These two skills landed on Rhys' chest and dropped him to the floor almost right away. The second palm slam seemed to have possibly cracked one of his bones, and he grasped his shirt in agony.
"Oh, sorry, Rhys! I went too hard there." Emmerich said, rushing to his aid.
The initial pain was agonising and distressing, but it soon faded.
[HP: 4/10]
[HP: 5/10]
He could feel the sharp pain in his sternum fade, and he could feel his body almost being filled with vigour.
[HP: 10/10]
He had gotten stronger, but it was good that he had found his limits. The spar was exciting but also humbling. This system wasn't going to get him out of the endless work he'd have to put in to become stronger. It only gave him the opportunity.
Without the aid of a healing elixir, he was all the way back to maximum HP. It was surprising to him, and that was one thing that would heavily reduce the costs of his future dungeon expeditions.
Hunters were forced to bring masses of healing elixirs, if that was in physical storage or system inventories. They would lose HP at very high rates facing extremely dangerous beasts.
Following this, he just had a basic lecture as he usually would. These lectures were no longer based on the sciences but were things about the history of the military and how they now operate after dungeons appeared.
It wasn't based on educational subjects and for that reason, students were clearly more attentive.
Rhys decided to head to his communal gym. He still felt 100% after his body had been healed, and he immediately saw the improvements in his training. He could go for much longer, and his punches possessed greater impact.
Hitting the bullseyes of his favourite robotic machine, it felt more like a flow as he continued to hit the targets. His training session was the most intense it ever was, and he could already feel himself recovering from it.
His recovery felt quite a bit slower than it did earlier in the day, but he just attributed that to his fatigue and overexercise for that day.
The next day soon came along, and he woke up to a foreign hunger. Upon having his usual breakfast of just a few eggs and sausages, he felt that the physical hollowness in his stomach wasn't gone.
At first, he wasn't that bothered by it. Maybe, he was just a bit hungrier than he was after all his training the day before. He really wanted to satisfy his hunger, but he simply didn't have enough money to overeat.
Luckily, the military academy gave the students free lunch meals, and they had additional snacks on sale at places like the training areas and main cafeteria.
He managed to make his way through the day and at lunchtime, part of the hunger was gone. However, there was lingering emptiness that simply wouldn't go away.
The persistent bothersome feeling was infuriating, as it felt like there was nothing he could do. He ate as much as he could without having to pay for extra items like snacks and premium drinks, but nothing changed.
They were in a vast cafeteria, that looked like a literal warehouse in size. Hundreds of students were present across the several years of the school. Many were wearing casual clothing, while others were clad in military armour and battle equipment.
For many students, their clothing flaunted the popular emblems of their families. For Bronson Vance, the emblem of the Vance Family, a black snake, was present across the clothing he wore in various places.
Lexi also wore the emblem of her family, which was two pairs of canine fangs.
In this large area, however, one person kept looking in Rhys' direction and that was Leandro. His friends simply weren't letting go of the fact that he had lost to the boy, and he continued to feel humiliation.
The validation that he craved from those stronger than him had instead turned to ridicule.
After Rhys' meal with his friends, he decided to spend some time in the communal gym. He wanted to work on his technique, and his friends commended his hard work. They all worked on their skills, but they just didn't have the discipline to have the same work rate as Rhys.
His mind was set on his growth, and he was going to let nothing stand in the way of that.
Upon walking through one of the halls of the tower he was in, he was stopped by two students. His head was tilted downwards, but he lifted to see Leandro and another student ahead of him. His name was Carson, and he was massive.
He was far larger than even Bronson, and resembled an orc from how large he was. He didn't even have much fat on his body and was bald like Bronson.
"You think you're just going to get away with shaming me in front of all those people?!" Leandro shouted at him angrily.
Rhys wasn't in the mood to fight as of right now. The hunger he was feeling was intensifying and he was wondering if he was even going to train this lunchtime.
Looking at his HP, it had decremented to 9/10, and this was commonplace for when people had intense hunger or sickness. It just highlighted how one wasn't at their true peak health.
He looked to the sides of the two people that stood ahead of him and saw that there really wasn't going to be a way out except for fighting back.
Just the two of them were taking up a lot of space in the hall, and he knew that they would act out if he tried to move past them.
