The next couple weeks passed by in a flash for Rocky, as he only focused on three things.
Firstly on getting used to controlling the strength of his new body.
Secondly on manipulating Sophia.
And Thirdly on clearing floor raids alongside Buhara and Erin to build teamwork.
Completing three successful floor raids, on three consecutive Sunday's, Rocky reached floor 13 of the tower and was on-track to complete the 20 floor mandate set by the university before graduation.
But not only did he make progress on this third goal, he also made incredible progress on the first two goals as well, as ever since he visited Sophia's room and read the letter she received from her brother, the closeness between them seemed to have increased.
Having figured out Sophia's personality as a whole and getting a grasp of her narcissistic tendencies, Rocky knew exactly how to push her buttons now as he made rapid progress in breaching through her defences.
Rocky realised that while he could not seduce Sophia into loving him, since she was not the type that cared much about physical relationship or emotional intimacy, he could manipulate her into hating her family, which was why he completely changed his approach in talking to her post the letter-incident.
Every day, he would come up with new ways to describe the importance of having a supportive family condusive to growth and how it was her family that was failing her and holding her back from becoming the warrior that she was capable of, as he sowed the seeds of dissent and discord in her heart.
While Sophia never really showed Rocky any positive response when he was trying to form an intimate bond with her, when he shifted his approach to bitching about her family, she immediately warmed up to him and joined him in complaining about how useless and unsupportive they were, while slipping important tit-bits of information within her rants that Rocky was keen to pick up on.
While Sophia did not suspect anything and believed that she was being extremely discreet in her conversation with Rocky, not broaching subjects such as the abduction of Riva or the Olympus clan's plans for him.
She did slip information such as the secret underground alleyways that ran underneath the Floor21 palace and how she used them to sneak out of the palace as a kid using them and was always scolded as a rebel.
These bits of information, while seeming harmless to Sophia for sharing, were invaluable for Rocky, as he knew that it might come in handy for the eventual raid that the True Elites were planning on floor21 soon.
Finally, on the personal development front. Rocky managed to get a decent hold on the strength of his new body and learnt a couple good sword moves too in preperation of his upcoming fight with Zhi Cook.
After Zhi defeated Sophia with ease, Rocky already realised that he was not a push-over and needed to be taken seriously, however, while he did respect the strength of his opponent, the spar itself was not one of his priorities currently as he did not care much about winning or losing it.
Of course he did not wish to lose if possible, however, even if he did, Rocky did not feel like the bout was important enough to make him regret losing, which was why his attitude towards the fight was casual, unlike Zhi's, for whom this spar meant everything.
Since Buddha himself had given Zhi the goal to treat Rocky as a rival and try surpass him at every stage of his life as a climber, for Zhi their first bout was for him to get a feel for the nature and strength of his opponent, which made him feel extremely excited.
Being a SSS rated talent himself, he had never found a worthy rival since childhood, as everyone that could keep up with him in combat were either peers elder to him by several decades or his master who only toyed with him during training.
In such an environment, the appearance of Rocky was like a dream come true for Zhi, as he felt like he was roaring with excitement and vigor from just the thought of finally facing a worthy rival.
**********
( Monday, Swordsmanship Class )
Professor Mae suspended the Swordsmanship Class on Monday, in favor of the scheduled spar between Zhi and Rocky, as almost half of the first year university students ditched their classes and gathered in the swordsmanship training arena where the fight had been scheduled to take place.
Rumors about Sophia's grim defeat at the hands of Zhi had circulated throughout the university and excitement was relatively high to witness the clash between two top class champions.
Rocky had already established himself as being a cut above the rest of the class after he solo'd the entire swordsmanship class alone. However, many were hyping Zhi up as an equally worthy opponent, so anticipation was high for their bout.
Having been instructed to wait for his opponent respectfully by Principal Liam, Rocky arrived to the swordsmanship training arena five minutes before Zhi, where he casually warmed up, preparing his body for the upcoming spar.
"Crush him Rocky! Show him the might of our university!"
"Don't lose face for us all! We are rooting for you-"
"One of our university's champions has already lost to that bastard, if you lose as well then we would really have no face left to show-"
The gathered crowd hyped him up before the fight as it was clear that he was the home favorite to win this fight.
Sophia, Erin and Buhara had also taken seats within the stands, as Sophia visibly shuddered with shame and anger when anyone from the crowd brought up the topic of her defeat.
She felt an urge to walk down to the arena and replace Rocky as the fighter for today, however, she knew that even if she wanted to redeem herself by forcing Zhi to accept a rematch, Principal Liam would never allow that bout to take place and hence she refrained herself from interfering, and recused herself to be just a spectator.