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As Varen’s opponent threw his fist aiming for the face, he took a step to the side the punch gliding past him. With the counter, Varen punched the other boy across the face catching his jaw with his knuckles.

“Why you little…” the boy said as he responded with a hook aimed at Varen’s head.

The latter slid back once again just missing the strike aimed at him. With all his strength he used his legs to push off the ground aiming for opponents legs.

Before the other boy could respond Varen had struck the inside of his right knee with a hook punch causing him to buckle under his own weight.

As he toppled over Varen struck him once again across the face with an elbow strike dazing his opponent. Once he was low enough Varen grabbed one of his opponent’s arms throwing him over his shoulder slamming him upon sand-covered arena pit.

Varen didn’t hesitate for a moment putting his opponent into an armlock. As he put leverage on his opponent’s elbow the latter grunted in pain trying not to show any weakness.

“Give up, Gali!” Varen exclaimed.

“Like…I’d…give in…to you!” Gali through gritted teeth trying to free himself from Varen’s armlock.

“I’ll break your arm if I have to…” Varen put pressure on Gali’s arm bending his elbow in the opposite direction “…and if that doesn’t work I’ll break your other limb”

Up in the arena stand Nariko couldn’t help but feel somewhat scared of Varen, the laid back boy she met yesterday seemed so kind, however, the one before her looked so terrifying. As she looked around it seemed that this was the norm when it came to hand to hand combat training, no one seemed fazed by what was happening in front of them.

“I’m surprised Gali hasn’t learned his lesson yet” a demon boy nearby said to his friend.

“I don’t know what he expects, he’s going up against the ace of the 32nd he’s going to lose every single time” the formers friend replies, the two of them agree with one another.

Not long afterwards Gali taps Varen on the leg a few times showing that he yielded, Varen let go without question as for Gali he rolled around on the floor holding his aching arm as he quietly groaned to himself.

The Instructor comes forward, “That’s the match, the winner Varen Rel Ga Hazan!”. the surrounding students that had been spectating the admittedly short match clapped their hands.

Varen stood up looking at Gali for a brief moment before walking away towards the exit he gazed wandered locking eyes with Nariko, the latter couldn’t help but blush slightly after their encounter in the market district of Hellscape. Varen stood there for a moment continuing to look at Nariko until he started walking back to the exit as he did beforehand.

“Alright, that’s enough time-wasting!” Instructor Kufra shouted. His students turned to him now dressed in a black vest and looked like military overalls and polished black boots. As Nariko got a better look at the Instructor not only was she surprised of his attire, but just how toned he really was.

“Today we’re going through some basic self-defence techniques…” his gaze suddenly got serious “…just because this is practice doesn’t mean you can slack off!”

The students placed their right fist over the left side of their chests then bowed Nariko did the same albeit sloppy compared to her fellow classmates. The Instructor gestured to follow him, his students quickly walked after him as he leads them to another area within the arena.

The class exited the main arena through a nearby tunnel within the stands it wouldn’t be until they reached their destination. Nariko in awe looked up her gaze was met with the sight of huge steel pillar reaching up into the sky, the pillar itself must have been at least thirty-foot wide. Branching off from the pillar were hundreds of square reinforced glass rooms.

At the base of the pillar stood two guards unlike the ones at the mansion these wore a black and crimson red military uniform around their waist it looked like a holstered weapon. Nariko tried to get a better look to no avail, but it became clear to her that these guards weren’t affiliated with the Demon Guardsman back at the mansion.

The class approached the base of the pillar, one of the guards pulled a thin card piece from his pocket swiping it into a stone pillar next to him the lights that had been emanating red suddenly turned green granting them access to the facility before them. What followed was the soft rumbling as a small section of steel plating opened up before.

“Everyone get on board!” Instructor Kufra announced. The students did as they were told standing upon the steel platform. A second later a bright bluish aura shone over them and under the platform.

The platform started to shake as it slowly moved upwards towards the top of the steel pillar. Nariko couldn’t help but notice just how similar this was to elevators from her previous life.

As the platform gradually headed upwards every few metres they passed by two large glass panel sliding doors. It wouldn’t take long until they reached the floor they needed Nariko looked to the side of the steel pillar to see two large numbers engraved in red upon its surface.

