His eyes scanned his immediate surroundings yet there was no trace of them.

In fact, he couldn’t see more than three meters away from them. Past that, space seemed obscured. Broken and twisted back into itself.

It was almost like they were trapped in a sphere.

’Spatial manipulation?!’ Dale’s eyes widened.

He immediately turned in a random direction and sprinted, hoping to put some distance between himself and the man.

Yet, no matter how fast he pushed his legs, he remained in the same place.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t running — in fact, he was and at quite an astonishing speed — but he was simply unable to move forward.

As he took a step forward, the space in front of him expanded and as he crossed it, the space behind him shrank, ensuring he remained in place.

Dale stopped running to catch his breath. ’There is no point. I can’t move past this.’

The Hall Master walked closer to him with unhurried steps. His hands slowly stroked his beard.

"If I may ask again, do you know any saber-based martial arts?"

Dale turned to face the elderly man, "No?"

The man stopped for a moment, then raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "Tell me then. Did you plan to swing these immaculate blades like a senseless brute?"

"Because if so, then I’m sure we can get you a wooden club. At least those aren’t quasi-Ascended."

Dale stared at the man, temporarily lost for words.

’Is this why he trapped me in this separate dimension?! Because he doesn’t want me to use the sabers tastelessly?’

He shifted slightly, "Well, no."

His reply was lackluster.

The Hall Master nodded slowly, "So you do know martial arts?"

Dale shook his head. "No, I don’t know any."

"Well then, you won’t be needing those." The old man waved his hand and the sabers vanished from his grip.

Dale’s eyes widened. ’Did he just take my weapons away?’ He was sure that had to be against the rules.

However, before he could speak, a new pair of sabers materialized in his hands.

"These are standard mundane sabers. You’ll use them as you learn how to fight with sabers and once I feel your mastery is satisfactory, I shall return Decay and Blight to you." The old man concluded.

Dale kissed his teeth. "And how exactly am I meant to learn how to use dual sabers? It’s not like just swinging them will be satisfactory."

The Hall Master pondered for a while and his expression seemed to betray an inner conflict.

Eventually, he sighed and stroked his beard. "It seems as though you have a point. All other means are in fact too poor for my taste and so I have no other choice."

Dale’s eyebrows furrowed deeply. He couldn’t understand what the other was saying.

The old man broke out of his contemplation. "It will be my task to bring your martial prowess to an acceptable level."

Suddenly, the edges of the spatial bubble creaked, groaning as fractures ran through them.

He cleared his throat, grabbing Dale’s attention. "Our first lesson will be held after your... acquaintances leave."

Flares of the contained space dissipated back into normalcy as the old man spoke. "Enlighten me your name."

Dale barely heard him over the constant creaking around him but he answered.

The Hall Master nodded and kowtowed slightly, "Pleasure, Dale. You may refer to me as Lord Byron." Then the bubble popped, and the old man, Lord Byron, vanished with it.

"— did he suddenly vanish?!" Dale managed to catch the last part of Austin’s scream.

Sarah, Trevor, and Gary’s eyes widened as they suddenly saw him. Austin’s back was to him but he too turned.

They immediately ran to him.

Dale turned around but couldn’t see the old man anywhere.

Austin grabbed him into a tight hug. "Where have you been?! You suddenly vanished!"

He considered telling them the truth but thought against it. Who knew what reactions it would incite.

"Nothing, don’t worry about it." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Gary lingered for a moment, "Don’t worry? People don’t just suddenly vanish and reappear— " He paused. "Well, they do but it’s not exactly common."

Trevor placed his hands on the shoulder of his fellow Awakened. "Leave him. If he wanted to say it, we would already know."

Despite saying this, their eyes bore into him.

Dale shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another. He didn’t like being the center of this kind of attention.

During the entire interaction, Sarah remained silent. Just staring at him with squinted eyes but she spoke, "Since he doesn’t wish to tell us, let’s let it go."

"But I think it’s long overdue that we all spar."

Dale stared at her in silence. It was clearly a plot to achieve two things.

The first was more obvious. To see the facets of his ability skills. He had seen theirs but only Austin had seen his so it was only natural that she wished to see his.

As for the other, it was a sly attempt at confirming whether his powers had anything to do with teleportation, space, or maybe even invisibility.

She had proposed letting the silent interrogation go so that he’d feel a subtle psychological need to pay her back — a mental shackle.

Her plan was that due to her helping him avoid the direct line of questioning, he would be far less likely to refuse the spar.

With this one request, he’d be doing two things. Revealing ability skills and confirming her suspicions.

’It seems as though she is quite cunning when she feels like it.’ His eyes scanned Sarah one more time.

She reminded him a lot of June. He shook his head, now wasn’t the time to reminisce.

Unfortunately, while he’d like to accept — he had his reasons — he couldn’t. His impromptu classes would only begin after they left.

Dale chuckled nervously, "I’m sorry but it would have to be another day. There’s something I need to attend to after this."

The others glanced at each other then back at him but didn’t say another word.

Slowly, they left the hall with their weapons. Dale hadn’t even seen what the Awakened trio chose.

"Interesting. You chose not to inform them." Lord Byron remarked from behind him.

He turned around to stare at the old Hall Master. It was time for his lesson to begin.