CH 42

The next day.

Everyone gathered at Ivan’s place very early in the morning. Lucas couldn’t help but lament about the academy’s unfairness again after seeing Ivan’s large room.

They set off shortly after and soon arrived at the building where the training rooms were located. They came across other first-year students who had also come to train, Ivan even saw some of his classmates.

Ivan didn’t stop to talk to them and kept moving with his group. They arrived in front of a vacant training room and went inside.

The training room was spacious, like the training room where teacher May had conducted the physical assessment for Ivan’s class.

A crystal orb floated some distance away from the ground in front of the door. One would instantly spot it once they entered the training room.

After spending two weeks training in the training rooms, Ivan now understood the use of the orb and why teacher May was constantly placing her palm on it.

The crystal was a sort of control mechanism for the training room. Ivan didn’t know the type of formation that was used to make it but one would be able to control what happened in the training room by placing their hands on the crystal and pouring some of their mana into it.

Upon doing so, a sort of option menu would appear in one’s mind and they just had to pick the kind of training they wanted; difficulty and the likes.

But since this was going to be a sparring training between him and Lena, there wasn’t any need to use the crystal orb.

While Lucas, Aaron, and Juliet stood near the entrance, Ivan and Lena walked to the centre of the training room before facing each other.

Seeing the two of them face each other, the three close to the door didn’t even debate about who was going to win since they already knew. They just watched in silence, hoping to see something fun at least.

In the centre of the training room, Ivan raised his right hand. Mana rose from his palm and condensed into a double-edged long sword.

He looked at Lena calmly and asked.

"Ready?"

The sword in his hand wasn’t the same sword he had used during the assessment. This was the sword created from his Paladin ability and was currently at the same rank as himself.

He obviously wasn’t going to use a grade 2 sword to spar with Lena, that would be too much.

"Yes!" Lena replied energetically, her long ponytails bouncing from excitement from the spar.

The next moment, mana rushed out from her body and caused an invisible wind to blow around her. It was only noticeable due to her hair and clothes fluttering wildly.

The next moment.

Bang! Bang!

Two holes exploded in the floor of the training ground and two long vines rose into the surface.

A look of surprise appeared on Ivan’s face upon seeing the two vines. They weren’t as huge as the single vine that Lena used to make, in fact, it looked like that fine had split into these two.

He wasn’t the only one who was stunned, Juliet and the two boys at the door were also surprised. They didn’t know that Lena could now make two vines.

"Here I come!" Lena voiced out in a cheerful tone. Right after her voice sounded, the two vines wriggled like snakes before shooting towards Ivan.

Their speed was also faster than before. Ivan was several meters away but they reached him in just a few breaths’ time!

Ivan didn’t panic when he saw the two vines rushing over. Rather, a small smile formed on the corner of his lips.

Good, he wasn’t the only one making progress.

Immediately after he had this thought, Ivan bent his knees slightly before launching himself into the air like a spring.

He flew several meters into the air, causing the vines to miss him completely.

Lena’s eyes flashed when she saw this, she immediately waved her hands and controlled the two vines to go after Ivan who was still in the air.

The vines quickly changed direction and shot into the air, going after Ivan.

Ivan was about to land on the ground when the vines reached him.

Lucas and the others immediately thought that he wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop the vines. But to their surprise. The moment one of the vines reached Ivan, he stabbed his sword into it.

The sword sank into the vines effortlessly. Grabbing the hilt, Ivan pulled hard, dragging his body across the air instead of landing on the ground.

Lena "!!!!"

Juliet and the two boys watching "!!!"

One moment it looked like Ivan was about to be hit, the next moment, he was flying through the air in Lena’s direction.

Ivan had let go of his sword after pulling himself with it, letting the two vines pass him once again. After which the sword disappeared into mana particles and another one formed in Ivan’s hand as he approached Lena.

Lena quickly reacted, controlling her vines to come back. One of them went for Ivan while the other one returned to her side to protect her.

Ivan’s feet landed on the ground and without looking, he rolled on the ground before using his hands to launch himself forward again.

Just a moment after that.

Bang!!

The vine that Lena had sent after Ivan crashed into the spot where Ivan had landed previously, but he was already gone and had almost reached Lena.

Ivan had a calm smile on his face the whole time as he was moving. He could have actually ended the fight earlier but decided not to, Lena’s vines just weren’t fast enough.

Arriving in front of Lena, Ivan was welcomed by the second vine that Lena had called back.

The vine lashed at him like a hungry snake. In response, Ivan’s hand that was holding the sword moved rapidly, forming different afterimages.

Swoosh!! Swoosh!

Several sword lights flashed through the air and the vines exploded into several pieces that flew past Ivan.

After cutting the vine, he stepped toward Lena and brought down his sword. But before his sword could reach her, it disappeared. Instead, it was Ivan’s hand that landed on her head.

It now looked like he was rubbing her hair.

The trio who were watching the fight were left speechless when they saw this. Meanwhile, Lena blinked and looked at Ivan’s hand, she actually didn’t mind.

"You have reached the second stage?" Ivan asked with a gentle tone.

"Yes, I broke through last night after going back to my lodge!" Lena replied, feeling quite proud of herself.

"I see, that’s good," Ivan replied as he dropped his hand. Now that he thought about it, Lena did say that she was close to reaching the second stage yesterday, he just didn’t expect her to break through overnight.

Juliet and the others also came over to congratulate Lena on her breakthrough. Since they were done with the spar, it was safe for others to approach.

While the three of them surrounded Lena, Ivan walked over to the floating crystal and placed a palm on it. A gentle stream of mana flowed out from his hand and entered the crystal, activating it.

The next moment, a bunch of options appeared in Ivan’s mind.

He selected the number of dummies, strength, and difficulty.

Difficulty meant how much danger the dummies would pose to the students, this didn’t concern the strength of the dummies.

There were four levels of difficulty. Easy, normal, hard, and deadly.

Easy meant that before the dummies would land a clean hit, they would suddenly shut down.

On normal difficulty, the dummies would freeze for a split second before landing a bit.

Since there was no one to constantly be controlling the crystal orb like what teacher May did during their physical assessment, these settings would provide the student with enough time to respond to the dummy’s attacks and prevent them from being hurt.

On hard mode, the dummies would stop attacking after landing a clean hit. Blocked hits wouldn’t register, and only attacks that actually hurt the students would count.

As for deadly difficulty, it was literally like fighting an actual beast with no restrictions.

Ivan was soon done with preparation. He had selected a number of three dummies. Their strength was at the first stage of the Level 2 warrior rank. As for difficulty, Ivan picked hard.

Over the last two weeks, dummies at the Level 1 warrior rank no longer stood a chance against him, especially since he was using a grade 2 sword.

Now that he was about to move to a higher rank, he wasn’t going to jump into deadly difficulty mode right away.

He wanted to check his current limits out first, so picking hard mode was more ideal.

This way, the dummies would hold back before attacking but would stop immediately after an attack landed.

After doing this, Ivan removed his hand from the crystal orb and walked back to the middle of the training room while telling Lena and the others to go stand on the side.

They knew that he was about to start training so they didn’t argue and immediately left the area for him.

Shortly afterwards, the floor of the training ground opened and three large dummies appeared.

"Level 2!" Aaron exclaimed in surprise.