Kestevere was so eager to escape that he nearly leaped out of his seat. He knew there was no avoiding the conversation, but he was actively trying to think of one before a hand landed on his shoulder.
"Not thinking of running away now, are you? After all, the guy who stood his own against the 'Lord of Lightning' couldn't be a coward," Liadin said with a chuckle as he sat beside Kestevere.
"C'mon, he did a great job, and you two are just giving him a hard time. Don't worry, Kestevere, no one is actually mad or disappointed," Trysta said, glowering at Liadin and Gerold, who began laughing sheepishly. Kestevere sighed in relief that one person here was on his team. "Then again, you did skip class. Were you really that upset?" She asked, ruining his hopes of someone being nice.
Kestevere explained why he was out of class to his friends, who all seemed shocked about his exploits for the day. Despite hearing about what he'd dealt with, the three still continued giving him a hard time.
"Kest, you don't have to nearly die for me to be nice to you! I was just so hurt that you were avoiding me," Gerold said while laughing.
"Whatever," Kestevere pouted, "I just didn't want to be around a sore winner."
"Sure, whatever you say. I'm in the wrong because you would have been humble about winning against me, right?" Gerold teased, and Kestevere's face began to turn scarlet.
"To be fair, none of us have any right to brag unless we defeat the tournament queen," Liadin taunted, only to regret his decision immediately as flames burned his steak. "You're just evil, you know that?"
"Expect to get burned if you play with fire," Trysta gloated as she took another bite of her own food. Everyone quieted as they finished eating their meals. Gerold broke the silence by asking about Kestevere's fight with the scale giant. Kestevere placed his chin in his hand as he thought before answering the group that all seemed to lean in closer.
"The monster isn't that strong if you pay attention, note the weaknesses, and if you studied it. The issue was that I didn't do any of that. I went in sure of my plan without a backup, and I was too confident about my strength. The monster could take a hit, but I also didn't attack smartly. Someone with more experience wouldn't have too much trouble because it wasn't smart," Kestevere answered honestly. The group mulled over what he'd said before Liadin gave his thoughts.
"A hunt requires knowing your prey. If you know who- no, what you're hunting, you will win if you have the bare minimum strength. If you run into surprises, then you can run, or if it's something you can overcome with your strength, you can crush whatever it is," Liadin offered, a shadow seemingly passing over his face before he smiled again. "Just be strong, and nothing else matters, I guess?"
"Says one of the strongest people in this school," Trysta chastised. Liadin laughed in response, trying to excuse what he was saying, and while the two went back and forth, Gerold gave his opinion to Kestevere.
"It would have been a tough fight for me, I think. I don't know if the lightning would have fried the monster or if it would just bounce off it. We all have our strengths, Kest, and you're just starting to learn what works for you. The three of us have fought and trained for years. I might be more experienced, but you'll catch up one day. When that happens, we'll be on the battlefield together. I'm excited to have a brother on the battlefield," Gerold declared with a smile. Kestevere felt tears welling up in his eyes as he agreed, and the fear melted away. Friends fight, even if they don't want to sometimes. Kestevere needed to be more confident when talking to his friends about whatever bothered him. He wouldn't try running away anymore because that's how people fell out of touch with one another.
The group took their various bowls and utensils to the proper area and left the cafeteria, continuing to joke with one another. Kestevere and Gerold parted from the group and went to their dorm room, where they continued talking late into the night. By the time they realized what time it was, the two were lamenting the lack of sleep they'd be getting. Kestevere told Gerold to shower first while he left the room to get a bottle of water from down the hall in the cold storage room. As he left the room, drinking from the glass bottle, he felt something threatening from down the hall behind him. He turned quickly to find Ricard walking his way. The hall seemed dark down that way, and Kestevere said nothing as Ricard approached.
