Harsh Training
'... Should I give then now?' Xander scratched his head as the silence pervaded. However...
"Alright, everyone. Since we've finished the warm-up, it's time we get into the real training for the day." Alya's voice sounded throughout the field, and there was a moment of silence.
Then everyone blanched.
'Ah... right. That was just the 'warm-up' Xander gulped.'
"Uh... Sergeant..." Someone spoke timidly. "Do the effects of the bracelets get reset before we continue?" Hearing this, Alya smiled brilliantly.
"If you arm gets sliced off during a battle, will it grow back for you during the next battle?"
Shudder
'This woman is a psychopath I swear...' Xander sighed and looked at Curtis. Since he was the one who actually had to endure the effects of the bracelet, he was for sure going to be at a disadvantage.
'The sad part is that after everything she's done so far, I can't even be surprised anymore.' Xander rubbed the bridge of his nose before sighing again.
"Well, might as well get it over with." He mumbled as Alya started to get them ready for the 'real' training of the day.
***
"Ack!" Xander fell to the ground as he endured the powerful current that ran through his body, allowing his muscles seizing and spasming painfully, and smoke actually wafted off his body like he was roasting.
When it ended, he fell to his back with a pained groan.
'Bloody... hell...!' He gritted his teeth.
This time, the sun had set fully, and the moon was out. As such, the school was being illuminated by a myriad of magical lamps.
Anyway, when Alya said they were going to do 'real' tests, she wasn't playing. Because Xander would have preferred to fight that giant spider hundreds of times that go through what just happened again.
Simply put, Alya pushed them on Every. Single. Category.
Teamwork, individual capabilities, speed, strength, endurance, perception, mana pool, output, quality, and so on.
Not a single aspect was left untested, and as a result, everyone was forced to confront their weaknesses time and time again, both as a team and individually.
As for how she did this? Well, it was simple. She made every squad fight 5 mana constructs each that represented these categories.
Multiple times.
It was so bad that more than half of the students had pushed the bracelets to seal their senses completely, and the gravity crushing them was so potent that they couldn't move, forcing Alya to reset the effects. But she never did it fully, only dialed it back to about halfway. And when they were fully activated again, rinse and repeat.
The ironic thing, though, is that these constructs they contended against weren't super powerful per-se. In fact, if placed next to the giant spider at the beginning, they would pale in comparison, and if someone excelled in a certain category, they could handle them with relative ease.
No, they were designed to utterly brutalize one in the categories they did not excel in.
And they did their jobs very well.
For instance, if one did well in strength, there would be no issue. But if one was subpar when it came to defenses, the strength of the construct would rise to an obscene degree, and what would ensue would be a session of terrible thrashing for the student until they were beaten black and blue.
Then Alya would heal them, and the process would repeat.
It was, frankly, cruel. And yet...
'I can't deny the effectiveness.' Xander groaned as he forced himself to stand with his sword acting as a support.
He'd ended up activating the bracelet four times, so he wasn't feeling great. Yet he found himself oddly locked in for the whole thing, and despite the strain on his senses and body, his mind was surprisingly clear.
'At some point, I wasn't even thinking about the pain, just methods to improve in real time.' He wiped some blood off his nose.
He started getting read for the next round of beatings when Alya, who had been watching thus far, snapped her fingers, and all the constructs disappeared.
"Alright. That's it for today." There was a moment of silence, then everyone... well, those still standing anyway, fell to the ground.
"Hm. Abysmal performance from most of you. Well, see you tomorrow." She said and started walking away, Mia still asleep in her arms.
Xander scoffed and looked at his teammates.
Aubrey's glasses had, again, been broken, and she kept wiping at her nose that was constantly oozing a concerning amount of blood, and her uniform was also covered in a lot of the stuff. All of it hers.
Curtis was disheveled and covered in dust and blood, too, though, it seemed like his body was quite durable as a whole, as there were more bruises than actual lacerations. His eyes were shut tightly, like he was struggling.
Falael just wasn't conscious.
At that moment, Xander's body felt lighter, and the fog on his senses were lifted.
He looked down at the bracelet and realized that it had been reset, allowing him to feel much better.
'Phew, that was a lot.' He sighed internally and got up, a bit wobbly, before approaching them.
