Chloe quickly leaned onto Alex's back before grabbing right below his neck.
At the same time, Alex quickly grabbed onto Chloe's leg, letting it wrap around as he began advancing. Your next read awaits at m v|l-e'-novelhall.net
To Chloe's surprise, they were slowly making progress, slowly catching up to the pair in front of them.
With more and more progress made by Alex, he was rapidly passing more and more people.
Some began to catch on as they copied Alex, only to be knocked out of the track.
Still, everyone's attention was on the 1st and 2nd place, who were now just within five steps away from winning.
Even though it was just a few steps, it was almost an invisible barrier that stopped both pairs from moving.
The perfect timing allowed Alex to jump all the way to third place, and he was within ten steps of winning.
"Alex, y-you okay?' Chloe worryingly asked as she noticed a vein popping on Alex's forehead.
"I'm fine. Don't move... I need you to stay on top of me, or else I'm going to get blown away."
Feeling the strong wind blowing right into her face, Chloe knew what Alex was saying was true.
But she just couldn't help but feel like a burden to Alex, as all she had been doing was just lying on his back.
"Fuck, this wind is so damn strong!" Alex murmured as he tried to take one step forward, only to be blown two steps back.
With more and more steps back, Chloe finally couldn't sit idly by as she started murmuring some words.
Suddenly, Alex could feel a rush of energy, allowing him to advance as he took one step at a time forcefully.
Against all odds, he finally takes second place, surpassing Sophia and Nami, who are shocked to see the two ahead of them.
In everyone's view, Alex was now the dark horse who had just come out of nowhere from the bottom.
The dark horse was now two steps away from surpassing 1st place and three steps total away from the finish line.
However, Alex soon realized why the 1st place hadn't made the final step to end the match.
They could almost feel themselves levitating the moment they raised one foot to go forward.
"What do we do? They are about to pass us!"
"Shit!"
The first-place pair quickly noticed Xiaoyun on the left, which caused them to start panicking and fall into despair, as they couldn't move at all.
With the biggest gamble of the match, they abandoned their crawling and inching forward strategy.
Instead, they lunged up and forward from their crawling position to try to touch the finish line.
But within milliseconds of getting into the air, they were blown back several steps away, neutralizing their jumping speed completely.
Sophia and Mary quickly filled in the gap as they reached a tie with Alex, who was one step away from the finish line.
"Chloe, I'm going to do something stupid. Can I try it?" Alex asked out loud as the wind started to make their sounds hard to hear.
"Go for it!"
Alex's statement made Luqing blush a little, but she didn't pressure him or Chloe to say something else.
"Okay then... Everyone, please untie your clothes and hand them back to Camille."
As the classmates began removing the tie, Alex and Chloe both started blushing as they realized how close their bodies were.
They could feel each other's skin as their thighs were pressing against each other.
Not to mention, the knot was so tight that a mark could be seen on their skin as soon as they moved it a little.
"Miss Luqing, can I cut it?" Alex quietly asked after he and Chloe tried to pull it down, only to have it tighten even more.
"Sure, go for it..."
Slowly, Alex cast a small wind blade before having it cut right in between the two's thighs.
With the clothes falling on the ground, the two were finally free from each other.
"I hope everyone learns through Alex's and Chloe's example today... Teamwork and creativity are what you need to succeed.
Just because you and your partner are the strongest, or you two have the best institution with each other, it doesn't mean you will win."
As the class nodded in agreement, Luqing felt accomplished as she wrote a check into her notebook.
"Now, everyone, horse stance for ten minutes."
The entire class was caught off guard by the announcement, but they still spread out and did the stretch.
"Miss Luqing, your teaching method is unique. I like it," the middle-aged man said as he approached her.
"Thank you... Um, sorry to ask this. But who are you?"
"I'm the school principal. You can call me Will or Professor Crampton... Ahem, I got to go now."
As the school principal flew into the sky and disappeared, everyone in the class let out a sigh of relief.
"Hey, you three in the back, stop slouching. I can see you from here."
---
After an hour of exercising, the class was finally dismissed after sitting in the classroom for five minutes.
"Alex! Alex! How the hell did you come up with that idea?" Evelyn curiously asked, with the other three looking just as intrigued.
Even Sophia and Mary were curious as they walked over to his seat rather than him walking over to them.
"I just thought, since crawling was the most aerodynamic, and hunching gave the most momentum, I just needed to combine them into one...
Rolling just happened to combine the two of them, which is why I fell back a little to roll towards the finish line with Chloe."
"But why did you have Chloe piggyback on you in the middle of the competition?" Luna curiously asked this time.
"We figured out that we needed some weight to prevent us from being blown over when I first proposed it.
It just so happened Chloe was perfect as a counterbalance against the wind without weighing me down."
Seeing Alex willing to share so much credit with her, Chloe's face started to blush a little.