AN: I'll put the thoughts in apostrophes from now on. It should make it a bit more easy to differentiate normal story telling from thoughts. So apostrophes can either be a title if it's only used in the middle of a sentence or it can be a thought.
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I was currently looking out for any beasts approaching us, either from the outside or from the inside. Well, it wasn't really looking, but rather just sitting there and listening to the noises around me.
I had already been awake for half an hour and I decided to go and train outside of the cave. It was better than just slacking off on my normal training and if anybody wakes up I should be able to hear it.
I was also interested in exploring the cave, but it was too dangerous, after all I didn't know what it was and only had a few guesses, which were really vague, nothing I could really rely on. It was better to just wait for the others to wake up.
Normally after me there would be one other person to look out for any kind of beasts approaching us, but I decided it wouldn't be worth to go to sleep. I also didn't feel tired at all, but I could think of the reason for that pretty easily.
Although I could be wrong, as my mana increases, my life force, which is also needed to use magic my whole body also changes. More life force can also be considered as having more energy. I thought about it for a long time and I guessed that while sleeping mana recovers a lot faster than normally and that's why you also need a lot of sleep if you are just a normal human.
As you get stronger and your mana increases you gradually don't necessarily need to eat or drink as much. The same seems to apply to sleep, which is definitely a superb development. And not needing as much sleep will also lead to having more time actively doing something and not needing to replenish as much mana while sleeping.
'Maybe I won't feel tired, even after staying awake for longer than a whole day in the future.'
Outside of the cave I was still astounded by the whole area. The ground was completely covered in snow and the tress and mountains seemed like they were made out of ice. I decided that if I had the chance I would ask about the history of this plain.
'Come to think of it, I could just ask Katsumi or one of the other nobles about it. They could very well know about it, after all it's such a special and unique place like nothing I have ever seen before. Even in this world it's not something I would've imagined to reach so quickly after arriving.'
It also made me look forward to exploring this whole world and I also knew that that time might actually not be too far away. The principal would get suspicious and I got bored of hiding my strength all the time.
The academy was a good place to learn new techniques and a lot more about magic and this whole world. These things they teach in class aren't written down in any public books, so acquiring this knowledge was something, which also made this place a lot more important.
'But I still feel like I shouldn't stay here for too long. I want to develop my own style, be it sword or magic. And exploring this world isn't possible while staying at the academy the whole time. After getting the chance to do it, wouldn't it be a waste to just stay at one place?
'I don't like copying techniques and accomplishing new things or discovering a new move always felt special. It was something which would after all maybe safe your life and accomplishing something like that all alone without any help is an amazing feeling.'
I would like to stay here until this training is over and maybe I would leave right before the tournament is supposed to be held. That could also be beneficial for me, because tournaments are important and they couldn't send out too many people just for one person, even the principal wouldn't do that, no matter how much worth such an inheritance is.
The only thing really holding me back is the feeling of leaving Katsumi and not knowing, when I would see her again. She had became part of my daily routine, talking to her about magic or swordsmanship, training every day and just being in her presence became so normal for me that the feeling of leaving that all behind for an unknown period of time was frightening me.
'Oh right, I also need to wake her up.'
It was supposed to be her turn to look out for possible enemies and it was also a good opportunity to inquire information about a few things as well as maybe even spar with her.
I was already about to begin training for real, when I remembered our teacher. I was in deep thought, so I actually almost missed that detail, but remembered it in time, before making a possibly huge mistake.
'I was about to do the exact same thing my stupid classmates did yesterday. Forgetting our teachers' presence. It is our biggest advantage, but for me it is also a hindrance.'
He would not accurately know, so I would maybe be able to show a bit more of my strength than normally, but then again he would wonder why I didn't use my full strength yesterday to just ente the fight more quickly and with less risk.
Even if that's not good enough of a reason for him to suspect me I would need to only use magic in the next battles, which we were sure to encounter in the next few days. My magic was the only thing I didn't really bother to hide.
