After that absolutely dominating performance by Casstis, the 5 students picked their jaws up from the floor and followed her to the next part of the test.
She brought them to a room with nothing but white. White floor, white wall, white ceiling. However, the multiple 20m circular holes in the first wall were a stark contrast to the all white testing room.
"Oi, kiddos" Casstis cleared her throat to get their attention. As they were all looking at her she nodded and grabbed a new remote.
"Those holes will shoot balls almost as big as the holes themselves at you. It will start slow at 1km/hour. Then the speed will increase until you can't dodge and subsequently get hit. It will shoot out 10 balls in total, each one after the other. Now, any questions?" asked Casstis as she crossed her arms with a small smile on her face.
"..." Seeing that nobody asked anything, she told everybody except Zachary to leave the room, as he was going first since he got last on the strength test.
"Starting in 3…2…1…GO '' said Casstis through the microphone in the spectators area.
Zachary saw the first ball come towards him so he moved to the side clumsily as he wasn't ready. However as the balls kept coming towards him, he got into his flow making him dodge not as awkwardly. In the end he finished the 1st level with ease.
Then the second. 2km/hour….completed.
The third. 3km/hour…. Completed.
The sixth. 6km/hour…. Completed.
The tenth. 10km/hour…. Completed
The thirteenth. 13km/hour…. Completed. However, he is now extremely tired and might not pass the next.
The fourteenth and… would you look at that, he didn't manage to dodge.
As Zachary got hit by the projectile, he felt an immense amount of pain. He was about to complain and leave, when he remembered that Marcellus was about to do this as well, giving him an evil smile. That's it buddy, work through the pain.
After him was Arthur. Who walked past Zachary while struggling not to laugh. "PFFT" He put his hand up to his mouth, catching himself. As he got ready he put on a serious expression as he stretched a little.
"Start" shouted Casstis with a small smile, giving zero f*cks about Arthur laughing at Zachary.
He was physically fit for a human so he managed to do better than Zachary, getting to 18km/hour and lasting the first 9 but getting hit on the tenth.
After him, the last three were draws. As Casstis asked if anybody wanted to go next and Fenris said he wanted to first.
As he got to the testing room, he stretched a little and took a deep inhale.
"Start" ordered Casstis.
After hearing that dreaded word, Fenris turned serious. He managed to get past Arthurs score without breaking a sweat.
As he got to 28km/hour he got hit, however, it looked like he did it on purpose, although nobody noticed.
"Start" shouted Casstis as she smiled at Alicia, who was now in the white room.
As Alicia is taking her turn, Marcellus had his hand on his chin, seeming to be deep in thought.
'I can't show Casstis that I am not human but I really want to test if my speed is better than Alicias or not, hmm' contemplated Marcellus.
"Ah" Marcellus shouted out loud in excitement as he came to a solution.
Alicia managed to get the 29km/hour before she was hit. However, she also wasn't tired.
As Marcellus saw Alicia walking into the spectator room, he suddenly smirked at her while walking to the testing room.
As he got there, he started stretching and took a deep breath before letting it out.
He saw the slow projectile coming at him, however, he didn't move. As the ball got close enough to touch him, he suddenly moved his eyes at a speed faster than sound and his body followed.
He didn't move faster than sound, he just used his mental power, 'Internal Lightning' as he dubbed it, to speed up his reaction time to his fastest theoretical speed, Mach 2.
As he kept doing this nobody realized, however, that was until they all heard a mutter from the devil-spawn herself.
"Monster!" muttered Casstis in an almost inaudible tone. She could see what Marcellus was doing and the fact that a person who had never practiced martial arts before, like him, could do this, meant that his potential and affinity for Martial Arts was off the charts!!!
She then chuckled a little as she kept all of her focus on him, with a wide shaky gaze and an ever-growing, battle-hungry smile.
As he went through the levels, Marcellus did the exact thing in every one of them, he finally got to the level Alicia 'failed' at, 29km/hour.
He did the same thing, waiting for the ball to get close enough to almost touch his clothes and then dodge at the last second. However, the constant use of his personal mental power drained him, making it look like he was actually having a hard time. As he started breathing heavily and sweating as he got to the 30th level.
He managed to do the same thing for all of them and could have continued despite his fatigue, however, he let himself get hit at the final one.
"Ugh" grunted Marcellus as he got hit in the chest with a ball flying at 30 km/hour. He also fell down pretending that the ball hit him harder than he felt it did.
He then got up and limped back to the spectators room.
As he looked in he saw Castis staring at him intensely as she started walking towards him.
"That was a very nice showing" Casstis said as she smiled and held up her hand, gesturing for a fist bump.
Seeing this, Marcellus was momentarily stunned, however, as he stared at Casstis, he shook his head with a smile and responded.
"Thank you, Sensei, '' replied Marcellus in an exhausted tone as he fist bumped Casstis.