Chapter 140: Hunter Reserve

The activity room door was ajar, and the space inside was far livelier than usual.

It was the final sparring day of the term, and nearly every active member of the club had shown up.

Sparring days were always like this. Even the guys who normally just hit the heavy bags crowded in to watch the show.

The mats in the activity room had been pushed against the walls, clearing a square area about four meters across in the center.

When Richard arrived, Warren was already there, gnawing on half an energy bar.

"Who's fighting today?" Richard asked, sitting down next to him.

"No idea. Fraser hasn't set the matches yet," Warren mumbled around his energy bar.

Richard scanned the crowd gathered around the floor.

The combat club had about a dozen regular members, and eight were here today.

Most were upperclassmen. Even at just seventeen or eighteen, they had built broad shoulders and thick waists from training.

Standing among them, Richard's physique ranked dead last.

His two weeks of training had brought obvious improvements, but compared to guys who had been at it for years, the gap was stark.

He finished scanning the crowd, his gaze landing on the military student standing by the wall.

The guy leaned there with his arms folded across his chest.

Richard quietly activated his Spirit Vision.

He didn't make a show of it; at most, it counted as a fleeting glance.

The result was nothing.

There were absolutely no traces of ether on the military student.

Richard frowned.

According to the criteria Mr. Hutton had taught him, failing to perceive someone's ether meant only one of two things.

The first was that the person's rank far exceeded his own, making them strong enough to completely cloak themselves from his Perception.

A Major Adept suddenly popping up at Greenwood, transferring over in a military uniform?

That was even less likely than going home tonight and discovering that Evelyn was Hecate.

The other possibility was the exact opposite: the guy was simply an ordinary person with no ether at all.

Yet the physical conditioning on display clearly pointed toward the Hunter path...

Fraser clapped his hands twice, drawing everyone's attention.

"Sparring day. Who's up?"

"I'll go."

The voice came from the direction of the wall.

The military student pushed off the wall and took two steps toward the center of the floor.

Fraser glanced at him. "Coleman, who do you want to fight?"

The military student looked right past Fraser's shoulder, his eyes landing on Richard.

"Williams. Want to spar?"

The activity room went quiet for a moment.

The energy bar nearly fell out of Warren's mouth.

Fraser turned to look at Richard, then back at Coleman.

"Are you sure?"

Coleman was universally acknowledged as the strongest fighter in the club.

Richard, meanwhile, had joined only two weeks ago. He had barely punched the heavy bags and was just starting on the ten-pound dumbbells.

Standing together, the two looked like a full-grown hunting hound next to a newly weaned pup.

"I'm sure," Coleman answered simply.

Fraser frowned.

He turned to Richard. "Williams, what do you say?"

Everyone turned to look.

In the corner, several upperclassmen exchanged looks that clearly said a good show was about to start.

Richard's presence in the combat club over the past two weeks had been a delicate matter.

On one hand, he was the headmaster's golden boy, the runner-up in the Cicero Cup, and the school's star student.

No one dared to bully him openly, and Fraser had given him free rein on the equipment from day one.

On the other hand, his physical fitness was dead last among this group.

This contrast meant the club members remained polite on the surface, but the snickering and teasing behind his back never stopped.

Richard looked at Coleman.

The military student was still watching him, his expression devoid of provocation or contempt.

This guy wasn't picking a fight.

Coleman silently mouthed a few words.

Richard read his lips.

"Use ether. Fight for real."

His heart quickened a fraction.

Ether? He really is on the mystic side?

"I'm in," he said, standing up.

Fraser looked between the two, hesitating.

"Take it easy, Coleman," he told the military student in a lowered voice.

Coleman nodded.

Fraser stepped back to the edge of the floor and raised a stopwatch.

"Three minutes a round. Light contact only. No face shots, no groin kicks, no chokeholds. When you hear the whistle, stop."

Richard walked to the middle of the floor and stood facing Coleman.

About three meters separated them.

Coleman had already taken his stance.

Left foot forward, right foot back, his center of gravity slightly lowered.

His hands were raised to his chin, knuckles facing inward, elbows tucked tight against his ribs.

A textbook orthodox stance.

Richard took a stance as well, silently circulating his ether.

Since he'd been told to fight for real, he would be an idiot not to use it.

His form was much looser than Coleman's. He held his hands at chest height with his weight centered and his feet parallel.

A few upperclassmen were already chuckling.

"That stance... is he fighting or dancing?"

"I bet a penny he drops on the first punch."

"I bet two pence he doesn't last ten seconds."

Wagers were quickly exchanged in the corner.

Fraser pretended not to hear, but he was already prepared to intervene.

If the club's new star student caught a punch that sent blood flying from his nose, Fraser would be writing apologies to the headmaster for all of next year.

He quietly shifted his left foot half a step forward, ready to lunge in and pull them apart.

The whistle blew, and Coleman moved.

He closed the gap with explosive speed, pushing off his front foot and launching forward like a coiled spring.

He crossed the three meters in less than a second.

His left fist cut upward from below, aiming for Richard's ribs.

Richard's body reacted before the fist even arrived.

