Alastor was returning to his room, when he saw the spear instructor standing aside, beckoning him.
Alastor walked with the instructor under the brilliant and ever changing night sky, neither of the two men starting the conversation.
It was only after they reached the training grounds that the instructor spoke up, "Headmistress Illia healed up your friend. He should be out and about by tomorrow."
Alastor nodded absently.
The spear instructor said with a sigh, "You..... have you figured it out yet? Your weakness."
Alastor nodded.
The instructor replied, "Good. This absurdly difficult style of fighting, is only usable by a genius like you. A fighting style avoiding all blows, aiming for perfection."
"You avoid blows that would not cause too much damage, never trading blows."
"Every move of yours is made with that perfection in mind. That is simly not possible."
"You think much faster than others, and so you can dodge all you want, but eventually, you'll have a fight where you can't dodge. Where you can't outmanoeuvre your enemy. How will you, who expect only perfection from yourself, defeat such an opponent?"
"I don't know why, but you're scared of being anything less than perfect."
"This is why your fights always look like they're won one-sidedly, perfectly, easily. That's why the kids even gave you a title of their own. 'Unrivalled under the Sky', an allusion to the Soaring Sky, Spear Hero of the Grand Alliance."
Alastor replied, a bit surprised, "Unrivalled, huh?"
The spear instructor sighed at his nonchalance and continued, ""This brings me to my second point. Your body. For some reason, your body's base condition isn't getting any better. The only reason you can catch up to the others, is due to how well you control and use your mana."
"This is something I've never seen before. Even the lowest soldier becomes stronger at a base level when they advance in their usage of mana, but your body simply isn't. The only lead I have on this, is the power of a curse, or a genetic mutation."
"Me and some of the other Professor's will be looking into this, so pray it isn't the second, because there is nothing we can do in that case."
Alastor nodded, 'Ah. This matter. I can only take a possessed corpse so far with my talent. I need to evolve soon, but the dungeons aren't open yet. Only then will this issue be fixed.'
'It's like having immense power available at once, but you have to hold back.'
After a few more minutes of talking, they separated and went their own ways.
Alastor entered his room, thinking about future preparations to make to adjust to the current scenario.
..............
The next day, the new rankings were unveiled in front of the student body.
Unsurprisingly, Alastor was ranked first, and Alicia second, with A coming in third simply through the sheer power his Great Stone Ape form displayed.
Karna was in fourth and Amber in fifth as before, with Tori Kento falling to sixth place. Axel climbed up all the way from 34th rank, to 12th. Nerissa, Karna's opponent, was ranked 10th.
Alastor did receive some rewards for ranking first again, but what he looked forward to was the mercenary program finally becoming applicable for him. And as expected, he received a silver tag the next day.
The tag was to be delivered at the Mercenary Guild, the branch of the Grand Alliance that oversaw the less lawful defenders of humanity.
Alastor entered the building belonging to the Guild, and observed the people around him, taking note of their weapons and marking the exits in the building, almost as a habit.
He approached the lady sitting at the reception and when asked, handed her the silver tag.
She led him to another room and asked him to wait for his test to begin. Alastor did wait, but only for ten minutes before an attack came from nowhere, aiming for his neck.
Thankfully, Alastor had remianed vigilant, letting him dodge the axe that came flying his way.
"I see the test has already begun."
Surprisingly, the thrower of the axe wasn't a human, but a big wooden machine. And machines were easy enough to dismantle once you figure out their functions.
So that was exactly what Alastor did. As soon as he damaged the machine, the door opened, letting him leave the room.
He saw the bored receptionist again put on her fake smile and quickly scribble a C rank into the silver tag he had given her, and then she returned it.
Alastor wondered, 'That's it? Truly? Nothing else was required? No wonder they call mercenaries the free soldiers.'
He looked at the signboard which contained instructions for newbie mercenaries.
"Increase rank by doing missions, can form party with other mercs, C ranks required to do at least 3 missions a month unless they're already on a time consuming one. Standard stuff."
Alastor thought to himself, 'Since I get to skip the classes now whenever I want, should I just go on a mission now?'
After some contemplation, Alastor decided to take a mission to cull the monstrous species near the Erth region, the reward proportional to the species hunted.
'Definitely issued by the Grand Alliance itself.'
'When I return, I'll enter the library and search for 'that'. Although finding it will not be likely, I can still plunder the Spear techniques in there.'
What was the difference between monstrous species and demons? Sometimes they were mistaken for the other, but a monstrous species was nearly always much better news to hear than a demon.
Unlike demons, who humans believed existed for the sole purpose of hunting them, monstrous species lived their lives like regular animals in the past once did, forming complex ecosystems and diverse food webs to enrich the environment.
The people believed that these creatures mutated from ordinary animals when mana was discovered began spreading in the world, but Alastor knew.
Monstrous species, were essentially refugees, running from the destruction of their own realms into other realms. Running from what? Demons of course.
The Nine Hells was a realm that actively sought to collide into other realms and devour them, displacing or outright killing the original inhabitants of the realms.
The same thing was happening to the human realm, just in it's early stages. People would soon realize the terror of the Nine Hells when dungeons open up across the lands in a few months.
Alastor felt his demonic part roiling within him, itching to evolve as he forced it back down.
'Just a few more months and I can jump to Viscount. After that, I'll need to use the other method of evolution.'
Alastor smiled as he joined a trade carvan heading to the Erth region.
'When I evolve, I'll fix the issue of my human form as well.'
But for now, Alastor simply decided to make a name for himself as a mercenary.