10: unexpected situation

Professor Julius greeted us with a big smile as soon as we entered his classroom.

"Oh, welcome sleepers. I am Julius, an awakened one, and I will be your teacher for this month."

"Hello, Professor Julius, my name is Jonathan. I hope to learn a lot from you this month."

As I introduced myself, the professor studied Sunny and me, and now it was Sunny's turn to introduce himself.

"I am Sunless."

As weird as always, or rather, as distrustful as always.

"Alright, Sunless, Jonathan, I would like to know why you enrolled in my class."

I pretended to think for a moment before responding.

"Because I'm from the outskirts and I don't know anything about surviving in the wild. I don't know how to start a fire with my hands or how to cook nightmare beasts to eat."

"Great, you've made a good decision. And you, Sunless? Why did you enroll in my class?"

Sunny felt compelled to respond out of courtesy.

"Teacher Jet was the one who recommended this class to me."

Oh no, now we have to endure the professor talking about Jet.

While Professor Julius told us a bit about Jet, her feats, and how she could ignore all defenses and attack directly at the soul, Sunny and I sat a table apart before Julius started teaching us.

"Alright, we'll start with the basics since neither of you knows anything about nightmare beasts."

"Nightmare beasts are divided into seven ranks and classes, and these are divided into: beast, monster, demon, devil, tyrant, terror, and titan."

"Their ranks, on the other hand, are divided into: latent, awakened, fallen, corrupt, grand, cursed, and profane."

All this knowledge I already knew, but it's not bad to hear it again.

"Now that you know the classes and ranks of nightmare beasts, we will move on to learning about all the zones conquered by humans and strongholds. If you appear near one of these when you enter the realm of dreams, you will be lucky..."

"...but if you do not appear in any region conquered by humans, it will be very difficult for you to return to the waking world."

"Then you will have to find an unclaimed portal and conquer it, so you could return, but for mere sleepers, that is almost impossible. Therefore, I will teach you everything I can and make you immortal before you enter the realm of dreams."

After that little introduction, he explained and taught us some things about the creatures that could be eaten and how to cook them.

...

After Professor Julius's class, it's time for the combat class. Ugh, I'll probably get a beating, and as second in the ranking, they might make me fight against Caster or Nephis.

After walking another 10 minutes until finally reaching the combat room, I entered and saw a bunch of other sleepers of all classes. Among them, Caster and Nephis stood out, the former because he had a dozen bootlickers flattering him, and the latter because she was a tall, slender girl with silver hair and beautiful eyes of the same color, and of course, she was silently waiting for the instructor.

I found a corner at the front of the line after many people talked to me and asked questions I didn't understand, to which I only responded with nods and a few words.

After waiting for 5 minutes, the instructor entered.

He was a tall man, about two meters, and was very well built physically. He wore a green suit like a military man and a black wristband, very cliché, tsk.

"Alright, sleepers, I will be your instructor until the solstice. I am Awakened Ethan, your combat instructor."

After that, they made us hit a machine that measured the strength of the blow and scored it. The four that went before me got; 12, 11, 13, and 15 respectively. Now they called me.

I didn't know much about hitting since in my past life I only took boxing classes for a month, but I hope it's enough with this new body in much better shape and more muscles enhanced by the essence of my soul.

I put my right foot back, my left foot forward, bent down a bit, knees slightly bent, left arm forward and right arm back and...

16, wow, how great! I was expecting a 14, not a 16, that was incredible, I am very strong hehe.

Other sleepers went by and several scored the same as me, but only 4 scored higher than me: Nephis with 17, a guy who got 18, Caster with 21, and finally the strongest, someone I don't recall being mentioned in the novel, not even in this test, since it was Caster who scored the highest in this test in the novel.

That guy's name is Ludwin, he scored 25, many were left speechless, including me. That guy is too strong, hehe, maybe I'll talk to him since he wasn't mentioned in the novel and maybe he'll die in the realm of dreams. I could make him my puppet.

Nah, I wouldn't like to make someone innocent my puppet. If I meet him in the realm of dreams, I could well join his cohort or take him with me to use him as a bodyguard.

But if I find out he's not as innocent as he seems, I'll make him my loyal puppet without hesitation.

...

After we all gathered around a ring, Instructor Ethan asked for volunteers for a friendly match. As expected, Nephis was the first to stand up. She walked to the middle of the ring and waited.

Soon, another guy who scored 16 points on the machine went up, then Ethan spoke.

"The rules are simple, to win, your opponent must touch the ground with their back or be thrown out of the ring. You can use any means you see fit to achieve this."

After saying that, he announced the start of the fight. Nephis shot forward and in a second she was already connecting her fist with the poor guy's face.

It went like that with everyone who faced Nephis, but soon it was Ludwin's turn. He stood on the opposite side of Nephis and didn't even take a fighting stance, he just stood there until the instructor announced the start.

Nephis shot forward again at full speed towards Ludwin and before her fist connected with Ludwin's stomach, he disappeared.

No one saw him move, only the instructor could see him.

He appeared behind Nephis in less than a second and connected a kick to her head. Nephis went flying to a corner of the ring and before she could fall out, Ludwin suddenly appeared intercepting her direction.

He crouched a bit and gave a kick to Nephis's stomach, who quickly jumped back to gain distance and stood ready again.

They stared at each other, Nephis seemed very hurt but Ludwin was barely touching his stomach from the knee hit.

After staring at each other for 2 seconds, both advanced. Nephis dodged another hit and launched her counterattack with a punch to Ludwin's face, who managed to avoid it and quickly with a half-body turn landed a blow square on Nephis's jaw, sending her flying backward again.

Ludwin shot after her again and before she could fall out of the ring, he gave her a kick that sent her a few meters into the air. When Nephis was about to start falling, he made a quick and powerful jump towards her, preparing a blow with his right hand.

Nephis managed to react and covered her chest with both arms, but couldn't avoid the damage and the sound of a bone breaking was heard. She fell to the ground with a cry of pain and he appeared in front of her, connecting a kick to her stomach and sending her flying out of the ring.

"Stop, the sleeper Ludwin has won."

Without realizing it, my nails had dug into my hands and my palms were bleeding slightly as I watched Ludwin give Nephis a beating and not allow her to leave the ring.

I hated him.

I wanted him to stop. I didn't think that seeing Nephis get beaten would anger me so much, but I couldn't help it. She was my favorite character in Shadow Slave and the future love interest of the protagonist, Sunny.

So, when I saw her being beaten like that, I just knew that before the solstice came, I would make him my puppet.

After Nephis fell unconscious outside the ring, an awakened one with healing abilities hurriedly took Nephis to the academy's medical wing while healing her arm and other wounds caused by Ludwin.

While that was happening, it was time for Caster and Ludwin to fight.