Chapter 36: Brains Over Brawns

"Don’t worry. He’s not dead... yet."

Declan stopped at the exit, where one of the second years was standing in his way.

He gave the guy a single, hard look, and the second year instinctively flinched and stepped aside.

Declan didn’t immediately leave.

Instead, he turned back toward Lukmo and pointed at the unconscious second year.

"Take him to a healing pod within the next two hours, or he might stop breathing."

His expression remained completely calm.

"Don’t make me kill someone on my first day on the job."

With that, Declan walked out of the cafeteria.

"Wait, job?"

"Did he just say this was a job?"

"Is he disguising himself as a student?"

Confused murmurs spread throughout the cafeteria, but that was exactly what Declan wanted.

Even after he stepped completely outside the cafeteria entrance, the second years didn’t immediately pursue him.

They stood there, suspicion written across their faces.

The boy was abnormal.

And now there was another possibility they couldn’t ignore:

’What if he wasn’t actually a newcomer?’

None of them were certain they could beat him, either.

He had just knocked out Crimson, the second year with the strongest defense among them, with a single strike.

If they attacked him and discovered that he was some student secretly disguised as something more important, they could end up in far more trouble than they had bargained for.

That uncertainty was enough.

The second years turned away, picked up Lukmo, and hurried out of the cafeteria.

Meanwhile...

The instant Declan was far enough from the cafeteria...

He ran!

Like a thief fleeing the scene of a crime.

He tore through one alley after another, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to make sure nobody was chasing him.

"Ahhh..."

"Ahhh..."

His breathing quickly became ragged.

Eventually, he crouched down with his hands resting on his knees as he struggled to catch his breath.

[Tch.]

A moment later, he burst into laughter.

"Idiots."

Declan grinned.

If he had actually tried to fight those four second years, he would’ve been knocked unconscious.

One hundred percent.

Lukmo had possessed an obvious structural imperfection, but Declan hadn’t noticed any such weakness in the other four.

And despite their exhaustion from fighting the newcomers, they still had the advantage in strength.

That was why Declan had relied on something else.

Their uncertainty.

His sudden display of confidence had been completely fake, but it had worked perfectly.

It was something Mech Designers were taught even before they became involved with Nexians.

A Mech Designer couldn’t always rely on physical strength. Sometimes, they needed to project a quiet confidence that made even a Nexian hesitate before messing with them.

It earned respect.

And more importantly, it could prevent unnecessary trouble.

Today, that little trick worked beautifully.

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP.

The sound of his device pulled Declan’s attention away from his thoughts.

He looked down and noticed a countdown displayed on the screen.

Five minutes remained before he would be late for class.

"Shit."

Declan immediately opened the map.

His eyebrows rose when he saw the location and noticed that the building was only three minutes away.

"Huuuuu..."

He released a light breath and continued moving.

Not long after, he finally spotted the building.

It had an unusually ancient design, completely different from the modern structures surrounding it.

"A dojo?"

Declan muttered.

Then another thought suddenly occurred to him.

"Wait..."

He checked his device.

"What the hell is the topic of this class supposed to be?"

His eyes moved across the course information before he looked back at the dojo.

"Weapon class."

He stared at the building for another second.

"Well, it ain’t combat class, at least."

A confident smile appeared on his face.

"How bad could it be?"

He stepped through the glass doors.

The moment he entered, Declan realized the class was nothing like he had expected.

There were no chairs, no tables, and none of the usual things one would expect to find inside a classroom.

Instead, the entire floor was covered by what appeared to be polished wood, except it wasn’t wood.

The surface resembled an impenetrable gemstone, hard and smooth beneath his feet.

Mats had been placed around the edges of the room, leaving a large open space in the center.

But none of that was what caught Declan’s attention.

It was the walls.

They were covered with...

Weapons.

Swords.

Axes.

Spears.

War hammers.

Katanas.

Rapiers.

Sabers.

Daggers.

Tomahawks.

Chain whips.

Every weapon Declan could name seemed to be displayed somewhere along the walls, and judging from the sharpness of the blades, they weren’t decorative replicas.

Declan’s jaw dropped slightly. Never had he seen so many weapons gathered in one place.

The sound of footsteps approaching from behind finally snapped him out of his trance. As he took another step forward, a hand suddenly grabbed his shoulder.

Declan turned and found a young man pointing toward a board mounted beside the entrance.

"No shoes allowed."

"Oh."

He nodded.

