Chapter 35: After I was knocked out

Somewhere away from the first year’s campus, two identical figures were clashing repeatedly in a flurry of afterimages, sparks and steel.

Clang!

Fwoooom!

Their swords met again sending a pressurized pocket of wind that fluttered both their clothes.

As you must have guessed, those figures were me. After lunch, I didn’t go back to my dorm. Instead I went quite the distance away from the campus, and found a small clearing, to test my theory.

As I didn’t want to make a reflection with 90 percent of my aether off the bat, I instead opted to make one with 50 percent.

The result? The reflection had the full one hundred percent of my stats, not to mention, he also had fifty percent of my aether.

All in all, the reflection was a perfect replica that could pass for me. To truly discernable eyes, my regular reflections wouldn’t pass for me, because their strength was a laughable mimic of mine.

As for why I was fighting myself?, what better way to progress than to see your own flaws and battle habits from another sets of eyes.

For the next few hours, my reflection and I played tag in the small clearing, and the area surrounding it.

By the end of it all, the two of me were battered. My main body was dangerously low on aether, while my reflection was near cracking out of existence.

But most of it all, was mental fatigue. Yeah, having to control two bodies at the same time, while making different taxing thoughts mid battle, wasn’t such a good idea.

“But it’s certainly worth it.” I could already feel myself nearing a new mastery in my techniques, most especially Aether reinforcement.

I would have to continue training like this. In fact, once I’ve become sufficiently comfortable with fighting myself at full strength, I would increase the difficulty.

I would start making reflections that have a hundred and twenty percent of my stats. That way I could push myself further. But there was another facet to this, my reflections were me, so in essence as I improved and became better, so would my reflection. This would in turn create a never ending cycle of improvement.

“Guess I’ve found a really effective training method huh?” I muttered to myself.

After that, I dispelled my reflection, and limped my way back to the campus. “Now that I think about it, I shouldn’t have gone this hard.” I winced as every force on my left foot seemed to sent jolts of pain through my nerves.

In the end I had to calm down for my leg to heal a bit while cursing my past self for choosing to head so far away from the campus.

“Next time I’ll surely make a reflection before venturing far away.” I muttered to myself.

I didn’t get to the dorms until it was almost dinner time. I headed straight for the cafeteria, I was starving like hell. In fact I had to use an additional 10 points to get a refill of my plate, earning quite the stares from both the cafeteria staffs, and the students.

As soon as I finished eating, I went up to my dorm.

Holding onto the door knob, the door automatically opened for me.

Taking off my torn and now useless clothes, I took a quick shower, and then went to bed. It had been a pretty eventful day after all.

As soon as my body touched the bed, I entered the dreamland.

—————

The next day, I woke up pretty early, around 5am to be precise. I freshened up, then made a reflection with the minimum amount of aether possible, then went out for my training.

Since I was moving at full speed, I soon reached that same clearing in about five minutes.

Just like the day before I made a reflection with the same stats as me, then proceeded to fight myself. Though, this time I didn’t go extra hard, I still had a whole day ahead of me after all.

Once it was ten minutes to 7am, my battered self appeared back in my dorm room. Then I took a hot shower, changed into my uniform, and, and headed for the cafeteria.

Today we had foreign languages for the first period, combat class second, and lastly Geography class.

By the time the first period started, a graceful woman who looked like in her mid twenties entered the classroom.

Just like most females in this world, she was stunning. With her long straight oak brown hair, and mesmerizing emerald eyes, she took the attention of the class.

’Lizzy Summers.’ I thought. ’Or rather, instructor summers.’ She was both our geography instructor, and also a female lead in the novel.

At first she would take Alistair as a protege, but that master student relationship would gradually transform into something…. interesting.

“Hello class, I’m Lizzy Summers.” She greeted with a friendly smile that dazzled all boys in the class, me included. “But you can call me instructor Summers.” She continued.

“I’m a Delta ranked aetherial, and I’ll be your geography instructor for the better part of the year.”

–Whoa, did I hear right?!

–Did she just say she’s a Delta ranked aetherial?!

–No way, at this age? What is she, 24?!

Close enough, but she was 28, ten years older than our set. Still it was quite an achievement. Not many could brag about that with a common background.

–And she’s so stunning too!

“Ahem, class, we can leave the speculations for later. Today we’re starting introductions on the map of the human domain.”

The class effortlessly flowed by after that, though with most of the boys sneaking glances at the instructor, me excluded. I had better things to think of than looking at the instructor.

“Alright students, that brings us to the end of this class.” She said after which she turned to the door. But before she went out, she turned back to the class again. “I forgot to mention, if you want to train, we have multiple training halls here in the dome, there’s no need in going out there and destroying the ecosystem.”

’Eh? Why do I feel like she’s talking to you?’ Bubbles’ voice rang in my head.

“Because she is in fact talking to me!” I said matter of factly. I didn’t miss the last glance she gave me just before she went out.

Obviously, the faculty had kind of found out about my escapades somehow.

I knew about the training halls, but it just sort of slipped my mind. Not to mention I was testing something for the first time yesterday. Besides, one would have to pay points to use certain facilities of the training hall, which I wasn’t that keen on doing.

Shaking my head, I followed the line of students to the combat hall.

“Hey dude, how was your night.” Dion came beside me, trying to hook my shoulder.

I quickly slipped away. “Why it was fine thank you for asking.” I replied. It seemed the guy didn’t get the message that I wanted to be left alone as he once again tried to place a had on my shoulder.

“Good, mine was sup….” he began, but i cut him off.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my reputation is shit. So unless you want to become an outcast, it’s best you stay away from me.” I laid everything bare.

He chuckled.

“Who cares about reputation? As long as you’re strong, people can only say things behind your back, but never in your presence.”

“Is it?” I asked skeptically. The extras in our class didn’t seem to mind talking about me in my presence, even though I was quite stronger than the lot of them.

’Or is it me they just don’t respect?’ I looked at the stupid looking face of the guy beside me. Dion was the 17th rank. But as I said, he was a side character who died in the first week of the academy, just like Damon.

“Of course.” he grinned.

“Fine, you do you. Just don’t touch me.” I warned as we continued walking to the combat hall.

We were among the last students to reach the combat hall. Unlike yesterday, the platform was already up when we got there.

Instructor Black meanwhile was sitting crosslegged on the floor, a distance away. It wasn’t until all the students had arrived before he stood up.

“Same rules as yesterday.” He announced as another ballot box appeared in his hands. Then he grinned. “Only, this time, you can only surrender after the first ten seconds.”

Like I said, this man was a sadist. Maybe because a few students had managed to hold out for five seconds yesterday and surrendered, he doubled the time today.

After we finished picking the lots, the two students with number one were both called onto the platform, and just like yesterday, they were extras.

I looked around in hopes that I could see who I was up against beforehand, but my eyes landed on the redhead. Yeah, I wasn’t gonna raise a red flag.

“Hey you remember everything that happened here yesterday after I left right?” I turned to the idiot who had clung to me.

He looked confused.

“You mean after you were knocked out?”

“….”

“Yes Dion, after I was knocked out!”

************

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