Unending Desire for Strength

(Third Person Pov)

"Don't mind it too much, you did well. Honestly, I don't think any other D- ranker would have been able to last as long as you did" Aleister said patting Aqua's shoulder.

"Y-Yeah! You were cool and it was awesome when you blew away every last one of the goblins." Emma quickly followed after Aleister trying to encourage Aqua who was spawled on the ground.

He had a few scratches running all over his body and his clothes were tattered.

"You say all that but he is still going" Aqua replied with a tinge of bitterness in his voice as he looked in the direction where Noah is.

Julianna looked in the direction where Goblins were attacking in hordes and then she looked towards one of the instructors intently watching over the section recalling what had just happened.

It's been more than a few hours and both Noah and Aqua seemed to be going without any stopping but slowly and surely Aqua started to lag.

He was accumulating injuries, however small they were since they kept accumulating it evidently became harder for him.

On the other hand, Noah didn't have a single injury on him even in the close quarter he still managed to evade the attacks perfectly with the minimal amount of movement.

At this point, Julianna was sure what separated Aqua and Noah from each other wasn't a simple matter of strength but their great difference in battle experience.

Noah seemed far more experienced than Aqua, he was calm and collected, unlike Aqua who started to become hasty, losing composure which was evident in his fight.

Since Aqua used offensive skills, he used up more of his mana resulting in more exhaustion which in the end caught up to him.

But those skills were ...monstrous.

Julianna couldn't help but think that Aqua's skill was broken, with just a single use of the skill Aqua blew away all the goblins which left him the only one standing until new goblins started to appear, it did give him time to recover but a battle with no end in sight was bound to exhaust him sooner to later.

And that was what happened, after a few hours Aqua finally succumbed to his exhaustion, and as if the installed AI in the arena could sense it, stopped the session.

As for Noah? He is still fighting the swarm of goblins.

"Well, forget about him. He is a freak! How can he not get tired!?" Aleister expressed his thoughts unable to accept that D- ranker lost to an F- ranker.

They were never fighting to begin with but, oh well.

Aqua isn't any less of a freak. I am sure no D- ranker would be able to last as long as he did but he is right. How is Noah able to keep moving if a D-ranker isn't? How could his stamina be higher?

Julianna thought unable to come to an answer.

"If you think about it, it doesn't make any sense. How can he keep going?" Emma voiced the questions that Julianna had been thinking about.

All 4 of them simply looked towards the horde of goblins and in the middle of it Noah who was swinging his sword, there was a beauty with which his sword moved, captivating anyone who looked towards it.

And then a voice broke out.

"It's simple really, he isn't an F-ranker."

While the three of them looked confused by the sudden voice, Julianna was sure she knew who it belonged and sure enough, a boy showed up along with a red-haired girl.

They were both the people she had once eavesdropped on and stalked for a few days.

"And what do you mean?" Asked Emma, looking at him with skepticism.

"I mean what I said otherwise it wouldn't make sense. The real question here is, what is his true rank?" The black-haired boy said with a shrug.

"Huh, so you mean to say he deceived the academy? Dude, are you dumb? Do you know where we are? We are in The Heroes Nurturing High School, a top academy in the world only 2nd to Elven Acropolis Academy" Aleister said shaking his head.

"And? Does that mean one can't deceive them? You sound like a loser who would run away in a fight at the very mention of someone strong appearing, not even trying to fight" The black-hair said with his hazel eyes gleaming, looking downwards at Aleister who was sitting beside the sprawled Aqua.

An awkward silence followed for a moment.

Personally, I wouldn't take it 

Julianna mused.

The next moment, Aleister stood up as he spoke "Who the fuck are you? What do want? A fight!? Fine, I will beat your ass!"

"My name's Allen and she is Elinalise, we are both E+ rankers and first-years like you. And no, I have no interest in fighting you," Allen said raising both his hands.

Emma stopped Aleister from taking another step while Julianna couldn't help but gasp as she heard the rank of Allen and Elinalise.

...I have no idea how I keep acquainting myself with all these weirdos!

Julianna couldn't help but complain. Not a single person she had acquainted herself with from 1st grade since the start of the school is normal.

"Let's calm down, okay?" Emma said and Aleister took a step back grumbling a little.

"Do you have anything that can back up that he did deceive the academy if not then all you are saying are rumblings who don't understand the severity of the claims they are making" Emma said looking towards Allen.

"Look closely at those instructors, all of them have been focused on him as if they are all evaluating him. Their eyes are gleaming with visible confusion, anticipation, and amusement. If the academy knew about his rank, these instructors wouldn't have been like this. And let's say that the academy is hiding his true information and as a result that instructor doesn't know about it but then how would you explain that all nearby the cameras inside the training hall are currently focused on him and him alone?" Allen said pointing at the cameras above them.

They all in confusion looked at the cameras and ...it was just like Allen had said, they were focused on Noah, something they didn't focus on until now.

"The academy is clearly putting its focus on him, they wouldn't do so unless there's a reason" Allen concluded leaving the 4 of them speechless.

