Chapter 30: Academy Bets
Zack was in the group who left the classroom, as he departed Zack only waved his hand to Yale and gave him another thumbs up before departing.
To Zack practicing the Magus Path was just a method to improve his archery, so he merely joined the Wind Element Class in which he had a Perfect Grade Affinity.
After Yale observed all the three lessons he attended until that moment, he could rank his classmates based on how proficient they were using their spells.
The best ones were those who Yale suspected to have a Perfect Grade Elemental Affinity and thus the only ones he viewed as people at his own level.
Until that moment in the Magus Classes, only Aizu and Zack were in that category.
Of course, Yale didn’t discard the possibility of someone being low-key, that possibility was something that always should be taken into account.
As for someone with a Perfect Grade Elemental Affinity, but who didn’t reach the level demonstrated by Zack and Aizu, Yale didn’t care for because those people weren’t training hard enough.
Without training hard, even those with lower talents would surpass them, and the power difference between them and the hard-worker group would only grow bigger.
Both parts talent and hard work were essential to reach the required level to have Yale taking them as equals. Yale could even treat someone without talent but with a very hard-working personality as an equal, but Yale would never recognize those who only rely on talent and disregard the effort.
Yale’s talent and hard-work were higher than any other student he had seen, he had three Elemental Affinities at the Perfect Grade and was crazy at training.
Yale had shown his skills in the water element previously, and he knew that he would need to expose some more talent in the Water Elemental Class or it would be weird.
Evidently, Yale wouldn’t use his Origin Skill and then breakthrough while showing his prowess.
Yale had planned to use the modified Frost Claw with more Origin Qi than before, but without using all the ten Origin Points. Even if the technique approximated to the Origin Skill, it wouldn’t reach the threshold of being fully executed.
The Water Elemental Class started, and to Yale, it was effortless to understand.
That was because when he created the outline of the Origin Skill, his understanding of the water element deepened a lot.
After a bit of lecture about the water element, the students started to display their spells.
Yale waited until all the other students had shown their spells to ask to expose his own.
The reason was that Yale knew that if he were to be the first, his performance would eclipse all the students who would show their spells after him.
It wasn’t that Yale was arrogant, but he was almost at the 2-star, and the only reason he didn’t breakthrough yet was that he didn’t want to do it in front of everyone.
Yale exhibited his modified Frost Claw making it take a lot of different forms including offensive and defensive ones. Showing the versatile of the spell which everyone mistook with an improved version of Water Hand, provoked even the teacher expression to change.
Yale’s exhibition shocked the whole class, even if some of them already had high expectations for his performance based on the recent rumors or because they had seen him in the Fire Class.
The teacher was delighted with Yale’s performance, having such an outstanding student was a blessing for any teacher.
After seeing Yale’s spell, the most knowledgeable ones detected that he shouldn’t be very far from reaching the 2-star.
As that was the first day of classes for the newcomers, it had also started with the traditional bet about talents. It was very simple, the other students and the teachers would bet who will be the first among the newcomers into making a breakthrough.
The teachers and the students spread the word about those who showed their talents and then it became public information to the rest of the academy.
Yale’s performance made him one of the favorites to be the first in both paths, Warrior and Magus.
In the Warrior category, the bets were put almost only on Yale, George, and Zack; there were also two girls who were among the favorites.
The lessons for the Magus were still unfinished, but Yale and Zack were already at the top of the bets. Aizu was also very high due to her illusion spell, but her failure in the Fire Elemental Class affected her and then she came after Yale and Zack in the stakes.
It could be said that Yale’s eyesight was quite good as the people he considered as his equals were really the ones who were in the same position as him in the bets.
However, Yale reached that position in the Magus bets only by his act of saving Aizu in the Fire Class; the fact that he had immunity to illusions remained secret.
After Yale showed his skills in the Water Class, he became the favorite to be the first to reach the 2-star, surpassing Zack.
Once the Water Elemental Class ended, it followed with the Earth Elemental Class.
Yale had only an average talent in the earth and didn’t know any spell of that element, so he planned to do the same as in the Wind Class, only listening to the teacher’s lecture and observing his classmates casting spells.
However, someone unexpected appeared while the students were showing their spells, it was George.
Yale never expected that George would also be dual practicing; moreover, George performance left the whole class unable to utter a word.
When George had to cast his spell, he first wielded a sword and then channeled the spell into the sword, then the sword increased in size until it was a greatsword.
Earth spells had a lot of reinforcement techniques to enhance items endurance, but George spell wasn’t that simple, because he also used Inner Qi in the spell.
Unexpectedly even for Yale, George learned a Combined Skill, even if that skill was still imperfect as the greatsword crumbled after three seconds and returned to be a normal sword.
Initially, George didn’t want to show that Combined Skill as it was still imperfect, but after he heard about Yale’s performance in the previous classes George decided to go all out.
George performance was enough to let him tie with Yale in the favorite position in the bets. That was George’s intention as he didn’t want to fall behind Yale in any aspect because George considered Yale his rival.
George didn’t speak with Yale at any moment; they only gazed at each other after George finished to execute his Combined Skill.
When the lesson finished, George quietly left the class like almost all the other students, that exchange of gazes he had with Yale was enough to say all he wanted to say.
The next class was the Thunder Elemental Class, and that element wasn’t popular due to its difficulty.
However, that was the first element in which Yale obtained an Elemental Affinity and also the element of the first spell he learned.
As the Thunder element was the most practiced by Yale before, the lecture gave him few insights and then Yale thought about George’s Combined Skill from earlier.
Initially, Yale had also decided to show Spark even if that spell wasn’t as impressive as the modified Frost Claw he used before.
However, after Yale saw George’s Combined Skill and heard the teacher’s lecture, Yale had a new idea.
Yale wanted to fuse Spark with his sword and try to execute the Tri-sparkling Sword before he learned it from the system’s sub-quest reward.
Yale also felt that George was his rival, and since George could develop a Combined Skill by himself, Yale wanted to do the same.
Fortunately, Yale had the custom of carrying his sword with him since he went into the Beast Trial, that was very usual among those who loved to train with the sword.
When Yale took his sword out before casting his spell, the few students who remained in the class were shocked. The ones who saw George earlier had a premonition about what Yale was about to do.
As Yale didn’t have to fuse Inner Qi and Magic, the process to learn a Combined Skill was a lot easier for him; he was able to integrate the Spark spell into his sword without difficulty, the hard part to him would be executing a Battle Skill in that state.
Yale started to use Tri-sword while the sparks were still in the sword, but he failed before finish the second strike.
However, Yale’s Combined Skill was more mature than George’s one, even if the main reason was the Origin Qi which made it easier for Yale.
Even if Yale failed in the end, that was already enough shocking because George only managed to infuse the spell in his sword and then dissipated after three seconds.
Instead, Yale managed even to execute a strike from a Battle Skill while the sword was infused with the spell. Even if Yale couldn’t complete all the blows from the skill, only one hit was enough to show that his mastery of the Combined Skill was superior to George’s.
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