Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest - Chapter 946 - 216.6 - Overachievers
Ethan groaned as he picked himself up from the floor, a line of sweat trickling down his temple. His ribs ached where the wooden blade had struck him, and his pride ached just a bit more.
He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, giving Eleanor a pointed, exasperated look.
“Miss Eleanor,” he grumbled, voice tinged with disbelief. “You’re using way too much strength. How are we even supposed to deal with you like this?”
And really, who could blame him?
The pressure she exerted, the speed, the reaction time, the sheer suffocating presence—everything felt several leagues beyond what any normal training instructor should be able to unleash on academy students.
It wasn’t an exaggeration.
It was Eleanor.
Even before she’d stepped foot into the Arcadia Hunter Academy, Eleanor had already made history. The youngest ever to break into the Hunter Rankings. The top of her generation, the undisputed prodigy who shattered trial records and made veteran hunters rethink the very definition of potential.
Her name wasn’t just a legacy—it was a standard.
So Ethan’s protest didn’t come off as whining.
It came off as reasonable.
Astron, still regaining his breath against the wall, didn’t speak—but his narrowed eyes silently agreed.
Eleanor, however, only gave a small, amused sneer.
“Is that what you think?” she asked lightly.
She held up her arm—and there, strapped around her wrist, gleamed a thin, matte-black bracelet etched with subtle mana lines.
The center of the band displayed a small, glowing number.
8.
Ethan blinked. “What’s that?”
Eleanor tapped the number with her finger.
“This,” she said calmly, “is a limiter.”
The number pulsed once, steady and clear.
“Right now, all of my parameters are capped at rank 8. Speed. Power. Mana output. Reflexes. Everything.”
The words hung in the air like a slap.
Astron’s eyes narrowed slightly. Ethan’s jaw tightened.
Rank 8.
Just two ranks above where Ethan currently stood.
No, it was not even a complete 2 rank difference.
And yet the gap felt like a canyon. Even under suppression, Eleanor had moved like a phantom and struck like a force of nature.
“That… can’t be right,” Ethan muttered. “It felt like more than that.”
“It should’ve,” Eleanor replied, her tone sharp, unwavering. She took a step forward, her gaze steady and cool, cutting through the space between them like a blade.
“That,” she said, “is the difference between a normal hunter—” her fingers curled again around the hilt of her wooden sword, “—and a high-ranking one.”
She let the words sink in.
“My stats are capped at 8. But even if you pushed me down to 5, or 4… my understanding of mana, my control, my discipline would still make the difference. Not because I’m stronger. But because I know how to use what I have.”
She turned the wooden sword in her hand, slowly, letting its weight balance across her palm—not for flash, but for clarity.
“That’s what separates a top-ranker from the rest.”
Her voice dropped, precise and instructive, but never coddling.
“Power is not potential. Rank is not mastery. You’ll see the same thing in any field—whether it’s healing, support, offense, reconnaissance. The top hunters don’t win because they’re stronger.”
She tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing.
“They win because they never forget where they are.”
Her gaze swept over both of them now—first to Ethan, still catching his breath but burning with that relentless, reckless fire in his chest… then to Astron, calm on the outside, but cold, calculating beneath his silence.
“You two,” she said, lifting her sword again.
“When you’re facing a top-ranker, you must be open to anything that can happen in your surroundings. No assumptions. No patterns. No comfort zones.”
She raised her sword slightly, and for just a heartbeat—everything stilled.
“Anything,” she repeated. “Can happen.”
There was no dramatic surge of mana. No wave of pressure.
Just the eerie quiet of someone who didn’t need to boast to be overwhelming.
Then, she nodded once.
“Come at me again.”
Her stance shifted, and just like that—the fight resumed.
Ethan gritted his teeth, lightning already crawling up the length of his spear as he charged with renewed force, weaving in more feints, more layers—watch everything, her voice echoed in his mind.
Astron adjusted his grip on his daggers, this time not waiting for an opening—but creating one, his mana weaving out like threads searching for tension.
And Eleanor…
Smiled faintly.
As if this—this—was exactly where she wanted them.
In the thick of it.
Growing.
*****
The training chamber was scarred.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the floor. The faint smell of scorched stone and singed air lingered from repeated collisions of lightning, force, and will. Mana shimmered faintly in the air—residual trails of the battle still dissipating.
And at the heart of it stood three figures.
Two bloodied.
One pristine.
Ethan’s chest heaved with ragged breaths, blood trailing down from a split in his brow. His uniform was torn, his knuckles raw, his spear trembling slightly in his grip from the sheer strain of having summoned it so many times, so violently.
Astron was no better—his sleeve was half-shredded, blood staining one side of his ribs where a blow had cracked through his defense. His daggers dripped with sweat and condensed mana, his face pale but focused, the lines of exhaustion showing around his eyes.
And facing them, as calm as the day she walked in—
Eleanor.
Unmoved. Unshaken. Unforgiving.
But watching.
Her wooden sword rested lightly in her hand, her posture poised. Not mocking. Not even confident.
Just composed.
Ethan moved first—his spear crackling with lightning, his body surging forward in a blur of raw force.
Astron moved from the opposite angle, not trying to match Ethan’s momentum, but complement it—his form weaving in a half-step delay, finding the rhythm in Ethan’s thunder to slip between the strikes like a shadow.
And for a moment—
They clicked.
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Yes. They were improving.
Astron had always been the tactical mind. He’d been forced to speak more in earlier sessions, calling instructions aloud, guiding Ethan like a second brain. But now—
Now Ethan was beginning to read him.
He was following the shifts in movement. Adjusting the timing on his thrusts and strikes to mirror the spacing Astron created. He no longer needed constant vocal cues.
Astron noticed it too.
He pivoted low and whispered just a single word—”Left.”
Ethan didn’t hesitate.
He didn’t question.
He moved.
His spear struck in perfect sync with Astron’s feint, the lightning lashing out to obscure their angles of approach. Astron, fluid as water, shifted his daggers mid-step, flicking one to intercept a countermove before Eleanor even made it.
CLANG!
Eleanor’s sword moved like a whisper—but even she had to shift more than before.
‘Not bad,’ she thought.
Astron’s transitions were becoming seamless. The way he adapted from a full defensive parry into an aggressive push showed growing instinct. No longer purely reactive. He was weaving intent into his flow now. Taking risks.
Ethan, meanwhile—
He was still wild.
Still fire and thunder.
But now that fire burned with direction.
Not just blind impact.
He was responding faster. Recovering quicker. Reading not just the opponent—but the field.
For a fleeting instant, Eleanor allowed herself a breath of silent approval.
They were still far—far—from touching her.
But they were no longer scrambling in her shadow.
They were walking into it willingly.
And trying to carve through it.
She met Ethan’s spear with a clean deflection, the wooden blade clashing with the charged steel. In the same breath, she pivoted and parried Astron’s low slash with a step to the side, slipping between them like the eye of a hurricane.
Her voice rang out, calm even amid the flurry.
“Again.”
Neither of them hesitated.
Bloodied.
Breathless.
Still standing.
Still fighting.
And she could see it in their eyes—
They hadn’t broken.
They were sharpening.
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