NOVEL NEXT Ch. 21
Chapter 21
A month-almost a full month since Henrik had begun teaching demonology.
“322... 323... 324...”
In the private room the academy had given him in the faculty dorm, Henrik hung from a steel bar and performed pull-ups in silence.
Build muscle, build stamina.
He had not missed a single morning.
With every rep, fresh sweat darkened his training shirt; by the time his back was soaked, he let go-thud-and dropped to the carpet.
His body was improving faster than he had dared hope.
A month of daily drills had already carried him halfway to the condition he’d reached in his previous life.
Clack-
He uncorked the small vial waiting on the table and swallowed the contents.
The burning haze that had filled his veins cooled at once; the lukewarm potion felt colder than ice.
“Haa...”
He wiped his face.
The vial had held a growth accelerator-technically cheating, but allowed.
While the potion’s heat lasted, his muscles rebuilt themselves at double speed; the price was an hour of feverish ache.
He studied himself in the mirror.
Where there had been soft flesh thirty days ago, hard ridges now surfaced.
He rolled his head-crack, crack-and felt the new inches in his spine.
‘So the sigil really is helping.’
He glanced over his shoulder at the sprawling mark etched between his shoulder-blades.
Instinct told him the pattern was feeding his reborn strength.
‘Two hundred more, then I’m done for today.’
The accelerator had reignited his furnace; he gripped the bar again.
This ritual explained the sweat, the potions, the aching joints.
In one week Sefira Academy would host its monthly Combat Rating Test-the empire-sanctioned exam that measured every applicant and stamped them with an official rank.
The main event took place in the capital, yet licensed academies could award Grades One through Three on their own campuses.
Students sat the test as a matter of course; professors, already Grade-Three or higher, never bothered.
When word spread that Henrik intended to attempt Grade Three, colleagues and pupils alike had greeted the news with snickers.
The ranks were mercilessly simple:
Grade One-Soldier Class.
Proof you can hold a weapon without dropping it.
Grade Two-Knight Class.
The baseline every Knighthood major had to reach; the mark of a competent fighter.
Grade Three-Elite Knight.
From here on you must wield aura: raw mana cycled through the body to reinforce muscle and blade.
Amecitia’s reputation as a prodigy rested on her ability to mimic aura with spell-craft-no mean trick when the mana in question carried an elemental tint.
Grade Four-Master Class.
The ceiling for most humans; royal captains usually stalled here.
Grade Five-Transcendent.
The blood-soaked summit Henrik himself had occupied before regression; only a handful of living mortals carried the badge.
Thud-
He finished the final two hundred, towelled off, and unstrapped the lead weights from his waist.
They hit the floor like artillery shells, rattling the entire dormitory.
The professor downstairs had already complained twice about the noise; Henrik was considering a leather carpet.
Foul steam rose from his skin as toxins flushed out-ugly, but proof of growth.
Mana began to swirl, knitting fibers tighter.
‘Time for the next step.’
He lifted the second vial, this one glowing faint blue.
Mana activator-crutch for a man born without the gift.
He sat cross-legged in the centre of the room and exhaled.
“Huu...”
Eyes closed, he listened.
He could feel individual corpuscles race through capillaries; he let them run.
Heartbeats accelerated, then steadied.
One hour-fresh sweat.
Two-heat shimmered above his shoulders.
Three-thin vapour curled from his pores.
Henrik’s eyes snapped open.
The familiar tingle of mana swirling head-to-toe, like a second bloodstream.
Henrik stood, rolling his shoulders after weeks without the sensation. A path once traveled is never hard to find twice.
‘This should be enough.’
He lifted a plain wooden staff from the corner of the room.
Focus narrowed; mana answered, coursing from his core down each arm, pooling in his palms, then flooding the wood.
A pale haze blossomed at the tip.
“......!”
The haze flickered and died like steam in winter.
Henrik exhaled through his teeth, filled a cup, and gulped it empty.
“Again.”
He dropped cross-legged, staff across his knees.
‘Concentrate. Don’t let it scatter. Grip it tight.’
He dredged up the muscle-memory of his former life and called the aura back.
-Sss.
A thin veil of light rose from his spine, slid over his shoulders, and crawled down to the staff.
