The class ended without a hitch, everyone rose and bade their goodbyes to Richard, Mentor 1, and left in an orderly manner.

Aegon and Roy did exactly that though significantly slower by virtue of having to balance a weapon on their fingertips, walking and climbing down stairs proved to not be such easy tasks as they had once been.

“Ah…it's starting to get heavy…” Aegon commented with a pained expression, sweat forming on his strained forehead.

“Uhu” Roy grunted in agreement from the side with an equally pained expression.

“Hey, you two.”

The two young men were already at the door which led to the mountain passageways when the voice reached them, turning back they found Mentor 1 still in the centre of the arena pointing to the seats closest to him.

The young men shared a glance and headed back to sit in front of Richard.

Looking at the pair of youths coming towards him, sweating as they sat down, nostrils wide open and pained expressions for all to see, Richard couldn't help but smile with a tinge of delight.

“You can place those down for now.”

The two young men hesitated, looked at each other once again and merely shook their heads in clear denial.

A bulging vein sprang up in Richard’s forehead as one of his eyebrows twitched uncontrollably for a few seconds before he managed to calm down.

“Heed my words or forsake needed guidance, don’t you want to know why he told you to do that and how you might do it more effectively? Don’t you?”

This time no pondering was necessary, before he finished talking both swords were already back in their scabbards and their owners were paying him complete attention.

Satisfied, Richard continued with a more relaxed approach…which lasted only a moment…

“Thank you, now before I tell you anything I have to get a promise from you, never do that again, NEVER, arriving late and not even acknowledging my presence is one thing, but having the gall to be balancing swords like this is some sort of circus and even swaying your friend to do the same….Am I a joke to you?”

Aegon’s neck had already shrunk as much as it could, his eyes were focused on the ground and his back was drenched for the second time in the same day.

[What’s up with my luck today?]

Seeing no response from Aegon, Richard took his victory and turned to the other youth.

“And you Roy, what the hell were you thinking? I haven’t known you for long but you always appeared to be a respectful student, yet you forget it all just because your friend told you about a new way to improve? Are your values that low on your priorities?”

Roy was equally silent and merely lowered his head in shame.

Sigh

With a deep sigh that came from the depths of his being Richard pulled a sword from his ring and placed it on his finger, perfectly balancing it.

“Now look up, I didn't call you just to chastise you, I have a reputation to live up to.”

Both students looked up and found their Mentor balancing a sword, something they had become quite familiar with in the last few hours.

“The reason he told you to do this wasn’t to annoy other teachers, although that might have weighed positively on his judgement, this trains your balance.”

Aegon and Roy both looked at Richard as they would an idiot.

[No shit.] They both thought.

Richard noticed their looks but he proceeded calmly.

“You're probably thinking this is obvious but we're training a different balance, the goal is for you to have better control over the balance of your sword in a fight.”

With a swift movement that the young duo nearly missed, the Mentor’s sword moved from his fingertip to his hand and stayed incredibly steady thereafter.

“You lack the strength to hold your weapons, I believe you’ve already noticed it, just a few hours of balancing and you’re already sweating all over. Pathetic.”

At that moment Richard seemed to understand something and a mocking smirk appeared on his face

“This little balancing act should have started after you had the strength to be holding the sword, not before, I guess you must have irritated him pretty badly.” Said Richard with a laugh.

Aegon could only resort to his new signature move, lowering his head and swallowing his pride.

Seeing the defeated look on his student’s face Richard decided not to press him further.

“Anyways, from now on do this exercise until you drop the sword from exhaustion, once you drop it you must not do it again for the next twenty four hours at least. Your muscles need time to heal and grow stronger, you could also get physically stronger by just focusing on your cultivation but doing both together is better since you will be also training your balance at the same time.”

“If you do it correctly, by the time others start training their balance you will already have mastered it, you’ll be one step ahead of the pack.”

The students’ eyes were akin to four stars shining brightly in the night sky, they were excited at the prospect of being “ahead of the pack”, it was so alluring.

Noticing their excitement Richard gave one last warning.

“Remember, don't be hasty, you think you’ll get ahead if you just rest for a day between exercises no matter what? Wrong, you will injure yourself and then have to stop for weeks, all your haste will be for nothing. An entire day might even be too little so take it as a bottom line that you can never cross but give it some leeway upwards. More rest is always better.”

His warning given, Richard expected the students to get more serious, or at least fake some seriousness, yet they still had that fanatical look on their eyes.

Shaking his head in resignation he signalled for them to leave and watched as they resumed their exercise in a cheerful manner..

[Maybe I should have lied and told them to wait forty eight hours….I have a bad feeling about this.]