"Someone like you should be careful walking around this late. Or maybe you're looking to be taught another lesson from someone," Ricard snarled as he passed Kestevere. He stopped and waited for a response from Kestevere but only received silence as a response. "Smart, keeping your mouth shut when someone stronger is talking. Looks like you're just another student fawning over that group you're around, except you were luckier than the rest and got them to accept you."
Kestevere stayed silent as Ricard continued down the hall until he went into his room, and only then did Kestevere release the breath he'd been holding. He recognized that the power he'd felt at the training grounds before was Ricard, and he couldn't do anything against that right now. Kestevere would be surprised if any of his friends could, but it wasn't the time to test it. He had to get stronger by the time the next tournament came around to guarantee graduating with his friends. He had to prove that he wasn't a beginner.
By the time Kestevere returned to his room, Gerold was already asleep. Kestevere took a quick shower and climbed into bed, falling asleep nearly as soon as his head hit the pillow. His alarm wasn't enough to wake him the following day, so Gerold had to wake him instead. The two stumbled to the cafeteria for breakfast, and when they separated, Kestevere was still dragging himself to his class. He was lucky enough that his first class for the day was history, and he completed Professor Lloyd's test quickly so that he could sleep. He wasn't so lucky for the next class since it was the obstacle course class. Over the past two months, he'd improved and cleared the beginner portion of the obstacle course, but he was still having issues with the intermediate and had never cleared the advanced portion.
"Good morning, sleepy head. Why do you look so exhausted?" Liadin asked as he caught up to Kestevere, who'd been on his way to the obstacle course. Kestevere explained that he'd talked to Gerold about nearly everything possible last night, and after running into Ricard, he'd gone to sleep, but it'd been filled with nightmares. "Oof, that's rough, buddy."
"Yeah, tell me about it. I'll be fine, I've just got to make it through the obstacle course, and I'll be fine. The next two classes had tests, but I memorized everything I needed to. I'll take two more naps before meeting with my mentor after class," Kestevere groaned. Liadin laughed before telling Kestevere that he needed to take better care of himself and started to jog away.
"Wait," he began, stopping himself. "I'll meet you at the training area after your session with your master. We have to sharpen your weapons skills as well so that we can ensure you graduate!"
"I'm not sure if I'll have-" Kestevere began, but he didn't finish the sentence because Liadin was already too far away to hear him. With a shrug, he continued to his next class. He changed into his training uniform and went outside to the stretching area. He saw the rest of the students standing around and chatting, but he didn't have the energy to try. He was being ostracized because he was always spending time around his friends. Most of the student body thought the others were unapproachable. Kestevere was too ignorant to know when he'd met all of them. He'd just stumbled into meeting strong people, and those people became friends.
Gerold had never spoken to Trysta before Kestevere talked to her because he'd heard people speak so highly of her his first semester. From then on, he was only trying to defeat her. It didn't matter what she was like; she was just the first of many strong opponents he'd beat. He learned during his first tournament, and the first round at that, that she wouldn't be so easy to defeat, and he'd become more determined since then. When he saw Kestevere speak to her, he'd also chosen to talk to her. It turned out that while they didn't have much in common regarding background, their training regiment and studies were similar. Gerold found that he could learn new things from Trysta, and Trysta was eager to teach a rival who could challenge her further. To those two battle addicts, it was a win-win.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Liadin was a different case. Professor Wren had seen that Liadin was a confident student who had trouble making friends because of his past. Liadin had come to the academy after being captured by Professor Wren, and they'd begun as student and professor the same semester nearly two years ago. Liadin had gone through a lot at his age, so the school worked with him so that he could recover from the traumatic life that he'd been forced to lead. During that time, Professor Wren tried to help Liadin make friends his age and lead him to become more personable. Still, Liadin got frustrated with kids his age because of his experiences. Dealing with matters he deemed trivial exhausted him until Professor Wren told him to assist Kestevere. Liadin was able to learn what it was that drove someone his age because he had to help Kestevere. He learned to accept it, and in return, Kestevere and the rest of his friends accepted Liadin. Kestevere realized they were probably lonely before their odd group came into being.
