Chapter IX: The Transfer Student

Shizukana Gake, Heian Kingdom, The Great Plateau

Month of the Garuda 31, 172 ,328 DE

"Ha-ha-ha!" Sitting in class with my feet up on the desk, I cannot keep from laughing.

As Hoshi walks into the room, he shakes his head. Reaching the back row of desks, he looks over my shoulder. "You're reading that Sengoku otaku shit again? Are you sure you're not an otaku?"

Glancing at Hoshi out of the corner of my eyes, I salute him with my middle finger. "This is so bad, it's hilarious. Limp dick cuckolds in the making like these getting entire harems of women trailing them around. I can't stop laughing out loud, when I read something this stupid."

Hoshi snorts. "Have you met any of the otaku in Sengoku city? They wish they could be cuckolds, but they can't even get anything female to look their way. They couldn't even attract a female dog or cat with raw meat."

"I know. That's why its funny. Trying to figure out what kind of dickless bitch would write this shit is the funniest part. Could you imagine being that kind of a bitch loser and not committing honorable seppuku to alleviate your shame and dishonor?"

Hoshi looks around the room, like he is searching for something specific. "I'm not one so I don't even want to try. School hasn't even started and you're here. Test today?"

"Yeah. First thing. It's one of Inoue-kun's tests. It'll be a bad joke, just like him. Why else would I be here this early if not for my perfect test average?"

"No clue." As Hoshi flops down in his chair, the legs creak alarmingly under his weight

But to be honest, my chair creaks worse than Hoshi's does. Despite all his fat, I outweigh him by a solid fifty kilograms. Due to practicing the Body Forging Scripture, my Body is considerably denser than his.

As Inoue walks into the room, he glares up at me. "Alright, take your seats class! We have a new student joining us today. Vorn-sama?"

Wearing an Academy uniform, the Lord I blackmailed for my new bike walks into the class.

Thunk!

As I sweep my legs off the desk, the front legs of my chair slam into the floor."What the fuck is that middle-aged uncle doing here? This is a secondary school!"

Vorn, the Lord, glares at me. "Who are you calling middle-aged?"

I point at Vorn. "You. Thirty plus is middle-aged. Or does being a noble asshole from the north mean you can't figure out how old you are?"

"Thirty plus? I'm fourteen, you retarded barbarian!"

My jaw falls open for moment. "Fourteen my ass! Where does a middle-aged uncle like you come off claiming he's fourteen?"

Hoshi grabs the sleeve of my leather shirt. "Hey! Beast! The middle-aged uncle is Vorn, the Crown Prince of Amber. I recognize him from an article in Steamer Bike Quarterly that came out in the spring. He really is fourteen."

I stare at Vorn with narrowed eyes. "Bullshit! He's no teenager!"

Hoshi shakes his head. "True as true. I swear."

I scratch the still ragged whiskers growing from my jaw. "Fuck. Even though he looks like a middle-aged uncle, growing a beard like that at fourteen is impressive. I'm jealous."

Scattered around the classroom, a half-dozen or so noble bitch students smack their own faces with their palms.

Putting on a smug expression, Vorn combs his fingers through his beard, and I have an almost irresistible urge to smack that smug expression off his face.

"Beast-kun! Shut up!"

I stare coldly at Inoue. "Hey, Inoue-kun. You want me to dislocate your jaw again?"

"Arrogant animal! I'll have you expelled!"

I sneer at Inoue. "Good luck with that."

I have no fear of being expelled. The Principal is not going to lose out on his last six months of pumping me for information on sigils and the advanced engineering designs I have learned from Old Man Jones.

Inoue bows submissively to Vorn. "I apologize, Vorn-sama. That animal does not know its place, and for inexplicable reasons, the Principal protects it. You can have any seat you would like."

Vorn walks to the back of the room and stops next to Hoshi. "Would you mind moving over one seat? I would like to sit next to Beast here."

When Hoshi looks at me and I shrug, he gets up. "Sure. You can have my desk."

"Thank you." Vorn sits at the vacated desk, and the heavy wooden chair creaks even more than it did under Hoshi's fat ass. He may be big, but how can he weigh so much? What kind of Body Cultivation does he practice?

From his new seat, Hoshi looks from Vorn to me with raised eyebrows. His life-threatening case of too much curiosity is too easy to see, but I ignore him. Putting my feet up on my desk, I go back to reading my moronic Sengoku novel, but it just does not seem as funny as it did a few minutes ago.

