Extra And MC-Chapter 85 - 81 - Darius Strikes

"Huff! Huff! Huff!"

Ivelia panted tiredly, her features displaying a tired expression as she ran along the length of the training field which was thrice the length of a normal stadium.

However, she was not the only one currently doing this as all the other cadets in their class were also doing the exact same thing.

Pained groans and pants of exhaustion rang through the expanse of the field as more than half the class were also in a similar situation as her.

At the sidelines of the field was Instructor Forge who was observing them all, his expression stoic.

The man was wearing a tight fitting black shirt and black pants which showed off all of his well-developed muscles usually hidden beneath his pristinely tailored suits.

As the young lady kept running, her gaze was drawn to the figure of a handsome male youth with ethereal-looking features a few meters in front, his silvery-green hair slightly fluttering in the wind.

He ran at a constant pace, not a single hint of tiredness on his face, along with Aiden, Adrian, Bryan, Lucas who also ran without being tired, the only exception being Ivar who was slightly trailing behind them, his breaths labored yet regulated.

Ivelia upon seeing him, smiled to herself happily and in an instant, willed more strength and proceeded to continue with the endurance training Darius had subjected them to so early in the morning.

After the events of the yesterday’s sudden exercise, they had all received a mail from him, informing all of them to reach the training field at 6:00am prompt with their training outfits, a dark blue shirt with the academy’s logo and slim grey track pants, all of which the academy had provided along with their uniforms.

In response to his orders, they had all arrived promptly and the moment they did, the unusual instructor had immediately subjected them to hellish training in the form of 50 laps around the vast training field.

They were currently only on the 17th lap and even then, some cadets had already slumped to the ground out of exhaustion, unable to continue running.

Others were either on their last legs, barely struggling to maintain their pace while some were still able to endure with sheer will, their pace constant despite being just as exhausted as the others.

And then there were the monsters, the training almost seeming like a casual walk in the park to them.

Among such monsters, asides the group Flynn was running with of course, were Caroline, Beatrice and Amelia who were running just beside Ivelia, their expressions relaxed despite the beads of sweat dripping from their faces.

"You sure are motivated, aren’t you Ivelia?" Beatrice poked fun at her.

"The things a maiden will do…" Caroline added with a sly smile followed by a giggle.

Amelia who had no idea what it was exactly they were referring to, just kept quiet as she kept running but even then, she was still listening to them as she was also quite curious.

"I won’t deny that…" Ivelia responded to both ladies with a beaming smile, her hands wiping off the sweat on her forehead as she thought to herself.

’I did win our bet afterall!’

Just a day before the sudden exercise, Ivelia had been discussing about something with Caroline.

The lady wanted to get a gift for Flynn.

What had caused this sudden urge, Ivelia herself could not particularly pinpoint.

But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she really wanted to get him something.

Finalizing her thoughts, she had requested for gift choices and options from Caroline and Beatrice, which she had felt might have had just a little bit more experience than her in selecting gifts for a male youth their age.

Although Ivelia was confident in selecting something she knew Flynn would like, she still wanted more options to pick from regardless, hence her request.

Both of them had promptly agreed to also help her with her gift selection. Beatrice especially.

Ivelia and Caroline on that same day, had found out that despite Beatrice despite maintaining her royal image to almost perfection, was a big advocate for romantic gestures.

Just as they kept discussing in their dorm’s living room though, Flynn along with Aiden and Ivar had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Well, to be fair, they had actually been there for quite a while but the girls were too engrossed in their conversations to even notice them.

Ivelia upon seeing Flynn’s thoughtful expression instantly realized that due to overhearing their conversation, was now also planning to do the same as her.

Although she would’ve gladly accepted gifts from him any other time, this to her she felt, was very important.

As a result, before Flynn could even tell her he was also going to do the same, she had suddenly proposed a bet to him, knowing fully well that he probably wouldn’t listen to her if she told him not to get her one.

And in her exact words, this was how she announced the bet to him amidst all the youths with them that day.

"If by the end of tomorrow, I have credits higher than yours, I get to buy you a gift while you just sit still and look handsome alright!"

"If however, I lose and have lesser credits than you, you get to buy the gift. How’s that?"

At first Flynn had tilted his head in confusion at her sudden bet, wondering why the winner had to be the one to buy something but, upon gazing into her eyes for a moment and realizing she was being very serious about it, decided to honor her request.

But then, tomorrow came and a sudden unexpected exercise came out of nowhere.

This threw Ivelia’s plan into the mud as although she currently had 5680C on her while Flynn had 5310C, both from constantly completing multiple quests since the day they had arrived at the academy, she knew that the rewards of the exercise could turn the tides in an instant.

Due to this, the young lady had gone all out yesterday on the training grounds, utilizing every single aspect of her arsenal she was permitted to use, everything except her credits which Flynn was willing to sacrifice to achieve victory.

Although the youth could’ve decided to find another means, it would have taken him too much time and if he was being honest with himself, Ivelia really had made it quite hard for him to come out victorious.

Flynn had also felt that if the bet for whatever reason was that important to her, then she wouldn’t have felt happy knowing he could have won but didn’t go all out like she was doing.

So, with that in mind, the youth had thought of buying allies to secure his victory and as a result, although he had actually won and had actually gotten more credits than her, he needed to pay his debts off too.