Medical personnel who had been on standby were entering and taking the very injured students away, so he had to be a little quick.
Without a word, he took out three pieces of folded paper from his pockets. They were a bit crumpled, but they somehow remained intact.
He slipped on in Falael's pocket, then gave the other two to Curtis and Aubrey who seemed too preoccupied with their agony to question the contents.
After that, they got taken away, and Xander dragged his feet to his dorm.
When he got there, Mary was—as usual—already waiting for him, having prepared his food and bath.
After thanking her profusely, he got himself cleaned, and to the surprise of absolutely no one, a suspiciously Mia shaped figure appeared on his bed once more.
This time, Xander didn't even question it. He just went straight to the dining table and started eating.
Mary, who was as on guard against Mia as last time, somehow thought ahead and made more food to account for her presence, which the girl ate happily.
Refreshed and rejuvenated, Xander picked up his sword and went to his training room.
Halfway into the first set of his training, Mia once again appeared at the entrance, watching him with curiosity.
Like that, the night passed.
***
Aubrey gingerly took out a new set of glasses and set them over her eyes with a sigh.
She looked at the three remaining sets and shook her head. She'd need to get new ones soon.
She climbed into her bed, her bunk mate already fast asleep above her.
Due to her subpar combat ability, Aubrey ended up with the lowest level of card the school provided, Black.
As such, she had to share a dorm room with 5 other people, totaling to 6.
Probably from the exhaustion of the day, but they were all already asleep. Aubrey was, too, but she always had trouble sleeping just like that, she needed something to clear her mind first.
And for her, the best way to do that was by reading.
Reaching into a satchel she brought with her, she took out a thick book that had all sorts of engravings on it.
She opened to a page and started reading, using nothing but a small light.
About at hour later, she yawnedand closed it, feeling sufficiently drowsy.
But as she closed the book and leaned down to put it back into her satchel, something fell out from her breast pocket.
She blinked, stored the book, then picked it up.
'Ah, this is...' She held up the paper Xander had given her and stared at it for a few seconds, then she unfolded it.
'This is... Compressed paper?' She thought with surprise.
Single page notes were always a problem due to only having one page if the writer wanted to convey a long message. So the solution was compressed paper.
It essentially acted like a book on a single page. If the read got to the end of the page they were reading, the words on that page would fade away, revealing the next set of words to be read. It was quite handy, but also quite expensive.
'How could he afford this with the measly number of credits we have...?' She wondered as she started reading.
At first, she didn't quite understand what Xander had wrote down as she saw a few unfamiliar terms. But as she read, and as more things were explained, her eyes slowly widened.
She started reading faster, and her heart started to pound.
At this point, her drowsiness had long since vanished, and she'd sat up in her bed.
At some point, she even took out notes of her own and started to calculate the feasibility of what was on the note, and by the time she reached the end of it, she just stared for a few seconds, her mind a mess.
'Th-This... how does he know all of this? No, more importantly, this information. If... If it's as it is written here, and I'm able to apply it to my magic...' Her breathing got faster, and she placed her hand against her chest to feel her racing heart.
It all seemed to fantastical to even be considered, and yet, Xander included explanations she could not refute.
With that, she made a decision.
'I have to test it.'
***
Aubrey wasn't the only one having an internal crisis.
In Curtis's own dorm room, he too was reading the note Xander had given him, his hands shaking as he read and comprehended the things on it.
By the time he finished, he ran a hand through his hair, his brain a chaotic mess. But he, too, couldn't find ways to refute what was on the note. So he only had one option. To test it.
***
"..." Falael read the note over and over again, then their hands tightened on the paper, their teeth grinding.
'I... I thought he was only good at swordsmanship. But this, I've never even heard of concepts like these, let alone consider their feasibility. Is he really the same age as us?' They wanted to get angry. Wanted to feel like Xander was just trying with them all this time, but then...
'I don't really care about any of that stuff.' The memory hit them like a train, and their grip on the paper loosened as they sighed.
'... If... If this works, then my mana problem, maybe...' Amidst their turbulent feelings, a trace amount of something they didn't want to feel but stubbornly took root in their heart formed.
Hope.
'Just maybe...'
And just like that, the actions of one person had put three other on a course that would drastically change their fates.