No matter how strong you are it doesn't mean you can run faster than lower-ranked practitioners.
As long as you are not in the upper realm, practitioners in the same realm hard to judge who is faster than who.
That is why the national tournament there is four parts for a single event. One for Origin Realm, One for Soul Realm, One for Expert Realm, and the last one for the above Expert Realm. If there isn't any sky realm under 25 years old for an academy they cannot attend the last part of an event.
For the sprint event, the four parts' rules are the same.
Eric is a 22 years old boy who is at 8 levels of the Expert Realm. He was an expert in sprints. He is participating in the national tournament 8 times and won the title 7 times. And the reason he lost that one time is because he was injured when he was in Soul Realm and as well as was just first level in Soul Realm, so, a superior level expert could have won the race, even that time he got second in the race. However, he wasn't losing any more in his same realm. Even 4th-level sky realm wasn't a match for his sprinting result.
He tried to become a sky, however, he failed miserably doing so. In the end, he is winning the all-practice match and mock match with other academies too. So, he lost somewhat will to practice anymore for the tournament because he will win anyway. Sometimes he practices alone to break his own record, and he is breaking this every day, so he is now somewhat bored of that too.
He came to the sprinting club and was sleeping without practicing with everyone. Those who are in the class were looking at him annoyingly, but they cannot say to him anything because they cannot defeat him. So, in the end, everyone ignored him.
In general, the academic work start at 10 am and ends at 4 pm. After that, the athletic works begin. However, because of the tournament, the participant can go out from academic work at 2 pm.
It's already 5 pm, Eric was sleeping nonstop and everyone is sweating hard for the tournament.
Suddenly, one youth came inside the room with a bang. Everyone in the club was looking at him with a surprised voice. He has the uniform of the academy, but they have never seen a student like him in their life.
"Who are you?"
One of the students asked.
"I am looking for Eric."
The youth asked them. Another student pointed at Eric and said,
"Eric? He is sleeping there. You are not in luck, if you want to get beaten then make him woke up."
Even though that student can't sense him, he thought he may be weaker than Eric because a student who has a realm higher than Expert level 5 is well known in the academy. Eric is an 8th-level expert, so he thinks that the youth cannot overpower him if Eric got angry, so he gave him a piece of peaceful advice.
However, the youth ignores his advice and went in front of Eric. He calls Eric by shaking him,
"Oye, Eric, wake up, it's not time for sleeping."
Eric opened his eyes slowly and looked at the youth. At first, Eric senses the realm of that youth. He was. also the eighth level of the Expert realm.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
Eric asked that youth.
"It doesn't matter who I am, all I want is, you to sprint with me. Let's see who wins."
Hearing the youth, Eric narrowed his eyes. Then he said,
"Don't disturb me. You will just lose miserably which is not good for you. Go away."
Saying that he lay down oppositely and started to sleep again.
"Hey, wake up, you cocky bas$-$-d."
The youth again started to shake him. This made Eric so annoyed that he swung his fist toward him with high reflex.
The youth dodge it swiftly. Eric almost didn't see how he did dodge his fist. This time Eric launched an attack toward his stomach, however, this was also dodged by him easily.
"What the!"
He was surprised by how fast his reflex was. A person's speed and reflex both are different things. Reflex means attack speed as well as dodge where speed is how fast one can run or fly. Both are vital in combat. In general, not everyone has both speed and reflex. However, Eric has both superior speed and reflexes compared to ordinary, so that's why he was somewhat surprised after seeing that, the youth dodge him two times in a row.
The youth kept his smile on his lips and said,
"Okay, follow me."
Saying that he went outside. Eric followed him.