Inoue starts his bullshit reading of the morning announcements, but no one pays attention to him. He would probably win the 'Least Respected Teacher' award with an infinite margin.

With the smug smile still on his face, Vorn blatantly stares at me. "Do you like your new bike?"

"Yep. Did I crack Ingwe's skull?"

"No. Just his helmet." Vorn's smug smile falters, and a sliver of hostility glimmers in his eyes.

Inoue glares at me. "Beast-kun! Stop disturbing Vorn-sama!"

"Inoue-kun, if you don't show me proper respect, I'll kick what passes for your balls up into your body cavity."

Vorn chuckles. "You're almost as unbridled as you are in the Demonic Wildlands."

I snort. "Who the fuck are you trying to bullshit? I'm more unbridled in the city. Old Man Jones has my back here. The City Lord and the clan leaders crap themselves at the thought of pissing that shitty old man off."

Most of the noble brats scowl in my direction, but I ignore them. Since they do not even have the balls to yap like rat dogs, there is no point in beating them down.

I grin a Vorn. "You know, the next class after this is Combat Arts. It's a part of the mandatory class curriculum. None of these bitches can last even five seconds sparring with me. Want to be my sparring partner?"

"Hey I can last fifteen seconds."

I look at Hoshi. "Even if you're from a clan, when have I lumped you in with those dickless bitches? You're an otaku, and that's a step up from those bitches."

Hoshi proudly thumps his chest. "I'm not one of those Sengoku City faggots! I'm a military otaku! Get it right!"

I shake my head without replying.

Vorn fixes me with a predatory grin. "I'll spar with you. Don't regret it when I beat your ass into the ground."

* * * * *

The entirety of the central courtyard of the Academy of Magic Technology is a martial training field. At one end, poles of wood and pillars of stone and metal provide objects for training and tempering one's fists and feet. At the other end, a row of weights wait for students looking to train their muscles. In the center, three raised stone platforms serve as arenas for sparring practice.

Each year of the Academy's student body takes combat training classes as a group. The scions of the noble clans naturally have training facilities and instructors at their homes, but those who rose from commoner roots and managed to enter the Academy normally lack any formal training in combat or Cultivation. To make sure that the graduating students have the best chance possible to get into a Cultivation College, combat classes are mandatory, and for the commoners, optional after school programs exist for Cultivation training.

Despite their arrogance, most of the noble brats suck at combat. Like the little hothouse flowers they are, they have never had to fight with their lives on the line. Many have never so much as thrown a punch in anger at a target that would fight back. They had better not have any delusions of entering a top Cultivation College and focus on lower tier schools

Of the commoners, at least six or seven of them in my year could trash more than half the noble brats, but they do not dare to fight for real. If they keep going as they are, they will fail to enter a Cultivation College after graduating. Because they are used to being trampled on by the noble clans, they are sealing off their own futures.

Dressed in padded training suits, the Last Year students from my class and the others stand around the combat platform. Many of the arrogant brats from the noble clans mill around Vorn. With the status of the Jewel Kingdoms on the Great Plateau, they probably want to suck up to him to improve their images.

Dressed in the same kind of padded training suit as everyone else, Vorn stands head and shoulders above nearly everyone in the Academy, including the teachers. With his calm, affable demeanor, he seems like a natural at dealing with retarded nobles, as expected for the Crown Prince of a kingdom.

Taking off my shirt, I drop it on the ground next to the stone platform.

"Heh. Heh-heh. Heh. Heh. Beast is getting naked. So perverted. Can't look." That creepy laugh and comments come from behind me.

Glancing over my shoulder, I meet the gaze of Sato Aoi. Standing in the shade under the external stairs leading to the second story of one of the Academy buildings, she has her hands over her face with her fingers spread enough to look through the gaps between them. As she realizes that I am staring at her, she closes her fingers.

"Heh-heh-heh. Heh-heh. Beast saw me watching. So embarrassing."

Normally mousy and quiet. The only times I have ever heard Sato Aoi speak, she was answering questions asked by the teachers in classes. She seems to be a bit stranger than I thought she was.

While I take off my pants, leaving only my loincloth on, Vorn walks up to me but has his attention on Sato Aoi. "You attract the strangest people."

"What's strange about her? She doesn't run around pulling guns on people she just met." My grin radiates pure mockery.

"Is she another blackmailer?"

