Cody returned to the lounge. He was surprised to see that the freshmen were still here.
“Oh, you guys are still here? Don’t you have classes this afternoon? Or maybe you’ve waited here to ask me about the reason why Zachariel failed the test?”
“Exactly!” Amelia and Victoria answered at the same time.
The atmosphere became awkward. Amelia and Victoria stared at each other with shocked expressions on their face.
`Why is this girl so concerned about brother Zachariel? Haven’t they just met each other recently? Don’t tell me she’s that woman!`
Amelia became hostile against Victoria. Meanwhile,
`Damn it! Why did I say that? Now I’m stuck in this very awkward situation. She’s emitting hostility? You think I’d back down against your challenge, huh?!`
Victoria responded with a hostile look on her face. Sabrina and Helena immediately held back the two girls.
“Uhm, I think you should really go back now.”
Cody was speechless. `Sir Matthias, I think we’ve found another big reason to help that guy out.`
The rest of them helped out in pacifying the two girls. After that little incident, the freshmen had no choice but to return to their classrooms.
After they left, Cody started to set up the arrangements for the training of the five representatives.
“Rainald and Cassia, you two will mainly help the four of them during the training. Rainald will go with Sabrina. Cassia, help the four mages in their mana manipulation. We don’t want them to waste mana essences while casting basic spells.”
They both nodded. Rainald asked a question.
“Senior Cody, what about Zachariel? Is he still the main focus for the revolutionary movement?”
“Yes, Rainald, though I don’t know why you asked that right now.”
“I’m just confused. Why Zachariel? Is it because of his talent?”
“Yes. Exploding a testing device including everything within a 50-meter radius is something that has not occurred before.”
“Furthermore, it is inevitable for him to take part in our cause. The Emperor might have already started to investigate his origins and plans to eliminate him and his family soon. Emperor Marcus doesn’t want someone from the Imperium outshining his son, Prince Kane.”
Rainald had no choice but to trust senior Cody’s explanation.
For him, Zachariel just wanted to live his life carefreely, but his circumstances did not allow that. `What a blunder.`
That afternoon, the whole class of W1-A wondered where Zachariel was. They still had classes regarding demon beasts and qi essence manipulation. It was weird for him to miss it out.
The next day arrived. Today was a rest day for all the students.
The schools only have 3 days of class over the course of 1 week. The reason was that the students need not only to absorb the theoretical knowledge from their classes, but they need to also apply this knowledge practically.
Theoretical classes only focused on discussing new information and reinforcing the lessons discussed in the past class sessions. Although the instructors could use the training field, the time it takes for a student to comprehend and apply the new information would require more than just a few hours of practicing every class session.
During their rest days, the students could practice either through the public training field in the city, join the guilds and finish tasks, or cultivate alone in their rooms.
Those who slacked would surely fail and be expelled.
Enrolling in the Great Schools was already hard. If they wasted that chance just to indulge themselves in procrastination and self-pleasure, their parents would beat them to death and everybody else would mock them.
The Prospect representatives were currently training in the rotating area.
“Sabrina, you’re being impatient.”
Rainald was mentoring Sabrina about sword fights. Sabrina was gasping for air due to her rash behavior of fighting against Rainald.
“If you want to surpass Zachariel, you need to calm yourself down.”
Sabrina regained her breathing and charged again. “Raahhh!”
Rainald snorted and parried her slash. `This is not working.`
Sabrina’s footwork was in a mess and Rainald made use of that. She tried to spin and attack, but Rainald deflected it and kicked her feet, making her fall to the ground head-first.
He pointed his sword at her neck. “If this is the performance you’re going to display at the event, I suggest that you should retire as a representative right now.”
Rainald retracted his sword. Sabrina stood up, wanting to fight him again.
“We’ll continue later. Rest at the side for now. Cool your head down.”
Rainald walked away and went to where Cody was.
“Not good?”
Rainald shook his head. “Aren’t you also like that before, Rainald?” Cody teased him.
“I was only like that because I taught myself alone for 12 years. Sabrina is lucky that her grandfather taught her. However, it should not be an excuse for her rash behavior.”
“Isn’t your family proficient in swordsmanship? How come you taught yourself instead?”
“It’s a long and sad story, senior. What about the other four?”
“Cassia is very eager to help them. Look.”
Cassia was assisting the four mages with mana control.
“Jeremias, your control is good already. We can proceed with your training later.”
“Helena, you need to do better. You’re behind against Jeremias now. Just conjure one mana essence in both of your hands. Their intensity is still at a lower silver-level. Increase that to an upper or peak silver-level, then we can proceed with your training too.”
“For you two, you lack the technique in compressing your mana essences. I will teach you about how to do it now.”
