Everyone left except Dante, whom Maximus needed to complete a short talk. He wanted to ask him about the quality of training in terms of quantity and quality, sometimes taking the opinion of students can improve the quality of training and increase productivity.

'What do you think of today's training? It's a bit wild, don't you think?'

'I almost really died when I hit the wall before and you say it's a bit wild. Do you need me for something specific?'

'Remember when I asked you to help me train them before coming to the academy?'

'Yes, sure, and I waited for you to talk to me about it again.'

'Help others practice stealth and sneaking, you know better than me.'

'You mean today, sir?'

'Yes, teach them the basics like sneaking, controlling breath and leaving no traces. They will learn free rest by themselves through experiments and trials.'

'I will gladly accept this request. I beg your pardon to allow me to leave now.'

Dante left the room, followed the others, and asked them to follow him. Behind the dormitory, there was a small forest where many students visit to practice secretly; Dante noticed this because he sat on the roof a lot.

'We're heading to a special area to train together, it's a forest with a suitable environment and similar to what we're going to train for tomorrow. It would help if you guys could adapt with that before tomorrow.'

'Is that why you were back late to the dormitory, Dante?'

'That's half the answer boy, I sit a lot on the roof and I glimpse students come sometimes to practice here and I thought it was a good place.'

'Ah, so then.'

Orion nodded to Dante's answer, and then asked him again:

'Are we going to train for something specific or is it just to adapt to the terrain?'

Dante raised three fingers before answering the question; he did not hesitate to choose the answer because he had prepared it in advance after consulting with the teacher.

'I will teach you the basics of assassins: sneaking, hiding, leaving no traces behind. They are necessities for success in the next training or rather necessities for survival.'

Mira interrupted the explanation and asked the others: 'Don't you think the teacher is exaggerating way too much?'

Her question was justified, but she remained narrow-minded and unable to understand the methods of Master Maximus. It is not as if he really wants this method but it is the only solution available to him.

'Yes, he's exaggerating but that's the fastest way to learn. We have a time frame that we shouldn't be late for.'

'Oh, I forgot that. Hell awaits us in the coming days. Nightmares won't leave me for a while.'

Dante answered her reasonable question, and then sighed Eric, who was the youngest of them and had not yet adapted to the harshness of the circumstances.

'We have arrived now. Let's rest a little and then I'll explain to you.'

Each of them sat at a tree trunk and lay down to relax after today's training, the first time someone was exposed to death is always different from the rest. Simply put, it was not reckoned with unlike the following times when death is expected to be one of the possibilities.

Dante applauded and asked them to gather and then proceeded to talk:

'Follow my movements with your eyes now.'

He started running towards the nearest tree and hid behind it, not everyone moved their eyes from the tree but it was not seconds before Dante came out behind them. It was a unique surprise.

'W-What happened? How? How did you do that?'

'I did what I told you earlier, first I hid, after You lost the visual tracking, I sneaked behind you by climbing the tree and jumping to the tree from the right and then came out behind you.'

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'How come the leaves didn't make any sound if you did?'

'Hiding your traces and it is by learning appropriate walking and jumping techniques in addition to muting the sound using mana. It's not very difficult but it takes a long time to learn so we'll just do with the basics.'

'So let's get started without delay.'

Yoon Hwa spoke a little, asked for haste, and not delay, as the time they had is very limited, it is just a few hours away from the end of the last day before starting the survival training.

'You're right, let's start right away without further procrastination.'

Dante soon began to explain directly the basic steps of learning the technique:

'The first stage is the most important; you must hide from your opponent's sight because if he is seeing you, the technique won't hide you. I will pass between the two trees here so that you see me once and you don't see me the other time.'

Dante stepped silently and wrapped around the first tree, disappeared completely, continued towards the second tree, then turned around and appeared. He did not pass in front of their eyes exactly, but they did not even see him, the second time he asked someone to come across to see him behind the tree. Dante repeated the same thing, those who did not see him behind the tree did not see him again, but he who turned to the other side saw him walking quite quietly in front of their eyes, was confused, and did not understand what had happened.

'How did you do this? How can I see you when they cannot?'

The basis of this technique is conditional, if the conditions are met it will be activated, otherwise it does not work. It has advantages and disadvantages that make its uses only oriented towards a specific field or category. Dante wanted to explain the foundation simply:

'The technique works by scattering the light around you, which makes your presence invisible even to an opponent in front of your eyes, the disadvantage is that it does not work against someone who tracks your location with his eyes or mana, but nevertheless it remains a distinct technique.'

'What steps do you need to master it then?'

'Dispersing light around you is the second step, the first step to learning it is to merge your shadow with the environment, or I should call it shadow camouflage.'

Dante changed his place to a spot under the sun where his shadow was clear to continue his explanation and continued:

'You can move the shadow with mana or with shadow techniques for those who don't have mana, moving it with mana is generally difficult but I think you can do it enough because it's similar to the previous exercises we've done so far.'

Dante's shadow began to deform and change shape according to Dante's wishes, sometimes expanding it to cover a large area and sometimes narrowing it until there was hardly anything left.

'Precise and complex animation of this kind is a bit difficult so you have to try in one direction, try to stretch your shadow now.'

They all stood in line in the sun and started trying to move their shadows, the shadow was trembling and blurring but not moving, it took half an hour for the first of them to be able to move the shadow for a few centimeters. It was a stressful and complicated process for someone new to it, just like a child trying to learn to walk from day one, or learn how to write for the first time, or even move a tail one did not have before...

.........

After three hours of intense concentration, most of them were able to stretch their shadow for more than a meter. Skills in manipulating shadows are a criterion for a person's potential as an assassin and stretching your shadow beyond a meter is the minimum to learn assassin techniques.

'That's good enough to learn the rest. Focus with me now.'

The rest moved to sit in the shade of a tree after suffering heat stroke for sitting for hours underneath. The vision becomes blurry at times, returns clear at other times, voices that do not exist are ringing their ears, and concentration is almost non-existent. After a minute of rest, the vision gradually became clear and the whistling gradually began to fade. Dante then continued:

'Where have we been? The second stage is to scatter the light around you and is divided into two steps: the first is to encapsulate yourself in your shadow, and the second one is to redirect the light.'

'The first phase is clear but the second seems very vague... How would we redirect the light?'

Mira asked, who was quick-witted and dexterous-minded, about the second stage, the words Dante said explain the job, but the method is completely vague. Dante did not have a better way to answer than to give an equivalent example that is easy to understand and compare the two in terms of similarities:

'There is magic called -remove friction-, in the absence of friction, what happens to the air currents that collide with your body?'

'They slide on the surface and then wrap around you and then continue in its direction as if you don't exist..... Hold on a second. Is it that simple? It seems totally unbelievable.'

'Reasonable or unreasonable is not something that matters now. The important thing is that they have the same principle, no need for more useless thinking.'

'So now... How do we do it?'

'It may seem clumsy and illogical, but it works by enveloping your body in your shadow and applying the magic of -remove friction-.'

They felt a mixture of surprise and disbelief especially Mira, she just realized why he told her not to think about it too deeply because it is a useless topic.

'You're right, it is totally stupid.'

Mira regretted her previous question because the answer was disappointing contrary to what she expected; the higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment after that, and this is what Mira has just learned.

'Teach them, Mira, the friction-removal spell. I will take care of the rest.'

Dante was not skilled in terms of spells unlike Mira who would be able to quickly explain the spell.

It was almost five o'clock in the evening and time was running out.... By tomorrow, your survival or doom depend on your mastery of this technique...