Two weeks later, inside the stone-floored arena. Conversation sounds echoed through the place.
Bald Professor Dwight gathered the students in the center of the arena. Two unfamiliar faces were beside him.
One of them was also bald, but his baldness is different from Dwight's. While Dwight suffers from baldness, this young man purposely shaved his head. Like Dwight, he was shirtless.
The other wore a blue bandana that covered his head and had a short goatee on his chin. He wore a white sleeveless shirt.
"Young people, I gave you two weeks to advance to Low Iron Rank and I see that you all made it. Congratulations, you are now Iron Warriors." Dwight paced with a smile on his face.
The students were overjoyed to hear the teacher.
"Don't be too happy though. Getting to Iron Rank is extremely easy. In fact, your performance was average, I've already taught groups of students who reached Iron Rank in just one week." Dwight's smile widened even more as he realized the students had wilted.
"Tsk, how good it is to provoke these young people." he thought happily.
"Very well, I will teach you how to infuse magic into weapons. Although everyone here has taken swordsmanship lessons, combat with magic is different."
"Minlo, distribute the swords to the youths." Dwight asked and the man in the blue bandana nodded in acknowledgment.
"Sebastian, how full is your core?" Sam asked curiously as he watched Minlo hand the weapons to the other students.
With that in mind, Sebastian recalled the great effort he had put in over the last few weeks. In addition to refining magic, which was a tedious process, he had to secretly train his gravity power and study other academy subjects.
He reached Iron level four days ago and - although he has greatly increased his physical capabilities to the point where he can lift a thirty-pound weight with one arm and move a little faster - something previously unthinkable for a young man like him, the ability to of gravity manipulation did not increase.
"The professor mentioned earlier that reaching Iron Rank only increases physique. Adding this to my feeling of mental fatigue two weeks ago, it's not hard to deduce that my control comes from the soul. Perhaps my control will increase when I reach Bronze Rank. " He concluded.
Throwing those thoughts back from his mind, he replied, "Half, and yours?"
Sam widened his eyes: "Half!? You're too fast, I only filled in a little more than a third. Refining for many hours is extremely boring, I don't know how you managed it. I'd rather go to the Seventh District to play, you want to go today after class?" Laughing lewdly, Sam asked.
"I'll think about it later." Taking the sword that Minlo offered, Sebastian answered vaguely.
"By the way, I heard that Benjamin and Mila reached the Iron level five days ago, they say they were the first to advance."
"Oh, who are they?" Sebastian was curious.
"Oh Mila it's fine, but don't you know who Benjamin is? He's the nephew of Declan Neville, the Duke of Ludlow. Sebastian, where have you been these days? Our gang only talks about him." Sam was surprised.
"I've been training. Tell me who they are." Sebastian was impatient.
"Benjamin is that boy with the slicked-back blond hair, and Mila is the redhead with the long wavy hair next to him." Sam pointed with eyes at two young men.
"They seem to be excellent. Okay, what's your swordsmanship level? I've practiced a lot with the guards in my town, but I've never really fought." After observing the two remarkable young men, Sebastian manipulated the four-foot-long metallic sword and asked.
"I'm in the same situation as you, let's train together later. By the way, guards? Are you the son of a military man or something?" Sam was surprised.
"Yes, let's train. My father is a Baron, I practiced with his guards. How about you?"
"Baron? How nice. My father is a military man." Sam's eyes darkened when he mentioned his father. Sebastian noticed this, but said nothing.
"Students, pay attention here." Dwight clapped his hands and the conversational sounds stopped immediately.
"I'll be quick. Grab your swords, focus and pay attention. Let's continue our class, which is about infusing magical energy into weapons, that's not difficult. You just need a good imagination as I said a few days ago. Activate your energies, I will guide you." Dwight drew his huge blue sword from its scabbard.
Students activated their cores and focused.
"Think you are taking a bath, the shower water runs down your body and covers every part of it. Imagine that your core is the shower, the water is the magical energy and the body is the sword. The core in the center of your chest sends "water" all the way down his arm and out through his hand, covering his "body." As he spoke slowly, Dwight's great blue sword was already covered with a concentrated layer of fire, horrible heat was being emitted.
Sebastian, who had his eyes tightly closed, was imagining the scene. He commanded and the red magic energy slowly left his core, traveled inside his right arm and, in the form of fire, it came out of his hand. The flames passed through the red hilt of the sword and covered the entire metallic blade.
Watching a few students who got it on the first try, Dwight nodded in satisfaction. "The number of students who succeeded is greater than last year."
"Try to increase the magic supply to improve the intensity of the flames, making the fire blade more concentrated and with great cutting power. At the same time, don't let the energy disperse." Looking at the students who managed to manifest the flames on the sword, Dwight decided to increase the difficulty.
Frowning, Sebastian gradually increased the power supply. Previously thin and without much temperature, the layer of flames around the sword grew thicker and hotter. After some time of fighting, he managed to stabilize the flames.
Looking around, only a few other students made it. Besides himself; Benjamin, Mila, Patrick, Sam and three other students he didn't know managed to stabilize the flames. The rest were still in the stage of covering the sword with fire.
"Great, great. In the last group of students, only four managed to reach this stage on the first day. Let's increase the difficulty even more." Dwight smiled.
"To those who managed to stabilize the flames, now try the basic sword moves." Dwight watched expectantly.
Sebastian started to make a horizontal cut, he didn't make the move very quickly. During the movement, there was a power distribution error and the fire on the sword went out, but immediately Sebastian managed to recover and the fire quickly returned. Then he completed several sword moves with the same speed.
"Whew." Sebastian exhaled. "Now I'm going to try a diagonal cut at fast speed."
Swoosh!
Not thinking too much, Sebastian executed the move. An orange trail cut the air quickly.
"Success!" A satisfied smile appeared on Sebastian's youthful face.
Remembering the feeling, he made several movements quickly. Stab, diagonal cut, cut from the bottom up... after some time, his energy ran out and the sword returned to normal.
Looking around, Sebastian saw that only three students were also able to make quick movements while holding the fiery sword. Benjamin, Mila and Patrick. Sam was beside him frowning, the flames on his sword going back and forth several times as he made slow movements. He will need a little more time.
"Remarkable. In the last group, only one student made it to this point. How many talented people do we have here." Dwight smiled with satisfaction.
"Minlo, get Sebastian and Patrick. Start attack training with them, see how far they go." Dwight commanded the man in the blue bandana.
"Yea!" Minlo took his sword and called Patrick and Sebastian to a corner away from where the rest of the students were.
"Rayan, get Benjamin and Mila and do the same." Dwight also asked the bald man who looks like him.
After letting the two boys regain their energy, Minlo summoned Patrick and Sebastian.