Chapter 139: Applied Combat

The first thought that came to his head when he spotted the princess shooting him looks was whether or not he had done something wrong. However, he quickly assured himself that he hadn’t done anything to attract any notice. If he had, then more people would have been staring at him.

The next thing he thought of was if the princess was secretly the Grace girl he had seen the other night. It was in the realm of possibilities that she was someone very important. Especially with how protective Amelia had been.

However, he quickly eliminated that possibility as well. Her entire form was different. Grace had black hair, was a little bit taller, and had a totally different body shape. Even if she was covered in some type of illusion magic, he was confident that he would have been able to see through it with [Spatial Perception].

Not to mention that their entire demeanor was different. The princess was always calm, collected, and poised. The very way she walked demanded respect. In comparison, Grace was shy and a little bit awkward.

He had been able to see through Aubrey’s skills easily enough. Also, he was able to sense Amelia as well. Which gave him some measure of confidence in the skill’s ability to detect what was really there and what really wasn’t.

Still, that didn’t leave him with much. The only thing he could really think of was if the princess had been around the restaurant the other night. Or if she spotted him when the six of them were going around town last Saturday.

It was very confusing and he would like to find out what had gotten her attention. The last thing he wanted was some spoiled princess’s attention on him. He was trying to avoid standing out for a reason. Admittedly, he hadn’t been the best at it so far, but he was doing his best.

Julius shifted his thoughts away from the princess. There wasn’t anything he could do about it for now, but he would keep an eye on her in the future.

Because he had been too focused on the princess, he ended up missing what kind of questions the professor had answered from other students. Now they were being placed in their groups, spread out all around the arena.

The person who was their main supervisor for this exercise was a young man who looked around Edgar’s age. However, he was also Tier 3, so that could mean he was twice his age and Julius would have no idea.

He was high Tier 3 though. That much Julius could sense through whatever aura lingered around the guy.

There were seven people in their group and once they got in line as they were instructed the professor’s assistant spoke to them.

“Okay. This is how it is going to go. One of you at a time will enter that ring over there,” he pointed at a decently sized sectioned-off part of the arena. “After that, you will activate your bracelets. Once they are activated, I will send the signal for the summoner to send in a monster. At that point, the fight has already begun. You are free to attack it whenever you wish. You will be assessed on how well you deal with it and how well you handle yourself. Is that clear?”

Julius along with the other six students all nodded their heads. He noticed that a couple of students were more anxious than others. One boy in their group had a confident look on his face.

As for Julius, he remained impassive. He wasn’t worried about losing to some Tier 2 monster. The only thing he was thinking about was how much he was going to use to put it down.

While he was tempted to use his new skill, he held off on that idea. He had a feeling that it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to show his fancy new skill to everyone yet.

The reasonable thing to do would be to work on his [Kinetic Augmentation] skill. He was still technically a physical fighter at first glance. He rarely used mana during the spars held in class.

He heard the male assistant ask if anyone wanted to volunteer to go first. Unsurprisingly, it was the confident boy who raised his hand. When there was nobody else who raised their hand, their supervisor beckoned the volunteer over to the sectioned-off arena.

As Julius was still standing there thinking about how he was going to approach this exercise, he finally had an idea of what he was going to do.

After he and Lily were done with aura training, Julius spent the rest of his night trying to acquire [Quick Step]. Gabriel showed him the general steps he needed to do. He was even helpful enough to demonstrate specific activities Julius could do in order to hasten the acquirement of the skill.

The only thing that had been holding Julius back, was just how much time he had. Each day there seemed to be more and more things he wanted or needed to get done. Despite not sleeping for days at a time, he still found himself taking more time than he should have to get the skill.

It has been many weeks at this point since he learned of the skill’s existence, and he still hasn’t gotten it yet.

He was close though. He felt like all it would take was a push to take it over the edge.

Maybe today would be the day for that. He wouldn’t be showing off his new skill to everyone. He still didn’t want to cause too much commotion.

With a decisive nod. He made a decision. I will get [Quick Step] today, he resolved to himself.

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He looked up in time to see that the boy who had volunteered was already inside of the enchanted area.

A bright circle of complex runic symbols etched its way into the floor on the other end of the area. Soft white light with a bluish hue lit up the entire arena from every other area where various groups were.

He was able to feel just how much mana was being released by all of these works of magic. There were the summoning circles, the enchantments that protected and separated the students, and then the bracelets, all being powered by mana.

He didn’t even think he would be able to power a single student group area by himself with his entire mana pool. And he knew how ridiculous his mana capacity was for his tier. However, that was also just what it was. For his tier.

When it came to true Tier 4s, he couldn’t compare.

He imagined that Gabriel, even with his pitiful reserves for a Tier 4 would be able to handle a few enchantment areas himself.