After her discussion with the principal, Alice took this time to train by with Luke since Ria was busy. Both of them needed more practical training with different opponents.
For Luke, he needed to be able to defend himself against all sorts of threats. For Alice, she needed to get a better grasp of her new depth perception and scope of vision.
With her right side now blind, she had to turn her head more often to cover for the blind spots.
Dodging the downwards cleave of the Paladin that Luke summoned, Alice slid against the ground as lilies would blossom wherever she touched.
As they sparred, Alice discovered a strange change within her second Sigil, one that she only began to notice the peculiarities of.
Ever since the manifestation of her spider lilies, her second Sigil and resonance have been split into two halves.
Alyss's half consisted of the violet flames that now also enhance the body with the energies it absorbs along with the countless black limbs that only Alyss could summon. No matter how Alice tried, the limbs refused to manifest.
The second half, Alice's half, consisted of the red spider lilies. Flowers that enhance her casting ability while robbing the energy used by her enemies. Not only that, but these flowers blossom within the opponent's body, using it as fertilizer to grow and fester.
Naturally, Alyss couldn't manifest these flowers.
With this new information, Alice's abilities could be summarized as such:
First Sigil: Hallucination, Physical Buff (Disguise – Temp)
Second Sigil: Blood Manipulation, Red Spider Lilies/Violet Flames
Third Sigil: Blood and Metal Manifestation
Fourth Sigil: Void Control
Of course, information about her spider lilies were largely unknown since it was a new ability that manifested during her fight inside the Inverted World.
Even now, Cayla was making notes on Alice's power.
The key property of these lilies are their nature to fester and grow, turning anything they touch into a flower bed.
With this as a basis, Cayla instructed Alice to experiment with ideas surrounding this concept.
Creating a blood needle that hovered above her finger, Alice took aim and fired it towards the Paladin who released an upward cleave.
Knocking the needle aside, it was about to charge at Alice when a torrent of briar thorns rushed towards the construct.
Summoning a shield, it blocked the thorns while Alice ran in from the blind spot.
In her hands, she held a blood dagger and jumped up.
Stabbing into the paladin's neck, the dagger collapsed into a pool of blood as Luke snapped his finger and conjured a chess piece.
"I don't think your dagger can breach my paladin's defences." He called out while Alice avoided Luke's attack with a backflip.
"I don't have to breach the defence. I just need to make sure I plant the seed." Alice let out a laugh.
Narrowing her gaze, she aimed her finger at the paladin before mouthing the words 'Bang'.
Tearing the armour apart from the inside, red spider lilies began to bloom from the paladin's neck as its roots dug deep into the armour. With each moment that passes, the lustre of the armour would fade while the lily's pedals would radiate a scarlet radiance.
Seeing his paladin restrained by the lilies, Luke's smile twitched.
"What a broken Sigil. You just need to plant the marker and your flowers will grow, who can even block it?" Luke complained while snapping his fingers.
The paladin scattered into a sea of light particles.
"Promotion – Bishop!" Luke narrowed his eyes as a figure began to appear next to him.
Seeing this, Alice's smile twitched.
"You already have Ria and you've gone as far as to copy me now? Shameless!"
"Cry about it." Luke smirked as his bishop piece aimed her fingers towards Alice.
Seeing the flames condense into a single spark that shot towards her at blistering speeds, Alice slammed her hand down and created a sea of blood.
Thankfully, the bishop wasn't able to copy the technique at full strength nor was it able to copy the nature of Alyss's fire.
Right now, it was simply a very destructive attack that lacked the properties that made it monstrous!
From this sea, walls upon walls of briar thorns erupted from the surface as it collided with the attack and consumed it.
Upon the briar thorns, spider lilies began to blossom.
"Eh?" Blinking his eyes, Luke didn't expect Alice's attack to lack the power he had seen before. But before he could contemplate as to why that was the case, he noticed the flow of energy gathering towards Alice.
"Let me show you how it's truly done."
Flames erupted and converged into a single radiant spark. Just the presence of the true Void Flux was enough to warp the space around them as Luke felt a chill down his back.
Commanding his bishop to stand in front of him, she prepared a Void Flux of her own as the two fired it off at the same time.