"Thank you."

The young man simply removed his shoes and continued inside.

Declan followed suit.

Once inside, he found an empty mat toward the corner and sat down.

The minutes passed quickly.

Soon, it was 6:30 on the dot.

By then, roughly eighty percent of the dojo had been filled.

Nobody wanted to lose points for arriving late, after all.

Still, there were plenty of empty spaces remaining.

Another thirty minutes passed, and the dojo was now around ninety-five percent full.

Then the clock struck 7:00.

BAAAAANG!

The doors slammed shut.

The force behind the simple motion sent a gust of air rushing through the room, instantly silencing the endless conversations.

Then...

STEP!

A single footstep echoed across the dojo, and every head snapped toward the front.

Declan’s did the same, and he noticed a new figure standing in the center of the open space.

The man was enormous.

He stood approximately 2.5 meters tall and wore a pitch-black monk robe.

His shoulders were broad, his frame thick and imposing, and even the veins around his exposed wrists stood out clearly.

Every step he took made the ground beneath the students tremble faintly.

His eyes remained closed, while both hands were pressed together in front of him as though he were praying.

Around his neck hung a large, pitch-black bead necklace covered with strange red dots.

"This... this is the weapon instructor!?"

"I don’t know. He looks like one of those ancient monks."

"He looks pretty powerful."

"He looks more like a brute fighter than a weapon master to me."

The whispers spread throughout the dojo.

Then the instructor slowly separated his palms.

CLAAAAAAAP!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The clap exploded through the room, and a massive sonic shockwave followed.

Every student immediately grabbed their ears as a piercing ringing tore through Declan’s ears and seemed to travel straight into his skull, making his body nearly spasm.

What the hell!?

Yet only a few seconds later, the sensation vanished.

It was so sudden that Declan almost wondered if he had imagined it.

He looked toward the instructor and found that the man’s eyes were now open.

Declan’s expression stiffened at the sight of them.

They were completely white.

No pupils. ℯℯ𝘭.

No irises.

Nothing.

Just pure white.

"Everyone, rise."

His deep voice rolled through the dojo, and the students immediately jumped to their feet.

"Move to the wall and pick a weapon."

The instructor’s voice boomed again, and the students quickly moved toward the walls.

Declan approached the nearest weapon rack and stopped, his brows furrowing.

What weapon should I use?

He had never used a weapon throughout his life, nor had he ever particularly cared about them.

Still, his hand eventually moved toward a simple weapon.

A spear.

Its crimson-colored blade gleamed beneath the lights.

Declan picked it up and rotated it experimentally through his palm.

The weapon moved smoothly.

It was heavy enough to have weight behind each movement, yet light enough to maneuver easily.

Perfect.

There was only one reason Declan had chosen it.

During his time in the jungle, he had crafted a spear himself. He had spent weeks there and relied on that weapon throughout the entire ordeal.

So if he had to choose something from this wall, he would obviously pick the weapon he was already familiar with.

It was common sense, but unfortunately, Declan was quickly reminded that common sense wasn’t actually common.

He glanced around and noticed that the other students were picking some of the strangest weapons imaginable.

There were weapons Declan couldn’t even name, and some he had never seen before.

Judging by the way several students were holding them, they had no idea what they were doing either.

One student was gripping his weapon from the wrong end.

Another had positioned his hands in a way that made Declan question whether the weapon even had an intended grip.

All of it made him raise an eyebrow.

’Why can’t they just pick something simple enough?’

[Idiots.]

The entire process took less than three minutes, and soon, every student in the dojo had a weapon in their hands.

The instructor then slowly separated his hands, lowering both arms to his sides.

His arms were unusually long, and when fully lowered, his hands nearly reached his knees.

Then, without warning, something fell from beneath his robe.

CLAAAANG!

It struck the floor with enough force to make the ground vibrate.

It was a chain, an incredibly heavy one.

The instructor reached toward his other side, and a dagger suddenly appeared in his hand.

It was an extremely strange weapon, its double-edged design resembling the shape of an "h."

Then...

CLAAAAAANG!

The chain locked itself onto the edge of the dagger.

WHIIIIRRR!

WHHHIIIIR!

WHIIIIIIIR!

The instructor twisted his arm, and the chain spun.

The dagger whirled through the air at terrifying speed, the sound of its rotation filling the dojo.

All of a sudden, the instructor’s deep voice thundered across the room.

"Defend yourselves."

"WHAT!?"