Trying to run backward would only leave him vulnerable to attacks from behind. Carson was a rock user and was renowned for his power. He had a D-Rank system but had strength that rivalled even some mid-to-high tier C-Rank system users.
[Sudden Quest Complete!]
[Handle the Ambush]
[Leandro has gotten one of his friends to try and take you down. Do what you have already done once and put him down for good!]
[Rewards: 30XP per enemy]
Remembering his state within this system, he only had 50XP left before his next level up. If he completed his quest, he would get exactly as he wanted.
"Are you going to talk or what?!" Carson asked boldly, cracking his knuckles.
Rhys continued to look at the two, and he cracked a smile.
"I'll crush you both." He said daringly.
Leandro's eye twitched with fury as he heard this, and the two rushed forward.
"Rock Mound!" Carson roared, releasing a large piece of rock forward.
It resembled a miniature boulder that was about the size of a human torso. As it was hurled forward, though, Leandro thrusted forward a fireball to ignite the ball of rock. It flew forward with new speed and heat, making Rhys dodge it right away.
The flames disintegrated and so did the earth. It formed a cloud of mana, which was brown in colour.
Carson's green mana aura manifested and caused their combined attacks to have a light brown gleam.
Leandro sped forward and Rhys readied himself. He wasn't in the mood to wait around and didn't want to waste time dodging his attacks as he had done the previous day.
Leandro shot forward a quick jab, but Rhys dipped right under it. Since he was three inches taller, it facilitated his ability to dip under his swings.
BAM! BAM!
Landing two punches right to his body, his mana aura had manifested but it wasn't yellow as it had been prior. It was now a shade of red and had hints of black.
It perplexed his adversary briefly and caused him to receive two extra strikes right to his face.
Falling back, Carson rushed right past him and thrusted forward his knee. He was large and slow, but he had gained some speed in his runup.
POW!
Landing his knee right on his face, Rhys was sent sliding across the hall, and just about managed to raise up and dodge the fireball that was shot toward his body.
Leaping onto the glass pane to his left, his eyes flashed a red colour as he then jumped off it.
Aiming for Leandro, he landed his initial punch and could see that he was still weaker than him. As much as he wanted to ambush Rhys and beat him down, he really was inferior to him now.
Launching out a fireball at point blank range, Rhys blocked it and then stared at Leandro with his piercing gaze. His eyes now glowed red, and Leandro cowered back into the wall behind him. Rhys stood firmly against him, slowly exhaling.
However, he received a ball of earth right to his face due to his distraction, knocking him onto the ground.
Blood began to drip out his nose and mouth, and he could feel that his healing had slowed. Carson came rushing in with various punches, but Rhys found it easier to dodge his attacks since he was even slower than Leandro.
In the end, he wasn't impossible to hit, and Carson landed a whipping kick to his abdomen, rattling his torso.
He fell back and gritted his teeth upon feeling the pain from this attack. His hunger made this kick feel even more painful, and it even made him feel slightly nauseous.
"Spear of Gaia!" Carson roared, hurling ahead a javelin of pure rock.
The rock of earth stabbed right into his stomach, digging deep. The pain that he had felt in his stomach only intensified, and he staggered back upon taking the force of this impact.
[HP: 3/10]
His system had given him a warning notification as his HP was reaching quite low levels.
'This hurts like hell!' He thought, standing on his quivering legs.
His hands started to get covered in his own blood as he grasped onto this rough spear, and he felt an unbearable agony stemming from the point that this spear had impaled him.
Leandro rushed right past Carson, and was desperate to land the finishing blow. His right leg had already been enveloped in the power of his special Pyros Kick.
He could tell that a speedy attack was coming, but he wasn't going to just stand there and take it.
With a scream, he ripped out the rough javelin of rock that had been wedged into his stomach then stabbed it into Leandro's lower chest before he could come any closer.
The fire on his leg was suddenly extinguished, and he coughed blood. Falling back, he ripped the javelin out of his chest but was now on the ground, with the weapon by his side.
Carson looked upon his friend with a look of disdain before looking at Rhys.
"You weakling!" Carson said, before rushing forward toward his opponent.
"Spike Outburst!" He shouted, slamming his palms onto his chest.
As he did this, there wasn't any immediate effect but spikes of rock enlarged from the palms of his hands.
VOOM
The spikes of earth shredded through Rhys' flesh, digging deep into his chest.