Olive changed into her tracksuit and returned just in time. Sophia appeared as the wave of mana swept through the academy, marking the start of afternoon training.

She floated imperiously above the students, her usual placid expression gave the impression she thought of them as no more than bugs wriggling in the dirt.

“Those of you not suited up, your punishment will be running the perimeter of the garden until you are dismissed.”

As she finished speaking, she snapped her fingers and mana began to gather in several dozen locations on the ground. The mana coalesced into semi-transparent apparitions in the form of bestial dogs.

Their mouths split all the way down their necks, giving them a horridly large bite. They could easily fit an entire head and half of a torso inside their slobbering jaws. Without any warning, the apparitions charged at each student not wearing a tracksuit.

Only a few took off running in time. The rest were tackled by beasts that tore into their bodies. Blood flew as naked bones were laid bare to the rapidly heating air. Screams and the smell of fresh iron filled the air as the ghostly creatures attacked without mercy.

Tier six?! What the fuck, Sophia!

The punctual students stood in stunned shock at the sudden onslaught of brutality injected into their seemingly normal school day. Jiran looked up at Sophia to find her face as expressionless as always. While he was watching, her eyes flickered to the wall so quickly he almost missed it.

When he glanced in that direction, he saw several military sergeants running toward the fallen students. As they reached the bloody wrecks, the sergeants knelt down and began to pump healing mana into each one. Soon the traumatized teens were healed and yanked back to their feet.

With a shove at their backs to get their bodies into motion, the sergeants watched as more dogs were summoned and once more chased after the fleeing cadets.

They have to run the entire afternoon with those things chasing them? Only to be healed and start the entire nightmare over. Yikes, that's brutal.

Jiran looked up at Sophia again, this time with respect born from fear of the uncertain future that awaited the rest of the class.

“Let’s get to work,” She said before vanishing.

The sergeants rounded on the stunned students. Those who had not fitted their uniforms yet were descended on first. They were screamed at and shoved until they fed mana into their suits properly. Once everyone was ready, they were told to run.

Not a single person hesitated when told to run. The screams of their peers on the outside track provided ample motivation to obey orders.

As they ran, Jiran saw two students get tackled from behind when they began to slow from exhaustion. After being brutally torn into again, the sergeants tailing them healed them once more and then their nightmare continued anew.

The sergeants directing Jiran’s group split them into groups of two hundred. Each group went toward a different section of The Garden. Jiran’s group was led to the obstacle course with the mouse wheel. Twenty students at a time were forced to run inside the wheel powering the spinning blades of the course.

The first student pushed onto the platform and down the plank was coated in sweat as he watched the whirling blades before him. He yelled at the top of his lungs with a cracked voice before dashing through the course at high speeds.

Jiran was impressed by his agility as he deftly dodged blade after blade while hopping, diving, ducking, and spinning through the course. When he arrived at a portion with rotating platforms and horizontal blades that needed to be ducked and jumped, an apparition appeared in the air to his side.

This one was in the form of a graymin pawn, it reached out a skeletal, bladed hand and tapped the student on the shoulder just before he was about to jump over the blade of an axe.

The touch sent arcs of pain lancing through his body, making him seize up. His back arched so far backward he nearly ducked the axe by accident. Unfortunately for the student, he didn't quite make it. The blade connected with his side, sending him tumbling down into the mud under the course.

The wet soil was now painted red with his blood as he thrashed in pain from the apparition's touch and the long, clean cut down his side.

A sergeant ran over to him while the next student was pushed onto the plank. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she shook her head no. An apparition appeared behind her after the third refusal. It buried its claws into her back and held on as she thrashed and bucked.

Blood sprayed all over the starting platform and plank, granting it a gruesome quality that promised pain to whoever was next.

Eventually, the girl was rendered unconscious from the pain and was granted treatment.

This is ridiculous, they are going to break down if someone doesn’t give them some hope.

