Crude and Cowardly?
Crude and Cowardly?
Never had Jason thought that he could breakthrough in a single hour and consolidate his mana core in the remaining two hours, which was extremely fast.
The mana around the lake was like a paradise to him and Jason hoped he could return to the lake, sometime in the future.
After entering the 6th Novice rank, his mana core size broke through the 7th rank easily, while his physical strength was at the 6th rank and was inching towards the 7th rank.
Artemis was more of a mana beast than a physical contributor to Jason and his mana felt vigorous while swirling inside his body.
When he had landed inside the water, Jason had entered his soul world for a second in order to check how much his soul energy had improved by ranking up.
Apparently, it had increased by around 0.2 when he ranked up to the 6th Novice rank, which could be considered slightly above the common average.
Jason was panting as he reached the arena, with only ten seconds left until the spar would begin. He placed his hands on his knees and took a few deep breaths, the wet hair, and clothes, sticking to his skin.
The clothes he put on got wet because Jason hadn't wasted time in drying himself and to change his clothes.
His classmates began to laugh when they saw him running towards the arena soaked wet.
"Yoo...mud-head... Did you fail to drown yourself?"
"Hahaha….Idiot!!"
"Did he fail in running away by swimming for a bit?"
"Does swimming increase one's courage?"
Jason was dumbfounded as he heard his classmates' catcalling.
Why should he drown himself? And how can one fail in running away by swimming? Was this student's brain out of mud or was he just dumb and clueless?
Jason didn't answer anyone as he stood in front of the teacher, who told him to change into a dry set of clothes after drying his body.
Till knew that Jason had jumped into the lake in order to clean himself and hurriedly rushed to the arena so as to not waste any time, so he gave him some time to clean and dry himself.
"Let's start the matches. Jason can follow us after he changes into a new set of clothes."
He announced so as to divert everybody's attention towards the upcoming battles.
When Jason arrived at the designated arena ten minutes later, he could already spot a few injured youths at the side with broken arms, cuts, and various elemental injuries but nobody seemed to be seriously injured.
Next to the injured youths, there was a 3-meter tall whitish-golden furred wolf with two golden crystals on its forehead.
The wolf released a calming and purifying energy that could slowly heal the injured youths.
Jason noticed that this wolf was a beast with either the light or holy affinity.
While light abilities were inferior between the two, Jason couldn't differentiate the affinities as he had never read or heard about either of their mana fluctuations.
Additionally, Jason didn't know what kind of beast it was except its canine race as he had never seen this race within the beastarium.
He ran his eyes through the wide arena, its construction was pretty simple. It had a few quadratic reinforced stone platforms as the sparring area, while the platform could be surrounded by a cubic protection field if needed.
This protection field could absorb all kinds of attacks from someone below the Magus rank, preventing them from leaving the combatant area so as to avoid possible injuries to the spectators.
However, for the first spars, this protection field was not activated so the teacher could save the two combatants if needed.
Deflecting adept ranked attacks was not even worth lifting a finger for him. He would at most release some mana and keep everything under control.
Mr. Greil saw Jason and called him to the platform with his seat neighbor for the first spar.
Facing each other, both got into position while Jason scanned his classmate's mana to find out what kind of elemental ability his opponent had if there was one, to begin with.
However, Jason was lucky, and Nr. 224´s mana seemed normal, without any transmutation from elemental affinities as a small smile emerged on his face.
His opponent thought it was somewhat weird for a 5th Novice rank to smile while fighting against someone 6 levels above him.
He thought Jason was overestimating his own capabilities and readied himself to fight, entering a common battle stance.
The teacher gave the starting signal and two small knives appeared in Jason´s hand, while his opponent used a longsword that looked extremely heavy.
His opponent began to rush at him with a speed that surprised Jason.
Jason calmed down within a millisecond and took a step forward before he changed his direction without delay in order to step backward in large strides.
Jason was happy on the inside while his smile froze on the outside causing his opponent to feel happy before their real clash even began.
His opponent's speed was fast but not fast enough to overwhelm Jason entirely, as he had to carry a heavy and cumbersome long sword with him, while Jason was almost empty-handed.
This happiness of the longsword wielder vanished quickly as Jason, who wore the mechanical knife holder, began to throw knives at him.
The accuracy Jason had achieved over the last week, was exceptional, as such it was essentially difficult for his opponent to deflect the throwing knives.
First, he focused on his opponent's legs, and his opponent had a hard time deflecting his attacks. His longsword was heavy and not smooth to handle, slowing him down to a considerable degree only to widen the divide between both of them.
