After the abrupt ending of the countdown, my opponent instantly dashed forward, leaving me little time to react. Just in time, I got my sword up to block his overhead swing, which pushed me back a few meters.

This was quite unsettling. His sword was really sharp. One sold strike with that thing, and I wasn’t sure if even the healing potion from before could save me. 4514 didn’t leave me any room to breathe. Continuing his relentless attack, keeping me locked into defense, unable to switch to the offensive.

"Hey hey if you only continue blocking you can’t win the fight, come on don’t tell me you can’t even land a single hit. Only the strong survive, so show some guts and attack you, coward!"

Okada was seriously getting on my nerves, and things weren’t looking good. Taking a risk was the only way to get me out of this mess. I let him push me back towards a slight elevation I had seen before the spar started. Then I full-on blocked a hit to get pushed back a lot, hit the ridge, and started falling over.

My opponent didn’t miss a beat and instantly dashed forward to finish me. However, I had already started using the mana I had accumulated beforehand. I materialized a fireball in front of my right foot, which was now perfectly lined up. 4514 saw the fireball forming and instantly tried to sidestep. "SHINUUU!"

The fireball got launched with an explosive force, which caused me to be flung back, rolling over a few times. I quickly got up and looked if my spell connected, and fortunately, it had. My attack had burned a hole through his chest, leaving him collapsed on the ground.

Luckily, he seemed to not only suck at utilizing magic, but also at dealing with it in combat. Our instructor had a disappointed expression on his face but didn’t even spare his dying chess piece a sad look.

He started moving his mouth, but no sound came out. Which meant he was probably reporting to someone through magic. Only a few seconds later, 2 other guards rushed in and carried him away, maybe to a medical facility or perhaps to dispose of the corpse. The healing potion showed extraordinary abilities, so he might recover.

The instructor turned to me and started down-talking my performance. "You really got dumb luck being able to fall over at just the right time. Don’t get excited over winning a single spar. Also, I didn’t say magic was allowed in this spar, so 10 more rounds of running for you."

I wanted to tell him that he didn’t forbid the use of magic or outline the rules of the spar at all. Still, I restrained rational and obediently went running to avoid further punishment. Running was getting more manageable, and it gave me time to observe the many spars. A valuable opportunity to gauge the strength of possible future opponents.

Strangely enough, not everyone used magic. "Shouldn’t it be the primary focus since each trainee likely had multiple magic circles?" I wondered. The explanation my comrade gave me made it seem like multiple magic circles weren’t all that useful.

But if this was the case, why go as far as sacrificing many potential soldiers just to get one with 6 magic circles if they didn’t give any advantage? Was their leader just an idiot? Maybe, but he seemed to have an excellent understanding of magic. One thing to consider was that his slave magic might even fall into the unique category, which my partner said couldn’t get used in recent times.

This gave me hope that maybe there was some way to use the circles I didn’t think of, or they could become beneficial once I trained enough. Trying to analyze their fighting styles didn’t seem to get me anywhere. For one, my martial arts knowledge was limited to kendo. And two, it was highly likely that everyone was just fighting randomly since they did not teach us any fighting style. Maybe this training was also an experiment, and their primary goal wasn’t a new, powerful unit.

The confusing stuff aside, I could take away one main thing: Everything was fair game in these spars. Holding back or being fair would put you at a disadvantage, so everyone tried to get an advantage by being as treacherous as possible. Perhaps I could think of a way to exploit that later. I readied myself for what was to come as I finished my last round of running.

The instructor hadn’t complained about my running, so he was most likely scheming something. Should I walk over to him or try to stay here? No, just waiting around would surely get me criticized for slacking, so I went over to him. "Sir, I finished running."

He finally looked up, stared into my eyes, and spoke: "Since we’re finally an even number again, everyone can go back to sparring, hey you stop training alone and come over here and get to sparring."

The person he referred to had a relatively small build and looked timid. He held tiny daggers, 1 in each hand. He didn’t seem dangerous to fight head-on, and while running, I had prepared some mana in my left arm, but I couldn’t let my guard down. I readied myself once more and waited for the countdown. But it appeared the instructor had already left, so I looked at my opponent and said: "Ready yourself, here I come."

Instantly after, I charged and swung my sword. My opponent tried to block it with his daggers. However, he didn’t have enough strength and fell over to his right. "How did he survive in a place like this?" I thought to myself.

Then he started forming something in front of his chest. Instantly I leaped to my left and shortly after got scraped at my face by a flying Ice bolt. Even though he didn’t say a keyword, it seemed strong enough to kill. The Ice bold only scraped me, but it still hurt a bunch. I tried to close in on my now upright-standing enemy, to not give him time for any more spells.

I really should have listened to my own advice and never held back. I closed in on my opponent and swung again. This time, he dodged and lunged at me with his daggers. I stepped to the side, swiftly readied a weak fireball with the mana in my left arm, and launched it with my keyword.

It hit his head and didn’t deal much damage. However, all the smoke blinded him, deciding the fight, yet he didn’t surrender. And prepared another spell, but before he could finish casting it, I finished him off.

After he was dragged away, I noticed that almost everyone else was still okay after finishing their spars. Fights rarely lasted until one side collapsed. Even though the instructor wasn’t watching the second fight, he likely had influenced my second opponent to make sure he would never surrender.

The sparring session concluded, and I decided to work on my magic capabilities. First, I shot out a water ball. That one didn’t seem as strong. However, it would become quite overpowered if there was a way to keep it on your opponent’s head to suffocate them. Then I tried creating an Ice bolt, which seemed to be the more practical usage of the water element. I shaped a sharp bolt that was at least of the level of my opponent. Afterwards, I tried to create an ice bolt that continued to freeze its target but failed.

I moved on to the earth element and created a decently powerful bolt, but it didn’t beat the ice one. I also tried manipulating the ground but failed. Either this floor was unique, or I still lacked something.

Air was the last and most exciting element. First, I tried shooting an air bolt, which didn’t really work. I then tried making it round and giving it a strong rotation. This worked and had a decent amount of force behind it, might be worth it in certain situations.

The exciting part, however, was movement. I tried creating a steady flow of air under me to float, but couldn’t keep my balance or keep it long enough to even float for a few seconds. After failing, I tried to use air to push me to the sides, which proved successful. "Meal time! I expect everyone back here in 30 minutes and no second less!" A loud voice interrupted my training session.

Instantly I followed the others, which somehow reacted faster than me yet again. After walking down the same corridors and arriving in the dining room, I queued up. Barely anyone was talking, resulting in an uncomfortable silence that only got interrupted by quiet tableware and eating sounds. The queue wasn’t longer than last time, but it still took forever. After it was finally my turn, I received my meal, looked around, and quickly spotted my partner, 7659, went over, and sat down next to him.