Jiran stepped forward, volunteering himself. The sergeant standing near the platform gave him a wicked smile.

Jiran took a quick moment to inspect the spinning blades looking for a pattern but realized that would be hopeless since there were no breaks between sections. This course was designed as a test of reflexes, coordination, determination, and bravery.

There would be no breaks once he began.

With a deep breath of air, he dashed forward and rapidly hopped from one platform to another. As soon as he crossed the threshold of the starting plank, a weight pressed in from above reminding him of a densoon wave. He also felt his aura stripped of its ability to form pressure, rendering flight inoperable.

He sensed more than saw Sophia appear in the air above him. Clearly, she was responsible for the suppressions.

No free rides, message received.

Jiran ducked as two claymore-sized blades whirled toward his platform. With his hands and feet planted, he jumped as hard as he could with mana forcing fully activated. He flew through the air over the next two platforms and their spinning death traps.

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He landed with a roll, moving to the next set of platforms without pause. Even with his aura unable to form pressure barriers, he could still feel everything within a thirty-five-meter range as if it were touching his skin.

On his fifth set of platforms, Sophia struck. The apparition she summoned for Jiran looked like an armadillo mixed with a porcupine. It hovered in the air just outside of his aura’s range. He didn’t notice the beast or the spine it fired until the deadly quill pierced his aura.

Without a moment's hesitation, Jiran threw himself off of his current perch. Sophia timed her attack just before he bent his knees to jump, leaving him without enough strength in his legs to reach the next moving platform.

Jiran flooded his arms with mana forcing them to stretch beyond their limits. His elbows and fingers popped as the joints were forced apart but he was able to painfully grasp the moving wooden perch.

Using the momentum from his jump, he swung himself underneath and around the twenty centimeter thick beam until he landed on it with his stomach. Not having a moment to rest as three more quills were shot at him, Jiran flung himself upright so he had one leg on each side of the wooden beam.

The quills landed between his legs, centimeters from his crotch. Jiran took a moment to send a narrow eyed glare toward Sophia. She met his eyes with serene nonchalance.

Jiran blew air out of his nostrils as he flooded regenerative mana into his arms and fingers. He smacked the beam underneath himself with his right palm hard enough to launch his body into the air. The moment he landed from his maneuver onto the moving beam, he was already in position for the next jump.

Sophia summoned three more airborne quillbeasts, forcing him to contend with attacks from four separate directions.

Jiran's wolfish grin spread from ear to ear as he deftly dodged quills and blades alike. He steadily advanced through the course, gaining confidence with each advancement.

After the initial surprise attack, Sophia had not managed to land another hit and the course itself would have been child's play if not for her irksome interventions.

With only a final jump to go, Jiran felt confidence flood through his body. Just as his knees bent and he pivoted his chest to avoid needles from two separate directions, he felt mana begin to coalesce right in front of him.

Knowing Sophia was creating an apparition to block the current trajectory of his jump, Jiran spun two paces to the left. Still in his bent knee crouch, the shift in his position allowed him to be able to leap past whatever horrid creature she would summon.

As the mana formed into her diabolical creation, Jiran’s breath was stolen from his lungs.

Before him, hovering in the air between him and salvation, was Olive, completely nude. The perfect rendition held her arms in a pose that displayed her ample charms.

His heart stopped and his eyes shot wide open. His shock lasted only a single second, which was more than long enough for spines of agony to pierce through his back.

Jiran roared in pain as he tumbled through the air. He spun as he fell, and for just a brief moment, he saw Sophia’s form in the air above him. She wielded the tiniest gloating smirk on her lips as she softly huffed in satisfaction at her complete victory.

Mayalyn’s Perspective

Mayalyn stood in the underground forge. She hammered relentlessly at the misshapen chunk of red-hot metal held tightly in the grasp of her tongs. The more blows she landed, the more frustrated she became. As if the true target of her annoyance was out of reach.

