"Now let's begin the skill class. Today I'm going to teach about my personalized skill. Element Explosion"
"Really"
"Are you serious, teacher?"
"You're really going to teach us that skill."
Upon hearing what she said, the students erupted in joy as their voices of curiosity and friendly chat filled the classroom.
'Why are they so happy over a skill? I mean, learning a skill is good and all, but it takes so much time.'
The skill class is only conducted once a month. If you can learn a skill, you can use it. But learning a skill is time-consuming; it will take 3 to 4 months for an average student to learn a skill if its principles are too complex.
So most students only learn a skill that they need the most. The skill I created was actually what a part of my innate skill can do, so it only took me 5 hours to learn since I know how it works and what its principles are, and not only that, it was a low ranking skill.
'Seeing how everyone was happy, it must be a good skill.'
I'm not very enthusiastic since I can't use high-ranking skills, but a skill is a skill, and I will learn it as it doesn't hurt me unless I use the skill.
"Don't be so happy now. It's my personalized skill, so I will not be teaching you guys that easily'' She said it with a smug look. The joyful faces of the students vanished instantly and were replaced by a betrayed look.
"Don't give me that look. You guys know that the academy specifically selected skills to teach the students, and I'm teaching you this skill because they are showing favoritism for high-ranking students, and because you guys are my cute~ little students, I'm making an exception," she said with a cute face.
'She is so sweet' I thought so, but the students here didn't show much reaction to her. Probably they got used to this; maybe
"So I will explain it, theorize it, and give you assignments; you guys have to modify it for your use, and I won't be giving pointers for that," she then started explaining.
"Let me explain. Element Explosion, as the name suggests, it is an elemental-type skill. The specialty of this skill is that you can use it with any element you have, and if the enemy comes into contact with our body, it explodes. With a tap, the game is over." she explained
'That's a powerful skill' I thought
"Don't you guys think it's a great skill?" She said it as if she read my mind. "Certainly, it's a powerful skill. But every skill has its own pros and cons. The cons of this skill are that it can only activate if someone touches you or if you touch someone, and its damage varies depending on which elemental attribute you use. For example, if you use the fire element, it burns the skin; if it's lightning, it burns and paralyzes the enemy; if it's wind, it will cut the body. You have to use the elemental attribute that will cause more damage. And lastly, it may also cause damage to the user if you don't use it correctly," she explained lengthily.
'I will definitely learn this skill' There are things I'm planning for the future, and this skill will work for me well.
"To theorize it simply," she lifted her and started demonstrating, "Gather mana in your hand, make your mana unstable, and spin it at high speed. Add properties to it of which element you're going to use. Make it big and compress it to maximum as it looks no different than your skin," she explained while demonstrating it. And when she finally completed it, it looked no different than skin. She slowly moved her hand and touched the desk in front of her.
Boom! Soosh!
As she touched the desk, a loud sound resonated in the classroom, and a powerful gust of wind slammed into our faces.
Ghaaa!
Kyaaaa!
The students shrieked in surprise as the sudden, powerful wind brushed past us. As the wind died down, we looked at the teacher, or more precisely, the desk in front of her. The desk lay there, sliced in multiple pieces; even the aftermath left scratch marks on the ground.
The students erupted in joy once again. Learning such awesome skill that can be used for both offensive and defensive purposes.
Ms. Elisa stood there proudly, hands placed on her hips. With a smug smile, she asked proudly, "Isn't my skill the best? Hehe"
"You're the best instructor."
"Your skills are the most amazing."
"Well, isn't our teacher the best skill master? You're an amazing instructor."
"Aren't I" she said smugly.
"Yes, you're; now can you teach us directly?" After coxing her with praise, the students suddenly asked.
"No," and he got his answer instantly.
"But what about the desk?" a student asked suddenly.
Hearing that, Ms. Elisa's expression changed instantly and was replaced by panic. "Oh no, no, no, they are going to cut my salary again."
Laughter!
The students laughed, seeing her clumsiness. 'You certainly won't expect this from a teacher. From my first impression, I thought she was sweet, but now she looks like a kid to me.
"Sigh. Nothing can be done now. Okay, students, as I said, I'm not going to give you any advice. It's the same for applying body too, and you can use this skill as a spell if you can't learn it, but using it as a spell would be time-consuming, so learn it as a skill if possible."
Skills and spells—if you ask what's different in them, I would say time and mana. You can learn spells faster than skill and cast spells with low mana consumption, but casting them will take some time. If you have any companions, it's okay; they will buy some time to cast spells, but if it's a life-threatening situation, it's probably game over for you. But the more proficient you are at casting spells, the faster your casting speed.
That's why learning skills comes in handy. Learning it will be time-consuming, but once learned, it will be much faster than spells with slightly higher mana consumption than skill because of its instant casting system.
***
***
***
Ding! Dong! Ding!
The academy bell rang, announcing it's time for the lunch break. Every student walked to the cafeteria. As someone new to this class, they didn't even strike up a conversation with me.
Standing up, I walked to the cafeteria. There are five cafeterias. Each for different classes. The more you lower your classes, the lower the quality of the food will become. Although many of them hated this, there were also many of them who agreed with it.
