81 Test Day

Back in Iron Town, all of the students of Iron Academy were waiting for their teachers' arrival. At the end of the second sun cycle of the current moon, it was time to test if there were any changes in the class seats.

Yeter and a few others were especially excited about today.

Today, no matter which seat a student held, they could challenge anyone in the entire class. But they could only challenge one person, meaning they had to be smart and try to pick someone they were confident in beating.

Of course, you'll always find a few overconfident people who think they can take on the world, those like Yeter.

Ania finally entered her classroom, happy to see that everyone was on time

"Alright everyone, it's time that we got this started! Since everyone's here, that makes roll call easy, so we'll get right to the core of today's curriculum," explained Ania. "I'll remind you of the rules. Rule one, if you leave the boundary, you lose the match.'

"What boundary?" asked one of the students.

With the slam of her foot, Ania jumped to the center of the room and released a tiny portion of earth essence into the concrete floor. The wave traveled across the room and eventually stopped after forming a ring that was eight krin wide. Then, it disappeared, leaving behind an indent in the floor.

"That boundary," added Ania. "Rule two, you get one challenge, so pick your opponent wisely."

"Rule three, if I sense that you're trying to kill and not simply defeat your opponent, you'll be dismissed from the class and the academy, permanently."

"Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, ma'am!" yelled the class.

"Good, now let's get started! We'll start from the lowest seat and go till the highest seat. So you, go ahead and start us off."

After Ania pointed at the person ranked last in the class, everyone stepped back to make sure there was plenty of room. With everyone's attention on the ring, the challenges finally began.

That person was a frog and he decided to challenge another frog a couple ranks higher than him.

The class understood that he was playing it safe, but they couldn't disagree with that tactic. After all, most of them would be doing the same thing and fight someone from their clan or tribe to decrease the chance of being surprised in battle.

The frog at the lowest rank actually won, allowing him to jump up two seats!

Next was the only other stallion in the advanced class, who was now at the bottom of the class.

He the same frog that had just lost and barely squeezed by with a victory. It was only because the frog was tired, but it still counted as a victory.

The other students took note of their advantage. The later people went, the more tired some opponents would become.

Almost instinctually, many wandering eyes looked toward the top three, the three students who were constantly leaving to use their personal cultivation chambers.

Once it was common knowledge that the top three in both the novice and the adept classes had their own private cultivation rooms at the top of the library, everyone else immediately became jealous. Who wouldn't want that?

With such a reward waiting for anyone who could defeat one of the top three, plenty of students were willing to lose their challenge so long as they could try to get that spot. And once they realized they could challenge them over and over to try and tire them out, more people became willing to try.

After four challenges, a wildebeest stepped up and stared at Karos. "I challenge Karos for the third seat!"

Finally opening his eyes and looking up, Karos blinked and stopped cultivating.

The others all noticed that he wasn't taking any of them seriously. From that, some more people made it their mission to challenge the big three out of spite.

"I'll make this fast," stated Karos as he stood up and walked to the ring. "Get ready, I'll attack the moment we begin."

"Bring it on!"

Ania noticed the wildebeest getting willy thanks to Karos's confidence. Understanding why Karos acted like that, she shrugged and yelled, "Start!"

"Your mine, Kar--"

"Lightning Whip."

Suddenly, Karos was behind the wildebeest and Karos' tail was lashed across the wildebeest's back.

Without a chance to fight back, the wildebeest was knocked to the ground, barely conscious.

"Your natural defenses are high, but you're too slow." As Karos left the ring, he gave the wildebeest a tip to work towards.

Though Karos was very confident, the class was now reminded why. Also, he was actually quite kind, ending it quickly without much injury to the loser and he even mentioned what the loser could work on.

It was humbling for the wildebeest, but he couldn't complain because he had lost by such a wide margin. He took Karos's words to heart slowly got back up, limping out of the ring.

"Who's next?" asked Ania, unfazed by the exchange.

Two more challenges went by like normal, fighting people only a few seats higher. Then, a lynx stood at the center of the ring and looked at Oli.

"I challenge Oli, for the second seat!"

"Are you sure?" asked Oli.

Like Karos, he was also using this time to cultivate. In fact, each of the top three was cultivating at the side of the room.

"Mhm! You dominated the tournament, but I wasn't a peak-novice at the time. Now, it's time to really test you!" yelled the lynx.

Oli glanced at Karos, who shrugged and didn't act like he cared at all. Since Karos responded like that, Oli understood that Karos wouldn't be mad if he taught the lynx a lesson.

"Fine, I guess it was bound to happen." Standing up, Oli took his time to reach the ring. "This is your last chance to choose someone else. Once the fight starts, there's no going back."

"Shut up! I can challenge whoever I want, and now I can finally face you," replied the lynx. "Karos only lost to you last time because someone else was controlling him. Now that I'm also a peak-novice, I'll show you the true strength of our lynx clan!"

"Are you both ready?" stated Ania, sounding neutral and unbiased.

"Ready!"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Fight!"

"Take this!" yelled the lynx, vanishing and using the same tactic that Karos had done a few fights prior. "Lightning Whip!"

The lynx's long tail crashed against Oli's back with frightening speed, surprising the class. They hadn't realized how much that lynx had grown. Some of the students that were ranked slightly higher than the lynx sighed in relief, happy that the lynx had challenged Oli and not them.

A smile was on the lynx's face as his tail hit the unmoving Oli, proud of his unmatched speed.

But that's when the lynx realized that he hadn't actually hit Oli, but a small layer of essence around him.

"Huh?" He was confused because he should've been able to smash his way through such a small amount of essence.

"What's the matter, is that all you've got?" laughed OIi. "I even gave you a clean hit. Tell you what, I'll give you five more hits. If you can't even break my defenses, you'll forfeit."

"Don't mess with me!"

The lynx repeated the attack, this time using even more essence, but the same thing happened.

"Four more," stated Oli. The young gorilla had still yet to move an inch.

Furious, the lynx circled Oli with his fastest speed. It looked like there were multiple lynxes surrounding Oli, showing everyone that the lynx was really giving it his all.

"Absolute Shock!"

Four bolts of lightning converged on Oli, coming from four different parts of the circle. The lightning danced around the gorilla's defenses, but again it was unable to have any effect.

"Three more!"

Now showing the results of his essence control training, the lynx attacked again from his circle. But this time, the bolts of lightning were thinner yet more powerful.

However, the lynx finally noticed something about Oli's defenses. They were getting stronger after every attack the lynx made. And it happened again, even after he showed off his improved attack.

"Two more!"

"Lightning Fang! Lightning Whip!"

Now knowing that he had to give it his absolute all, despite Oli being a plane lower than him, the lynx launched two attacks at once. Both attacks showed his new control of essence, condensing it and keeping less energy from leaking out of his control in order to increase its strength.

As the lynx bit at Oli's arm and the long tail reached around to his Oli's back, he was surprised that Oli stood there and let both attacks crash onto his defenses, undeterred.

"No more!" shouted Oli. The gorilla looked at the lynx, whose fangs were wrapped around the defense of his arm.

"Thanks for helping me test a new battle art of mine, you should forfeit now before I attack. Otherwise, you won't be happy with all the injuries hindering your cultivation."

The lynx had an utterly defeated face. He now understood that Oli had genuinely defeated the lynx clan's young master.