The next day, all the students were told to attend their respective classes. The academy had over 100 classrooms, and unfortunately for Ethan, he was placed in the 100th class.
When Ethan entered the classroom, he froze at his spot.
"I never expected this classroom to look like this," Ethan said, staring at the classroom that looked like a dojo with wooden floors and various fighting rings.
The hall had spears, swords, daggers, and strange metal gloves arranged along the wooden walls.
Ethan was not the only one who had a similar thought about the way the hall looked.
All the students expected to see some sort of desk, chairs, and maybe a board, but instead of the latter, they saw a spacious fighting donor.
Ethan was a bit excited after seeing the sight.
Ethan would have been bored as hell if it had been the typical classroom from the old era, but luckily, it was not.
After a while, all of the students' attention was drawn to a man standing in the largest octagon ring.
The man stood at 5'11 with facial features resembling the old China country. Furthermore, he had an eye patch covering one of his eyes.
"Hello students, my name is instructor Whu Chen, and I will be your combat teacher for the next 3 years of your stay at the academy.
After hearing the short speech, the students began chatting among themselves.
"Is that who I think it is?" A student said.
"Dude, you are not wrong. That is, definitely, Master Chen," another replied.
"Whoah! The military tried this time around. They really extended their budget to even employ the world's greatest martial artist.
"I recently heard that a 2-hour class with him would cost a whopping 100 million points."
Similar conversations were going on all over the hall.
From what he overheard, Ethan knew the instructor, Wu Chen, was an important person.
"Should I ask? But if I ask, it would seem strange as everyone here is talking about him as if he was some sort of celebrity, "Ethan thought, but soon an idea came to his mind," Why am I even worried? At least I have someone who would split the info with asking," Ethan thought, thinking about Noah.
He looked around, trying to find Ileus or Noah.
"I guess they might be in the other classes," Ethan said after scanning the room.
He soon focused on the instructor again.
"Since this is your first day, you are all free to have a short spar with anyone. After that, I could show you one or two things. "
Immediately after the instructor finished his shot speech, the students scattered and approached different rings.
"Ethan."
Ethan suddenly heard his name, and he turned back.
"Helen, how are you?" Ethan said.
" I am fine. I was wondering if you would like to have a..."
"Helen."
A feminine voice called out.
Ethan and Helen looked in the direction where the voice came from, and they saw a beautiful, red-haired girl waving at Helen with a smile.
The red-haired girl walked up to Helen and said, "Would you like to spar with me?" The girl said, ignoring Ethan's presence.
"Um, actually, I was about to."
"No, it's OK," Ethan said.
"Alright," Helen said while clenching her teeth.
"Come on, let's go!" The girl dragged Helen's hand, and they ran off.
"Something is wrong," Ethan frowned while staring at Helen's back.
Ethan turned around and saw Blocky, the metal user at the assessment, staring at him.
"Are we good?" Ethan asked.
"No, I mean yes," Blocky said.
Ethan raised an eyebrow.
"I was hoping to spare some time with you," Blocky finally said, after a brief pause.
"Sure," Ethan answered, and he would not waste this opportunity to have a decent fight with Blocky. Considering the latter's performance in the assessment, Ethan knew it wouldn't be a waste of time.
They soon entered one of the rings, which had strong ropes and were shaped like an octagon.
Firstly, Ethan stomped on the ground, and to his surprise, the ring floor was harder than an actual floor. He was tempted to remove the canvas that was covering the ring to see what was under it.
Looking over at Blocky, he saw that the latter had no problem with the ring.
"So should we start?" Blocky suggested, and Ethan came out of his daze and said, "alright."
Blocky took off his top, revealing his hard, rocky chest, which was filled with scares.
The scare looked like a wiped mark. It was as if he had been repeatedly wiped. A healing pill should be able to make the scares disappear, but the scares on Blocky were visible.
Ethan took a fighting stance, and he said, "Dude, this is just a spare, but you are making it look like a competition."
"It is," Blocky replied, and, the next moment, he dashed at Ethan.
"…"
Ethan was dumbfounded, but he quickly sucked left, making Blocky's punch miss.
"Nice, but I feel you are still too slow," Blocky mocked, trying to get Ethan angry, but the latter stood with no hint of any emotion.
"Sorry, that trick doesn't work on me," Ethan replied.
One thing he was very good at was controlling his emotions, but sometimes, when it became personal, he would let it all out.
Blocky made a wide arm punch, and Ethan stepped back, making the punch graze his nose.
Blocky then performed a series of punches.
Ethan got hit sometimes, but he mostly deflected all the attacks.
"I see you are only good at dogging. I thought you would be a tough fighter, but I guess I was wrong," Blocky said while holding his knees and breathing heavily.
"..."
"You are the one panting heavily, and yet I am not a tough fighter," Ethan asked.
Blocky made another punch, but before he could strike, Ethan had already closed the gap between them and made a punch to Blocky's scared chest, causing Blocky to bounce on the ring rope, and he came back to his previous spot.
Ethan was tired of dogging, so he went for the offensive.
Immediately, Blocky bounced back to his previous spot again. Ethan grabbed Blocky's shoulder and pulled him towards himself, and he struck Blocky's lower abdomen with his knees. And he fell to the floor.
"Get up! I want the sharp-tongued fighter from before, not this weakling, "Ethan mocked. And it seemed to work as Block jumped to his feet, taking a fighting stance.
" I must admit. You got me there, but it won't happen again.
Ethan shook his head, swung his body to the left, and kicked, but Blocky did quick leg work and Ethan was on his knee the next moment.
"How?" Ethan raised his head, but what he met was Blocky's knee, making him fall backwards.
Seeing Ethan's state, Blocky made a metal claw, and he struck at Ethan. However, the latter quickly rolled out of the way, and he quickly pushed himself up, jumping back to his feet.
" I thought we were not supposed to use abilities."
" I didn't remember such a rule," Blocky said.
"Why didn't you say so from the start?" Ethan said, and the next moment, flames started whirling around his hands.
******