7.

Despite sleeping more than half of my last twenty-four hours, waking up from my nap was a struggle.

May groaned.

‘Get up you lazy twat,’ she said.

Her sleepy voice came from the bed fastened above my own.

‘Shut up,’ I said.

I turned in my sheets, and the side of my head found a comfortable groove on my pillow that was still a little cold. I already felt myself slipping into the dark again, and I would’ve if the bed didn’t start rattling, making the hinges creak and sending tiny crumbs raining down that landed on my cheeks.

‘Get up!’ May’s voice thundered across the dorm.

She seemed to speak to anyone willing to hear, including herself. But we were the only ones in the building. All the other girls were out training.

Her bed sheet flew and landed next to me on the floor. Red hair fell upside down as May popped her head over the edge of her bed to glare at me.

‘You planning to become a hunter while sleeping?!’ She waved an angry finger at me. ‘Get up, shrimp!’

Hot air left my mouth in a big sigh. Someone must’ve anchored my eyelids to the floor because they were entirely too heavy.

‘Five more minutes,’ I said.

May huffed.

‘Very well. Guess you don’t want to see your mother again as much as you say.’

I went still.

There was a thump on the floor, and May’s voice came from beside me now.

‘Have fun being left in the dust—’

She closed her mouth. I was already sitting up.

‘Jerk,’ I said and stood.

She just had to push my one button.

‘We should visit the notice board,’ she said, giving me a beaming grin. ‘I want to at least get an idea of what the academy offers before risking my life in the forest again.’

8.

Though I didn’t want to just to be petty, I agreed with her completely. So, we quickly prepared and found ourselves in front of the roster on the first tier within minutes.

I yawned, wiping away tears from the corners of my eyes as I took in the different subjects on the board.

Physical Exercise was on there, which was for training your body and weapon arts. Spirituality, too, which covered maura and the connection with the soul (Elder Muyue’s class). There was also history, monstrography (monster knowledge) and much more.

‘We need to take Physical Exercise,’ May said.

‘Agreed,’ I said.

That’d been Marcus’s advice, after all. We could of course disregard it and wing it like we’d done on the first day—and no matter what anyone said or how bad we courted death, it had turned out alright for us. But detailed instructions from a professor would give us the safest and most concise route. Going back outside would remain a possibility, the lessons wouldn’t. We had already missed two of them and they wouldn’t be repeated.

‘Spirituality as well,’ she said. ‘It’ll help us make use of our cores.’

Humming in agreement again, I pointed to a notice on the board.

‘Layer Expeditions,’ I said.

May followed my finger. The note added to the notice had the initials ‘S. K.’ We knew what those initials stood for. ‘Saar Karga,’ Felix’s voice sounded in my head.

Unlike the other lessons, there was no short explanation of what the expedition was about. Only a few requirements.

‘It starts at five,’ May said. She tilted her chin. ‘In the morning. The gathering location is in the second layer, and we need eight members to start a lesson.’

That could be a problem. It meant our school would be vastly outnumbered even if we did find the necessary members willing to take on the unknown quantity.

‘What do you want to do?’ May said.

‘The number requirement is high,’ I said. ‘I think it’ll be beneficial, though. If only to discover more resting locations.’

She nodded.

‘It’s the second layer, so we’ll need some oomph. We can try recruiting Fahim?’

‘Worth a try,’ I said.

One of his groupies was at least an A rank if I remembered correctly.

May glanced at the sky. Showering and sleeping had taken us around two hours, meaning it should be around twelve. She stretched her legs in an exaggerated manner, still beaming at the return of motion.

‘Physical Exercise is in an hour,’ May said. ‘How about lunch?’

There was no need to convince me. I was ahead of her before she finished her sentence.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

9.

image [https://i.imgur.com/V1psQLI.jpeg]

Our bellies had around half an hour to rest before it was time to make our way towards the third tier of the mountain, on the opposite side of Elder Muyue’s Spirituality class. I don’t know what I expected of the training field, but it was nothing more than a big, open ground covered in sand.

Seated cross-legged in the middle was a man. My first and only thought after seeing him was: muscles. Big, thick, muscles that were carved from stone. If there was an embodiment of an S rank physical hunter, he must be it.

I almost inspected him on instinct, but Marcus’s warning echoed in my head. Yet I knew for certain who I was looking at.

Pausing at the edge of the field, May and I exchanged a hesitant glance. As we stepped forwards, a veil of maura the weight of a mountain descended on our shoulders. This wasn’t like the flames of the alpha lupine in the forest—the elder’s maura wasn’t actively trying to harm us. Instead, it was…what stepping into a big oven would be like, I imagined. The heat was there. But it’d been there before us. Though it scorched our skin, burning us wasn’t even one of its secondary objectives.

May and I approached shoulder to shoulder. What wasn’t helping our nerves in the slightest was that there was a group of students already running laps around the training field.

‘You’re late.’ The elder’s voice boomed.

We were two rabbits sensing a threat behind their back and went still. How? We’d made our way to the field right after the bell signalled the end of lunch.

‘My name is Kang,’ he continued. His tone was loud, yet his voice had this quality where it crept on you, taking you by surprise every time. ‘By title I am the Barbarian. I will be referred to as Elder Kang.’

His eyes opened, revealing blood red sceleras.

The two of us shuffled forwards meekly and bowed our heads.

‘Good day, Elder Kang,’ we said.

He paused. His gaze pinned me to the floor, and a hole grew in my stomach.

‘You have not been idle,’ he said. ‘Good.’