I shrug. "No clue. Maybe, I should bring her along the next time I pick up another slightly used steamer bike"

Noticing the silence on the training field, Vorn turns around and scans the crowd of mostly noble clan bitches watching us.

I laugh. "They're just obsessing over all my scars and trying not to piss their pants. They're a bunch of hothouse pussies, who have no clue what is means to fight with Ferocious and Demonic Beast that haven't been drugged or restrained."

I rub the new scar on my left biceps. "Oh. I forgot. This one is from a fire-powder gun, but it got me a new steamer bike."

"What a liar."

"Bragging about bullshit that never happened."

"It's Beast. What do you expect?"

"Such a loser."

The noble clan bitches do not even try to hide what they are saying. They are trying to taunt me. Just because I have never beat them bloody, they think I do not dare to do it. The ones who know better have already put distance between themselves and the rest.

Vorn turns back to me. "You're popular with your classmates."

I laugh. "Their idiocy is showing through, like always."

Stripping off his padded top, Vorn reveals a chest and arms with at least as many scars as my own. The majority of them clearly come from the claws and fangs of Beasts. With him being from one of the Jewel Kingdoms, there is no surprise in seeing him scarred from battles with Beasts. The Jewel Kingdoms do not raise hothouse flowers. They have no interest in dumping time and resources into those that cannot learn to fight Beasts and survive from a young age.

I display a feral grin. "Maybe, you'll last longer than five seconds."

Vorn returns my grin with one just as feral. "You'll have to go all out if you want even see the five second mark."

Bending his knees, Vorn leaps toward the middle of the combat platform. Sailing almost ten meters through the air, he does a triple backward somersault and lands about nine meters from the edge of the stage. He has a lot of explosive strength, and for his size, his agility surprises me.

"Look how manly Vorn-sama is!"

"He'll crush that animal Beast."

"He's so big!"

"Red hair is so exotic!"

"Vorn-sama is so strong!"

"He looks like a God of the dawn!"

"He's a prince!"

"I want to be Vorn-sama's princess!"

"Vorn-sama look over here!"

With all the female clan bitches going crazy over Vorn, the male clan bitches display disgruntled expressions, but not one of them says a word. Vorn's heavily developed muscles and the scar's from fighting Beasts have them reeking of nervousness and outright fear.

Putting my hand on the edge of the platform, I swing my legs up and rise to my feet.

"Beast-kun is so pathetic!"

"He's disgusting!"

"He has no chance against Vorn-sama!"

I repress my urge to laugh. Noble birth makes for quite the difference in how humans treat someone. Just a title of Prince, and the self-proclaimed elites will fawn all over you.

I saunter to the center of the platform and turn to face Vorn. "I'm ready. You can attack anytime you want."

"Vorn-sama will crush him!"

"Vorn-sama, skin that Beast!"

Vorn glances at the noble bitches clustering around the platform. There appears to be more than a hint of disdain in his eyes, but none of them appear to notice. Even if they did, they would still suck up to him.

"Anytime you're ready, Vorn-sama."

As Vorn looks back toward me. I smirk. It is a well-practiced smirk. I practice it in the mirror. If not done just right, a smirk will lack the proper ambiance and attitude. I have spent many, many hours perfecting mine.

"I'm not holding back." Balling his right hand into a fist, Vorn raises it next to his head.

Mana flows through his body and concentrates in his right arm. As his muscles tense, and he begins to step into his punch, I lunge forward with my own. Our fists slam together before either of us reaches a full extension.

Vorn's eyes open fractionally wider in surprise, and he steps back. "Your Body Cultivation is impressive."

I keep my smirk in place. "What Cultivation. I have no Yuan Qi in my Body, or are your senses so dull you can't even tell that much."

Vorn frowns. "You do not need Yuan Qi to practice Body Cultivation. Beast Blood Cultivation strengthens the body whether you can use Yuan Qi or not."

Beast Blood Cultivation? What the fuck is that? I will have to ask Old Man Jones about it.

"I've never heard of Best Blood Cultivation. Only Body Tempering and that can't be called real Cultivation."

"Essence of the Bear is a commonly practiced Body Cultivation technique in Amber. It requires the Blood Essence of Ferocious Beast's of the bear family and allows you to rebuild your body into one that rivals a Ferocious Beast for strength and toughness. Your only limitation is the Rank of the bears you can acquire blood from. Even commoners without a hint of Yuan Qi can do it."