His ether-enhanced senses broke the incoming movement down into slow motion.

He stepped a half-pace to the right, and Coleman's left fist brushed right past his ribs.

Someone in the crowd let out a sound of surprise.

The upperclassman who had bet on the first punch froze, the smirk dying on his lips.

Coleman's eyes lit up.

He didn't pull his punch. As his left fist slid past, he smoothly transitioned the motion into an elbow strike, sweeping hard toward Richard's chest.

Fist to elbow—the distance closed, and the speed increased.

Richard couldn't dodge this one completely.

He crossed his arms over his chest, taking the elbow right against his outer forearms.

Thud!

A muffled impact sounded.

Richard was knocked a step back, his right arm turning numb from elbow to wrist.

"Huh?"

A much louder gasp rippled through the spectators.

By everyone's reckoning, Richard should have hit the floor, or at the very least tumbled across the mats.

Yet he merely took a single step back, clearly having absorbed the force of the blow.

Coleman's assault didn't stop.

Following the elbow, his right fist hooked in from the opposite side, aiming straight for the stomach.

This time, Richard didn't dodge.

—Stone Armor: partial reinforcement.

His left hand snapped up from his waist, palm facing out.

The moment the knuckles met his palm, Coleman's expression changed.

His fist had crashed into a stone wall.

An un-enhanced, ether-less fist striking focused armor was no different from punching a boulder—and the hardest granite at that.

The force of the impact rebounded directly.

He stumbled back a step. His right arm dropped to his side, his fingers trembling slightly.

The entire activity room instantly fell dead silent.

The upperclassmen who had been exchanging knowing looks just moments ago now stared with wide eyes, struck entirely speechless.

Fraser's stopwatch hand hovered in midair.

He instinctively looked toward Warren in the corner, hoping the guy who knew the newcomer best might have an explanation.

But the burly teenager's reaction only left him more confused.

The second energy bar Warren had been chewing on was now sitting in his lap, scattering crumbs down his pants.

"Fraser," Coleman called out.

"Huh? What is it?"

"I concede. My hand's done." He lifted his right hand to show Fraser.

Fraser walked over and took one look, his expression drastically changing.

"Your hand..."

"His fists are harder than normal," Coleman answered simply.

"How hard?"

Coleman thought for a moment, searching for a comparison.

"Harder than the roof tiles I used to break."

Henry was the first to break the silence.

"Williams..." His voice wavered. "Did you hide something in your hand?"

At his question, several upperclassmen looked back at Richard.

Richard was in no rush to answer. Instead, it was Coleman who spoke up first.

"Henry, I watched him shake out his gloves and put them on."

"He didn't have a chance to slip anything inside."

Coleman rested his injured hand on his knee and added, "Besides, if he had shoved something into his glove, the person taking the punch would only suffer worse injuries."

Henry opened his mouth but couldn't find an angle to argue from.

Fraser quickly chimed in, "I checked him myself before the match."

"There was nothing."

The watching upperclassmen exchanged baffled looks.

Parker walked over and lifted Richard's right hand to take a look.

There was absolutely nothing unusual on the back of his hand. Skin, pores, nails—everything was perfectly normal.

"How do you train?" Parker asked.

"With dumbbells."

"...Fifty-pound dumbbells don't build fists like this."

"Then I wouldn't know."

Parker shook his head and let go of his hand.

After a long moment, Henry stammered out a question.

"...Mr. Williams, will you be coming back to train next time?"

Richard nearly stumbled over his own feet upon hearing the title.

Fraser burst out laughing.

"Henry, who are you calling 'mister'?"

"I... I just..." Henry's face flushed bright red. "It just... slipped out."

Coleman's face twitched; he was clearly fighting back a smile as well.

Fraser patted Coleman on the shoulder.

"Go sit in the corner. I'll get you some ice."

Coleman nodded, starting toward his spot in the corner.

As he passed Richard, he paused.

"Thanks."

"...For what?" Richard asked.

"Thanks for fighting for real."

With that, Coleman walked off, took a seat in the corner, and quietly waited for Fraser to bring the ice pack.

Richard stood on the mat, pulling his gaze back from Coleman.

Throughout the activity room, the way everyone looked at him had completely changed.

The superiority once hidden in their eyes, the half-mocking smirks, the morbid curiosity of seeing how long he could last... all of it was gone.

Warren sprang up from the mat and crossed the distance to Richard in three steps.

"Just now..." His voice was hushed, his eyes wide. "How did you do that?"

"Good angle."

"Angle my ass!" Warren's voice nearly spiked before he hastily dragged it back down.

"I've taken a punch from Coleman. I'm telling you, that guy's fists hit like a sledgehammer. My ribs hurt for days after."

"You caught his punch with your palm. His own hand swelled up, and yours doesn't even have a scratch on it?"

Richard opened his left hand for Warren to see.

The palm was perfectly clean. There wasn't even a red mark.

Warren stared at his hand for several seconds before choking out, "...Did you actually get blessed with some kind of divine miracle at the Cicero Cup?"

"No."

"Weird as hell."