Chapter 161: Cleaving Through Challenge

Alex looked up at the sun shining brightly above him, watching as it slowly and surely made its way toward zenith. He had finally managed to stop feeling shame for scoring the lowest in the test. And it had taken him multiple slow, long breaths to calm down and return to normal.

Pushing the thoughts of marks away, he moved his head around the training ground. The students filled the training ground around him, all standing patiently and staring at Professor Daniel, who towered before them like an ancient tree.

Even from the back of the crowd, Alex had to strain his neck just to see him, keeping his head tilted slightly upward to make out the professor's face. It was proof enough of how immense and towering the man truly was.

Alex had not seen the professor transform into his wyvern form today, though he found himself wishing he could. So far he had only ever witnessed the reverse transformation, from wyvern back into human, and he often wondered what the other direction might look like.

The professor swept his black eyes over the students, his expression a touch more tense than it had been the day before.

"Today, you will all carry weights with you as you run around the grounds. And just as on the first day, you will each need to complete fifty laps," he announced, and with a wave of his hand he conjured a row of boulders, each one carved into a perfectly matching size and shape. Even from the rear of the gathered students, Alex could tell they were massive.

Alex wondered how much each boulder weighed, and before he could dwell on the question long enough to invent his own guess, the professor answered it for him. "They weigh only ten kilograms," he informed them. "But do not worry, children. The weights will increase in future as the challenges will become harder and harder."

The students nodded in silence, though some of them wore expressions that made it plain they had no wish to carry a boulder on their back or shoulder, particularly the elves, who seemed to regard the whole exercise as beneath them. Not every elf shared this sentiment, but quite a few carried a haughty look on their faces, as though they considered themselves above such menial labor.

"What are you all standing around for? Hurry up and begin," the professor barked, and the students immediately rushed toward the boulders. No one wasted time deliberating over which one to choose, since every boulder was a perfect replica of the next.

Alex, meanwhile, stayed behind and waited as one by one the other students picked up their boulders and dashed off to join the others on the running track. Only once he was certain no one remained behind him did Alex walk forward and stop before a single boulder. He made no move to bend down and hoist it onto his shoulder, however. Instead, he turned his gaze to the professor.

The professor looked Alex over from head to toe, an amused expression settling onto his face. "Student Alex, you have yet to complete yesterday's challenge. I do hope you will not continue lagging behind the others anymore," Professor Daniel remarked, pressing more weight than necessary onto the final few words.

Alex simply nodded, and with a flick of his finger the professor summoned a dummy before him, one that glinted beneath the sun's rays. A handful of scratches marred its surface, though nothing significant enough to draw notice. The only thing that set it apart from an ordinary training dummy was the text inscribed upon it, which read Roll No. 50. The number belonged to Alex, and the dummy had been made specifically, and exclusively, for him. It was not something to be proud of as everyone had received their own dummy with their own roll number.

The professor then conjured a sword, its blade gleaming and sharp enough to slice through skin and fingers if handled carelessly. This was no wooden practice sword of the kind typically used for training; it was a real one.

Alex took the sword from the professor's outstretched hand and moved to stand before the dummy.

"Student Alex, you must cut it into two pieces. Severing its hands or limbs will also suffice, though I would prefer it if you managed to cleave through its neck or its waist," the professor instructed, his expression turning serious. He was strict and stern when it came to teaching and training, a stark contrast to the jovial face he had worn on the very first day Alex met him for the first time.

Alex gripped the sword's hilt tightly and fixed his eyes on the dummy he had failed to cut the day before, the one he had managed only to scratch. Hundreds of marks now covered its body, yet none of them significant enough to have pierced any part of it by more than half an inch.

It was a palpable sign of his weakness, of how far behind he stood compared to the others. Everyone else had completed the challenge the day before. He alone had failed to cut the dummy in two, and had he succeeded, he too would already be out on the track, running his laps with a boulder upon his shoulder like everyone else.

Because he had failed to complete the challenge, the professor's policy required him to finish it before he could move on to the next task. The day before, he had finished his remaining ten laps around the track which was the leftover task of the first day, and by the time he joined the others at the dummy-cutting exercise, several of them, Lucian, Lara, Natasha, Thalia, and Eldric among them, had already finished. For the rest of that class, they had done nothing but watch the others, and watch him in particular, an activity Eldric had thoroughly relished as Alex struggled and failed to pierce the dummy by even half an inch.

Alex glanced once more at the professor, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest, watching Alex instead of keeping an eye on the students circling the track. He seemed entirely unconcerned about anyone cheating. Perhaps he somehow already kept count of each student's laps, or perhaps it simply never occurred to him that anyone might lie about the number they had run. No student would dare deceive the professor of the finest academy in the land. These were S class students, the best of the best, and every one of them would rather run a hundred laps than complete only forty and claim to the professor that they had finished fifty.

Alex set aside his thoughts, and at a nod from the professor signaling that he should begin, he took measured steps to position himself at the exact distance needed for the sword's blade to cut clean through the dummy's body.

He adjusted his stance, one leg forward and the other braced behind him, and at the same time lifted his sword diagonally above his head toward his right side, gripping the hilt tightly. He fixed his focus on the dummy before him. The dummy was sturdier than any he had ever practiced against back home. In appearance it looked no different from the dummies he was familiar with; only the material from which it had been made set it apart.

Alex narrowed his eyes at the dummy's body, closed them for a moment, and opened his eyes again. His azure gaze burned with resolve.

This time he would cut the dummy down in a single stroke. He recalled the feeling from before, then suddenly like lightning bolting down to the ground from the sky, he swung the sword diagonally downward with all his strength.

Dark flames flickered to life around the blade, and with a force that sent the air whistling past him, the sword pierced the dummy just beside the neck, on its right shoulder and drove deep into its body.

A loud, screeching sound tore through the air as the blade began cutting its way through. Alex felt resistance building against him. The sword trembled in his grip, but he forced every muscle in his body into the strike, and even as the resistance threatened to grind him to a halt, he refused to stop. Gritting his teeth, he pushed the sword downward with even greater force.

“Aaaaaarrrggghhhhh!” He shouted as he pulled every strength out from his muscles to cut the dummy.

With one final screech, the sword cut clean through the dummy, exiting its body near the lower left side of its waist, splitting it completely in half along the diagonal. The severed halves slid apart and dropped to the ground with a heavy thud.

The blade also slipped from Alex's grasp and clattered to the ground.

His shoulders sagged. Sweat streamed down his forehead, and he sank to the ground with a loud breath in. A wide smile spread across his lips as he stared at his trembling fingers.

Alex's eyes then drifted first to the lower half of the dummy still standing upright in the ground, then to the severed portion that had fallen away, and finally to the professor's face which was frozen in an expression of wide-eyed shock mixed with something Alex could not quite name.

The professor looked utterly bewildered. Alex himself was hardly less astonished, having finally managed to cut the dummy in half with a single strike, something he had failed to accomplish even after hundreds of attempts the day before.

The professor quickly regained his composure, looking at Alex while masking every trace of his earlier emotion. "Student Alex, you have successfully cut the dummy in two. I see no evidence of foul play. You may now move on to the next challenge."

***

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