That had a couple of reasons, but the most important one was that it wasn't really possible to hide my different techniques, which I had developed over time. Only learning new techniques in the little free time I still had left after training would surely not be enough.
I also needed to show my progress anyways, they couldn't grade me exactly like the others, because of the uniqueness of my dark magic, but I still showed an average level of control over my magic just to be sure.
That was the only thing I could really hide and of course my strongest skills, which I developed in secret. After all not learning any new techniques, which could be helpful in battle would surely be worse and actually drawing more attention to me than just learning a few helpful, but not really essential skills.
'But it really is unfortunate that I can't train here. Inside of the cave it would be too easy to see or hear me causing the others to wake up and I also don't want to head too deep into the cave.'
I wanted to use this time, but also decided that I would continue to hide my skills for now, so the only option was to pretend to be at a far lower skill level, something, which would be seen as average in the lion class.
I still wouldn't be able to train in the most efficient, after all I wouldn't use my whole power, reducing the improvement by a lot. It was one of the reasons I wanted to leave the academy as quickly as possible, but right now while still being observed it'll be impossible.
'I'll need to finish this training and then leave as quickly as possibly, the best would be to leave right before the tournament.'
Although most of it was bad it also had a few advantages. One of them was that I could focus on executing the moves more precisely, because training at this speed wasn't hard at all. It made me more relaxed and made it easier to think about other stuff while still training.
You could compare it to only lifting half or even less of the weight you would normally be able to. It's the same concept, but just applying it mainly to speed in the case of sword training.
In the end I wasn't drenched in sweat and my breathing was also completely regular. Luckily our teacher shouldn't be able to see that from wherever he is. I can just say that he's further than 100 meters(328 feet) away, that's for sure.
It's the rough distance I can hear someone in if I concentrate on it, so either he's not moving or rather just farther away.
'Either way I know he's observing us and will only step in if we have to be saved.'
Enough time passed and I went back inside and found everyone still asleep exactly like before.
I turned towards Katsumi and was at conflict with myself. I tried not to think about it, but I really didn't want to wake her up. She was so damn cute while sleeping and I knew that it shouldn't bother me at all and wouldn't bother her a lot either, but I had to really bring myself to actually doing it.
I gently touched her and applied only a bit of force, just enough to wake her up and then stood up again.
'I really need to leave the academy soon, this can't be good for my mental health and it's also distracting me from my training. But on the other hand I feel like I still owe her a lot, she got me accepted into this academy after all and I learned a lot because of that.'
It was thoughts like these, which always hindered me from making the decision to just leave, even when I had the chance to. I knew that I was already strong enough by now to not get defeated by anything like bandits or low level mages.
I also came to this academy basically by chance, meeting the old man, the teacher of the princess was a gigantic coincidence in itself and her actually attending this academy just because of me was also something I could've never predicted.
But now I was in such a situation, not in a fight to death, but it felt like I was about to be killed by an overload of cuteness and it felt a lot more dangerous than killing even that gigantic rabbit the day before. I instinctively turned my head towards her, when I felt her getting up.
She was still sleepy and looked a bit confused and didn't even notice me at first. When she finally looked at me her expression seemed to change from one moment to another and her face turned red as she quickly turned it away to not let me notice.
"It's already morning, the others should start waking up in a bit, too." I whispered to her as she slowly regained her composure and remembered what exactly the situation was.
We tried not to make any noise while leaving the cave as to not wake up the others.
"What do you think about this situation?" I asked her with the intend to get another perspective and maybe notice a few things I had missed before.
"I understand the purpose of this training, but I don't know how any normal team would survive, even if they weren't split into two groups like ours.
"Besides you, me and Ren the others wouldn't even have reacted yesterday, when we faced off against that giant rabbit. They just reacted to Ren's instructions. I think it's going to take a while until they get better at these kind of situations." She told me and I got surprised by how similar our thoughts were.
'Yeah, that's exactly right.'
"But I guess that's to be expected of them, after all they are nobles." She said that in a hateful tone, which she doesn't normally ever use.
