"Begin."
With those words, my essence responded to my will. In the next moment, Izel dashed toward me, her hair fluttering from the wind generated by her movement.
In an instant, she reached me and threw a punch at my face. I simply tilted my body to avoid it, and she immediately followed with her other hand. I raised my hand and struck her wrist, deflecting the punch away from me.
She smiled."You're blazing as usual, my lady."
I don't know why, but it seems I've developed a habit of teasing this girl.
Izel gritted her teeth."Why don't you shut that filthy mouth of yours… it would be a great service to the world."
I chuckled softly as I dodged her kick. While her foot was still in the air, she kicked with the other. For a moment, she almost fell to the ground, but she spun in midair and landed on her feet.
As soon as her foot touched the ground, she threw another strike at my face. I raised my fists and caught her punch midway:"Do you have a problem with this handsome face?"I asked, tightening my grip on her hand.
With her other hand, she tried to punch my ribs."I told you to shut up."
But I grabbed her with my other hand, and now we stood close together. From a distance, it might look like we were holding hands and flirting rather than fighting.
I brought my face a little closer to hers."But admit it, I'm very handsome, so you're trying to ruin my face with your punches."
I swear I saw a slight blush on her cheeks, but who knows if it was from embarrassment or anger.
She lifted her leg to strike my knee, but I pushed it away forcefully before she succeeded. She landed a few meters in front of me.
For me, fighting Izel was easy; after all, without using abilities, I was certain I was the best here.
Perhaps it was time to finish this.
I pushed essence into my legs, then lunged toward her. In the next moment, I was in front of her.
She threw a punch. She raised her arms to defend, but the impact of my strike made her step back a few steps, and I gave her no chance.
Using the momentum from my movement and adding my strength, I delivered a side kick. All she could do was put her hands up to protect her ribs. The impact was strong, a faint collision sound echoed, and Izel flew a few meters.
I lunged toward her again and threw a punch, but she leaned her body and avoided it."You bastard."
Of course, she hadn't forgotten to insult me.
But she had to focus on the fight, because my other hand reached her abdomen, covered with a thin layer of essence. I struck with enough force to knock the air out of her lungs.
With a moan, Izel fell to her knees, clutching her stomach and gasping loudly.
At that moment, the instructor announced:"That's enough. You may stop."
I turned and walked away from her, but her words followed me:"I promise I'll get you back for this."
Wow… she really takes things seriously.
"Now I will display your essence control evaluation on the screen," said the instructor, pressing a few buttons. The screen at the edge of the arena changed and displayed the following:
[Caius Astroweild — 147Final Evaluation: Perfect]
[Izel Ashvil — 89Final Evaluation: Very Good]
The evaluation was based on Rank 2, so I received Perfect. In fact, my essence control was comparable to those at the beginning of Rank 3.
The result didn't please me; after all, the power I was searching for was far beyond this.
But the others looked at me as if they were seeing something strange, even the instructor himself. I didn't care and walked to the edge of the arena before sitting down on the ground.
Elliot approached and tossed me a water bottle. I raised my hand and caught it.
"What an amazing result you got," he said, a smile on his face.
"It's nothing," I replied, then opened the bottle and sipped some cold water.
Elliot raised an eyebrow."Have you suddenly decided to become modest?"
I ignored his sarcastic comment and looked at the next match, where the blonde Talia faced Princess Ellen.
…
Several other fights followed before today's class ended.
Even after everyone was measured, I was still first; everyone else scored between 80 and 110, from good to excellent.
Only Elliot came close to me, achieving 138 with a perfect rating.
After finishing, the instructor gave some instructions regarding the next class, where we would work on improving our essence control, before allowing us to leave.
I probably wouldn't attend the upcoming classes; they weren't really useful to me.
What I needed now was a boost to reach the next rank, and I knew exactly how to get it.
Anyway, I headed off to lunch. That was the best part of the day.
Then I went to the next class, which was with Professor Rowan, the same history professor from before, but this time the lesson was about the geography of this world.
I sat in the lecture hall, staring at the professor who had just entered and placed his bag on the desk before turning to us.
"I hope you enjoyed your lunch, my dear students."
He then turned and approached the huge screen at the front of the hall.
With a few button presses, a map appeared of what looked like a single continent. The map was divided into several regions, each colored differently.
The professor turned to us, pointing at the map:"As you all know, this world consists of a single vast continent. Over the past centuries, humanity explored it, and eventually, we obtained this map."
He walked to the edge of the map and pointed to four adjacent regions:"These white-colored areas are the Four Empires, located at the far south of the continent. They are surrounded by the endless sea on three sides, except for the north. These are the safe regions of this world, covering only 3% of the continent's area."
The empires looked like a trapped dot at the edge of the map.
The professor then moved his hand to a green area stretching along the northern border:"And this is the Green Area, located along the northern boundary of the safe zones. It is land that the Four Empires routinely clear. It is not completely safe; Rank 1 and Rank 2 monsters can be found in some areas, but they are not dangerous."
He looked at the rest of the map:"The green area represents the border separating us from the wonders of this world…"
"Areas of death."