Ferocious and Demonic Beasts are organized into Ranks based on their Circles of Coalescence. Of course, most people have no clue that Ranks are matched to Circles. They just know that the Beasts have more Mana in them. If a Ferocious or Demonic Beast Coalesces through Psi or Ki as its primary source of Power, its Rank can be badly skewed in relation to its strength. Because they lack a proper comprehension of Mana, Psi, and Ki, Beasts often get trapped in a low Circle.

I shrug. "I've never heard of your Essence of the Bear or any other Body Cultivation techniques. You wanna yap or fight?"

Raising his fists, Vorn springs forward and throws a jab at my face. He is fast, frighteningly fast for his size. But I am faster.

Slipping past Vorn's jab, I hammer a left hook into his floating ribs, but he does not so much as flinch. He follows his jab with a right cross to my chest, and I block it with crossed forearms. His punch is heavy, and I let the force push me backward. Vorn follows up with a kick to my leg, but I block it with my shin.

Vorn's fighting style is basically the same as the most popular bare-handed style from the Dunkle Sonne Empire, Foot Fist Way. It is much like one that Old Man Jones taught me, which comes from his original world. Old Man Jones calls it Kickboxing or Thai Boxing. It is much more practical than the stylized fighting arts taught in the Heian Kingdom and the Sengoku Empire. To contest with me using Kickboxing, the Heian trash need to use actual Yuan Qi Combat Arts. Their basic Martial Arts have too much flash and not enough substance. They have the same problem against Dunkle Sonne Empire Martial Artists.

I let Vorn keep up his attack, while slipping by or intercepting his punches and kicks before they reach their focal point.

"Are defending and running all you are capable of?" Vorn does not slow the rhythm of his attacks and spits out his taunt in time with his strikes.

I smirk. "Just gauging your technique. You haven't used Yuan Qi since your first punch. One punch shouldn't be your limit. Your what, Third Stage of Qi Condensation? Maybe Fourth?"

"Fourth. Almost Fifth."

"Impressive. Most of the trash around here can't even reach the peak of Body Tempering by fourteen. Just look at them. They're so awed, their jaws are hanging open while flies wander into their mouths." I laugh, while still fading back and circling to reduce the power of Vorn's attacks.

It only takes a few seconds for the stench of the clan bitches' anger to fill the air. Hiding in the shadows under the stairs, Sato Aoi clamps her hands over her mouth, and from the way her body shakes, she still has a hard time suppressing her laughter. As a commoner, whose existence is practically ignored in the Academy, she must enjoy seeing the clan bitches mocked.

Abruptly, I lunge forward and drive my elbow into Vorn's thigh to shut down a kick. As he throws an off-balance punch at my back, I tense my back and shoulder muscles, while hammering my knee into the same thigh I just elbowed. After sinking down to absorb the force from the punch, I launch a cross between a left hook and left uppercut into Vorn's floating ribs.

As Vorn steps back to regain his balance, I throw punch after punch into his stomach, pushing him back farther. But Vorn slams his foot heavily into the fighting platform and starts throwing punches back at me.

Neither Vorn nor I retreat. We stand toe to toe hammering brutal punch after brutal punch into one another. We deflect or slip what we can, but we take as many as we avoid. I mix my punches between Vorn's abdomen and face. He mostly targets my head, and his punches get heavier as he channels his Mana into his fists. Luckily, my thick skull is one of my better features.

I feel warmth moving through my Body, and the more I get hit, the stronger the flow. My punches move faster and hit heavier, but I only keep up with Vorn. He is not weak. He probably hits harder then I do, but because of my Body Forging, I am denser and tougher than a normal human, including one who is already at the middle stages of Qi Condensation.

Time seems to slow down. A mist of blood fills the air. I no longer have any idea how long I have been fighting. Every punch takes more and more effort to throw, but I keep fighting. As long as I have breath in my body, I will not stop fighting.

Eventually, I feel a heavy, sweaty lump of flesh leaning against me. I am on my knees, with Vorn on his knees in front of me. The only thing keeping either of us from falling over is each other. Except for the heavy rasping of our breath, I cannot hear anything.

"Is that best you can do?" I barely manage to gasp out the words.

"What about you? Can't keep going any longer?" Vorn's panted words sound out next to my ear.

Shoving each other back, we punch each other in the face. Vorn's punch feels more like getting hit with a limp rag than a fist, and I doubt mine is any heavier. We slump back against one another, and over Vorn's shoulder, I see the noble bitches staring at us.