That was how Ivelia had ended up having more credits than him, and now, she was currently in a very happy mood.

Now, invigorated by her wish to buy a gift for Flynn, the lady once again calmed her breathing, regulated her pace and began to run side by side with the other ladies.

Caroline and Beatrice just shook their heads at this and continued with their endurance training.

Soon enough, after about an hour and a few minutes had passed, they were all finally done with the 50th lap and upon completing it, every single youth on the field looked like they would collapse at any time.

Even the supposed ’monsters’ were now currently either panting heavily, holding onto their knees, sitting on the ground or just flat out lying down on it.

All of them asides Aiden who stood properly while wiping off his sweat, his breathing labored.

Darius upon watching this, nodded his head slightly, and then addressed them.

"Yesterday’s exercise was a way to check your physical strength, your mana usage efficiency and your cognitive capabilities" he explained.

"That was why weapon arts and direct attack spells were disallowed. It would have made the exercise trivial"

"Adding to that, weapon arts asides also using your own mana, is mostly supplemented by the mana from the environment"

"Now, judging by the state most of you are in, I can confidently state that you’re all lacking endurance and still can’t use the mana from your core as you should while some of you are just plain dumb!"

"If a good number of you had taken a bit of time for critical thinking, even for a split second, you would have realized just how purposely flawed the exercise’s rules were…" he declared coldly.

A lot of cadets felt slightly offended by Darius’s sudden harsh words but the instructor without giving a single care to their thoughts, continued speaking.

"The former is something I can rectify within a week or two depending on how much effort you’re willing to put in but the latter is something you need to work on by yourself"

"For your endurance training, you will converge here every morning at the exact same time for the next two weeks. As for your mana usage efficiency, we’ll work on that in my class"

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"Now, with that being said, classes start by 9:00am and you have my class first this morning"

"The time is currently 7:46am. Hurry along and do the necessary. I won’t tolerate any tardiness"

"Is that understood?!" Darius asked commandingly.

"Yes Instructor Forge!" the cadets all responded like trained soldiers despite how immensely tired they were.

"Good. You may leave" the instructor declared.

"Thank you sir!" they all replied in unison.

Following that, the exhausted cadets all dispersed quickly to Section 2 where their respective dorms were.

It was even more stressful for those cadets in Pegasus Dorm whose dorm was quite far from the normal dorms.

This was also the name of the dorm Aiden and Flynn along with the rest of their group resided.

Quickly doing all that they needed to do within about 40 minutes, they all dragged themselves back to class where Darius was already awaiting them, his pristinely ironed three-piece black suit perfectly fitted to his figure.

"Good. You’re all here" he said to them, uncrossing his legs while getting up from his chair which was situated on the elevated platform and flipping close his antique stopwatch, something that some cadets couldn’t help but wonder what the device even was.

"How did he even get here earlier than us?!" some cadets wondered to themselves instead.

Following this, Darius retrieved a black suitcase from his spatial ring, causing the cadets to become wary of what he was about to do.

’It’s that time huh…’ Aiden thought to himself upon realizing what was about to happen.

In just over a week and a few days since the cadets had known Instructor Forge, the cadets had all realized that the man before them could be summarized into a single word.

Unpredictable! Utterly unpredictable.

His classes were usually more practical than theory and although they learnt quite a lot, to say his classes weren’t hard, would be a freaking lie.

But then again, nothing beneficial ever came easy, just as evidenced by the credit system the academy introduced and the same could be said for Darius’s classes.

The cadets who were acclimatizing to this mindset however, could still not shake off the slight wariness that they felt whenever they saw Instructor Forge enter their classes.

Darius then placed the suitcase on the floor while pressing a button on it and instantly, the suitcase morphed, transformer style, into a wide tabular platform that had about two hundred small and individual mana cuffs, each sectioned and placed into a small square box.

"Mana cuffs?" some cadets whispered warily to their mates.

"What’s he planning to use that for now?!" another asked, completely scared by their instructor’s sudden actions.

Darius however, without even changing his currently stoic expression, said to his cadets.

"What are you waiting for? This is for your mana efficiency training. Come pick one!" he commanded.

The cadets, once again, were taken aback by his sudden command but without wanting to seem disrespectful, instantly began to do as he ordered.

One by one, every cadet took a single mana cuff and slipped it onto their wrists warily and upon doing so, two things instantly became apparent to them.

First was how the mana cuffs were constantly stealing their mana, albeit very slowly.

The second however, was that the cuffs were quite heavy, weighing about 3kg per one.

That was about the weight of three standard stone bricks placed on each other.

As each cadet began to slip on literal burdens on themselves, Aiden and Flynn’s turn finally came.

Aiden and Flynn instead of picking one just like everyone else, picked two cuffs each and slipped it onto their wrists.

Darius couldn’t help but slightly raise one of his eyebrows despite his stoic expression as he asked both brothers calmly.

"Do you think you can handle two of those Aiden and Flynn Belmont?"

"It’s not about whether we can. It’s that we will" both brothers resolutely responded in unison.

"Is that so? Well then, have at it" Darius replied, a small smile forming on his lips as both brothers nodded slightly in response and returned to their seats.

Following their actions, most of the other cadets that came behind them ended up following their lead but soon enough, they would very much come to regret that decision.