The run up and down the high, inclined mountain lasted over 30 minutes.
Simon and Class A ran after Hong Feng frantically, but the road was cut off at some point.
Simon could see two cliffs in front of him, and a valley of water forming white foam was flowing between them.
"You need to use jet-black to jump the valley in front of you."
Some students were frightened by what Hong Feng said.
"J-Jump over that?"
"It's fine. You just need to get the hang of it. It's just like forming jet-black on your palms, but this time with the soles of your feet."
She jumped into the air, as if demonstrating.
Black mist exploded under her feet, a boom sounding out, and she made double, even triple jumps in the air. Sounds of admiration broke loose from everywhere.
"You don't even have to leap in the air."
She said as she landed back on the ground while rolling.
"As soon as you're about to jump, shoot the jet black that you have gathered on your feet. It's like jumping by stepping on the jet black."
Hong Feng, at the front, ran past the students and leapt off the ground.
With a swish, she flew a few meters and easily crossed the valley, landing on the opposite side.
"Come!"
She smiled while waving her arm. The thoughts of the student after her became more complicated.
The valley's depth wasn't that deep, but no one wanted to become a laughing stock by falling into a valley at the beginning of the school term.
The students who needed more time to motivate themselves slowed down, and the confident ones ran forward screaming.
"Hryaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Swish!
They jumped.
You could see a slight black mist flowing from all their feet.
Three of the five landed nicely on the ground, one tumbled down on the ground, and the other, who lacked the jumping strength, barely reached out and grabbed the edge of the cliff.
"Well done!"
Hong Feng came up to him and took him by the hand. The boy smiled awkwardly and climbed up the cliff.
"Your timing on releasing the jet-black was a bit late. Try releasing it faster next time!"
"Thank you, professor!"
Afterward, other students also jumped off the ground. As expected from the Kizen enrollees, around 20 jumped, and they all succeeded. Simon, who was watching from the back, got a little nervous.
'Like jumping by stepping on the jet-black, Jumping by stepping on the jet-black...'
"You seem to be overthinking, aren't you, Simon?"
Rick calmly wagged his finger.
"I'll go ahead!"
He turned his back and ran. Then, he stamped on the ground, both his knees pressed to his chest, and he flew powerfully into the air.
"Wooow!"
The corner of Rick's lips rose at the cheers of the girls. But the cheers weren't directed towards him.
When Rick raised his head, Hector spun his body a meter above him.
Woooosh!
He then put his feet on the ground and slid down.
Even the landing was perfect.
"Well done!"
Hong Feng gave a bright smile and a thumbs up.
Hector also raised his thumb and ended with a polite bow.
"Nice, Hector!"
"As expected!"
Then, he high-fived with his faction members that had jumped before him.
"…In any case, I just don't like him."
Murmured Rick, who had failed the landing and buried his face in the dirt.
"Wooooah!"
At that moment, a second cheer broke out from behind.
Rick and Hector turned around in surprise.
'What the...?!'
He flew.
Simon was soaring in the air with both soles of his feet facing the sky. Shortly, his back was bent and his legs went down, scratching the ground, back turned to them.
Woooosh!
His body passed Rick and Hector and stopped right in front of a nearby rock.
"Excellent!"
Hong Feng clapped her hands in delight.
'This bastard...'
Hector's facial muscles wrinkled severely. Simon bowed to Hong Feng and returned to the students.
Rick, acting cool by leaning his back against a tree before anyone noticed, put his palm up.
Simon grinned and high-fived him loudly.
'He's starting to act like a No.1 Special Admission now.'
'Was he planning to major in Combat Magic?'
The students murmured as they talked about Simon, and Hector's expression stiffened more and more. It was evident that his plans were going awry.
"Now, the other students, jump!"
Unlike how they hesitated at first, most of the students succeeded, and only two in the class failed. However, the assistants secretly waiting in the valley caught them, so they avoided drowning.
"Mmmm."
Rick opened his notebook and was writing something down. Simon asked him, curious,
"What are you writing?
"Recruitment list for the group class. It'll be starting next week, so we need to start preparing."
The book was filled with the names of the Class A students to pay attention to, the subjects they're good at, their personalities, and more.
To Simon, Rick was somehow different from the other students.
Normally, it would be difficult to even take care of yourself catching up with the class, but looking at Rick, he was busy observing others.
"How's the investigation so far?"
"In general, the class standard is high. They're all pretty good. However…"
Rick closed the notebook and shrugged.
"She's kinda meh. It feels like she'll be dropped soon after the protection period is over."
Simon looked in the direction Rick was looking. The girl who rode the hippo thanks to Simon was coming up in the arms of the assistant.
"Everyone's here, right? Then let's move to the next area!"
When all the students came up, Hong Feng started running again without a moment to breathe. The students also ran after her in surprise.
'Haha! What's this?'
It was different from the classes which stayed only in the classroom. The class felt really dynamic.
After running for 20 minutes and getting out of the forest, an open hill stretched out. There was a slight incline, so it was easy to speed up.
The moment when everyone was following Hong Feng…
Dududududududu!
The same thing that happened just a few hours ago was happening.
The hippos that had transferred the students came up the slope from the other side.
"H-Huh?"
