Chapter 180: Jelo vs Raken

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It was later arranged that the students would come to class once a week so the teachers could monitor their progress. The next time they were scheduled to return to the academy was the following day, but little did they know what awaited them.

The news spread through the academy faster than any of them expected.

By the next morning, many students in Class One were already whispering about it.

“Did you hear?”

“They actually took the red ball from Tongen.”

“No way.”

“I heard it was Jelo who grabbed it.”

The whispers traveled from hallway to hallway, from the dormitory corridors down into the lower training wings. By the time the morning bell rang and students filtered into their classrooms, the story had already grown — stretched and reshaped with each retelling until some versions had Jelo catching the ball bare-handed while standing on one leg, and others had him doing it blindfolded. None of it was accurate, but none of it mattered. The name was what stuck.

Jelo.

Inside the classroom, Atlas leaned back in his chair, looking amused.

“I didn’t expect the whole academy to hear about it already,” he said, stretching his arms above his head with a lazy grin spreading across his face.

Mira crossed her arms.

“That’s what happens when students beat a challenge most people fail.” She glanced toward the window, her tone flat but her eyes thoughtful. “People remember the exceptions.”

Jelo sat quietly near the window, staring outside.

The courtyard below was mostly empty. A few students crossed the stone path carrying training equipment. The sky was pale gray, the kind that made morning feel longer than it was. He watched a leaf drift across the ground and disappear behind a wall.

He didn’t seem very interested in the rumors.

Atlas looked at him.

“You’re too calm about this.”

Jelo shrugged, his gaze still drifting somewhere beyond the glass. “We only barely succeeded.”

There was no false modesty in the way he said it. It was simply true. The gap between them and Tongen had been real — wide enough that Jelo had felt it in his bones the moment the exercise began. They hadn’t won cleanly. They’d scraped through on instinct and timing and a little bit of luck, and Jelo hadn’t forgotten that even if the rest of the academy had decided to turn it into something legendary.

Before Atlas could reply—

The classroom door suddenly slid open.

A tall student walked in.

The room slowly went quiet.

He wasn’t from their class.

He moved with the kind of unhurried ease that only came from knowing exactly where you stood. His uniform was the same as everyone else’s, but something about the way he wore it — collar slightly open, posture relaxed but grounded — made him look like he belonged at the front of the room rather than walking through it as a visitor. His eyes swept across the class once, briefly, before settling on the window row.

Atlas raised an eyebrow. “Who’s that?”

Mira recognized him immediately.

“That’s Raken,” she said quietly. “He’s one of the strongest students in Class One.”

She said it without drama, the way you state a fact about the weather. But the weight behind the words was clear enough. Raken wasn’t a rumor. He was a reputation — built over months of matches and assessments, tested against students who were themselves considered strong. Most of them had lost.

Raken walked straight toward Jelo.

Every student in the room watched silently.

He stopped in front of Jelo’s desk and stood there for a moment, just looking. Up close, he was broader than he appeared from a distance, his forearms thick with the kind of muscle that came from impact training rather than conditioning alone.

“So you’re Jelo.”

Jelo looked up from the window. His expression didn’t shift.

“That’s me.”

Raken studied him for a moment — taking in the lean frame, the calm eyes, the lack of any visible reaction to being stared down in front of the entire class.

“I heard you impressed Tongen.”

Jelo didn’t respond.

Raken smirked slightly. It wasn’t cruel. It was the look of someone who had already made a decision and was simply going through the formality of announcing it.

“Let’s see if the rumors are true.”

Atlas leaned forward immediately, both elbows hitting the desk. “Oh boy…”

Raken pointed toward the door.

“Arena. After class.”

Jelo blinked. “You’re challenging me?”

“Yes.”

The room became even quieter. Even the students near the back who hadn’t been paying full attention had turned around by now. Someone near the door forgot to pretend they weren’t listening.

