Chapter 81: Knight Fundamentals

The lecture ended without taking much of the morning.

Byzed spent the remaining time explaining that Awakened Studies would cover the fundamentals of the profession and would occasionally overlap with other courses, particularly Corrupt Creature Studies. Eventually, the class would leave the classroom entirely and face actual Corrupt creatures.

Then came the part most students were less prepared to hear.

Most of them would die.

Byzed did not soften the warning or dress it up as motivation. He simply told them to train hard enough that they would not be the ones dying when the time came.

Caelus found the approach surprisingly effective. There was something refreshing about being told exactly what the profession demanded instead of being fed some polished speech about honor, glory, or becoming a hero. Corrupt creatures did not care about any of that.

Once the lecture ended, the students were sent toward their next classes.

Caelus and Mira eventually reached the training grounds assigned to Knight Fundamentals.

The sparring area was considerably larger than the lecture hall, with several marked sections spread across a reinforced stone floor. Wooden weapons lined one side of the room while training dummies occupied another, and several instructors moved among the students, correcting stances and demonstrating basic forms.

The sounds of practice filled the area. Wooden blades struck against one another, feet shifted across the stone, and instructors occasionally called out corrections when someone allowed their posture to collapse or their balance to drift.

Caelus recognized most of what he saw.

He had written them.

He had also written the instructor responsible for teaching them.

Instructor Seid stood near the edge of the sparring area, watching the students practice.

He did not waste time on formal introductions.

"Begin."

The students spread out across the training grounds and started sparring.

Caelus watched from the side while Mira remained beside him, keeping her attention on the students as well. Neither needed to say anything. There was little point in pretending Caelus had anything to learn from the first exercises of a beginner’s fundamentals class.

Eventually, Seid walked over and stopped beside him.

"What do you think?"

Caelus turned his head and looked at him.

"Why are you asking me? You’re the instructor."

Then he raised an eyebrow.

"And why am I not dueling?"

Seid stared at him for a moment with the expression of someone reconsidering whether the Apex was actually intelligent.

"You’re the Apex."

Caelus waited.

"I saw enough of you during the entrance examination. You can handle the fundamentals for this part of the semester without needing to waste time on them. These students aren’t there yet."

Seid’s gaze returned to the sparring area.

"So tell me what you think."

Caelus studied the students again. He looked at their grips, the positioning of their feet, their center of mass, the way their shoulders moved before each strike, and the uneven distribution of their weight. The problems were obvious.

He turned toward Seid.

"There isn’t much to say. Their swordsmanship is a mess."

The corner of Seid’s mouth twitched.

"Elaborate."

"Most of them understand the forms, but they don’t understand why the forms work. They’re following the manual exactly instead of adapting the technique to their own bodies."

Caelus watched one student execute the same slash three times. Each repetition followed the instructions correctly, yet none of them looked quite natural.

"Mana circuits, physical structure, reach, balance, even the way someone naturally distributes their weight changes how a technique should be performed. A sword art isn’t supposed to replace those things. It’s supposed to work with them."

Seid’s expression changed slightly.

He looked toward two students who were sparring near the center.

"Stay here."

He walked over.

Caelus watched as Seid stopped the pair and began correcting their footwork. He shifted one student’s stance, adjusted the angle of the other’s blade, then made them repeat the same sequence.

The difference was immediate.

The students moved with more control, their steps no longer fighting against their own bodies. The same forms suddenly looked less rigid and more deliberate.

Caelus looked toward the sky visible beyond the open side of the training hall.

Huh.

So he’s free for this part of the semester.

Does this mean I have a free period now?

The thought had barely finished forming when a whistle tore through the air.

Caelus’s attention snapped toward Mira.

Something was flying directly at her head. He saw the entire path of it.

The wooden sword was already too close.

Mira didn’t move.

She hadn’t even seen it.

Caelus’s hand blurred.

A shrieking crack echoed through the training ground as his palm intercepted the weapon. The impact shattered the wooden sword against the force of his hand, breaking it into several jagged pieces that scattered across the reinforced stone floor.

The fragments skidded in different directions.

Then silence spread through the immediate area.

Caelus slowly lowered his hand.

His gaze followed the direction the weapon had come from.

"Who was it?"

His voice was calm.

Far too calm.

The emotion that had been present only moments ago had vanished completely, leaving something colder in its place. Killing intent rolled from him with enough density that several nearby students instinctively stopped moving. Those who had been sparring lowered their weapons. A few turned toward him without even seeming to realize they had done so.

A student near the far end of the training area stepped forward.

He bowed.

"I’m sorry!"

Seid looked at him.

"I slipped. The sword left my hand and flew in the wrong direction."

The student straightened.

His expression was apologetic enough at first glance. His posture was careful, almost submissive.

Then his eyes shifted toward Caelus.

A smile appeared.

"I apol—"

"Next time something like this happens," Caelus interrupted, "I won’t accept an apology."

The student’s words died before they left his mouth.

Caelus’s gaze remained fixed on him.

"You won’t like what will happen to your family."

The smile on the student’s face remained, but the confidence behind it had changed.

"Of course, Young Master Caelus. It won’t happen again."

He bowed once more before turning away.

A murmur passed through the surrounding students almost immediately. Some whispered to each other while others glanced between Caelus and the student who had thrown the weapon.

Caelus ignored all of them.

He turned toward Mira.

"Are you okay?"

She did not answer immediately.

Her eyes remained fixed on the broken pieces of wood scattered across the ground.

Only then did Caelus notice her hands.

Her fingers shook hard enough that she had to curl them together in an attempt to steady them. The expression she had worn a moment ago was gone, replaced by an unmistakable pallor that had spread across her face.

Caelus’s expression hardened.

That would have killed her if I hadn’t been here.

He looked at the broken weapon again, then toward the direction from which it had been thrown.

The amount of force behind it had been deliberate.

They had given it enough power to kill an ordinary person, but not enough to make the attack so obvious that it could not be explained away as an Awakened losing control of a training weapon. It was precisely the kind of mistake that could be dismissed afterward.

An accident.

A careless throw.

Nothing more.

Except Mira had been standing directly in its path.

And she had been the one they chose.

"Mira."

She blinked.

Her eyes slowly refocused on him.

"I’m okay, Young Master."

She forced a smile.

It was a poor attempt.

Her face had gone pale, and the slight strain in her expression did nothing to hide how shaken she was.

Caelus watched her for another moment.

He did not say anything.

There was little point in telling her not to be afraid when the danger had been real. The important thing was that she was still standing there.

He looked away.

Across the training ground, the student who had thrown the sword had already returned to his group.

Cale was there.

The two spoke quietly, their conversation too far away for Caelus to hear.

His gaze lingered on them for a moment.

Caelus’s attention returned to Mira.

Someone had chosen her as the target instead of him.

That mattered.

It would have been easier to attack him directly. Easier to provoke the Apex everyone had been talking about since the entrance examination. Instead, whoever had planned this had chosen someone standing beside him, someone who could be harmed without possessing the same ability to retaliate.

It was a message.

And more importantly, it was a test.

They had chosen Mira as their first move.

Caelus’s gaze settled briefly on the trembling hands she was still trying to hide.

Whoever had decided to involve her had made a decision of their own.

And it would become a decision they’d deeply regret.