There was another piece of paper attached to her mum's letter. Janice opened it to read her sister's always-perfect handwriting.

Hey freak,

What's up? It's utterly peaceful without you in the house. But too bad the peacefulness will be broken when you come back for Chinese New Year. I just want to warn you that I don't want anything funny happening in the house when you come back, you know that I hate to see any thing that is abnormal to me. I just want to tell you that I'm doing perfectly fine here. Secondary school life is totally different from primary school. It's more fun and enjoyable, too bad that you are not able to enjoy it. I got to go now, hope not to see you soon.

Your sister, Lily


"That sister of yours, honestly, really gets on my nerves sometimes. How could you allow her to call you a freak? " Lawrence said, after reading Lily's letter.

"Well, I might be able to get back at her, you'll see. Might be able to scare her a bit, I don't think she knows that we are not allowed to do magic outside school." Janice said.

"Idiot! Have you forgotten? She's an ardent fan of Harry Potter! She would know that you are not able to perform magic outside school! It said so clearly in the Chamber of Secrets, in the letter Harry had from the Ministry of Magic, that if he used magic outside school one more time, he would be expelled, under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Under-Age Socery, 1875, Paragraph C, and breaking the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy section 13. Do you want that to happen to you?" Landy said sternly.

"You memorised the Law?" Boon Kee said incredulously.

"Urm...sort of." Landy replied meekly.

"At the rate you are going, Landy, you are going to sound like Hermione. By the way, Janice, I've just finished the Goblet of Fire, which you'd lent me on the first day of school. It's marvelous. The author portrayed Harry's feelings very well and also, I fully understand how You-know-who came back to life now." Lawrence added.

"How many times must I tell you, don't call him You-know-who! Call him Voldemort!" Janice shot back.

"Does it matter? It's still the same! We are still referring to the same old person!" Lawrence hissed back.

"When you guys finish arguing, meet us in the Defence against the Dark Arts classroom. We'll be waiting for you guys there." Boon Kee said coolly, rising up from his seat

Giving Lawrence another glare, who's still eating desert (Kueh Lapis), Janice quickly shoved down her Nasi Bryani and dashed off to the Defence against the Dark Arts classroom.


"Ah, there you are. Ready for your training?" Professor Orbanaz said when he spotted Janice, who dashed to the classroom.

"Yeah, I guess." Janice said, panting.

"Well, let's start then." he replied.

Today's training, like yesterday's, mainly focused on handling the stake, but with yesterday's training, Janice knew how to handle the stake in a better way. Also, practicing on the life size dummy doll with the stake helped a lot too. While Janice was busily stabbing away, Professor sent Landy, Zoya, Boon Kee and Chee Hao away to the library to look for hexes they could use for their patrol in future. Only Lawrence and Amelia stayed behind because Professor Orbanaz announced that they, being "Loyals", had to learn how to handle the stake too.

"But I don't see the difference, so what if we're the Loyals in the gang? " Amelia protested, as she took the stake from Professor Orbanaz.

"Never underestimate the Loyals, Amelia. The role of the Loyals play a very big part in the gang. They help out the Slayer in her duties when she's away or injured. Also, Loyals play a very big part by taking over the Slayer's duties, when she's... dead." Professor Orbanaz explained.

"Touch wood!" Lawrence bellowed.

"Well, it's the truth. The Loyals will continue to take over the Slayer's duties until the new Slayer has passed the Test, and thats when the Loyals from the late Slayer stop their duties and officially hand the duties over to the next Slayer. Now come on, practise on your stake now." He said, as he conjured two more dummy dolls out of nowhere and placed them beside Janice's dummy doll.

Left with no choice, they had to train along with Janice.

***

Meanwhile, at the Library, Landy and the rest were looking up for spells they could use for their Patrol in the Sinister Forest in the future. As this was their second visit, they were able to find their way around the Library easier, and they knew which book contained the spells they needed.

"Do you think this spell would help, the Shrinking charm? We could use this spell to shrink demons of any sort, that would make things easier for the Slayer." Zoya said, as she pointed out the spell in the book, Spells to Use when You Meet a Demon by Qin Yao Ling.

"Good one." Landy said, as she took down the incantation of the spell.


While Janice and the Loyals was busily training away in the Defence aginst the Dark Arts classroom, the rest of the gang was busily doing their research on the spells they could use in future. This went on for two whole hours, until it was almost bedtime. It was only then did they stop what they were doing and rushed back to their dormitories before Mr Chee caught them.

"You guys sure did borrow a lot of books." Janice commented when they reached their common room.

"Really? I only borrowed about four books, and the rest I think borrowed about three books..." Landy said unconsciously, as they walked up the staircase leading to their dormitories.

"Wow..." Janice mumbled, as they reached their dormitories. They quickly changed into their pyjamas and went to bed quickly as they are feeling very tired.

***

The days past by very quickly, and soon Janice realised that it was only two more days before she would have to catch the train back home. The thought of it gave her no pleasure at all, especially dealing with Lily.

Now that she's already in Yap Ee Chian for two months, schoolwork was definitely getting harder, as they had already mastered the basics. Her training was also going very smoothly, which was something she was very happy at.

To her surprise, Professor Orbanaz announced that he was going to teach Janice how to use the Pickaxe, as he felt that Janice had enough training on the Stake.

"The Pickaxe you are going to learn now is a very important tool for Slaying. This pickaxe is very different from the ones Muggles use. See how the blade curves at the side? This is to enable the Slayer to kill the demon quickly as the end of the blade is very thin. This weapon is only used for killing monsters that do not fall into the Vampire category, because the Wooden Stake will does not work against those demons. As there is a chance that you might have to use this weapon to aid you in killing the demon you might face in the Test, I have decided to teach you to use this weapon."

"Oh." Janice said, as she put down her stake and took her pickaxe out of the package Reena had given her. She's amazed at the shape of the pickaxe. The blade was polished to sparkly silver and was made of some sort of material she did not know of. The Pickaxe was also surprisingly light and this made Janice confident that she could handle this weapon this time round.

But she was wrong. The Pickaxe was even harder to handle than the stake. Due to its lightness, it was very easy to aim but hard to strike. Janice kept on striking at the wrong place no matter how hard she tried.

"Is the Pickaxe too light?" Professor Orbanaz said when he saw Janice missed again.

"Sort of." Janice panted.

With that, he took the Pickaxe from Janice's and took out his wand from his pocket. He began to mumble something under his breath, while twiddling his wand away. "This ought to help, I've put a minor Heavyweight spell on it to make it slightly heavier, which makes it easier for you to handle it. Try it again then." He said, as he handed the Pickaxe back to Janice.

To her surprise, Janice found that she was able to have a better grip of the Pickaxe with Orbanaz's spell. Soon, she found herself aiming accurately.

"Well done! Keep it up!" Professor Orbanaz said, when the training was over. For the first time, he didn't have anything negative to comment about, which Lawrence pointed out.

"Hmm... we're let off early today, time to celebrate!" Lawrence said happily.

"What's there to celebrate about? It's only a training session! " Zoya retorted.

"Oh, yeah... whatever..."

Quietly, they quickly made their made back to their common room, exhausted but happy at the outcome of their training outcome.


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