She breathed heavily before wiping the sweat from her brow. A sigh escaped her lips as she glanced down at the ruined lump of metal on the anvil.

This is not helping. I’m being far too wasteful. Dad would be furious. I need a break, some lunch would be perfect. Maybe Miila will braid my hair again, even though she swore she wouldn’t.

I bet Jiran would know how to change her mind. For some reason, those girls worship him like a saint.

They don’t know how much of a bully he is. Making innocent girls fight giant monsters without helping. He thinks he’s so smart and pretty and funny and handsome and…

Ahh! Stop thinking about him Maymay! Food. Yes, I’ll go eat something yummy and then come make a strong blade. Mom was right, focus is the key to success in all things and this is perfect practice for my focus.

Mayalyn activated her masking with practiced ease before ascending the stairs and waving to the grouchy shop owner who still had never spoken a word to her. A passing thought to stick out her tongue at him made her giggle but she quickly suppressed it.

The old man was clearly a talented smith, making such fine hammers without proper tools. She resolved to continue treating him respectfully.

‘Every elder deserves respect, for surviving the sky alphas to reach that age is no easy feat,’ She heard in her dad’s voice.

Although, they somehow don’t have sky alphas here. Which should be impossible since the sky alphas are everywhere.

Thinking about them was becoming harder every day. She could already tell the images in her memories were fading. She couldn’t remember how many wrinkles were under her mother’s eyes. Or how many scorch marks adorned her father’s hands.

Will I eventually be unable to recall their faces at all?

She trembled at the thought before banishing it like she always did.

Focus, Maymay.

Her arrival at the inn was met with an eerie silence. Being used to the quiet lunch atmosphere, she took a seat at her favorite table in the far corner of the room with the deepest shadows.

Niila noticed her first and waved with a bright smile before ducking into the kitchen to grab her some lunch. A few minutes later she was surprised when the inn’s front door opened and two large men walked in. She didn't recognize either of them.

They wore the simple street clothes she had seen on many workers around the city but they looked out of place for some reason. The two were strong and moved like predators in the jungle, swaying from foot to foot in a way that set off her instincts to run and hide.

She almost scooted further into the shadows but stopped herself. If they were really a threat, moving would just attract attention to herself.

I need to calm down, this is the middle of the city, it’s safe here.

The two men sat at the bar. One of them began to drum his fingers on the wood in annoyance at the slow service. The other constantly roamed his eyes around the room, marking down every detail.

Mayalyn had not realized she was holding her breath until Niila came out with her lunch. The air that escaped her lungs sounded incredibly loud in the silent and tense atmosphere.

“Miila! Customers,” Niila shouted into the kitchen upon seeing the two men at the bar.

She then nodded respectfully at the two men before hurrying over to drop the plate of food before Mayalyn. Miila quickly appeared and began talking to the two while Niila plopped down next to Mayalyn.

“What did you make today, sis?” Her tone was full of childish curiosity.

“Nothing, distracted today. Thank you for lunch,” Mayalyn was proud she managed so many of the still-foreign syllables in a row without tripping over her own tongue.

Niila leaned in conspiratorially and whispered into her ear.

“If you can’t stop thinking about him, why don’t you make some lunch and bring it to him at the academy?” Her evil smile, while she tried to tease Mayalyn, was unbecoming of a child.

Mayalyn restrained the desire to knuckle her on the head while she dug into her sandwich.

It’s not my fault I was raised in a blesseds aura and Jiran’s aura feels so comfortable, warm, and safe. I had no idea him being at the academy all day would affect me so much.

Being teased about it is not helping!

Mayalyn glanced at the girl out of the corner of her narrowed eyes to let her know she wasn’t far away from punishment if she kept up her snide remarks.

Niila’s giggle was cut short by the sounds of a strangled animal coming from the other side of the room. The two girls looked up in horror as they saw Miila dangling several feet off the floor, the hand of one of the large men around her throat.