Chapter 17

Arthur looked at his new training class and thought about the experience gain. He had an experience gain bonus cap of 20 cadets but wondered if all cadets would receive the bonus capped at 20 even though there were 29 cadets he was "in command" of. "One way to find out" thought Arthur as he took his place in front of the formation.

"Cadets, Attention!" Yelled Arthur, The cadets snapped to attention and awaited for further commands. "Extend to the left, March!" the 3 lines of cadets extended their arms and moved left with the cadet at the far right of the three rows standing fast with their left arm out. The purpose of this command was to spread the cadets out and give them sufficient space to "Exercise".

Once the cadets had spread out arms lengths apart, Arthur shouted "Left face!" All the cadets Turned left. "Extend to the left, March!" Cadets on the far right side held out their left arms while the 2 other rows of cadets moved left with both arms extended until they were the right space apart from the next row over. "Arms Downward, Move!" All the cadets brought both their arms down and stood at attention. "Right Face!" Cadets turned right, facing Arthur once again.

"From front to rear, count off!" Yelled Arthur. Each cadet in the front row snapped their heads to the right rear, yelled "One!" and snapped their heads back forward. The second row did the same with the number two followed by the last row yelling "Three".

"Even numbers one step to the left, uncover!" Yelled Arthur. The cadets in the second row all took a huge step left to be directly between and behind the two cadets in front of them. This was the proper way to set up a formation to do PT. Each cadet had plenty of space to conduct physical training without being close to the cadets around them.

The instructor, not yet gone, turned around and watched Arthur appreciatively. "If he makes it through the Academy, he will have a very successful career ahead of him" thought the instructor as he walked out the door to get his shoulder and neck checked out at the infirmary.

Arthur went through a few warm up exercises and once everyone was stretched out he began teaching the Forward stance. He explained the basics, how much weight should be on the back foot vs the rear, walked around and observed everyone's stance and helped a few cadets practice. He had the cadets go from a normal posture to the forward stance over and over until it started to come natural.

With plenty of time left, Arthur started to explain the basics of strikes and blocks from the front stance. Where the stance was weak, and how to overcome those weaknesses and what to watch out for, like the leg sweep that he had used to take down his instructor at first. He figured he would save kicks for later in the week once basic strikes and blocks were mastered.

The cadets trained past lunch, completely losing track of time, and before anyone knew it it was time to end the day and get ready to go eat dinner. It had been an exhausting day but Arthur was a great teacher and they all hoped to learn more from him throughout the week.

With the added experience multiplier, Arthur got 60,000 EXP and a level up which brought him to level 7. He heard a few other cadets mention level ups which confirmed his suspicions that there wasn't a cap on people that could benefit from the passive, or he hadn't reached the cap with only 29 bodies yet.

[Level Up]

[17,000/200,000 EXP]

[You've gained one free stat point]

[Two stat points available]

"I think I'll save those points for now until I really need them" thought Arthur. "Oh yeah, I forgot to see what that passive skill I got earlier in all the excitement."

[Martial Arts Master I (upgradeable) - User does 20% bonus damage unarmed, accelerated learning rate for martial arts]

"Well, another broken skill" thought Arthur excitedly. He wasn't sure if the skill would convey to the mecha or not, but he could not wait to see if they did. With Break Point and Martial Arts Master, he could quickly disable enemy mechas with ease if he could get close enough to them.

Arthur was excited to get to level 10 as he was sure there would be a nice reward that came along with it especially with his peculiar system.

The cadets were released for the day and they all walked back to the south wing barracks to get cleaned up for dinner. Arthur and his small group decided to head straight to the chow hall since they'd be there for only 5 minutes. Getting cleaned up after dinner and having the whole night to study sounded much better to them.

"That passive you have is ridiculous" said Mackenzie. "I hit level 6 today after I received 60,000 EXP from that training. Having the whole platoon under your command was extremely beneficial. All the other cadets probably think the training was just worth more experience but they may start to wonder what's going on when we have other trainings under someone else."

"I'm not too worried about it right now" replied Arthur as they continued walking to the chow hall. "No one can prove it was me, and I doubt anyone would be mad about it if they found out. Free experience is free experience in my mind. Now, they may start fighting over me which would cause a problem and put you guys in actual danger. I'll keep this secret for awhile longer while we stack on levels and get ahead of everyone else. Just follow my commands and the system will recognize you as my subordinates so you can get the free experience."

"Sir, yes sir!" said Mackenzie as Asura and Strong gave him a mock salute and laughed.

The four cadets walked to the South wing barracks, only instead of saying good bye, Arthur heard Asura ask Strong to meet her back outside in 20 minutes after they got cleaned up. Arthur shared a look with Mackenzie as she heard the same thing but she only shrugged and then walked through the doors to the barracks. "I wonder what that's about" thought Arthur. He was going to ask Strong about it when they got to the rooms, but thought better of it and figured Strong would tell him when he was ready.