I dared to peer up and found him grinning.

‘My initiates are expected half an hour before the stated time. Leave your pouches with the other bags. You can join the rest in running.’

My lips pursed as I quickly made to remove my satchel. I didn’t find a hiding place for my cores yet, so they were all in my pouch. If someone stole my D rank core, I’d add another name to the list keeping me from entering heaven.

‘Do not worry, child,’ the elder said, reading my mind. ‘None will steal your possessions under my watch. Thievery is punished with death.’

A bit excessive, I thought, after promising the same fate not a second ago. Yet the statement did a lot for my anxiety. So, we stored our bags and joined the rest of the group.

10.

I’d expected the warmup to be a breeze since I ran quite a lot on my island back home. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Halfway through what must’ve been an hour, I had to rely on my maura to strengthen me. The maura that I had less than half of these days.

To make matters worse, the Elder made May and I continue running after the other disciples finished, which stopped the group mentality from motivating us. Somehow, we made it through, and when the elder motioned for us to join the others again, I nearly fell to my knees to pray.

Sweat-drenched bangs of hair shielded my eyes as I spied on the other initiates while getting in line.

They were holding a pose, standing upside down on one hand, one leg crossing over the other. Many lost their balance. That’s when the elder would yell at them to do better in that exploding, rupturing voice of his.

‘Start holding a simple handstand,’ the elder told May and I.

He spoke without turning towards us. His eyes were on everyone at once, and every other moment, he’d curse at a slacking student, who should be well in his blind spot.

I got straight to it, and my aching legs welcomed the break. The handstand was simple enough that I had more room to look around me. Most of the entire first year had joined Elder Kang’s class. Including Jax.

The blonde boy caught my eye and quickly looked away. Yeah. That’s what I thought, too.

I searched for Fahim and found him to my right, surrounded by his groupies from day one. I squeezed my eyelids and hummed. The members crowding him had shrunk, I thought.

‘Physicality!’ Elder Kang yelled.

I startled and lost my balance. The elder’s gaze swept me, ready to slap the slack out of me, so I quickly found my centre and removed one of my arms from the equation. He fixated on me for another moment before turning to someone else.

‘Differs from the other stats,’ he said. ‘The path to growth at the lower levels is linear. Tire the muscles. Infuse the muscles with maura. Repeat.’

He paced among the rows of students, fixing form here and there with a single finger.

‘Everyday. The same, old routine,’ he said. ‘It’s the loneliest discipline and not for the meek.

‘Yet this is the way.’

I crossed one leg over the other—

‘V-hold!’

Of course, he changed the required movement right away. I mimicked the other students. Our arms were used to push ourselves off the floor as we held our legs elevated in front of us an inch above the ground. The key to the exercise was to lift your legs as high as you could. That way you would form a v-shape with your body.

God—I turned my chin up for extra strength—damn. I shoved my abs full of maura, which allowed me to keep my legs all the way up for a whole three seconds before that stopped working, too.

My tummy rumbled, and it was like I heard my core churning inside me. Status, I thought, focusing on my maura levels.

Maura

9/22

Nine?! I’d knew I’d fought for a moment earlier today, but this was insane. I’m not making it through this. There’s no way.

I lowered my legs, settling for an elevation of my feet somewhere in the middle that I could actually hold—

‘Pipsqueak.’

My eyes darted to the side. Elder Kang was lording over me and glaring down, his presence more dominating than a tower stretching into the clouds.

‘Your base is weak,’ he said. ‘Enhancing it with maura may lead to enormous force for an instant. But real strength is permanent. Try again!’

Disobeying was death, so I raised my feet into the V-hold. A second later, they fell back down.

‘Again!’ he yelled.

The faces of surrounding students, including May, inched away from me.

Chewing my teeth, I raised my feet one more time and begged my abdominals to hold on longer. They couldn’t. Yet Elder Kang made me try again and again. Meanwhile, my maura ticked down. When it was no more, all I had left was what I’d had my entire life: my lack of muscles.

That’s when Elder Kang pulled my feet up himself and the torture continued. When Elder Kang finally released me, muscles I wasn’t aware of voiced their distress, and I had to lay down flat to stop the hurt from taking over all my brain cells.

Elder Kang gave all the other students the same treatment. It was like he had an ability for it. Whenever someone reached their limit, he would be there, pushing them beyond what they thought was possible.

After everyone was left groaning and whining, the elder announced the end of the exercise. Then, he announced another. And another. Time passed like the world was ending and the whole of our class held on to keep reality from slipping out of our grasp.

The end came all the same. I wanted to hug May when Elder Kang said there were no more exercises, but I sagged onto the floor instead.

Elder Kang’s voice reached me from some far away dreamland.

‘Those who want to can now spar under my supervision,’ he said.

He pointed behind him, where a rack of training weapons stood. Maybe I was too tired, but I thought that hadn’t been there before.

I could barely stand, so I wasn’t in any shape to spar. However, when May stepped up towards me, cradling her stomach, her face dark, I cursed silently.

There were times that I hated this girl to the last bone in her body.

‘We should do some scouting,’ she said. She spoke slowly so as to not move too much. Her neck craned towards Fahim. ‘I’ll try to spark a conversation.’

I nodded and winced. My neck was stiff as a brick.

‘I saw our favourite initiate,’ I whispered.

May glanced behind me and frowned.

‘The snake wants to talk,’ she said.

My expression mirrored her own, and I raised my head with the last of my strength.

Jax was walking towards us.