Mira watched carefully, her arms still crossed, her expression unreadable. Raken wasn’t the type to make pointless challenges. He picked his opponents with intention. The fact that he was standing here at all meant he had already thought about it — probably decided before he even walked through the door.

Jelo stood up slowly.

“Alright.”

Atlas’s eyes widened. “You’re actually accepting?”

Jelo stretched his shoulders slightly, rolling one side and then the other, working out the stiffness from sitting too long.

“I’m curious.”

It was the only reason he needed.

Raken smiled — genuinely this time, brief and clean. There was something almost respectful in it.

“Good.”

He turned and walked toward the door without rushing, without looking back.

“I’ll be waiting.”

The door closed behind him.

For a moment, no one spoke.

The silence held just long enough to feel like the whole room was catching its breath. Then, all at once, the whispers started back up — faster and sharper than before, because now there was something new to carry.

Then Atlas leaned toward Jelo, dropping his voice like they were the only two in the room.

“You do realize he’s strong, right?”

Mira nodded. “Very strong.” She paused, then added, almost reluctantly: “Possibly stronger than anyone you’ve faced in the arena.”

Jelo looked calm. Not the calm of someone who hadn’t heard them — but the calm of someone who had heard them and simply wasn’t afraid of the information.

“Then this will be good training.”

Atlas stared at him for a long second. Then he shook his head and laughed — a short, helpless laugh that came out before he could stop it.

“You’re insane.”

Later that afternoon, a crowd had gathered in the academy arena.

Students from several classes had come to watch.

Word had moved fast — faster even than the news that morning, because this was no longer just a story about something that had already happened. This was something happening now, something unfinished, and that drew people in a way that old news never could. They lined the upper rails and filled the benches along the sides, talking in low voices, pointing.

Two figures stood in the center.

Jelo.

And Raken.

Atlas and Mira stood near the edge of the arena, close enough to see clearly but far enough back to stay out of the way.

“This is going to be interesting,” Atlas said. His voice was light but his eyes weren’t.

Mira nodded slightly, arms still crossed, her gaze fixed on the center.

Raken rolled his shoulders and stepped forward, his feet settling into a wide, grounded stance. There was no warm-up. No posturing for the crowd.

“I won’t go easy on you.”

Jelo raised his hand slightly. A small flame flickered around it — steady, controlled, burning low like a pilot light waiting for fuel.

“That’s fine.”

The arena referee raised his hand.

“Begin.”

Raken moved first.

He disappeared in a sudden burst of speed.

Jelo’s eyes sharpened.

Fast.

Raken appeared directly in front of him and threw a powerful punch.

BOOM!

Jelo activated Skilled Guard, his skin hardening just as the punch landed. The impact cracked through the air like a split log, and the shockwave rattled the nearest benches. Even braced, even hardened — the force pushed him several steps back, his heels scraping the arena floor.

Atlas whistled low. “That guy hits hard.”

Jelo steadied himself. His arm throbbed beneath the guard. The punch had landed clean and it had meant to.

Then he swung his hand forward.

“Dragon Claw!”

A large claw-shaped energy slash tore through the air toward Raken — wide, sharp, trailing heat at its edges.

But Raken didn’t dodge.

He punched forward.

CRACK.

His fist collided with the Dragon Claw head-on and shattered it — the energy breaking apart like fractured glass, the pieces dissolving before they hit the ground.

The crowd gasped.

Mira’s eyes narrowed. “He broke it…”

Not deflected. Not tanked. Broke. Clean through the center of it, like he knew exactly where the structure was weakest.

Raken smiled, shaking out his knuckles once.

“So that’s your famous attack.”

Jelo looked more interested now. The flatness in his expression had shifted into something sharper — the look of someone recalibrating, updating. He had felt the Dragon Claw land. He had felt it shatter.

“Looks like this won’t be easy.”

The air between them grew tense — charged with the particular weight of a fight that had only just revealed itself. Neither of them had shown everything. Both of them knew it.

The real fight…

Was just beginning.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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