems like he didn't enter the tournament.”

“Oh,” Stella muttered, a little disappointed.

‘Why would he back down? He looked really determined to enter the tournament. Well, maybe it’s for the better. Without an ability, he would’ve gotten seriously hurt,’ she thought, recalling the videos of the so-called “thirios” of the first phase.

“As for the rest of your friends, they all seem to be doing pretty well so far. They have all managed to collect around half the points needed to complete the first round, and their probability of failing, shown in the prediction curves, is very low.”

A big smile appeared on Stella’s face. She couldn’t help feeling happy and relieved that all her friends were doing so well. Even though they were strong, she still had been worried.

‘They’re all trying so hard,’ she thought, still sporting a heartwarming smile. ‘I must also give it my all,’ as she turned to look at Executioner Leywin with fiery determination.

“Please teach me how to use the pure dark energy manifestation,” she said while bowing her head.

Executioner Leywin looked at her for a couple of seconds.

“What was your last name again?”

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Stella raised her head to look at her.

“Huh? Gunvald,” she answered, confused.

“Very well, but know that training to learn such a technique is incredibly demanding. Are you sure you want to do it?”

Stella nodded.

“Good, we will train every day at dawn before the morning training and at night. This will leave you with less recreational and sleeping time, but I’m counting on you to endure it. Now, go get some rest before the afternoon’s training.”

“Thank you very much!” Stella said before Executioner Leywin disappeared.

The other two trainings of the day were as intense as the spars against Delta. Once again, Executioner Leywin asked them to perform an impossible task to earn their food, and again, none of them was able to accomplish it. However, during the night training, Stella and Chase got quite close to the goal, so Executioner Leywin allowed them to choose a snack from the cafeteria.

On their way out, they both got back at Isaac, mocking him with their snacks.

----------------------------------------

Ring Ring Ring

The next day, an alarm woke up Stella earlier than usual. She quickly reached for her phone and noticed a single incoming message from Executioner Leywin.

“Training in 20 minutes,” Stella read out loud, trying to stay awake.

In an attempt to shake off sleepiness, she shook her head and went to the bathroom to wash her face.

She quickly regretted her decision as the icy cold water splashed her face. Walking back to the bedroom, feeling a bit cold because of the water, her bed started looking comfier by the second. For a moment, her willpower wavered, but she still changed into her uniform and headed to the gymnasium.

Executioner Leywin arrived less than a minute after her and walked toward the gymnasium’s control panel. As she used the control panel, Stella felt calculations all around her getting more and more complex until they became undecipherable as her ability got blocked by the arrays all around the gymnasium. At the same time, she noticed that the amount of energy inside the gymnasium increased to a maximum.

After a couple of minutes, Executioner Leywin finished typing on the control panel and walked toward Stella.

"As you may have noticed, I blocked your ability and augmented the energy within the gymnasium. This will allow you to concentrate more effectively on channeling energy out of your body without the interference of possible calculations. Additionally, the already energy-saturated environment will facilitate the energy manifestation,” Executioner Leywin explained. “Now, let’s start with the actual training. Stretch out your hand,” she ordered.

Stella did as told, and Executioner Leywin placed a cube on her palm.

“There is more than one way in which dark energy can be manifested. However, we will start with the one you already know: energy solidification. To grasp the basics of energy manifestation, what I want you to do at first is channel the energy out of your palm and try to contain it to push the cube upwards and make it float,” Executioner Leywin instructed.

The cube was as light as if it were made of paper. Still, when Stella tried to channel the energy out of her hand, it quickly scattered and flowed around the cube without it moving whatsoever.

“Keep practicing. I’ll be back in a couple of hours to evaluate your progress,” Executioner Leywin said before leaving the gymnasium.

For the next hour, Stella tried to make the cube float above her hand. This time, Executioner Leywin didn’t add any restrictions over Stella’s energy storage, so she was able to use the entirety of it. Still, since she was constantly channeling pure energy out of her body, she had to take breaks every 20 minutes to replenish her energy supply.

Little by little, she got better at containing the energy, preventing it from scattering around the cube and into the surroundings. After one hour of trying, she achieved a breakthrough as she was finally able to make the cube float one millimeter above her hand for a couple of seconds.

‘It’s incredibly more difficult than I thought. I can barely make the cube float for two seconds even though it doesn’t weigh more than a piece of paper. I can’t imagine how Delta was able to block Isaac’s attack with this,’ she thought while sitting on the ground, replenishing her energy storage.