“First, gather the mana essences inside your mana core. Victoria, you can select one of your three mana cores. Then try to draw them all as close to each other as possible.”
“Don’t be hasty. Drawing them all too fast would make the mana essences burst out and you would end up crippled. Also, drawing them too slow would make some of the mana essences escape. If that happens, you have to gather and draw them again.”
“Once you feel like it’s compressed, try to release the pressure unto the mana essences. If they do not break apart, you’ve succeeded. You should then gather mana essences and compress them again. I’ll set up two different challenges for you two.”
“Victoria, make sure that all of your mana cores have a compressed mana essence. Their quality should not be lower than peak silver-level when I test your power later.”
“As for you Amelia, your power should not be lower than lower silver-level.”
Cassia helped them out once in a while. She was not as strict as Rainald. After all, being a mage Prospect was a hard thing to do.
“You should be like your girlfriend, Rainald. Passionate when teaching others, not a stern middle-aged man.” Cody teased Rainald again. The latter snorted and went back to train Sabrina.
They continued their training session for the successive rest days.
……
33rd Day of Exios.
Zachariel woke up from his nightmare. The nightmares were getting longer and worse every day. The green lines inside his body were slowly being refined, and the glowing intensified.
`These two are absolutely related. I don’t know for how long will it end though. Just who am I, really?`
He reminisced a painful memory from his past. `Tsk, so what if I am or am not? They don’t care about me anyway. Let’s go and prepare for class.`
……
He arrived in the classroom. Everyone’s attention was focused on him.
“Hey, Zachariel? Are you okay? You were absent 3 days ago. We thought something bad happened to you.” Luiz and Luka approached Zachariel.
“I’m okay.” He looked at them both then proceeded to his seat. The two boys followed him.
“Don’t go missing around like that. We’re gonna get worried.” Luiz’s feelings were genuine. In his own perspective, they were classmates and should look out for each other.
He and Luka wanted to visit Zachariel a few days ago, but they did not know which dorm building and room did he reside in so they abandoned the plan. They even caught Lia wandering around the boy’s dormitory and threw her out.
“Zacharieeel!” Lia excitedly hugged him and started her rounds of endless questions.
“Where were you? Did you miss me? Are you okay now? Were you hurt? Did someone hurt you…”
Luiz and Luka were speechless. `Isn’t she a bit too intimate with him? And in public at that?`
“Hey, hey! We actually discussed…”
And she started talking another round of rubbish. Zachariel did not listen to her. The other two would sometimes interject and Lia would be angry every time it happened. As for Diega, she was too shy to come over.
Iria came over to Zachariel, handing out a stack of paper notes from one of their classes. “Zachariel, here’s your copy for the lessons on our class regarding demon beasts. Take it and don’t lose it.”
Zachariel took them and placed them atop his desk with an uncaring expression.
Iria looked at the time. Their weaponry class was about to start.
“Everyone! Sir Rufus is almost here. Get back to your seats now.” Iria became the class president 3 days ago in the afternoon, during their class about demon beasts. The instructor had wanted to produce copies for them so that everyone could study, and he wanted the class president to go get it in his room the next day.
Since the class W1-A did not have any class president, they were forced to elect one, and unfortunately, Iria was destined to win. She was really angry about it.
The two culprits that led to her inauguration were pleasantly discussing with that missing student 3 days ago. They exaggerated her qualifications to the point that even the instructor was in awe with their bullsh*t and immediately chose her.
Instructor Rufus arrived and everyone went back to their seats.
“Good morning. Today, we’ll be going back to the training field and conduct matches in order to test your skills when in combat.”
The students were eager now. They were tired of training by themselves and wanted to experience combat against their classmates.
“Sabrina and Zachariel will be excluded from this. However, after all the matches are over, the two of you will match against each other and show to the class your skills and talents.”
The students were even more excited now. Seeing their performance would surely be spectacular.
“Everyone, move!”
……
The test started.
“You will be fighting against one another using your weapons. I hope that you have trained well in the past 2 days.”
“All of you will draw lots. Since there are 35 students here, excluding Sabrina and Zachariel, there will be one lucky student who will advance in the next round. Now, come here and get your number. Those who have the same number will fight.”
The students went in front and drew their numbers.
“I’m 1, you?” Luiz asked Luka.
“16. I wonder who my enemy is.” Luka looked around.
“Yey! I drew the jackpot!” Lia excitedly jumped around, waving her fists around. The whole class was speechless.
“Alright, those who drew number 1, raise your hands!”
Luiz and a male student raised their hands. Instructor Rufus listed their names.
“Number 2!”
The numbers were called. After a few minutes, the first match started.
“The first match. Luiz Carrico vs. Remko Podt. Start!”