Fear and awe paint the pale faces of the watching clan bitches. Even the instructor in my line of sight has the same kind of expression.

"The chickenshits look like they crapped their pants."

Vorn grunts. "Those born to be weak always fear the strong."

"We need to finish this fight."

"It's too hot to entertain this trash. We should finish this somewhere else."

"Good idea."

Struggling to our feet, we half-walk and half-stagger to the edge of the fighting platform and clamber down like old men. The noble trash silently stumble out of our way as we head for the Academy's shower and changing rooms.

* * * * *

"What were you trying to do? Kill yourselves?" In his overexcited outrage, Hoshi's habit of spraying his words is on full display. Listening to Hoshi bitch like an old woman is no better than listening to Old Man Jones, but at least, he held off until after we finished showering.

I let out an exasperated sigh. "Calm down. You sound like Old Man Jones on a mommy imitation bender. That was just a little workout. You've never seen fights with Ferocious of Demonic Beasts are like."

Sitting on the wooden bench opposite me, Vorn laughs. "Compared with real Beast Waves, that was not even playing."

Hoshi shakes his head. "Both of you are insane."

While still laying on my bench, I turn my head to look at Vorn. "How do you want to settle this?"

Vorn grins. "Drinking contest."

My jaw falls open. I stare for a solid twenty seconds, while Vorn looks at me with the smuggest grin I have ever seen. No one can look that supremely smug without being a born asshole or a lot of practice. My money is on both.

Clack.

Seeing a fly buzzing around the room from the corner of my eye, I finally remember to close my mouth. But I still stare another ten or fifteen seconds, and Vorn's smug grin never wavers by a nanometer.

"Drinking contest?"

Vorn sagely nods his head, with the damn smug grin still plastered on his face. "Of course. In the North a man could die at any time. If all the men in a town or fort die to a Beast Tide, the same applies to the women and children. Even if they don't, women and children can still die easily in the North.

"We understand what's important in life: fighting, fucking, and drinking. No particular order. Sometimes we do all three at once. We already know we can fight, so we can settle it with a drinking contest."

My eyes are probably open much wider than normal, but I think I manage to keep from gaping. "So we can settle it with a drinking contest?"

With that fucking smug grin still in place, Vorn gets a more than slightly mocking glint in his eyes. "We could pick a fucking contest, but you look like you're still a virgin, and you don't look like you could get any of those girls running around here to begin with. I'm not into whoring. Why pay for what I can get for free? So, drinking makes more sense."

"Heh-heh. Heh. Heh-heh. Beast is naked. Such a pervert. By why with a guy? Aoi's not a rotten woman. Don't want Beast to like sick things. Beast can't be a twisted freak." Standing in the entry to the changing room and holding the clothes I forgot by the fighting platform, Sato Aoi stares at me with a complicated expression that I cannot decipher. I can already smell a mix of lust and shock in her scent, but there are more than just those two emotions visible on her face.

Emotions can be complex, but all the basic emotions cause changes in the scents of living creatures. Humans are no exception, but with their inferior, tenth-assed senses of smell, they never understand how much they constantly give away about their emotional states.

"Maybe, I was wrong." Vorn sounds slightly miffed.

"What do you want, Sato?" East of the Kami Kaze Mountains, the custom is to address people you are not close to by their last names.

Sato Aoi snaps out of her self-delusions, and with her face turning red, she holds out my clothes but continues staring at my still naked lower body. "Beast left his clothes."

I do not know why humans get so freaked out by nudity. Old Man Jones has explained it more than once, but it just does not click with me. Still, watching Sato Aoi turns even redder, when I walk over and take my clothes from her, I almost laugh. Taking my clothes, I pat her on the head.

"Eeep!" Practically tripping over her own feet, Sato Aoi spins around and runs out of the changing room.

"We could change it to a fucking contest, but that girl's mind might overload if she caught the Beast." Vorn's smug grin is gone, but the mocking one that has replaced it is no better.

Repressing my urge to smack Vorn until he has no expression, I put my clothes on again. "I'm not a drinker. Never felt the need to drink."

Vorn grins. "No time like the present to start."

"We have another test in the afternoon."

"Beast never misses tests. He only cares about test averages, but when you know more than all the teachers put together, I suppose that makes sense." Hoshi laughs.

"After school works. The slimier taverns will be opening up. Hard drinking requires the right atmosphere.

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