Chronicles Of The Academy's Strongest Professor
Chapter 30: Training?

Chapter 30: Training?

Arthur stared at the stacks of paper on the desk with a blank expression.

He held his pen in his hand but was unable to do anything with it.

His mind was somewhere else.

It wasn’t on the display he had seen before where he had asked the first-year mage students to demonstrate their spells.

It was on yesterday night.

When he had tried out his spells.

It was nice for a while before transitioning into something worse.

His mana reserves were low after using and destroying that grandmaster-ranked spell, but, he had vomited.

Not just anything.

But blood.

It wasn’t the first time he had puked blood, but still, it was frightening.

Not only that, but he was couldn’t move for an hour.

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[....Note: Your body has not adapted to the draconic blood]

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That was what he had seen, and that was what he saw anytime he thought about it with his glasses on.

"...."

He only stared blankly at it.

Before, he had come to terms with it, that was solely because he believed that he would be able to cure himself.

After all, it gave him something under the label of "reward", so it should technically be good in the long run.

Unfortunately, it currently only gave him limiters.

"Damn it."

It was frustrating.

It was more of a burden than a helper.

He slowly looked down before looking down at the stack of papers.

Arthur let out a sigh before shifting them to the side and bringing out a clipboard.

While the students did their test he wrote down the spells they used and a general evaluation.

{Celestine Vaelthorne:

Wind Blade is her specialty, when combined with her accuracy, it’s a deadly weapon.}

There was no bias in his judgment just because they were related.

{Yvette Von Selwyn: Seems talented, though not among the main cast.}

{Lucas Wycliffe: Pitiful mana reserves. Smart. Seems talented. Not among the main cast.}

There were other students he noted.

Then finally...

{Ezra Ashford: Stupid. But insanely talented.}

That was his evaluation of the boy.

He had to be stupid if he had just seen someone fail to do an intermediate-rank spell, but still blindly did one as well.

And both of them hadn’t mastered the spell, nor had anything above basic knowledge of it.

They were just doing it on the spot.

But contrary to how the first one ended, he did surprisingly better.

It was almost an exact duplicate of what Yvette had cast.

And that was remarkable.

"What a fool, though."

He could have ended up in the same state as the boy, but he did it anyway.

For what?

From what Arthur knew, it was practically for nothing.

He set the clipboard aside, dropping it in the locker of the desk, before getting back to his work.

....

"First, ten laps around the field."

Arthur was already waiting for them in the room by the time they all arrived.

While he was late for his mage classes, he was always early for the assassin ones.

He was always in the class, even before it started after all.

Now, they were on the Academy’s field.

And he had asked all of them to do ten laps around the field, each of the thirty students were required to do ten laps each.

That was the first thing he had ordered them to do.

Only after they had completed the ten laps would they continue.

"But sir, we won’t be able to complete it before the class ends."

One of the students said.

"Don’t worry about that, additionally there will be a penalty for the last person to complete it."

Arthur said.

His words quickly made the student sink back into the crowd.

"Now, start."

At his words they dashed forward.

Roselyn looked in his direction, and his gaze caught hers.

In a way, it was a moment of understanding between both sides.

Then, she turned back to the task she was given.

What she had noticed when they entered the field was that it was quite large, larger than most fields she had seen.

And they had been told to run ten laps about them.

It wasn’t a test of endurance, it was a test of speed.

He watched as the students ran forward, quickly leaving him by himself.

"Slow."

That one word left his lips.

Arthur slowly walked after them.

"The only one that seems to have decent speed is Roselyn."

He strolled after them, maintaining a steady pace between himself and the one was currently.

His feet tapped against the ground lightly, and he walked as if time had slowed itself down to match his pace.

They had done three laps now.

And he was matching the pace of those in the back.

The ones that had ran with everything they had at the beginning were currently panting for air as they moved, their bodies soaked with sweat and their pace incredibly slow.

So slow that he had even slowed down to match their pace.

It was just the third lap but it seemed like they would collapse any moment now.

"Still slow."

He murmured.

The faster ones were slowly getting tired, the ones in the middle continued to move at a favorable pace, and the last ones were on the verge of collapse.

Roselyn was among those who moved at a favorable pace, not too fast but not too slow either. Ezra on the other hand, was in the back, among those who were on the verge of collapse.

But unlike them, he was not sweaty.

He had been using that pace since the start.

’He’s still not taking it seriously.’

The boy was obviously planning a burst of speed at the later half.

And for now, he left it like that.

Arthur said nothing, just keeping up the pace until the sixth lap.

Roselyn was slowly climbing positions.

Ezra too, had begun to take this seriously.

Suddenly, one of them lost his footing and fell onto the ground. It was one of those at the back of the runners.

Instead of getting up the boy laid down on the ground.

"Do you have any intention of getting up?"

Arthur asked, his voice calm as he stared at the boy.

Those at the back had stopped to watch.

"Sir, I can’t, my legs...."

"Okay."

He said simply.

"You’re free to stop, but you should know that for the next class instead of 10 you’ll do 20 instead."

"Sir, I really can’t-"

"Then stop, no one is forcing you to complete this one, just know that for the next one you won’t be able to quit, neither will you be allowed to rest, you’ll be forced to complete it by whatever means necessary."

His tone was calm, but the underlying message was clear.

If you don’t do this one, you’ll do double at the next and you can’t stop.

Even if it meant treating him like a slave, Arthur would force him to complete it.

It took a half-a-minute for the boy to stand up, but when he did he continued running.

At the pace he took before.

They took the ninth lap. Arthur had stopped trailing behind them, opting to stay at the finish.

Ezra was in third while Roselyn took the lead.

Her movements were sharp, even now that they were in the ninth lap.

Her arms moved in co-ordination, though her breathing was ragged.

She ran like someone who knew what they had to do.

Just run.

Ezra too.

He was running with everything he had, obviously trying to take first, but he was unable to pass the last two.

Others were visibly breaking down with their bodies drenched in sweat.

Last place slowed to a stop.

"Keep running."

It wasn’t a shout.

But it made the student snap back into motion.

By the time those in last rounded the last bend, those in the lead were done.

First was Roselyn.

When she was done she collapsed onto the ground.

Surprisingly, Ezra was second.

He had managed to overtake the girl in front of him and come second.

He was in a slightly better form that Roselyn, but he all the same collapsed onto the ground after completing it.

One after the other they completed.

Arthur checked the time.

There were only five minutes left.

’I’ll have to stop here.’

He thought.

The worst part of it was that in five minutes he wasn’t even sure if they would finish.

There were still some left.

They slowly finished what he had given them.

"We’ll stop here for today, in the class we’ll continue from here."

He said before walking away.

Off the field.

’I only have one more class for today.’

And then it would be over.

For today.

He’d only have to wait for tomorrow to come.