Chapter 22 - Aura?

1 month later and every day has been the same, the teacher would have us run, and then we'd immediately go to the exercise room. We all ate together every day after training, and everything seemed to be progressing slowly.

I haven't been taught by Irene how to use my sword yet though. There hasn't really been any time for it, nor have we needed it yet.

…

I woke up early, showered and headed to class as usual.

"Haah."

I stretched my arms wide and yawned, although I've gotten used to waking up this early, I was still pretty tired before we started.

A few minutes later I heard a familiar voice from my left.

"Morning Kai!"

I looked at him and nodded my head.

"Morning."

"How'd you sleep last night?"

I gave him a thumbs up and tilted my head as if I was asking 'How about you?'

"That's good, I slept pretty well too, but I did have this strange dream about my past and other than that, everything was great!"

Other than that? Must've been a bad dream or something.

A few seconds later I felt a tap on my shoulder, turning around it was Ella.

She gave me a little nod as to say, 'good morning' and I nodded back, it was kind've a mutual thing we shared.

"Morning Ella!"

Olly's loud voice was always a minor nuisance in the mornings, but it also woke me up, so it was like a win/lose situation.

Olly did his own stretches while me and Ella helped each other with the needed stretches.

A few minutes later as we finished our stretches Kendel suddenly appeared as he usually did.

"Good morning, everyone, today we'll have some more testing."

There were some audible sighs among the students.

"Don't be like that everyone!"

"I'll be giving you all advice on how you can progress!"

Some of the students had a surprised look on their face

"For real? I thought he wouldn't be helping us for 6 months!"

"Yeah, didn't he say that we'd be running for 6 months?"

I do remember him saying something like that, I also figured that he'd just tell us to do our own thing for 6 months until we were ready.

"You all must've misunderstood me just now; you'll still be running and training your body, but I'm just going to help you with your aura while you train!"

A group of students gasped-

"He's going to teach us aura?"

"Yes! Finally!"

There were also some nobles who looked at them with disdain.

"Of course, the commoners don't know how to use aura."

"No wonder they always fell behind when we ran."

"Hah, I think you're giving them too much credit. Even if they had aura, they wouldn't be able to catch up to us."

I could overhear some people saying those words, it reminded me of the hierarchy in my previous world.

Where the rich would always look down on you. They thought that just because they had money, they could do whatever they'd want.

It's as they say. Give a worm two wings and they'll act like a dragon.

"Tch, those who like that always pissed me off."

It was a voice to my left, an out-of-character comment from Olly. I had pinned him as the type to not care about status, but I didn't think he'd be verbal about it.

I looked to my right and could see Ella staring at them with a blank stare as usual. They both looked like they didn't like what the nobles said.

I couldn't blame them; in fact, I thought it was annoying too. But what confused me the most about the situation was...

What was Aura?

They kept throwing that word around, but I was never told anything about it. Judging on their reactions, was it something only nobles could learn normally?

Was it this big, super overpowered thing or something? I wanted to ask but Kendel started to speak again.

"Quiet down."

He stared at the nobles who were making fun of the commoners for a brief moment before continuing to speak.

"Yes, I will be teaching aura to anyone who doesn't know it."

There were some gasps of happiness from a group of students.

"But first, I'll be testing everyone's current body state, that was why I had you all run for a month."

Why didn't you just test our body state during that month then? Oh, maybe it was to see how we were normally or something? I don't know...

Kendel continued to speak

"First, I want everyone to run."

Huh? Were we not changing anything?

One of the students spoke.

"Um, teacher?"

"Yes?"

"Haven't we been doing that?"

"Yes?"

"And we're still going to do that?"

"Yes? Now run."

Glen started to run first, shortly after the other students followed.

"Welp! Let's go!" Olly's facial expressions completely changed from before, he seemed back to normal. Though, what if what he was like before was normal? Is it a mask? Never mind, no use thinking about it.

We all ran for about an hour before Kendel told us to stop.

"Stop!"

I was towards the middle of all the runners, I wasn't out of breath, but I wasn't breathing lightly.

"Next, you'll have to fight another classmate in hand-to-hand combat."

Some of the noble students expressed their sigh of disappointment and one of them even spoke.

"Uh, Teacher? We're knights, aren't we? Why should we fight with our hands?"

"Are you confident you'll always have your sword no matter the situation?"

"Yes!"

"Then, where's your sword right now?"

The noble didn't have a sword on his waist.

"..."

"Learning to fight without a weapon is important."

"Now... Let's see..."

"Kai and Lucas, you two will fight first."

Huh?

What? I'm going first?

Lucas was the noble who looked down on the commoners earlier, I could hear Olly from my left.

"Kick his ass, Kai!"

I looked at him before looking at Ella who just gave me a nod.

Suddenly, I was on a stage with Lucas to the opposite of me.

"Get into your stances."