After throwing the sixth knife, Jason penetrated the longsword wielder´s defense and hit his shoulder, inflicting a light injury that would worsen over time with every movement.
As he moved from the left to the right in order to avoid leaving the combat area, the spectators began to blame him for being a coward, which Jason didn't even notice.
He was too focused on his fight when his opponent was suddenly only a meter away from him.
With wrath in his eyes, the longsword wielder slashed at him.
Jason was still completely calm and analyzed the situation within a moment, as he used a quarter of his mana in order to enhance his legs.
He bent down, only to jump into the tiger's den straight as he got down on his knees, sliding towards his opponent, taking him by surprise.
The sword wielder's legs were already injured and his reflexes were much slower than Jason´s which gave him an overwhelming advantage.
Before his opponent could do anything, Jason held out both the throwing knives on either side and pierced its blades into the legs of his opponent. The blades sliced through the femoral veins, which are located between the calves and lower thigh, causing his opponent to cry out in pain as he slumped to the ground unconsciously.
Jason pulled back his knives and stopped his attacks, he was sure the fight was obviously over, as Nr. 224 was carried to the side where the other injured students were seated.
Even though the disparity between both of their ranks was wide, Jason´s combat experience and choice of weapon was much better.
Furthermore, Jason focused less on showing off or using a prideful tactic.
Surrounded by the light or holy energy, Nr. 224's blood congealed and the wound began to heal slowly.
He glanced at his opponent who looked like he was about to cry, and didn't know what to think…
`I´m not too cruel, right?` Jason asked himself, as his facial expression turned unsightly.
It was only now that he realized that his other classmates looked at him with disgust as if the fight had been sickening to them.
"Scaredy-Cat … the only thing you can do is run away, HAHAHA...even if you beat your opponent, he was only Nr 224. Don´t think you can do anything."
One of Leo Heart's cronies commented, "Running away and throwing knives….everyone can do that… you're nothing special."
Some idiot lamented, "That was unfair!! How dare you run away."
Jason could only now understand what they were saying and their stupidity annoyed him extremely before he turned to Mr.Greil, who declared.
"Jason Stella won the fight and is now Rank: 224. Anyone who says he won because he is scared or fights using unfair tactics, can try to fight someone 6 levels above your own rank without using tricks.. I´ll be waiting."
Turning to Jason he said
"Your fight was decent. Do you want to continue?"
"I need ten minutes to replenish my mana. After that, I´ll be ready to fight," Jason honestly replied.
It was very important to replenish his mana right now.
He was sure that he couldn't beat a 5th Adept rank without giving his all, and even then it would be quite difficult.
After listening to Jason, the teacher called up other students while he spectated their fight.
Meanwhile, he passively replenished his mana, with mana stones laid next to him to accelerate the process.
This was only possible because he had trained for more than two weeks on how to passively replenish mana while watching videos.
It was most likely also due to the arduous workout designed by Mark, that he was able to persist.
Furthermore, the foundational guide about replenishing mana passively helped Jason a lot in order to understand the basics of what he had to do.
He fixed the flaws he had made earlier while learning to passively replenish mana without relying on a guide and was now proficient in the same.
A few fights passed and his teacher noticed Jason spectating all fights without doing anything when he emanated a string of mana.
Mr. Greil instantly noticed that Jason had been absorbing the mana in his surroundings in order to replenish his mana pool and he nodded his head in approval.
It was a decent feat to be able to focus on the battle while replenishing one's mana.
If he had known that Jason had learned to do that within a few weeks, that too without following a guide, Mr.Greil would have probably been delighted and shocked at the same time.
Ten minutes later Jason's mana pool was completely filled and he noticed Leo Heart nagging at the teacher to let them fight in an impatient voice.
"Ughh… how annoying!! Up with both of you… don´t kill each other.."
Mr.Greil noticed that Leo was somehow a little preoccupied with Jason, even if he wasn't sure why, but he wanted to know how far above his own rank could Jason fight.
Jason stood opposite Leo with a distance of around 50 meters as spiked gauntlets appeared around Leo's hands, causing Jason to curse in his mind.
The choice of weapon was definitely a disadvantage for him.
Looking at Leo´s mana core, he noticed that the mana was slightly transmuted into a thin brownish color, indicating to Jason that he had an earth affinity.
Jason was honest when he thought about his chances to win.
'Ahh, I don't want to,' he wailed when the starting bell rang.
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