-Fwoosh!
The moment the aura reached the wood, a sharp white flame flared to life.
Second try, and he’d found the groove; the aura held steady without fight.
Henrik opened his eyes.
Barely visible to the untrained eye, a shimmering skin clung to the staff-his aura.
He rose and whipped the weapon in a testing arc.
-Swish!
The staff sliced the air with a whistle.
“Not bad.”
He murmured approval.
At this level he’d crossed the threshold into Third Grade.
‘From here on, I drill the body and the aura together.’
Mind already sketching a new training regimen, he spun the staff, then hurled it at the wall.
-Thuck!
Aura-wrapped wood punched clean through the plaster and quivered like a dart in cork.
A knock rattled the door.
“Professor, today’s session is-”
Amecitia stepped in, words dying at the sight.
Henrik stood shirtless, weapon buried in the wall, sweat fogging the air.
Her mouth opened, closed.
“What... are you doing? And what is that smell?”
She pinched her nose, glaring.
“Training. I’ll wash and meet you at the yard.”
“......Right.”
Her gaze slid to the impaled staff.
“And that is...?”
The rod jutted from the wall like an afterthought; plaster crumbs pattered to the floor.
Henrik glanced over.
“Clothes hanger.”
“A clothes hanger...?”
“Needed one, so I made it.”
The door clicked shut behind her. Henrik checked the clock-four p.m., an hour past their agreed session.
He rinsed off quickly and headed for the training yard.
* * *
“......”
Amecitia jogged the perimeter, eyes on Henrik alone in the center.
Ten minutes he’d stood motionless, training sword in hand.
‘Lately he keeps disappearing into his own world...’
A twinge of disappointment.
She wanted in on whatever he was doing.
‘One more lap.’
A month of weighted laps had carved her into lean, even muscle-different from Grimory’s willowy silhouette, but hers all the same.
“Hoo...”
She toweled sweat from her neck and approached.
Henrik still stood eyes-closed, blade hovering like a divining rod.
Best not to disturb him-yet something shimmered around his frame.
“Oh...?”
A faint aura, barely thicker than heat-haze, licked upward from his skin.
“Dear gods...”
He’d been stuck at Second Grade weeks ago; now he teetered on Third.
“Guess I can skip the extra laps. Ready for the grading exam?”
Henrik’s eyes opened, calm and knowing.
“Yeah... well, I’m only testing for Second Grade, so... nothing special yet.”
“One stage a month. Don’t think about today’s test; look ahead to the Third-Grade exam next month. That’s your real assignment.”
“......”
Amecitia had no comeback.
A few days ago she would have snapped, “You’re still Second-Grade too, Professor.”
But after seeing Henrik wield Aura, the thought never even formed.
Normally a Second-Grade knight needs at least a year before Aura manifests.
A full year-yet he’d mastered it in a single month.
Only someone like her, a Demonic Swordsman still honing her craft, could grasp how insane that was.
When he’d first entered the academy he’d been mid-Second-Grade, just another Hunter you could find anywhere.
A little more experienced, sure, but physically no different from the rest.
She, who had watched Henrik’s explosive growth from the closest distance, knew better than anyone:
Henrik was already Third-Grade.
“I was thinking I might start practicing Aura soon......”
Henrik snorted.
“You’re nowhere near. Build more stamina first.”
“Sigh......”
Without another word Amecitia turned back toward the training yard.
A month of obediently following his orders had made her stronger; she could feel the results.
Still, one thing rankled:
‘He won’t run with me anymore.’
Now she lapped the vast yard alone.
And time moved on.
The next morning, students flooded the academy auditorium.
Everyone was here to test.
Henrik and Amecitia took seats among the crowd and waited for the signal.
Here and there she spotted other professors-also chasing the next rank.
Moments later Ted appeared beside Carlo Mandolin, head of the Knighthood department, the huge man clad in full plate.
As at the entrance ceremony, Ted conjured a microphone with magic and bellowed to the examinees.
“Then let the Empire-certified Combat Grade Exam begin!”
The male students erupted in cheers.
Magic and steel in hand, they burned to prove their worth.
Higher, ever higher-toward a new realm.
The exam that promised money and fame had begun.