11 The Result of His Effort

I think I did pretty well, all things considered, you know? Sure I ended up losing, but it was the intent behind it that mattered the most.

I...must sound like a sore loser, huh. You're welcome to laugh at me if you're holding yourself back out of sympathy.

Probably looked stupid getting heated up over a fight with a robot. Still, I looked pretty damn cool, don't ya think?

...Hey. What's with that ugly look on your face? Wipe that look off your face, asshole.

"Ah, this unpleasant sensation... it's all too familiar now," thought Reed as he floated inside of a healing pod. He awoke and found himself inside the infirmary, a place he had become too accustomed as of late.

A couple of weeks ago he even found out what the other students called him behind his back - patient zero. Reed was often seen inside of a healing pod because of beatings he received daily. It was a title he wished they had never given him, but he had no interest in arguing about it.

As Reed drifted between unconsciousness and hazy awakenings, he dreamt about the warmth that had coursed through him during the final moments of his match and speculated on what it could have been.

When it first coursed through him, Reed felt a rush of power that he'd never experienced in his life. He felt unstoppable and boundless. His victory was assured as if it was a matter of fact.

That wasn't him at the time; something influenced him and gave him that confidence, the warm power that had coursed through his veins at the time.

It was such a pleasant feeling that Reed longed to experience it again as soon as he gained consciousness. The power gave him a sense of safety and confidence he had never felt before in his life but also left him with a feeling of longing.

The feeling that something important was missing from his life; the power only served as a band-aid for that feeling.

Reed pushed his feelings down as he tried to recall how he had summoned that power. In the end, he never found out how to replicate the process and gave up after several fruitless attempts. He stopped fighting his fatigue and fell into a peaceful slumber again for an unknown time.

A comfortable period passed where he simply slept and closed himself off from the world. His wounds had long since healed but Reed remained inside the pod as he tried to summon the mysterious power again.

Alas, fated waited for no man and his reckoning finally came to him in the form of an abrupt awakening. Axtorius forcibly opened his healing pod and tossed him out.

He had an annoyed expression on his face as he looked at the naked boy who stared at him as if he had wrong him.

"How long do you plan on lazing about in there, boy?" said Axtorius. He threw a fresh uniform at Reed and said, " Vacation's over. Get dressed and meet me in my office as soon as possible." A burst of light blinded Reed and by the time he recovered, Axtorius had left.

"Still as flashy as ever, eh. Can't ever leave a room without blinding everyone in it, you goddamned flashbulb." Reed grumbled as he dressed and headed out to meet the old man.

It made him a bit sad that the first person who met him after his recovery had been the old man and not his friends. Would've been nice to have woken up to the sight of the likes of Astrid and Ophelia, but he knew better than to wish upon a star.

Stupid thoughts like that filled up his head as he walked towards the Axtorius's office. A hard palm suddenly struck him his back and it shocked him. He hurriedly turned around and prepared for the worst as he clenched his fists, but immediately calmed himself down when he saw who had hit him.

Astor grinned and said, "Yo, buddy, still alive? Just making sure you're weren't a ghost or something." He took the opportunity to inspect Reed's body while he dumbly stood there and said, "Nice bod, man. Look at these toned abs and big shoulders; you're starting shape up real nice, huh..."

A chill ran down Reed's spine as he brushed off Astor's hands and hurriedly said, "Personal space, man. If the ladies get the wrong idea, we'd be screwed, you know. Not that it's a bad thing if you roll that way if you do, ya know, I won't judge a friend on something like sexual preferences..."

Words continued to rattle out Reed's mouth and Astor burst into peals of laughter. He crouched down and held his sides as he laughed at mockingly pointed at Reed's embarrassed face.

Astor said, "Pffft! You're too easy to read, buddy. Don't worry, I don't have an interest in guys, hahaha! But it's become clear as day that you've got no experience in anything even remotely related to love, huh?"

He slyly sauntered towards Reed, put his arm around his shoulder and whispered, "Don't worry, bud. If you ever fancy a lady, you tell me and I'll help you out, free of charge. I'll teach you all the right things to say to them..."

Reed's face grew hot and he furiously shoved Astor off as he said, "Get off me, devil spawn. I need to go to talk to the Instructor or I'll have my head torn off by him. I'll catch up with everyone after."

