The following days passed in a blitz of rage for both Leo and Su Yang, their tempers burning like wildfire.

    They moved like men possessed, throwing themselves into their training with reckless intensity, that was driven by humiliation and fueled by an insatiable need for redemption.

    But the academy life did not let them be.

    The students around them did not let them forget the humiliation they suffered a few days ago, as every time they stepped into a class, the giggles and whispers began and everywhere they walked, smirks followed them, the silent mockery lingering like an unshakable stench.

    And to top it all off, during the ’Basics of Magic Theory,’ class Leo found something new waiting for him—a single note on his desk.

    A simple, taunting message written in scrawled, messy handwriting:

    [Yu Shen’s gonna kill you on Sunday.]

    Leo stared at it for a long moment, his fingers tightening around the paper before he crushed it in his fist.

    He did not need this reminder.

    He was already counting down the days till he could redeem himself, and incidents like these only pushed him even harder, fuelling his rage as he went wild with his training at night.

    —----

    (Rodova Military Academy, Practical Combat Grounds – 8:00 PM)

    BOOM!

    Another training dummy exploded into splinters, its form disintegrating as Leo drove his dagger deep into its core, executing [Kill Strike] with brutal precision.

    His chest rose and fell in ragged breaths, sweat rolling down his back as he wiped his face with the back of his hand.

    Slowly but surely—

    His body was remembering.

    His skills, his instincts—they were coming back to him, as he felt more and more sure of his fighting style.

    "That’s the seventeenth dummy you’ve exploded tonight Skyshard, and while I’m glad to see your skill activation time reducing fractionally, I must also remind you that these dummies don’t come for free.

    Although, we don’t charge you students for destruction of practice dummies and let you use as many as you like, they actually cost 20MP a piece and you’ve just destroyed seventeen of them tonight.

    That’s equivalent to the monthly salary of my assistants—" Major Hen said, as he walked over to Leo, with an eyebrow raised.

    "So I need to be smart with it huh?" He muttered, recalling what Hen said, as he threw his dagger towards another practice dummy 25 meters away, before using the skill move [Blade Switch].

    Almost immediately, he reached the location of his thrown dagger, as he plunged it into the neck of the practice dummy before using [Kill Strike] yet again, as he exploded yet another dummy head.

    *BOOOM*

    An explosion rattled the entire practical combat training field, as Hen clicked his tongue in disapproval from a distance.

    It seemed like Leo had decided to disregard his advice on exercising restraint, which made him feel disappointed as an adult.

    However, that disappointment aside, he was really excited to see Leo in action as he performed his skills, as although he did not speak it out-loud, he pretty much had his mind blown away with how crisp Leo’s fighting basics were.

    Whether it was stance, balance, or form. Leo had nailed everything down to perfection.

    Every movement that he made naturally linked up to the next, which made it seem like he was floating on a battlefield, rather than moving on it.

    His dagger throwing accuracy was better than some of the professors at the academy, as although the way he gripped the dagger and threw it was not the standard they taught at this school, it was something unquestionable, as in the several hours of practice that Hen had watched Leo perform, he had yet to see him miss a target by even a millimeter.

    Whoever his previous teacher was, had to clearly be a very accomplished assassin, as Leo was clearly an exceptionally well taught talent.

    However, although his strengths were exciting to witness, his weaknesses were also glaringly obvious to a veteran like Hen.

    From his perspective, the boy did not understand the concept of stamina conservation and had clearly never fought a fight that lasted longer than an hour.

    He got tired too easily and constantly fought at his 100%, rather than controlling the tempo as and when needed.

    He also did not have the necessary physical strength to go toe to toe with a swordsman or any other short ranged fighter from amongst the second year students.

    As with his strength being average amongst even the first years, he was a mile behind the second years for the same.

    And, if by chance he fought an opponent that was both faster than him and had a good defence, then Hen saw no qualities in him that would suggest that he could take him down.

    As overall, Hen found Leo to have:-

    A lacking stamina

    A lacking defence

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    And average physical qualities made him easy pickings for a seasoned fighter from second year, which was why Hen expected him to lose badly come Sunday.