Chapter 27 Club [1]
After recovering enough ether I stood up.
'Construct'
PHZZZT-!
Looking at the two swords that appeared behind me, I nodded my head.
When the first constellation was completed, I achieved a small breakthrough in 'Art of Eridu', thus the number of weapons I could construct at once increased.
The increase in mastery also helped me understand my art more. Now I understood how constellations work.
For every weapon that I created a constellation, I can construct them without scanning. The constellation acts like a permanently scanned copy in my mind.
The number of constellations isn't restricted by the mastery of art, but it also doesn't increase my mastery.
From what I understood, there were two conditions to reach proficient-mastery. One was to be able to construct five weapons at once. As for the other one, I didn't know what it was, yet.
I knew everything about my art, but I couldn't understand everything right now. It was like how sometimes you read a sentence but forget to understand the meaning.
In my case, the higher my mastery was, the more information about my art I understand. As of now, I only knew that every stage of mastery will have a different ability that complements the previous abilities.
"It's already this late."
It was 04:00 am by the time I was done with everything.
The classes would start at 09:00 am so I still had a few hours to rest. But thinking more, I decided against it.
"It would be a problem if I didn't wake up."
I was a heavy sleeper, and the fatigue from the previous days was catching up to me.
As much embarrassing as it was, the chances were high that I might not be able to wake up on time.
After it was revealed that Leon was a magic swordsman, more cadets started pestering him.
I was also a low-rank cadet like Leon, so the chances were high that I might also get targeted.
It would be better to not be late and get involved with the upcoming mess when I had my own problems to deal with.
"Proficient-mastery in the next four weeks, is it?"
I have too much on my plate already.
***
"Hmm"
Nodding her head, Mia left without a word after the attendance was taken. Cadets snickered, and some even gossiped about her.
In the last week, cadets were able to know more about her.
Mia Eiden was somebody who could be described with a single word 'lazy', and extremely so.
She would never punish cadets when they arrived late or for any other violation of rules.
Normally, this kind of behavior should be punished heavily because of Ward's strict rules, but she never bothered to even reprimand anyone.
She wouldn't even react when cadets openly talked behind her back.
She would only do the bare minimum required of her and always leave without a single word.
This was the reason cadets stopped thinking highly of her and gossiped openly about her.
Of course, I wasn't one of those cadets. I wasn't interested in poking a hornet's nest.
"What do you think you are doing?"
I could hear noises from the front of the class.
Cocking my head, I saw a black-haired boy, sporting the top 25's uniform, intimidatingly standing in front of Leon.
He was surrounded by half a dozen cadets who were of similarly high rank, with their rank between 100 to 500.
The cadet and Leon were now the centers of attention of the entire class.
'It began.'
The cadet was Rank 13 Ken Ikenak, and the bully who would annoy Leon till the end of this year.
Seeing him looking down at Leon, my face scrunched up. I wanted to slap that guy senseless.
I couldn't remember how many times I almost threw my phone in anger because of this guy. He was an annoying prick who would always come back and annoy Leon.
As a reader who knew of Leon's true strength, I could barely manage my frustration whenever this guy looked down on Leon.
'You are fucking dead if he fought seriously!' I always wanted to slap this into this prick.
"Did I do something?"
Leon asked with a confused expression. Being the naive guy he was, he didn't realize what was happening.
It didn't even occur to him that a high-rank cadet of Ward could try to bully the weaker cadets.
A vein bulged on Ken's forehead. To him, it was that Leon was just a lazy guy who got into Ward with luck.
Furthermore, he couldn't accept that a low-rank person like Leon was in the same class as him.
In anger, he grabbed Leon's collar.
"How can someone as unbefitting as you attend Wa-"
BANG-!
"Sorry!"
Leon apologized, looking at Ken, who was lying on the ground.
The entire class froze, trying to process what they had just seen. They carefully thought back to what they saw.
--> A wild Ken appeared.
-->The wild Ken attacked Leon.
-->Wild Ken shouted.
-->Leon locked wild Ken's hand.
-->The wild Ken was hurled to the ground.
Cadets nodded their heads after recalling everything, but they again halted.
'No, wait the fourth and fifth step were wrong!'
'How the hell did a top 25 got overpowered by a bottom rank?!'
They couldn't understand how something like this happened.
"Y-You!"
My shoulders trembled as I tried to rein my laugh.
This was a typical situation where the protagonist humiliates a young master incident!
I didn't like such cliché but damn!
Seeing Ken being humiliated in front of me felt satisfying.
It felt like a wish come true!
Ken glared at Leon as if Leon has killed his parents.
He was trying to show a bottom rank in his place, but instead, he was humiliated. He couldn't understand how a bottom rank was able to throw him off so easily.
Leon understood he did something wrong and bowed with an apologetic face.
"I'm sorry. When you grabbed my collar, my body moved on its own, and …"
"Pfft"
At this point, I couldn't hold in my laughter.
Ken's face turned red in anger.
Leon was essentially declaring that he put Ken in such a position without being serious.
What made it even worse was the fact that Leon's tone was as sincere as it could get.
"What kind of cheap trick did you use?!"
Seething in rage, Ken pounced on Leon.
Leon might have overpowered Ken just now. But that was only because it was a surprise attack.
No matter what, Ken was a top-rank cadet at the best academy on Earth. His ability was no joke. And at this point in time, Leon, who hadn't even gone through his first awakening, was no match for Ken.
The gap between him and Ken wasn't enough to dodge the attack. With no other choice, Leon crossed his arms to defend himself.
A dull sound resounded as the punch arrived, but the pain never came.
"Ara Ara. This isn't the place to play, you know."
Standing in front of Leon was a young woman with a beautiful and charming smile.