The Instructor stepped off the platform before him the two glass panel doors slid open. The students followed suit behind him, Nariko looked out from the glass panel wall next to her. Looking down she could tell that they were rather high up, however, when she looked upward she found that they still a hundred metres or even more to go until they were at the top of the pillar.

Entering the room Nariko was surprised to see what looked like a climbing apparatus designed to test one’s physical endurance, what was unusual about the equipment was how technically demanding the course looked to the average person. She never expected to see such a thing in the new world.

Before arriving there were already fellow students from other classes using the equipment as Nariko watched them she couldn’t but help daunted by how much physical exertion each and every student put in. There were even a few students that simply gave in falling to the floor below.

Nariko tensed up expecting a loud crack to be heard as bone made contact with reinforced glass, only to witness the students land on top of a cushion material that emanated from the glass itself. Once the student had been safely caught the material would then start to dissipate into the glass as if it were never there in the first place.

“Listen up!” Instructor Kufra shouted getting all of his students attention. Everyone gathered around him ready to hear what he had to say.

“I expect all of you to complete this course in four minutes, otherwise you’ll be standing out here until you do complete the course” he announced many of the students groaned upon hearing those words.

“At this point, you should be used to how this academy works…” Instructor Kufra looked to Nariko “…as for you Nariko, I’ll let you off this once seeing that you’re new here, but I expect you to finish the course at least”

“Y-Yes sir” Nariko responded she haphazardly saluted still getting used to such an action. To be honest, at first, she didn’t think about it, but as the day on it was becoming more and more apparent that this academy is indeed a Military Academy.

Nariko took in a deep breath preparing herself for the upcoming challenge a look of determination appeared on her face. Looking to her side she saw Mana and Etsudo the group wished one another luck in the upcoming practical course. She saw the student walking up to a metallic panel atop a stone pillar, the panel itself had to handprint markers upon it.

When it was Nariko’s turn she cautiously placed her hands upon the panel fitting her hands in place of where the markers were positioned. She hadn’t a clue what to expect after witnessing so many unusual technologies in this world she had somewhat grown accustomed to expecting the unexpected at this point.

Before she realized it under her hands where the markers were a faint hue of light shone underneath it didn’t take long before the light changed a bright greenish colour. Nariko took her hands off the panel, she then looked at her hands to find that her fingerless gloves that covered her hand and forearm had rough ridges materialize upon the palm of her glove.

She looked up at the course again towering before her swallowing her nervousness she gently hit her face with palms of her hands to knock out any thought of doubt she had beforehand. Okay I can do this! Nariko urged herself onward mentally as she took a step towards the obstacle course.

ArcanePunkster’s Note

So many of you probably saw that I was rewriting a few chapters earlier today for those who are interested I have [EDITED] in chapter titles that have been adjusted don’t fret though there aren’t huge amounts of changes it mostly added interactions and changes of one or two situations or dialogues.

However, for those who don’t wish to go back and re-read all the due lack of time or any other reason I write a small summary of what I changed in bullet points to make easier to read in if need be I’ll put in brackets the reason for this change.

• Magic is no longer a source of power within the current universe. Instead, technology had to adapt for all the species to survive in an ever-growing dangerous universe. Nearly all technology is powered by one’s mana in this universe. (For the current story I had planned it made no sense to have mana users and magic users in fact it severely resulted in one-sided battles between combatants making fight scenes boring and uninteresting as I wrote fight scenes in future chapters)
• The academy had been changed to a military academy. (With the current situation within the universe it made no sense to have the MC attend a normal academy then get thrown into battles without some form of training, that’s my reasoning behind it)
• The Promethean Deities have been introduced. (I was originally going to leave this one for sometime later, however, it just seemed strange to introduce certain laws of the universe had been created and not introduce at least one of the Promethean Deities)

Hopefully, this small summary has clarified some questions some of you may have from earlier today if you have any more questions regarding these changes please don’t hesitate to ask as I’m happy answer any of your questions! (As long as they’re spoiler-free of course lol!

Fire: The chapters that have been edited and/or rewritten currently are the prologue, chapter 4 and chapter 5.2. I didn’t put in the [EDITED] and [REWRITE] in for the sake of cleanliness. I will update you guys on newly edited/rewritten chapters on my posts!

Be sure to support the author, ArcanePunkster by leaving some comments on this chapter’s Scribble Hub page and also favouriting it!