Noticing their expression and then nodding to himself Allen spoke up again "Well, in the end, it's just a theory, with no clear evidence backing it up"

"Y-yeah, it could just be a skill or a class of his that we don't about," Aleister said and met an immediate response.

"No, Noah doesn't have any class or skill"

"He doesn't"

Allen and Julianna both spoke at once respectively

"What, really!?" Aleister and Emma both asked at once, clearly too shocked.

Julianna in turn nodded and then looked towards Allen "You know about Noah?"

"He is famous on the school forums, of course I know him." Allen gave a nonchalant reply.

"Ah, right"

Julianna nodded in understanding. When it came to talks and rumors and finding information school forums were the best place to go.

People talked about various stuff and discussed them, be it rumors or anything.

"Does it matter?" 

Just then a voice resounded among them, and they all looked towards the source of the sound.

It belonged to none other than Aqua, his eyes focused on Noah.

"What do you mean?" Allen asked, squinting his eyes.

"I mean what I said, whether his real rank is F- or not, whether he has some special skill or not, a class or not, what does it matter? The only thing worth noting is, he... is stronger, despite us being the same age" At that moment, Allen felt it, he could tell from his experience, that Aqua's dark aqua eyes held a maddening look in them.

Aqua for as long as he could remember had always desired strength, he didn't know why himself but he wanted to be strong, far stronger so that no one could take anything from him. That was what drove him, the reason he was able to endure the hardships thrown his way, and right now the kind of strength he longed for was in front of him but it wasn't his, it didn't belong to him.

Gritting his teeth he stood up tightly holding onto his sword and heaving out a sigh he simply said.

"Leave"

His words were cold, incredibly cold completely contrasting his warm nature, everyone in that moment felt a bit taken aback.

Allen had come purely to form a relationship with the boy! After seeing his prowess he clearly understood how extraordinary he is, that is why he approached them but he misunderstood Aqua.

It wasn't like he hadn't thought of making a relationship with Noah but that was out of the question after what Elinalise did.

Allen wanted to form a strong group of allies, that was something he would need in the future in this academy if his predictions were correct.

For now, I guess, it's enough that we have introduced ourselves. He thought.

Emma and Aleister stood silently unable to believe the cold tone that their friend addressed them with.

The first one to speak up was Julianna.

"Understood"

She said prepared to leave, today she hadn't trained much but she did spar with Emma while Noah and Aqua were having their petty competition but she ended up losing just as fast the their duel began though she learned a few things in the process.

Emma wasn't simply a beast tamer but also adept in close-quarter combat, usually the beast tamers leave everything to their beasts but Emma fought along with her beast and took the victory for herself.

Watching Julianna leave, others also began to do the same unable to say anything to Aqua, the air he exuded was far different from before.

His eyes held an ominous glint in them as he took out a potion from his bracelet, the bracelets the academy has given the students have dimensional storage in them.

Aqua drank the potion and waited for a few minutes before his injuries started to heal.

Once his injuries healed and his mana was restored completely, he once again began, the transparent walls emerged enclosing him with armed Goblins once again.

In the midst of it, no one noticed the girl with black hair flowing down her waist and her vibrant yellow-colored eyes gleaming standing at the far end of the huge training hall.

Around her were hundreds and hundreds of corpses of F+ ranked monsters.

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"They are strong. I want to fight both of them," Elinase said with a grin on her face, her hands trembling with excitement, her battle-maniac tendencies threatening to show themselves.

"You will just wind up losing" Allen replied, Elinalise grumbled and lightly hit his shoulder with her head.

"You two seem to be quite close"

Emma said watching the interaction between the two.

"Well, we have known each other since childhood, what about you two? Aren't you the same?" Allen asked.

"You are right but in our case, we simply know each other because we had to go to one another's house since our families are business partners, we haven't talked much with each other before coming to the academy," Emma said with a shrug while Aleister looked displeased, he wasn't liking the company of Allen, he still hasn't forgotten his words.

Allen noticing spoke up.

"I apologize if my words seemed rude earlier" 

No, Allen wasn't the type to have apologized if not the word business partners.

Now that I think about it their last names are Jones and Woods... huh.

"Seemed rude? You were rude!" Aleister shouted back in anger. 

"And I apologize for it but you were the first one to refer to me as dumb," Allen said shrugging his shoulder, Aleister in turn flinched.

"Let's just say we are even and move on?" Allen suggested and Aleister simply gave a silent nod.

"But still, your friend seemed to be quite an aggressive type," Allen said referring to Aqua.

"..He isn't normally like that," Emma said in a quiet voice still a bit distraught by the change in Aqua.

Elinalise was simply busy trying to play with the butterfly that was flying in the air.

"I knew he was a bit competitive but not to this extent" Aleister voiced his thoughts.

The silence hung in the air as they all walked, Julianna had excused herself from the group saying she needed to be somewhere, the truth was she had simply drained her energy, it was enough social interaction for the day.

As they both came across the diversion of the road, Allen spoke up.

"Where's your dormitory, we live in Z block" 

"Ah, we live in Y block. Guess, it's time to go different ways." Emma said.

"See you guys around" Allen replied.

Elinalise chimed in

"Let's spar next time we meet!"

And with that, they all moved toward their dormitory.