The heavy oak training swords sliced through the dusty air of the courtyard in a desperate, chaotic frenzy.
Fifteen students charged forward simultaneously, their faces flushed red with a mixture of exhaustion and sheer desperation.
They lunged from the left, they swung from the right, and they attempted to circle around to his blind spots.
Yet, despite the overwhelming numerical advantage, Instructor Gage did not step out of his two foot radius.
His left hand remained casually, immaculately tucked inside his suit trousers pocket.
His right hand held the dusty oak practice sword like an extension of his own arm, deflecting every single incoming strike with tiny, microscopic movements.
A sharp click of wood echoed as he parried a wild swing from Silas, followed immediately by a light tap to Silas's abdomen that sent the boy tumbling back into the dirt.
Mina attempted to utilize her sharp kinetic vision, waiting for the exact microsecond Gage deflected another student before lunging toward his exposed shoulder.
She moved with a spark of genuine precision, but to her absolute horror, Gage did not even turn his head.
He simply tilted his upper body backward by a fraction of an inch, allowing her wooden blade to whisper harmlessly past his fabric.
With a swift, fluid rotation of his wrist, the flat of his wooden sword tapped the back of her knee, causing her legs to fold instantly.
Within minutes, the intense assault ground to a complete halt.
One by one, the teenagers collapsed onto the cracked earth, their chests heaving violently as they gasped for oxygen.
The training courtyard was a sea of groaning, sweating bodies, all of them completely drained of their physical energy.
Gage stood perfectly in the center of the yard.
His tailored suit was entirely unwrinkled, his breathing was completely regular, and not a single drop of sweat lined his brow.
He slowly lowered his wooden sword, his expression remaining an absolute, icy mask of stoic professionalism.
He checked the position of the sun in the sky and then let out a low, calm sigh.
"Time is up," Gage announced, his voice carrying clearly across the silent courtyard.
"The sun is beginning its descent, and not a single one of you managed to graze a single thread of my clothing."
"By the rules of the curriculum, you have all failed the afternoon evaluation."
Jared pushed himself up onto his elbows, wiping mud and sweat from his forehead.
"We couldn't even touch you," he muttered, his voice full of bitter awe.
"You didn't use a single drop of mana, but it felt like we were trying to fight a mountain."
Gage did not acknowledge the compliment.
Instead, his piercing eyes drifted toward the edge of the courtyard where Crimson stood.
The red haired boy was trembling, his clean white medical bandages slightly stained with fresh sweat, but unlike the others who had collapsed completely, Crimson was still forcing his legs to remain straight.
He was clutching his splintered wooden sword so tightly that his knuckles were stark white.
He had spent the last hour throwing his scrawny body into the fray, failing repeatedly, yet his gaze remained locked onto Gage with an intense, quiet resilience.
"Failure requires correction," Gage said, drawing the attention of the entire class back to him.
"Since your teamwork was completely nonexistent and your bodies are entirely too weak, you will now execute your daily penalty."
"You will complete ten full laps around the entire outer border of the academy grounds."
"However, you will not be running alone."
The students looked up, a sudden wave of dread washing over them.
"You are twenty individuals who treat each other like strangers," Gage continued flatly.
"Therefore, you will split into pairs of two."
"One student will carry their partner on their back in a piggyback position, running until they reach the halfway mark of the academy border."
"At the five lap threshold, you will switch places."
"If any pair falls behind, the entire class restarts from lap one."
A collective groan echoed through the yard, but no one dared to argue.
The sheer, commanding weight of Gage's presence made compliance instinctive.
Jared slowly dragged himself up and offered his back to Silas, while the others began pairing up in a desperate bid to organize themselves.
Crimson immediately stepped forward, approaching a smaller, scrawny boy who was hesitating near the back.
Despite the intense, throbbing pain radiating from the fire burns beneath his bandages, Crimson lowered his center of gravity, gritting his teeth as he hoisted the other boy onto his back.
His knees buckled violently for a split second under the sudden weight, but he forced his core to tighten, planting his feet firmly into the dirt.
Gage watched the pairs form without uttering another syllable.
Once the twenty students staggered out of the iron gates and began their grueling journey along the dusty perimeter wall, Gage turned on his heel and walked calmly toward the faculty residential wing.
The instructor quarters provided by High Pristina Academy were reasonably spacious, designed to keep the staff comfortable.
Gage entered his dark, quiet office, closing the heavy wooden door behind him to shut out the distant sounds of the noble campus.