'Man, I thought in here would less people look at me with hostile gazes, but here is worse than there' As I walked in the hallway, some students blocked me.
'Ahh. This shit again and again. Why are there so many bullies here?'
A student stopped me who looked like the leader of this gang. Inspecting my ranking, he said with a mocking smile, "Isn't that the great Jadel Wayner from the Wayner family? Why are you here, your majesty?"
I ignored him and walked past him. Well, at least I tried, but he firmly gripped my collar. "Hey, I'm talking to you, so where do you think you're going?" he said, pulling me.
"Man, can you take your hand off my collar?" I said, imitating Jadel to intimidate them.
"What if I don't? What will you do?" But it didn't work.
'Guess, I need to be more proactive; after all, this guy is also a low rank like me.'
Without giving him any chance to react, I punched him, but he didn't even buldged from the spot.
He stood there and looked at me. "I was trying to intimidate you so you wouldn't use your former glory as A class student and bully others." He started cracking his finger. "But you need to taught a lesson."
"Ahh, haha, how about we forget about this and start walking as if nothing happened."
Rub! Rub!
I said that as I started rubbing the place where I hit him earlier. "We can forget about this and become friends, right?" And showed the best smile I could pull off.
Grin!
"Ew, take your hands off you gay shit."
Bam!
***
***
***
"Oww. Can't they at least avoid hitting my face?" I couldn't properly chew the food because of the pain in my teeth. And my handsome face is bruised.
'And who are you calling gay shit when I only tried to be considerate. I'm straight as hell.'
After the beatdown, I came to know that his name is Jakeup Orin, and he is ranked 2001, No. 1 in the whole E class. And he is kind of a guy who maintains peace between all the E classes, as he is the leader of the whole E class.
"But that doesn't justify his reason for hitting me. Sigh."
After the lunch break, every student went to their respective classes. I also went to my class as well, but when I arrived, the classroom was empty. Nobody was in the class.
"Where did everyone go?" When I didn't see anybody in the class, I instantly went to the combat arena for E-class students. "Fuck, they didn't tell me about it." Taking the map on my watch, I rushed to the combat arena.
"You're late, Jadel," Ms. Elisa said upon seeing me.
"Huff-huff, sorry, I –fwhoo, I didn't know the next class would be combat class," I said while panting.
"No one told you about the afternoon class?" I shook my head. She looked at the students with a disappointed face. "Singh. Change to your combat suit; we'll start mana combat."
"I can't use mana properly until I break through E rank."
She paused for a moment before realization stuck her. "Ah, sorry, I forgot about your condition. You can watch then and pick up any tricks that might be useful for you."
"Yes," I nodded.
"Okay, students, when calling names, come to the battlefield."
"Ready… Fight"
Swoosh! Clank!
"Huh!"
Clank! Clank! Swoosh!
'What the heck with those movements?' I didn't expect much from them since they are all in E class, but when I saw their fight, I was astonished. 'Is-is they really E class students? How can they move so fast like this?'
"Surprised?" a boy next to me asked, seeing my surprised face.
"How is that possible, and why are they not in high ranked class?" The boy smiled at my question.
"She is training us for the first year-end tournament, and she said to keep it a secret from other students so we can take them by surprise and strike them hard," he explained.
"But how is it possible to train them like that?" I asked seriously.
"Come on, man, don't you know who she is?
Blink! Blink!
".... Seriously?" Seeing my clueless face, he explained, "It's kind of surprising that someone doesn't know her. Her full name is Elizabeth Freither, also known as the master of skills or goddess of skills. She has a vast amount of skills that even great families could not fathom. She even has a duplicated version of the personal skills the big families use; she is the genius skill maker, but what makes her so strong is how she utilizes her skills."
Certainly, having powerful skills doesn't mean you're strong; it's all about how you use them. If you don't know how to use a skill, what's the use of having so many skills?
"That's also why the students go crazy for her personalized skills. Some skills are simple and weak in rank, but when it comes to combat, that will be one of the best skills you will have." he explained proudly.
"So that's explains why they were so happy about her skill; certainly, that's a simple skill yet a powerful one at that."
"Aren't they, and she trains us to fully utilize it? In terms of just combat power without using any skill, we may be able to defeat D classes, but if we use our skills, we may be rivaling C classes or maybe B classes."
'Man, that's cool. An E class that is able to rival C classes in comb—ah, now I remember. So it's this class'
In the novel, there is a class that is labeled weak and gets the mocking gazes of many high ranking classes. But when the battle started, they showed remarkable skills and teamwork and showed those who looked down on them that they were not weak. They defeated D classes, C classes, and even gave a hard time to B classes. After the tournament ended and seeing this class's capabilities, the principal and instructors gave this class 'The Hunters' title.
All the students here are learning and aspiring to become hunters, and they become hunters when they graduate from the academy. But this class earned this title at the end of their first year, meaning that with all the stratified class system that lower classes get lower resources, this class overcame that and showed remarkable capabilities that are for the hunters.
'I can't remember who that is; there is this one girl and one boy who held toe to toe with those in the 10th ranking, but unfortunately, their experience is low compared to the top 10, hence they got defeated. Maybe I will find out who those two will be soon.'