"They're coming to this side, Pr-Professor?!"
But Hong Feng had disappeared all of a sudden. The same was true for other assistant teachers.
The students paused in bewilderment, but the approaching herd of hippos seemed unwilling to slow down.
'This is dangerous!'
Simon also stopped walking and focused on his eyes. A hippo was running right in front of him, trying to ram him.
'The feeling of stepping on the jet-black!'
Pow!
Simon soared into the sky and the herd of hippos passed beneath him, raising up a cloud of dust. Several other students near him were also floating in the air like Simon.
'I'm falling!'
Simon tilted his body and landed as far away as possible, to where there were no hippos.
As soon as he came down, he frantically rolled on the ground and had to dodge the hippos.
"Kugh!"
There were two more right in front of him.
Simon raised his body and slammed hard on the ground, jumping a hair's width before they reached him.
'I-I almost died.'
The fear of death brought goosebumps to his body and made him shiver.
Simon looked back with a cold sweat.
'Don't tell me this is also part of the class? At this rate, people will—!'
Simon's eyes widened as he looked back. He thought total chaos would've erupted, but the situation was pretty far from that.
A female student built a wall in front of her by tripping hippos with the exhaust curse.
A male student dug into the floor with dark magic and laid down in it.
Other than that, there were students riding on hippos and roaring relaxedly, and students who shaped their jet-black like a rope and evacuated to the top of a tree.
Everyone was escaping the crisis in their own way.
"Kyahahahahaha!"
Cindy Vivace was floating in the sky with Necromancy. Only then did Simon realize,
'I'm not in a position to worry about anyone right now.'
It was indeed an unnecessary worry. And Simon had to compete with 1,000 of these kinds of students.
"You alright, Simon?"
Rick, who had been climbing up on a pole made of jet-black, came down, saying, 'heave-ho'.
"Don't worry too much. All of those hippos are under professor Hong Feng's control. Some students fell, but the hippos were just avoiding them."
"...Uh, really?"
The fact that Hong Feng could use combat dark magic and the power of the druid family was pretty common knowledge.
At that moment, the assistants who came down from the sky shouted while clapping their hands,
"Now, now, there's no time to sit around carelessly! Stand up!"
"In a little while, the hippos will take a turn and come down again! Everyone, stand up!"
When the students heard the word hippo, they got up in fright. The assistant pointed below and said,
"The professor is already waiting down there! We'll depart right away!"
The sprint began once more.
As they passed through the dense trees, a picturesque mountain with colorful flowers was revealed and they could see Hong Feng waving on the flat terrain below.
"There are no obstacles any more! Let's go to the professor at full speed!"
"Whaaaaaah!"
The students shouted a cheer of joy and went down the flowered hill. Simon and Rick also ran down the slope in excitement.
The wind coming from the other side blew away the sweat refreshingly. Dandelion seeds in the field swayed in the wind, and the leaves fell down while dancing. Simon came down the hill with a strange sense of freedom.
"Great work! We'll now take a break!"
Shouted Hong Feng.
The students sat on the floor as if on cue, and the assistant teachers were distributing drinks to the students.
Their nervousness was relieved and laughter broke loose from everywhere. Thrilled students were eager to retell their heroic deeds from before.
"Huh? Look over there!"
"It's food!"
While resting, Kizen's minions arrived with a food truck. Everyone's eyes widened.
"You're actually supposed to eat after the class, but I thought you guys consumed a lot of physical strength, so I contacted Kizen in advance. Is that alright?"
"Kyaaaah!"
"You're the best, professor!"
Next up was the time for a meal.
The menu was a high-protein diet that consisted mostly of meat.
The taste of Kizen's food was famous to begin with and their serving size was generous. They even had soy meat for vegetarians.
Everyone got their food, sat on the grass with a beautiful view, and enjoyed eating while looking at the mountains and lakes.
Simon and Rick also sat under the shade of the tree. Maybe because it was an outdoor meal after exercising, the taste of the meal was incredibly delicious.
"Wow. There's no other professor like this."
Without him knowing, Rick, just like the other students, was praising the Combat Magic class, as if he had fallen for the charm of it.
"Using her own class time to feed her students. It's an impossible thing to happen in that strict Kizen."
Simon smiled and nodded in agreement.
"But it's a little different from what I heard."
"What is?"
"I heard that professor Hong Feng is actually a very Kizen-like professor."
Rick's face looked like he was wondering what the hell Simon was saying.
"That pure water and natural-like person, professor Hong Feng is? Nahh. I don't know where you got that information from, but it's total nonsense, nonsense."
Simon blinked. It was something he heard directly from Lorain.
Clap clap.
Hong Feng clapped her hands and got the attention of the students.
"Students, finish it up. We'll be leaving again in 10 minutes."
Hearing those words, the assistant teachers jumped up to their feet and shouted,
"We'll be leaving in 10 minutes!"
"Finish your meal and get ready!"
The assistant teachers went around to spread Hong Feng's words.
The students, who had been leisurely relaxed, began to arrange their plates and loosen themselves.
"We're doing this again?"
"I thought we'd go back, riding a hippo, after resting like this."
The students gathered while murmuring. As Simon watched the assistants busily moving, he thought,
'I think this is where it'll really begin.'