"Keep running! Keep your head's up and breath! fully!" Hagrid roared as he watched thirty plus late teens running laps around and my previous thoughts' weren't wrong... As alot of the girls didn't run for long, even if it was obviously for their futures.
Nope, after they got tired, began panting after the third lap, they quickly gave up basically. A couple of the girls however kept running, like Dorea Malfoy seemingly having had taken some refinement elixer's or something. Had a much stronger baseline then the rest of the girls and most of the guys.
But they still had the simple issue of not having the simple will power to push themselves above and beyond to say the least.
And a few minutes later Hagrid had us switching around to doing sit-ups and push ups and after that lovely business he called out. "You all take five minutes while I write down your information!"
I sagged into a metal bleacher with myself breathing deeply but not heavily as I watched as everyone else fell into their cliques and groups. And I threw a head nod to Devin Thrasher as he was talking to a couple more buff Slytherins.
"Ughhh, I hate being all sweaty." I heard Lavender whine as she slumped into the bleacher next to me alongside Charlotte.
"Well, better to sweat now. Then bleed later." I said casually as I got my breathing under control before I leaned back into the metal back of the bleacher behind me and turning to the girls beside me. It was a pretty good sight to say the least.
"Ughh don't preach to me Jake. I know alright." Lavender whined before she stretched her arms up and then outwards making her heavy bust bounce with the motion. Then she looked over to me. "Anyway, are you ready to get to the real part of combat class."
I nodded and asked curiously. "So what are you ladies wanting to learn as a martial art?"
Charlotte giggled and said easily. "Oh, I plan to pick up some palm and saber martial arts."
And Lavender said with her own giggle. "Oh I am going to pick up some super strong kicking martial art. So that way, I can be all bwah! And just kick those monsters in the shins haha!"
Which made me roll my eye's and then I asked curiously. "So how you ladies dealing with hogwarts so far? Any major gripes?"
There was a pause before I snorted as they both said together in unison. "The stairs!"
"Ughh, going from the eight floor and the top of Gryffindor tower down to the first level for one class? Ugh! I hate it! Not to mention I have to right back up to the sixeth floor for my next class as well!" Charlotte whined.
Which, to be fair... Going up eight flights of stairs on foot was a bit annoying. To say nothing of those enchanted stair cases deciding to just be a dick and diverting you elsewhere.
"Alright! Everyone, get up and ready! The weapons room is open to you all and if you can find a weapon that fits your martial art. Then you may BORROW it, not keep it!" Hagrid spoke loudly with his voice a drum that vibrated my chest with the power in his voice.
"Ugh... Jake you have fun, we are going to go hide so he won't pay as much attention to us." Lavender said after she stuck her tongue out at Hagrid and she got up off the bench with Charlotte followering her as well.
'Whelp, time to see if they have such a sword anyway.' I thought as I got up with a hopeful small smile as I entered the... Fucking massive cathedral that was a mix of library and storage room, but instead of books being stored on the shelves it was endless different weapons.
Blowdart guns to bows, sabers to swords, greatswords to spears, whips to chain blades. Literally any weapon you could imagine that didn't use gunpowder and used the strength and skill of the user. The giant storage room seemed to have.
And after Hagrid help a fellow Gryffindor find a pair of knuckle dusters of all things. I went up and asked. "Excuse me Professor, I was hoping to find some Swordspears?" And I quickly explained generally what I wanted as well.
Hagrid nodded and he pointed towards second floor section before he said. "Aye, that's an interesting choice there lad. But go up to the second floor, aisle thirteen is the Swordspear's but we don't have a large selection of them to be honest."
"Thank you Professor," I said respectfully with the huge man huffing and saying with amusement.
"Bah, just call me Hagrid young man. I ain't so stuffy when I will have ye be crying after breaking ya bones during training."
My lips twitched at his admission and I could only just smile weakly before I made my escape as another student came to ask about... A boomerang martial art?
But regardless, I quickly made my way up to the section where he said the Spearswords were. And entering the section, I realized what he meant by a smaller selection was just in comparion to the thousands of available straight swords, or curved sabers that were available.
As there were easily a couple if not three hundred or more Spearswords open to be taken... Which made sense due to how niche of a weapon it was obviously.
'Hmm, I am going to be cultivating an Astral Cultivation manual, so I could use cosmic storms as a weapon in time. But with a spearsword, should I try to get a lightning-using dragon as a mount to go for the whole Nameless King vibe?' I mused as it would be funny to do so.