Kestevere decided to try to make more friends. Maybe he could show people that he was normal, and so were the rest of his friends. They weren't special, despite looking like it. The first person he laid eyes on was one of the forerunners in this class, Sophitia. She was one of the fastest in the class, and maybe if he approached her, then others wouldn't be so scared of trying to speak to him and his friends.
"Hey, uh, I'm Kestevere," he stammered, and she turned to him, glaring with dark amber eyes that stopped him in his tracks. "Wait! Before you get mad, I was just wondering if you could help me with this course? You don't have to say anything, but maybe you could lead me through it so I could learn from you?"
"Why would I do that?" She demanded, her voice cold and threatening.
"It'd be nice to learn from someone as amazing as you. Not many people make it through the course, and you're one of the fastest. I just thought it'd be good to learn from you," Kestevere explained, steadily losing confidence until finishing his statement as a mumble.
"I don't even know what you were saying at the end. You can try to follow me, but I'm not slowing down for you. You're part of that special little group; maybe you could ask them," Sophitia sneered. Before Kestevere could reply, the professor made everyone line up to prepare for the course. The time limit was an hour for making it through with the traps and obstacles enabled. Once that hour had elapsed, students were given thirty minutes to make it to the end so that they could still train their stamina.
The fire bolt signaling the start of their time shot into the sky, and Kestevere was immediately left far behind Sophitia. He watched her diving beneath logs, leaping over large gaps in the ground, and dodging or deflecting blunt arrows. Kestevere increased his mana output, pushing himself beyond the thirty percent he was comfortable with. He realized as he maneuvered through the course and narrowly avoided the obstacles that this was the same kind of scenario that Trysta had talked about, where a mistake didn't mean death, only a small setback, and that was if he let it. Kestevere followed Sophitia, but she was pulling further ahead by the second. She used a technique similar to what he tried when fighting against Liadin but to a greater effect. She pushed off with increased output and maneuvered through the air with less mana circulating, reinforcing the mid-air movements.
Kestevere began pushing off the ground with double the power he was previously using. As he narrowly moved through the air, he realized his potential was being wasted. He'd only relied on his body, but magic was the foremost force in increasing the ease with which anything could be accomplished. Kestevere closed his eyes and spread his senses across the area he was in. Instead of watching with his eyes, he could feel the changes happening around him. He twisted in the air with assistance from the wind to avoid arrows. The ground on a stairway ahead opened to launch a ram out, and Kestevere launched himself over the trap before it was launched. Jets of flame could spark anywhere from the ground on this stretch of the ground, but Kestevere could avoid the places where flames could appear by sensing the changes in temperature in the ground. He opened his eyes to follow the portion of the course that he had the most trouble with. The path narrowed until someone could only place one point of contact on the land bridge. Kestevere chose to stay on the ground since flight felt like cheating, but he found that this part of the course was trivial with his senses activated. He was also making progress in catching Sophitia.
For the first time in this class, Kestevere was brimming with confidence. Each movement was a thought-out action and an instinctual reaction to the surroundings that came within his area of discovery. The advanced course was beginning before he knew it, and Kestevere would be testing his newfound tactics against obstacles that he wasn't knowledgeable about. He leaped over the wall and into the final area where he'd been knocked off the course at the first obstacle; a row of arrows from behind. It was the only part of the course that he was familiar with, and he dove over them, watching as they fell in front of him. The arrows faded into ambient mana and were relaunched. Kestevere saw them approaching and was able to make contact with the ground and dash out of range. He saw several golems made of clay on a platform being held together with magic. The course was designed to avoid fighting instead of embracing it, and it was a lesson in running instead of fighting when necessary.
