'Man, the dragon may have been an asshole, but the bastard's hoard definitely had some good shit. But on a more serious note, how strong was that lizard to have such a massive hoard, with an entire library and everything.' Julian was contemplating on the strength of the lizard as he got up and stretched after miss Andra announced that the break was over. 'I know for a fact that only dragons who are both strong and high ranking start to build their hoard, hell I've even seen a few remnants of hoard's from dead dragons, and none were as massive as the hoard of the dragon that killed me. Well, this doesn't matter right now, but I definitely have to look into this later.'

While Julian knew now wasn't the time to think of this, he found the fact that a hoard of unheard of scale and wealth existed on their planet to be a very surprising.

"ATTENTION" shouted Andra, distracting Julian from his thoughts once more. "We will now begin with your endurance test"

"BOYS, I WANT ALL OF YOU TO TAKE YOUR POSITIONS ON THE TRACK, AND WHEN I SAY GO I WANT ALL FO YOU TO START RUNNING, ALSO BEFORE YOU START I WILL BE NOTIFYING YOU THAT DURING THIS TEST YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO STOP AT ALL, IF YOU STOP THAT WILL COUNT AS YOU DISCONTINUING THE TEST AND YOUR TIME, SPEED, AND DISTANCE WILL NOT BE TRACKED ANY FURTHER."

Clapping her hands, Andra once again said, "NOW EVERYONE TAKE YOUR POSITIONS."

The boys all slowly started to take their positions, and it didn't take much effort to find one's own spot, as all positions were already labeled according to one's rank. As such, 17 boys all took their respective spots, with Leopold and Jason at the first and second positions and me and Andrew at the last two spots.

Once everyone was done taking their stance on their spots, Andra started the countdown.

"Ready"

"3"

"2"

"1"

Right before Andra said to go, I breathed out a massive amount of air, preparing myself to last as long as I can.

"GO"

At Andra's shout, all the boys started to run. Most of the students started to run as fast as they could for some reason, thinking that if they ran fast then they would get more points, but most others only ran at a mediocre speed.

Julian was a part of the latter group, as he had experienced traveling in deserts and forests, he knew very well on how to conserve energy when on the move.

Leopold, and Jason too were running at a moderate speed and conserving their energy as they had been trained in fighting and exercise since they were young.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The boys were running under the bright sun, which in and of itself was a difficult task, but they had to do it without using any mana, which made running harder for them. Soon about 20 minutes had passed and all the students who had chosen to run at their peak speed were already tired and some even opted to stop running from being tired. Meanwhile, most of the students who decided to pace their running were barely even having any difficulty with the running. Looking at this, Andra had a massive smile on her face, as she could see that some students were smart enough to realize the reason the instructions were phrased the way they were.

Leopold was one such student who realized that there was something wrong with how the instructions were given, 'they really did try to fool us didn't they, they asked to see who would run for the longest amount of time and not distance.' ending his thoughts, Leopold smirked, and continued running.

.

.

.

Another 30 minutes passed and most of the students had given up irrespective of how they chose to run because they could not handle the heat of the sun.

There were only about 7 of the original students that remained. Julian was one of these 7, including Leopold, Jason, Anthony, Phill, Peter and Viktor. Of those who remained, only Julian, Leopold, and Jason weren't gasping for air. This greatly amused Andra and at the same time surprised everyone in the class, as most of the students around his rank in class had already given up.

'Truly weird this boy is, the way he is moving and breathing is extremely similar to most explorers who have years of experience of exploring dangerous places.'

While it was true that Julian had experienced several dangerous places during his years as an explorer, the reason he was able to run was not related to it. 'Damn, this breathing technique is amazing, I know that my body should definitely not be able to run for so long in its current state, this is crazy man, not only is it not difficult for me to run right now I feel like my energy is being replenished, this technique is seriously nuts.'

*Pheww* letting out a breath of air, Julian just slowed down further and eventually stopped running, 'running anymore will arouse even more suspicion than it already likely has. I do want to gain a bit of popularity so that my words carry weight, but being in the spotlight will only cause me more issues than it is worth it'.

Seeing that Julian had stopped, Andra was visibly angry as she could see that the boy was not tired whatsoever, and called him to ask why he had stopped when he could clearly run longer than most of those kids, aside from Leopold and Jason.

"Cadet Julian, come here for a second, I wish to talk to you about something."

Julian was shocked by the fact that he was called as soon as he had returned to the shade to rest by the miss Andra, but still proceeded to go to her. "YES, MA'AM" Julian replied as he moved towards her.

********

Under the shade of a tree, Andra was sitting on a chair, while the remaining students were running, and Julian was standing in front of her.

"Cadet Julian care to explain why you decided to stop, and don't even think of giving me the excuse that you were tired, because I can clearly see that your breathing is normal and there is not an ounce of tiredness in it. So you better choose your words carefully." Andra said to Julian with a deep frown on her face as she looked straight in to Julian's eyes.

Julian looked at Andra with a surprised look, he had expected that if he simply acted that he was tired then he would get caught so even changed his breathing but to think that she would still be able to catch him.

"Well, since it is no use hiding it from you, I will just let it out straight. Running any longer would be more trouble that it was worth it for me." Julian's response shocked Andra, who proceeded to smile and said, "enough, I don't need to hear more now. After the test is over today, and you have seen your results, visit me in the teacher's lounge."

"YES MA'AM" Julian replied as he returned to his spot with a small smile on his face. 'Nice, she took the bait.'