Sadly however, forming a contract with a spirit beast wasn't something I could do willy nilly. It would have a great impact on my future, and if I picked a spirit beast with low potential... Even my own cultivation would be hindred by the spirit beast.
But still looking through the Swordspears, I realized that just taking a Swordspear was fucking useless right now... So with some privacy in the empty section I mentally dived into the Library of Heaven's path. As before I did anything.
I needed to merge all the sword, saber, spear, and Swordspear martial arts together into the highest tier possible manual so I would have a foundation for the weapon.
Swirling pages filled my inner mind as the thousands of martial arts I scanned into my mind were filed together, their impurities removed, and finally a gleaming silver massive sword spear was left inside of my mind.
'The hell... Oh, the martial art is like engraved on the blade itself.' I mused to myself with a shrug leaving me at how the Library of Heaven's Path would make weird methods of teaching me what I wanted to know.
"Hmm... Ahh the hell? Well, I did pick up a lot of elemental martial arts as well." I mused asI realized the five principal motions of the Sword Spear was filled with the charm of the five elements as well.
Throwing the Swordspear would invoke heavenly lightning onto the spear.
Stabbing the Swordspear forward invoked a tornado of wind that would shred the target.
Slashing the Swordspear in any direction besides side to side would invoke billowing flames
Carving, left and right would emulate and bring the power of water in waves of crushing force.
And lastly preforming evasive measures and defending would strengthen my form with the power of earth.
"Now what do I name you." I muttered before shrugging as I pulled out of the Library of Heaven's Path with my new martial art embedded in my mind for me to begin training in.
I then spent the next couple of minutes picking up a good Swordspear that matched my martial art and in that time I finally got a good name!
It hit me. "Yeah, Five Elemental Changes works. That's a decent name and not complicated or chuuni either." I muttered before I headed downstairs and back into the massive courtyard where I could see Hagrid was directing some sparring between the students.
And seeing me come out... He smiled and said a bit snappish. "Alright! That's enough fooling around ye two!"
Looking past Hagrid, I saw those two that had earned his ire was John the guy who wanted a katana martial art so that one day he could snag a Yuki-Onna waifu. And a slytherin who was using a chain whip... But had clearly zero idea how to use a whip, let alone a chain whip.
So he was clearly just trying to smash John with the chains of the whip instead of hitting him with the snap of the metal whip.
"Jake, ye and Dorea get into the ring." Hagrid called out making me blink at being called up so soon. And I heard a scoff and looked over to see Dorea who was wearing some tight fitting exercise clothes that enhanced her curves but was also armed with a rapier.
"That Newblood doesn't even know how to properly use a weapon! How could you put him against me!?" Dorea demanded in frustration.
I raised an eyebrow at her slight tantrum, and Hagrid was just as unamused as he huffed and said bluntly. "Girlie, get in the ring unless you want to be marked as forfeiting the match... I am sure your father would love to hear how his princess refused to fight on her first day for her house's glory."
'Ayoooo what the hell is Hagrid cooking?' I thought with my face twitching as Dorea's face darkened with anger and she stomped the soft grass covered areana in as she scowled angrily at me.
I looked back at Hagrid and he just fucking winked at me like he did me a damned favor or something.
So I just sighed and walked forward with Hagrid's voice washing of me. With him quickly explaining how, not only was the arena heavily enchanted... Like bonker's level enchanted, meaning that the entire arena was time locked so our bodies would revert chronologically to before we even got into the arena.
So, although we would keep our exhausted levels of qi/magic. Our bodies would have all wounds healed, so... So long as Dorea didn't literally take off my head, all wounds would be dealt with.
"So, how intense are we to fight with one another?" I asked a bit sheepishly.
And Hagrid said bluntly. "Don't kill the other. If they wash out of my class because they can't take some temporary pain then they won't amount to much. This is a combat class after all, if we do not train you to fight each other as seriously as possible. When you inevitably face monsters... You will fall."
I turned back to Dorea who sneered at me and she held up her rapier to my face but a few meters away. And then she whispered coldly. "Well Newblood? Are you scared?"
And that almost made me cackle at how close it was to the 'Are you scared potter?' That filled my previous life with joy, and it seemed Dorea very easily caught my bloom of humor on my face as she snorted as Hagrid called a timer for our duel.
"Three, two, one... Fight!"