Chapter 21: Training

Whittaker's eyes blinked because of the new quest. After glancing around and making sure that nobody was near, he thought, 'No doubt, training comes first, hunting and competing quests can be done later.'

His footsteps changed directions and he stepped towards the training hall of the academy.

The pure-mana spell Telekinesis and Mana shield seemed impressive. He expected to learn both of them today, before going out to hunt and complete a quest. Moreover, his spellbook will form two new elemental spells if he manages to learn the two Pure-mana skills that teacher Ruka has taught them in the class.

When he reached the training hall, he saw something that couldn't be overlooked.

There was a 100-meter wide sprinting field outside the training hall. Students his age carried 3 meter wide boulders on their back and with ragged breathing sprinted back and forth under the vicious command of the Goblin teacher he had met in the hallway. The Goblin teacher would occasionally shout his lungs out, lashing at any student that fell on the ground.

P.S: The teacher wasn't a goblin but he looked like one.

He thought, 'Are they humans or donkeys that are used to carry heavy cargo? This is so inhumane.'

His roommate, Shadow, was among those students.

To maximize the effectiveness of the One-limb Horse Stance posture, Shadow came here to exhaust his stamina. According to the A-ranked (5-star) battle energy creation manual, when the body is depleted of stamina, if a person executes the one-limb Horse Stance posture then the maximum capacity of his battle energy will increase by a unit every hour.

He sweated a lot more than others, as he utilized more strength to run, and he ran faster than all. He was completing two laps while the other student only did one or half a lap.

Whittaker noticed that in this field his black-haired roommate was the fastest hard-working donkey. Compared to the others, his roommate didn't stop even once to catch his breath.

"Hey, Whitaker." Shadow excitedly waved his hand at him as he noticed Whittaker.

"Hi!" Whittaker responded, his mind still hasn't got around what he saw. He thought, 'This is why Elisha complained about how cruel the training is in every single letter. Is this training or torture?'

Thump! Thump! Thump! With heavy footsteps that left an imprint in the ground, Shadow came near him while carrying the boulder.

"What are you doing here?"

Whittaker nudges his head to the Training Hall and said, "I came to practice Pure-mana spell before I go to the quest hall." He pointed at the back, "Your teacher is glaring at us."

Shadow flinched.

"Get back here, no slacking in the training field!" The goblin teacher roared, his eyes glaring daggers at Shadow's back.

"Coming!" Shadow turned around to return to the track. "I wanted to complete a quest too. Whittaker, after you finish training, let's go together to the quest Hall." He shouted out.

"Sure!" Replying loudly, he entered the training Hall. The training Hall was a large circular dome-like building. A lot of items were placed inside. The items ranged from varying size Balls to Wooden and iron statuettes. The latest training technology present in the water kingdom were placed at the edges of the room.

Around thirty mages practiced their spells on the shooting targets, and some trained their hand signs on the huge space in the middle. One of them was Yato, who glanced at Whittaker when he entered. He wasn't the only one. Many others glanced at the snowy-haired boy as his presence was hard to ignore.

Whittaker didn't have any idea what they did but he will find out with time. The training hall was vast and could house around three hundred students at a time. Thirty students barely filled 1/10 of the entire space inside. A lot of space was still vacant.

In the entire training hall, he was only familiar with Yato. Whittaker subconsciously went to an empty area near Yato and started training.

After a casual greeting, they both concentrated on their objectives.

Yato would perform one hand sign and then glance at his notebook. The hand signs drawn on the notebook couldn't be considered hand signs. The drawing was so bad that at best, the hand signs sketches could be considered to be drawn from a person's feet.

Yato maintained his cool and continued with his honest hard-work. It's because his beautiful mother used to say, "A person can reach the other shore as long as he keeps on paddling. If you work hard every day, then a day will come when you are rewarded for your hard work."

While Whittaker stood still a buddha meditating under a waterfall. The scenes of teacher Ruka performing the hand signs to cast Mana-shield played in his mind.

His foremost goal was to learn the Pure-mana "Mana-shield" spell as he didn't have any defensive spells. According to the teacher Ruka's words, with the help of this spell, he will avoid a lot of pain. He wanted to learn it before the telekinesis spell.

According to the scenes playing in his mind, teacher Ruka has performed a total of five hand signs to cast Mana-Shield. They are,

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