The clash didn't even last a single second as Alice's attack consumed the fake and even empowered itself!
"F*ck!" Cursing out loud, Luke recalled his bishop and resummoned his paladin.
"Cry about it~" Alice revealed a smug grin as the paladin slammed the tower shield into the ground, forming an illusionary wall.
Diverting the Void Flux to the side, Luke watched as the left half of his paladin was completely erased by Alice's attack.
"Are you sure you should be looking away right now?" Alice's voice rang out. Running from the side, she slashed towards Luke with her sword.
Parrying her slash, the Knight pushed Alice's blade to the side before slamming his shoulder into her chest, knocking her back by a few steps.
"Don't worry about that. If I don't show a small gap, how can I make you bite?"
The fight between the two lasted for a while with no clear winners. Alice wasn't able to breach his defence while Luke wasn't able to land a single solid blow against Alice.
Both lacked offensive capabilities to properly end the fight without endangering their lives.
In the end, they decided on a draw while Alice covered her right eye with her palm. Not being able to see out of her right eye had been affecting her more than she originally expected. She had figured that she'd adapt to this vision soon enough but no matter how much she fought, there was a gap in her reaction that she couldn't overcome.
[Take your time o'master mine. Losing one's vision isn't something that can be overcome in a single night. Many take years to adapt while it's only been a few days for you.] Cayla reminded as the more stressed Alice was about adapting to this new vision, the less she'd achieve.
'I know. It's just turning out to be harder than I expected that's all.' Alice smiled wearily.
"What's with that goofy ass smile on your face?" Luke asked, leaning over Alice as he handed her a towel.
"Talking to the voices in my head. Are you going back to your lessons now?" Alice chuckled, accepting the towel as she sat up.
"Yep. Unlike some, my lessons haven't stopped. Even if I'm a special class student, there are still lectures that Xinbei suggests I listen to." Luke sighed while adjusting his hair and glasses.
"Oh? Though I thought you said you didn't have a goal for Abyssal Engineering?" Alice raised an eyebrow, confused as to why Luke would continue to pursue this topic if he had no goals for it.
"Just because I don't have a goal right now doesn't mean it's not a good skill to have. Abyssal Engineering doesn't account for trinkets. With enough mastery, you can even make weapons with it or adjust existing ones.
"Who knows? In the future, I might be the one who makes adjustments to your sword that Kaden sealed away." Luke rolled his eyes while Alice let out a laugh.
"I'll be honest, there are many things you can probably improve in the future but Void Fang probably isn't one of them." Alice revealed a grin as this was a sword blessed and modified by Velouria after all.
The Goddess of the Abyss and the Queen of Ayr.
"Tsk, just you wait then. I'll make you eat your words." Luke clicked his tongue in annoyance as this was a challenge directed towards him.
Waving his hand goodbye, Luke made his way out of the training grounds.
Standing up, Alice gave her body a stretch before letting out a yawn.
It was about time for her to resume her disguise as Kale Grani and meet up with the Zenias again. She was curious as to how things would play out now that both Jyn and Rita were dead. Would Erick keep her around or would he focus on his task at hand.
If he keeps her around, then it'll be easier for her to keep track of what they're up to now that two of the guards are dead.
'Maybe we can lure them out of the city and give them a quick… ya know…' Alyss trailed off as she did the gesture for cutting their throats.
'Did you forget what we promised the principal? Our job is to simply observe and involve ourselves with his group. Slowly gain trust and see if we can disrupt their plans without the Zenia's making big moves.' Alice sighed as Alyss was a little too bloodthirsty despite their promise to the principal.
Not that she didn't understand her eagerness as she too would prefer to just kill them.
But with the Inverted World at stake, she couldn't risk them getting access to a banquet of experimental resources. That is to say, other humans.
'Tsk boring. But how many Lord level beings do you think the Zenia's have for the branch manager of the Underground to struggle?' Alyss asked as folded her arms in annoyance.
'Who knows? But considering their prestige probably a handful.'
Regardless, it wasn't something she should bother with right now. Activating her first Sigil, she applied her disguise of Kale Grani and made her way out of the realm to meet up with Erick.