I had also been wondering about the next few days. I also suspected that if a group really were to fail, so early on they would be taught about those kind of situations. No matter how hard I thought about it, unless we missed something it wasn't possible for a normal class to survive more than a few days.
It was only a guess, but while training I realized that it may actually be planned that the class fails. After all confronting someone directly will make them understand a lot better than just telling them about it.
"Ren needs to really teach them a few things, otherwise they will just be a burden for us. Until they can react to danger instinctively it'll take a while and they need to be confronted with situations like yesterday a lot more." Talking to her was going according to plan, so far.
A few of my guesses had also been on her mind, reassuring me quite a bit.
"But do you really intent to hide your strength like yesterday?" She whispered to me as to not let anyone know. It wasn't necessary, but I was happy that she didn't want anyone to know about the things I hide.
"Yes, it's also not completely bad for our situation. I did already tell you about my reasons, it wouldn't be good for me. I can't let anyone know until I am strong enough to take anyone possible on.
"Maybe you'll one day understand my reasons, but you don't have to worry about anything. I'll reveal my strength if things develop a certain way, but maybe then you will understand why I hide it. The consequences of revealing it to basically anyone could be horrible for me."
I said it to kind of prepare her for what was to maybe happen in the future, she would understand if she got older and makes more experiences. Although I would wish she wouldn't have to make those kinds of experiences, being at a point so low that you don't even care about your life anymore isn't something she or for that matter anyone I know should ever encounter.
From then on we talked about a bit of the really important stuff, like where to head next and about this whole place and I found out that Katsumi didn't know how about this place beforehand either.
'It must really be a secret only known in the academy. Something you're not allowed to tell even your closest about.'
When there was nothing else to really talk about and the sun already rose up quite high we woke up our classmates.
And after discussing a few things and going through our plans for the future we reached the conclusion that we should first stay around this area and not move too far away as to not lose this cave.
It was too important and we didn't know when we would find another suitable place in this plain. We also knew that for this training to really have a point we needed to search for beasts to fight and get stronger.
It was a survival training, but it would be too easy for our group to just simply survive in this area. I would be able to sense most dangerous things and just avoid them, only attacking the things weaker than our group.
So we would stay at the mountain and go around it, as to not lose sight of it if there was strong snowstorm again, blocking our sight.
But there was also an urgent problem at hand. We needed to drink and it wasn't like we could just search for a normal river with flowing water, after all this plain didn't feel like it due to our robes, but it was still so cold that it made water freeze.
We decided to explore the cave and with the fire magic of Itsuki the others were also able to navigate around safely and I could use my sense of sight, so I didn't need to just rely on my other senses.
Outside it would be almost impossible to find flowing water, so our only chance was to find something inside the cave.
As we walked further and further inside the cave we noticed that it became more and more like a man made tunnel instead of a cave.
"Wait a second. Use more magic, I want to check something."
I had an idea and wanted to confirm it, but to do that I needed to have a better view.
"Sure." He said as he used more mana to light up a bigger area.
I looked around and managed to find what I had just heard. It was only one drop of water, but it dripped onto the ground so suddenly that I managed to easily hear it.
"I think I found something, which could give us water." I said while leading them to one side of the cave, which now that we had been walking for quite a bit didn't really look like a natural made cave anymore, it just looked like it hadn't been used in a long time, but was originally man-made.
At the ceiling and on the walls around us there were sharp stones, or at least you would make them out to be stones at a glance. But if you took a closer look you could see that it was actually ice, like basically everything around us.
And as we approached them the fire magic started to affect those stones more and more and they gradually started to melt before dropping down onto the ground as water. It wasn't a lot of water, but it also wasn't hard to melt these stones and there were a lot of them all around the cave.
"This could really be the solution!"
Everyone was happy they found a source of water and now that they had food and water there was no real urgent problem anymore.
The only problems could be the beasts living in this environment, but as long as we were careful we should be able to avoid beasts too strong for us... right?