The kids were challenging the obstacle course very diligently. They were taking the time to take each obstacle's measure and approach it the best way. It was very admirable, but one thing I learned from the warrior type shows is momentum can carry you through a lot. Confidence too I guess, so I was hoping to just fake it and sprint through as much as I could.

You know with almost all the kids gone.... surely it would be our time soon? If this order was based on rankings, does that mean Bea and Tom had a bad showing yesterday?

"Beatrice!" the knight shouted.

Bea eagerly lunged forward to the start of the course. She actually did a quick bow to our knight instructor before taking off. She navigated the first obstacle with surprising deftness. It was just a series of essentially shallow potholes that she had to jump. The distance between holes was staggered though, and some practically required a jump as soon as you landed. The third one intimidated me the most though, simply due to its length which seemed as if it was at least 15 foot. While clearly not impossible it was definitely further than I've ever jumped.

Anyway, Bea cleared the potholes and the following obstacle a series of walls of various heights quite easily, and was actually on the weird backwards ladder climb when she slipped and fell. Not hard enough to need healing magic it seems and she just jogged to the back of the line. Tom was up next and he did fine all the way up to the section Bea failed at. It was hard to tell from my angle but it seemed to be suspiciously around the same space.

Hmmm, either that part was harder than it seemed or Tom was deliberately choosing that spot. Was he actually just sweet on Bea? Something I may need to pick on him a bit later I guess. When he joined the line he struck up a conversation with her immediately and it appeared to be commiseration over that obstacle.

While I was contemplating this the rest of the kids had gone and it appears my time was coming.

"William!" the instructor barked out. Guess its go time for me. I jogged up past the knight and did a sort of half bow to him before beginning my run.

I took off and the third pothole still dominated my mind as going to be the challenge, the rest did not seem so bad. Approaching the first one, which appeared to be about 8 foot in length, I jumped..... only to easily clear it. In fact, it seems I went a bit too hard, easily overshooting where I thought I would land and actually landed on the lip of the beginning of the 2nd hole. I panicked and tried to quickly jump from my landing spot but only pulled off a weak jump where I windmilled my arms and ended up just half jumping and faceplanting in the 2nd hole.

So much for not performing poorly. Since I was absolutely not hurt, I hastily jumped up and proceeded to the back of the line where Bea and Tom were snickering pretty shamelessly. As I passed the instructor he just quirked an eyebrow at me, which just deepened my embarrassment.

"What was that?" Tom and Bea asked in unison, which only ended up amplifying their chuckles. I gave them some excuse about performance anxiety which did not help with their laughter. I had a feeling I would be hearing about this for awhile.

Inside though, I was fuming. What had happened? So far this body had responded exactly as I expected it to, but this time it seems it was able to perform well beyond expectations.

Guess I would just need to experiment with what I could actually do.

—----

I took until my fourth attempt until I was able to clear the potholes. As I got used to the jumps I had narrowed down my conclusions to just two choices. Either this Will had the calves of the gods, or there was something wonky with gravity here. As such the next series of walls that I just need to jump and climb over was no issue either. I was now on the reverse ladder climb that had been stumping Bea and Tom. Time to see what this one was all about.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Once I got on I realized the difficulty, you couldn't really be stationary on it or you would lose the necessary momentum you needed to get to the next rung. So if I reset at each handhold like I was tempted to do, it seemed to just exhaust me quicker when I needed to start my momentum back up. I only made it about a quarter of the way up before I gave out and dropped. Like with Tom and Bea the landing was trivial as far as pain goes, even if I expected something from an 8 foot fall or so.

Speaking of those two, their little pow-wows had gotten them to the end of that obstacle, but so far unable to complete the spin and lunge to grab hold of the wall. This seemed to be the bottleneck for most and was where the 1 story falls started to happen.

Since I was catching up to them, I decided to do a little teasing of my own as I walked by.

"Just a little bit more and then you guys will be staring at my back, ya know?" I said as I put on the biggest grin I could imagine.

They just glared at me, and who could blame them, all that talking they did and I had almost caught up to them.

However, looks like it would not be now that the inevitable happened, as once the last kid got back in line the instructor spoke up again.

"If I call your name, go ahead and wash up before heading to grab a bite to eat." He then proceeded to call out 25 names, who all looked excited for their early release. "The rest of you, 5 laps before you get to rest. Go!"

I caught up to Tom and Bea so we could chat a bit about the experience. There was some gentle ribbing, but it looks like we had all taken it in stride and no one's feelings were truly hurt.

Once our laps finished we headed where the earlier group of 25 left to, which seemed to be an indoor bathing area that was delineated into a male and female area. At this point I was just following Tom and going with the flow. Seems that we essentially just wipe ourselves down here and get a change of clothes all provided by the order. We left feeling very refreshed, rejoined with Bea and headed back to the cafeteria to get some food.

It was a repeat of how breakfast worked, but it did have a menu change of which I was appreciative. This time we had pork which hit the spot just fine, as I was famished.

Tom, Bea and I continued talking about the obstacle course for a bit, but I kept getting distracted by the smattering of adults walking around and again making notes on paper as they examined us. Still unable to figure it out myself I had to mention it to the table to see if we collectively knew or could figure it out.

I posed the question to the group, but Tom and Bea just shrugged it off. Tom did think that maybe they were timing us, but came up with nothing else and didn't seem to care any further. They both just seemed to appreciate being here it seems.

I couldn't let it rest like that and kept an eye on them for the remaining time we had.

And of course I came up empty handed.

—----

After lunch we had just a brief respite, before a bell rung out again and everyone began moving again. Bea actually cursed and jumped up and rushed us to the training grounds claiming us to be bad influences on her by making her late. I laughed at her and threw in a teasing remark about "Sir Knight" and insinuated her reasons weren't strictly professional.

She had the good grace to look chagrined, but insisted that was not it and she just wanted to put her best foot forward towards knighthood. We joked a bit more about it, but we did speed up our pace to the training grounds.

Once we arrived the knight was already there this time, and as the last of us trudged in he immediately sent us on our 5 laps. After the laps, which I was a lot more confident in running now, he called us up to run the obstacle course again, with the twist that we were already re-ranked which allowed me to be just behind Bea and Tom.

The spin and lunge was definitely stumping a few of us, and Tom and Bea were already discussing tactics for it when I got back in line. I had actually decided to do it another way on this next run, by pulling my feet up, and seeing if I could use the extra leverage to push me towards the ledge.

When I got my chance I realized it was definitely the way to go as I almost reached the ledge, but I guess I did not put enough effort into it. Bea and Tom couldn't see what I did or how much extra progress I got with it, so I was hoping to surprise them on my next round.

On my next go I did manage to grab the ledge just barely, but only with 1 hand, and my fingers slipped right off. This put me into a tailspin where I ended up landing rather awkwardly on just 1 foot which cause it to twist with the typical excruciating pain associated with a twisted ankle.

I gave out a yelp and rolled around a bit, before I heard a quiet cough and looked up to see the abbot standing over me.