He walked over to his mahogany desk, sat down in the leather chair, and casually reached into his inner suit pocket to retrieve a simple, leather bound notebook.
The moment his fingers touched the desk, Gage narrowed his eyes, allowing his personal interface to expand outward into the empty air of the room.
A massive, translucent window erupted before his eyes, glowing with an intense, deep crimson light that vibrated with absolute authority.
In a normal system, this screen would display a complex breakdown of numerical attributes, strength parameters, and magical mana levels.
But as Gage stared at his own interface, the status lines defied all conventional logic.
Host: Instructor Gage
Current Status: Active
Strength: UNKNOWN
Agility: UNKNOWN
Endurance: UNKNOWN
Mana Capability: UNKNOWN
Combat Mastery: UNKNOWN
Current Available Feedback Points: 0
The system itself could not quantify his limitations because a ceiling simply did not exist for him.
He was an absolute, terrifying force of nature hiding under the guise of a commoner instructor, fully capable of erasing the very foundations of the academy if he so chose.
Yet, his gaze remained entirely unbothered by the row of unknown metrics.
He bypassed his own status screen and flipped open the physical leather notebook, picking up a sleek black ink pen.
He began to write his first official evaluation memo, his elegant handwriting filling the blank parchment.
Class F Evaluation: Day One.
The general consensus of the academy is completely incorrect.
The noble mages evaluate human capability purely through the lens of mana compatibility, leaving them entirely blind to raw anatomical potential.
Jared possesses an exceptional skeletal foundation.
Mina possesses superior kinetic visual processing.
Focus Candidate: Crimson.
Despite suffering severe psychological and physical trauma from the Class A mages, his mental resilience is an anomaly.
His current physical stats are E rank at best, but his latent muscle fiber elasticity and neural reflex potential are locked at a historical SSR grade.
His mindset has successfully shifted from despair to survival.
He is the ideal canvas.
Gage closed the notebook with a soft, decisive snap, sliding it back into his tailored suit pocket as the glowing translucent interface dissolved into thin air.
He stood up, adjusted his cuffs, and walked back out into the cool evening air.
By the time Gage returned to the training courtyard, the sun had completely dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in deep shades of purple and orange.
The twenty students of Class F were scattered across the dirt, looking like soldiers returned from a brutal war.
Their uniforms were caked in dust, their legs were shaking uncontrollably, and their throats were completely dry.
Yet, as Gage approached, every single teenager forced their eyes upward.
The previous resentment and misery in their gazes had vanished, replaced entirely by a profound, silent respect for the man who had orchestrated their torment.
They had completed the ten laps, and they had done it together.
Gage stopped at the edge of the dirt yard, looking down at his exhausted students.
"You managed to complete the penalty without a single pair collapsing," Gage said, his low voice cutting through the quiet evening.
"For a group of talentless rejects, you possess a passable amount of grit."
"Consider that your only compliment for the semester."
A few of the students let out weak, breathless chuckles, their shoulders relaxing slightly.
Gage reached into his pocket and pulled out a stack of neatly folded white envelopes.
He walked through the rows of resting teenagers, dropping a single letter onto the chest of each student.
"Inside those envelopes, you will find your highly specific, customized training routines for the next seven days," Gage commanded.
"While the rest of the academy participates in the mid term magical festivals, this courtyard will remain active."
"You will follow every single physical exercise, every dietary restriction, and every endurance drill listed on those pages down to the exact millimeter."
He stopped directly in front of Crimson, who was sitting cross legged while clutching his bruised ribs.
Gage dropped the final envelope into the boy's lap.
The envelope was twice as thick as the others.
"Everyone in this yard will be working to push their current limits," Gage said, his piercing eyes locking directly onto Crimson's crimson gaze.
"But your regime, Crimson, is exactly double the intensity of your peers."
"Your body will feel like it is breaking every single morning, and your mind will beg you to quit every single night."
Crimson looked down at the thick envelope, his fingers tightening around the paper.
He didn't look afraid.
The memory of the arena, the burning fire mana, and the laughter of the nobles flashed through his mind, replaced instantly by the cold, reassuring weight of Mr. Gage's voice from earlier that day.
"I will do it, Instructor," Crimson whispered, his voice cracking but entirely steady.
Gage turned his back to the class, walking toward the exit of the courtyard as the heavy iron gates loomed in the twilight.
"Go rest," Gage threw the final words over his shoulder.
"Your seven days of hell begin at dawn."