Razor Sharp I — Ambrosya

When I heard that roar from outside my classroom, I sighed. Audibly.

This was going to be my daily routine. Accept duels, fight battles, maximise my victories, show no weaknesses, acquire more enemies, and grow in skill.

'The question is...' I thought to myself, 'Whose probing attempt is this?'

I scanned my classroom for the expressions of my classmates. The nobles were wearing smiles as if they knew who the person beyond the doorway was. I was suspicious of Allyas and Jiontar despite all the other possible suspects.

It was likely that they sent this person to challenge me.

Curious, I walked out. And I was weirdly surprised. On the uniform of a big, muscled teen, was the second-year insignia.

In his eyes was a gaze of fiery hatred.

His face wasn't one I remembered describing, thus I instantly made the assumption that he was simply a character I used as filler. He was an extra. An [ hors du sujet ]—irrelevant and meaningless.

I couldn't help but laugh. Condescension flowed from my voice like a tide.

What was an extra trying to achieve? Perhaps the extras were the saddest characters in [ Evergreen Passage ]. After all, I gave them nothing that could allow them to survive. Their destiny was the same as those piles of corpses I had seen just last night.

Their [ Luck ] stats were the lowest of the low. They were cannon fodder for Ragnarök, plus all the other tragedies that would occur before and after it.

"So," I held in my laughter, "Who might you be?"

"You may call me Tiger," Tiger growled, seemingly seething with even greater rage than earlier. "And I will crush you like the ant you are."

"Pffft—" I almost lost control of my laughter, "Okay, okay. We'll fight when my classes are over. How does four in the afternoon sound?"

"No. We fight now!" Tiger roared as he crouched down, ready to charge forward. "Turn your back on me and you'll be acknowledging your cowardice!"

"WE. FIGHT. RIGHT HERE!" He boomed, uncaring of the professors that might just be passing by.

I cursed.

He was an idiot who had no respect for the rules. He had given in to his anger as if I had dirtied his family name—which I had probably done. This Tiger guy had similar characteristics to Julius.

They were probably related.

"Aventine," I called out, and a faint hissing sound rang throughout the hall. An ethereal snake spirit slithered out of my wrist and rested in my palm. With a flash of light, I was now wielding a curved, snake-like dagger in my hand.

I blinked, and Mana Vision gave me an accurate mana analysis of the human who was barrelling towards me like a derailed freight train. He was an E ranker, a physical mana user, and he was currently performing a martial art.

Contrary to his name, Tiger looked like a raging bull right now. The faint form of the bovine beast appeared as a phantom around his body.

I believe this martial art was called the [ Charge of the Horned Bull ]. And it was something that I could not simply block as I did against Jealis.

"Hoooo," I breathed and the world slowed down before my very eyes.

Hyperfocus.

I had a sneaking suspicion that this was my own personal talent. Having the world slow down to such a degree while my thoughts could run free was something I had never given to any of my characters.

It was my own personal specialisation. One that rivalled Virion's natural [ Bloody Halo ].

I sidestepped the bull's raging charge. But this was going to be a feint. With Mana Vision, I watched as Tiger's mana shifted to the side as he responded to my attempt.

"Explosion," I muttered, and the familiar conical burst of flame shot out of my outstretched dagger.

I could hear Aventine's hiss. He felt the flow of mana pour through him to create the mana programs that I willed into existence.

BOOM—!

An explosion that was augmented ever so slightly burst out. I smiled. This was why wands and staves were important. They augmented the spells of spiritual mana users.

A regular dagger wouldn't have been able to augment my spells, but Aventine had the ability to do so.

Thus, with the cone of flames in front of me, I obscured Tiger's vision at the last second. I blasted his face with flames that he promptly ignored. Explosion, for the first time, dealt no damage.

But it was nothing to worry about. My purpose was elsewhere.

I lunged in the opposite direction that I had stepped in earlier. A vacuum appeared beside me as Tiger flew past, causing a rush of air to hurriedly fill it back up. My hood threatened to come off.

'It worked,' I could feel my heart beating wildly in my chest. Since I designed the martial art, I also knew its most glaring weakness.

I just wasn't one hundred percent sure if I was capable of exploiting that weakness.

Crash—!

I heard the sound of a large human body slamming into a few unfortunate students. Those who had been simple bystanders were now collateral damage.

"Ah—!"

Yelps of pain rang out, while one even screamed. He was trying his hardest to push Tiger's foot off of his stomach.

"You crazy bastard, get off of me!"

My eyes flashed.

This was the best moment to strike. Tiger did not have good footing and he was still disoriented from his martial art.

But I did not move to end the battle. I simply realised the opportune moment and acknowledged its presence.

I still couldn't kill him, so what use would it be to beat him up? To satisfy my desires? Well, my rationality told me that I wasn't performing for High Professor Deuzetai nor was I doing it for class.

I would not gain anything aside from satisfying myself, and I needed self-control on the path to immortality. Pleasure shouldn't come before my goals.

In fact, if I continued to dilly-dally, I was going to be late for my next class.

"I told you," I spoke with my tone laced with ridicule, "We fight later, in the arena. When my classes are over."

Tiger was going to be my pseudo-training dummy.