Alex reached the training ground with Lara and Thalia. The students' eyes followed him with unbothered curiosity, watching him walk beside girls from other grand ducal houses. Some seemed to wonder whether there shouldn't be rivalry among the scions of the grand ducal houses, because the way Lara was talking jovially with Thalia while Alex simply listened looked nothing like competition at all.
Well, Alex did not have the strength nor the desire to explain to them that the Drakethorne house held good relations with both the Veilcaster and Chronveil families, and only a strained one with the Sealborne house. But then, why would he even bother explaining anything to them? He did not know any of them, and from the way they kept their distance, he had no particular wish to acquaint himself with them either.
"Students, today I will be testing your stamina." Professor Daniel clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention to him.
The man looked like the living incarnation of some giant monster from up close. Alex had thought the man was large before, but standing this close, he realized he had sorely underestimated the man's size.
Professor Daniel was enormous, so impossibly tall that even if Alex were to be stacked vertically three times over, the man would still be taller by several inches. His body was packed with bulging muscle, his waist alone appearing nearly four times the width of Alex's own, and his shoulders, arms, legs and chest all swelled with the same dense muscles. Yet above all of that mass sat a perfectly friendly and jovial face, with black eyes and black hair that fell freely around his head in loose, tangled curls.
"You will be running laps around the track field." Professor Daniel said with an easy smile, and then added, "Fifty rounds. That is your target."
Running 50 laps around the field? Alex looked around the ground. The track was laid in a wide circle tracing the full boundary of the field, and it looked to be at least a kilometre in length, if not more.
How were they supposed to complete fifty of those in a single hour? Each class was only an hour long. The task seemed not just difficult but genuinely impossible.
"Also," Professor Daniel added, his expression going flat and serious as he scanned the crowd, "for those of you who fail to complete all fifty laps today, you will carry the remaining count into the following classes and finish them there, while the rest of the class moves ahead without waiting for you."
A collective groan rippled through the students. Some even stamped the ground in frustration.
The professor did not flinch and dismiss it the way one might dismiss the whining of young children. He simply clapped his hands once more. "Now then, what are we all waiting for? Start running."
Students glanced at one another and then broke into motion. Alex turned to his side and found that Lara and Thalia had already launched themselves onto the track and appeared to have covered nearly a tenth of a lap already. Then, just as he was watching them, a figure blurred past both girls so fast it barely registered as human, slowing only slightly before surging ahead again. The murmurs around him filled in what his eyes had barely caught, students exclaiming and whispering in awe about how fast Lucian was moving.
Alex clenched his fist and stepped onto the track, joining the stream of students who had already flooded the field, none of them willing to be left standing still.
He took a long breath and settled into a steady, comfortable rhythm, careful not to exhaust himself too early. He had to complete all fifty laps no matter what. The alternative was coming back the next day, and the day after, still chasing the same laps while the class had already moved on without him.
Alex bit his lip. He could not afford to be left behind, not from the very first day. If he fell out of pace with the class now, it would become harder and harder to close that gap as the lessons grew more demanding. It was almost like a widening distance, he thought, where catching up on today's lesson tomorrow would mean falling behind tomorrow's, and the cycle would keep repeating until he had drifted so far back that catching up at all became an impossibility.
Resolving not to let that happen, Alex pushed his pace up and looked around to find that most of the students had already overtaken him. Nearly everyone was ahead, and he was trailing somewhere near the very back of the pack, almost alone in the rear.
Suddenly, a sharp gust of displaced air rushed past him, nearly knocking him sideways, and when he spun around there was nothing there. When he turned his head forward again, he caught sight of the blur that had swept past him and understood immediately that it was Lucian, who had already completed one full lap and was now blazing past the students ahead of him with a speed that was hard to catch by Alex's eyes.
As if that were not enough, "Move, bastard!" Eldric's voice tore through the air from somewhere behind him. Instinctively, Alex stepped aside and gave room, watching Eldric barrel past with an almost furious intensity, Eldric's eyes locked ahead on Lucian as though he had a previous grudge to settle against Lucian and needed to complete fifty laps before Lucian.
A bitter taste settled in Alex's mouth as he watched them go, the difference between their strength and his own staring back at him without mercy. But he did not stop. He kept running.
Suddenly, a familiar voice called out.
"Alex, best of luck!" Lara shouted brightly as she completed her own first lap and swept past him, her voice carrying genuine warmth. Thalia followed close behind her, matching her stride and keeping pace, but did not spare Alex so much as a single glance before running ahead.
Alex quickened his step, refusing to let the envy and jealousy creeping through him take root any deeper than they already had. He slapped both his cheeks sharply, the sting of it snapping his focus back to where it belonged, and decided then and there that he would stop measuring himself against the others. He would look only at himself, do his best, and finish what he had started.
***
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