Astor ominously smiled as he stared at Reed's retreating figure and thought, "He's too good to lose. Talented, good-looking, and above all else, extremely charming. Aye, that chap is going to break hearts in the future, I just know it."

The 'charming' boy finally made it to his destination and entered Instructor Axtorius's office, which was a building that resembled a giant, black nail that pierced the mountaintop.

It served as the personal quarters of the instructor and also as a defensive mechanism that could form a powerful Anima barrier around the summit of the mountain in the event of an attack.

The imposing black nail held emitted a chill that froze everything around its immediate vicinity for hundreds of feet and only grew colder the closer one got the nail. The only way students like Reed could approach and enter the nail was by following a specially constructed path that had been built for them, otherwise, they'd freeze to death before they could even reach the entrance.

Axtorius had been reviewing documents on a holographic device, but put it aside once he noticed that Reed had arrived.

He gestured for the boy to sit and Reed followed suit, slightly nervous. He wondered why he'd been summoned after the fight. Perhaps he'd be reprimanded for failing or breaking the ring?

Reed rushed to come up with a bullshit excuse, but before he could speak, Axtorius said, "You did well that night, boy. I know you probably feel disappointed, but your performance that night was...superb, to say the least."

Axtorius reclined and asked, "Did I ever tell you who created Yohua, boy?"

Reed pensively thought for a moment and said, "No, sir, you never told me. You just said that it was created a by renown conqueror from ancient times."

"It was my great-grandfather who created Youhua four thousand years ago during the Age of the Goddess."

"The story my family has passed down the generations is that my great-grandfather who lived during the same time that the Goddess still roamed across Mulia witnessed something legendary."

"He saw the Goddess and a lone man fight; their fight raged across all of Mulia and the Will of the World itself eventually had to intervene on behalf of the lesser beings were accident caught up in their destruction."

"Yohua was created from the measly insights that my great-grandfather gleaned from the man who fought the Goddess that day, or so it is said."

Reed was internally shocked; who would have thought that the martial art Instructor Axtorius had assigned to him had not only been his own family's martial art but also one that held such an impressive history?!

He swiftly started to voice out his gratitude for having been bestowed such an impressive martial art, but Axtorius brushed it off with a wave.

"It doesn't matter who I teach Yohua to; as the acting patriarch of my family, I can do as I please with my family's legacies. Teaching it to you is just an investment for the future, so don't worry about repaying me, haha."

"What I called you over here for was to show you the result of your continued efforts," he said as he pulled up and played the video of Reed's fight against the android.

He skipped towards the final part of the fight and let it play. Reed and the android rushed at each other as both of them intended on delivering a one-hit kill blow.

The android's glowing fist struck Reed square in the face, just he remembered, but what came after shocked him silly. The fist that he threw out had struck the android, but that wasn't the important part. It was the fact that his fist had the same red glow as the android's when he struck it.

Both Reed and the android flew backward with great velocity, but the android did not survive the strike. It promptly shut off as soon as it landed and the ring declared that a tie had occurred and updated Reed's record.

"That's why I called you over, boy. I don't know how you did it, but you channeled Anima and used it in your final strike. That's why it ended in a tie, otherwise, you would have lost."

"So that warmth that coursed through me really was Anima...," thought Reed. He had been worried that it might have been some sort of chicken bloodline he had or some other mysterious power.

Axtorius let out a deep sigh and said, "You managed to beat my old shadow in the end. The combat data used in the expert-level droid came from me, albeit during my days as a contender. Why do think the combat droid had Yohua programmed into its martial arts archive?"

"So, in essence, that night you scored a tie against me, with my own family's martial art, no less. I don't even know what to tell you, boy. You're a genuine freak."

"I'm going to have to discuss this event with the other instructors have them adjust their teaching plans for you. You're moving too quickly, so we'll need to raise the difficulty for you or you'll get ahead of yourself."

"That's all you need to know for now. Don't get cocky, boy. Even gods can fall from grace here, so don't even think for a second that you're in the clear."

"Go back and reflect on what I've told you. Also, you're forbidden from fighting any other combat droids aside from the expert-level one from now on. Off you go."

Reed cried internally as he wondered what he had done to deserve this fate. Raising the difficulty; expert-level only from now on?

"Ah, there is such a thing as being too talented," muttered Reed as he slowly shuffled out of the black nail...