The muddy figures launched blobs of wet mud toward Kestevere, who was in the air, but he tried a new tactic he prayed would work. He created a solid layer of air that he could kick off, launching himself over the platform and allowing him to avoid the figures below. Kestevere was beginning to run out of stamina and was left hoping the finish line was close. He could see that the distance had closed substantially, and he chose to risk running out of energy instead of taking it easy. As far as Kestevere could see, Sophitia was one of six students ahead of him. He pushed forward with one hundred percent of his body reinforcement and soared forward. He was happy to be able to let loose, but he realized the mistake too late when a wall of steel appeared in front of him. His two options were to flatten his own face, or he could attempt to land feet first. Trying to choose the latter, he flipped his body to take the impact on his legs. The last thing he could attempt to do was soften the impact by layering the air, but his idea didn't help enough. When Kestevere hit the wall, he could feel every supporting bone in his body crack from the impact despite using the air and reinforcing himself to the maximum of his ability.
The wall lowered as he sprung away from it, launched by the rebound. Kestevere got himself onto his feet quickly, and he pushed forward more cautious of the environment, but no less quickly. With a grunt, he placed his body under forty-five percent of his maximum reinforcement and began to leap from point to point. The remaining obstacles were easy to sense coming, but Kestevere remained wary of something that he couldn't feel. His concern paid off when the air before him was disturbed by sequential pillars that rose from the ground. Kestevere moved between them and made his way through the obstacle until he was at the end of the course, where the medical staff was waiting. Kestevere collapsed after making it over the finish line with under seven minutes remaining. He saw that he'd fallen behind Sophitia after hitting the steel wall, and she'd finished in under fifty minutes. He huffed in frustration as he made his way to the medics.
"What was that? Was it just your attempt to make everyone that's normal look bad because you have to be good at everything?" Sophitia asked as she strode over to Kestevere with her arms crossed. He finished drinking the remedy that he'd been given for fractured bones and grunted before answering.
"No. That was me trying to follow you as you suggested," Kestevere answered honestly, a flush of frustration coloring his face.
"Why, though? You're already a brainiac, a good fighter, and strong with magic. No one is perfect, and no one should try to be," she hissed, and Kestevere narrowed his eyes at her.
"I'm still weaker than plenty of people, I have a ton that I need to learn, and I'm coming to grips with my magic. I don't have the experience others have, and I'm trying to be as good as possible because our lives might depend on it one day. Is that a good enough answer," he snapped. The frustration with her attitude and with his own lack of sleep left him without the usual passive temperament that people were used to.
"That's… actually fair. Sorry. I get it; I just want to be better. We see you with some of the top students at the school, and it's just jealousy. We want to be seen by them, but we're just faces in a crowd to a group like that. I assumed you were the same," she confessed. Kestevere nodded in understanding before responding.
"I understand, believe it or not. I hang out with them, but sometimes, it doesn't feel like I'm part of the same group. I feel like an outsider because they're all on a totally different level. It feels like trying to measure against a Hero, and I'm just me. It's not like that because I've met someone who is truly that strong. Anyways, it's still the fact of the matter," Kestevere rambled, noticing a slight smile on Sophitia's face. "We're the same as you. That's all it is, and I'm sure they want to be treated that way as well."
"Maybe. If that's true, then you wouldn't mind going to lunch with me and introducing me. Believe it or not, I'm one of sixteen who remained undefeated in the last tournament. I saw how unlucky you were; otherwise, you would have been there as well," she winced.
"Yeah, that's true. I'm over it, though, and he's my roommate, so he's hard to avoid or ignore. Especially when the rest of the group gangs up on me to cheer me up," Kestevere laughed. The two continued talking until they separated to clean up and change into their uniforms for the classroom. Kestevere began walking out of the changing room when someone pushed past him to go inside.
"Move it, coward," the boy growled, and Kestevere watched the boy glance back to see that it was Mikhael. Kestevere snorted as he left the room. He'd defeated him, but he was sure Mikhael had heard about Kestevere's behavior from Ricard the night before. Kestevere felt a chill down his spine, but he shook off the feeling as he met with Sophitia. He didn't have time to think about someone else's opinion when there was so much work to ensure he graduated in less than a month.