Later that night, George summoned Kairos to the war tent after hearing things had settled down.

He promptly walked in, as if his injuries from two days ago were just insubstantial things. After increasing in rank, Kairos has more than fully recovered and is stronger than before. But, before he could fight with his full strength, he will need some more time to stabilise his internal energy that is like a wild, untamed horse right now.

"First, tell us the details of what happened during your mission," George says without delay, as his team crowded around Kairos.

Like everyone, the commander, George has to form a team of five for the Academy. The only difference is that his group is formed up by those who can take command of the red team in this exercise, and strictly only the top strategists and tacticians among the students could join. Because of this, he had to change teammates several times.

Kairos went into details of his report that he previously could not on account of his injuries.

He took a pair of tinted goggles and passed to George. This item is something that Kairos and the guys prepared beforehand to tell the strategists in the war camp as an excuse for being able to fight regardless of the flashbangs.

This is because the repercussions of telling everyone about soul force would be too big to imagine.

While this excuse is good, but they did not know that the Runic crystal ball can review everything that happened on the training ground.

George took the tinted goggles and squinted. This is indeed a useful item to stop ambushes. Submit one of them to our engineers, and we will issue this to the guys if they can replicate more of it."

Kairos nods and continues, "Afterwards Alucard's team was lured away to handle the Orcs, Calculus' team started attacking us with weapons that do not have gel coating."

"What?! Do you know what you are saying?” George banged the table with his hand and shouted instantly, then seeing Kairos’ face, he almost yelled as he said with his face beet red, “Let me tell you, the process to remove the gel coating will require at least two days!

The gel itself needs to be frozen for more than twenty-four hours and then burned under high heat for another twenty-four hours to extract it properly from the blades!"

Kairos looked at George's large reaction dumbfounded. He had not known what the removal process of the gel was, but he understands the implications.

"You mean to say that they have prepared bare blades beforehand?" Kairos says, his voice strangely calm as if he is talking about something that happened to another person.

"Don't be dense. It is a fact that they came at you to kill, not just attack you with sharp swords. And to do that, they had to plan to murder you at least two days ahead of the Orcs attack.

Do you remember offending anyone before?"

"No, not that I can think of currently."

"Well, I'm not certain if the target is just one person in your team or a few individuals, or the whole lot of you, but you better watch your backs from now on. Calculus is the type of noble that will not give up until he wins" George shakes his head as he says.

He felt a genuine respect for Kairos out of admiration of his abilities, and it would be a loss for the Empire if someone of such talents were to fall in a training exercise.

"I will submit a proposal to have you extracted from this training exercise. Now, tell me what happened next," George asked already calmed himself down, but his eyes could not hide the curiosity that shines brightly from within.

"We managed to repel them back. Somehow.

During the battle, they ate the berserker's pill, and while they gained strength, they lost all fighting tactics. It is this chink in their armour that allowed us to make use of their own strength against them with our formation.

Seeing the situation turning south for them, Calculus joined the combat and used a weird technique which considerably powered him up, but this backfired midway, and he got severely injured and forced to order a retreat."

As the exam is open for viewing to all, everyone will sooner or later know about the details of the battle, so Kairos did not bother to hide the facts of his formation.

However, if he told them he was able to defeat Calculus who had raised to Entry-level D rank at only Peak F rank, he will have no explanation to give them without revealing the existence of soul force, therefore, in the end, he pinned it all on Calculus' technique backfiring.

Because this is not actually a lie, George who was carefully observing Kairos did not spot any unnaturalness. But, it would be impossible, even if Kairos tries to explain what happened since he himself did not know what caused that explosion of power which allowed him to fight Calculus to a standstill.

George nodded, not knowing what kind of technique was used but because there were rumours that Calculus has uncovered some kind of forgotten technique from his family's library, he was easily convinced.

Such a secret, Calculus would definitely try his best to keep hidden. It was difficult, even for his clan where information is of the utmost importance to find this, and even then, they could not verify this. Compared with Kairos, a peasant, unless he experienced it himself, how would he know?

And, since it is a forgotten technique, that means that no one to mentor Calculus in using it. In such a situation it is unsurprising that the technique backfired.

"Due to his injuries, their group withdraw from the battlefield.

After they retreated, we heard a loud cry, and I determined that Alucard's group that have engaged the Orcs in the vicinity and required our help.

Subsequently, we discovered during assisting them that the Orcs did not kill them though they had the power. Instead, the Orcs were interchanging their fighters in battle.”

"Hmmm... You say that those Orcs are capable of rotating groups to test out Alucard’s abilities?" George says with his eyes in a squint, as if straining his eyes could help him think better.

He knows that was very unnatural of Orcs who are well-known to be full of battle lust. It is almost expected for those creatures will jump right into battle. To hold back speaks of a dangerous intelligence in those creatures that send an unnatural cold crawl down his spine.

"Is there any Orc in command?" He asked quickly, already forming a possibility in his mind.

"There is one. A big guy that grunts command to the other Orcs" Kairos hissed. Even speaking about it caused anger to sizzle in his heart, for this Orc is the one that murdered his friends.

"It seems you have somewhat of a history with it. I won't ask you to put your grudge down, but I want you to know that you already did splendidly as a commander and there is no need for self-blame in this matter.

There is one thing I do not understand, however. When your teams returned, all of you are covered in wounds, and in that state, I cannot imagine how the heck you guys can escape such a number of Orcs?"

"We didn't escape", Kairos honestly stated, "We managed to repel them."

"Right after repelling Calculus' group?

Impressive! I thought that you guys had been wounded rather badly, how did you do it?" George's eyes sparkled curiously like he is hearing the saga of a hero. If a captain is able to defeat overwhelming enemy forces multiple times, he would like to learn how as well!

"It is odd for us as well, we barely defended against them, but suddenly halfway through the battle, the Orcs' leader seems to be beckoned by something and left.

When it left, the other Orcs also dispersed quickly, so we were very lucky to have survived."

A hint of disappointment crossed George's eyes when he heard the report. What he wanted to hear is a saga, the beginning of a legend, but what he was told was expectedly normal. Even dull.

However, because of this disappointment, it became easier for George to accept, and he still has a very good impression of Kairos' commanding abilities.

It is because he has very high hopes for Kairos that he was somewhat disappointed. But George did not know that what actually happened is exactly as he hoped for. But for the sake of hiding his trump card, the Starfire array, Kairos knows it’s not the time to reveal it.

The competition between student groups can get very heated to climb up the ranks, especially when status and money are on the line.

Even if they are working together in the red team now, once the training is over, George’s relationship with him will turn competitive once again. The only ones he can trust are those who had gone through life and death together with him.

After hearing about Kairos’ mission report, George nodded. He has already seen for himself the shape their teams are in, and there is no need for further details.

Kairos secretly panted a sigh of relief, knowing that the questioning is over for now.

But straight afterwards, George called for a briefing, and all captains are summoned to the war tent.

A fierce smile danced on his thin lips, "It has been eight days since Luciette's men have occupied the East base.

Considering how long we have cut off their food supply, they should be starving. Tomorrow, we will be taking the fight to them. In full force!"