Chapter 416: Routine

He established a comfortable routine, where each moment of the day was meticulously planned out. In the mornings, he would attend kinetic energy training, where he would often find himself getting slammed to the floor by his opponents. Then he would immediately head over to Freya for his daily lesson.

After that, he would go to the clinic, where Galten would show him some basics and still not allow him to use healing magic on other people, as he was worried that Julius would mutate someone.

Once he was done with that, he would have dinner and be free for the rest of the day. However, he dedicated most of that time to training his other skills, or other things, such as trying to combine the two skills.

Then he would sleep with what little remaining time he had left and wake up. Then rinse and repeat.

At the moment, he was in the middle of sparring with kinetic energy. He has tasted the matted floors more times than he could count in these past weeks, and it was all he dreamed about at night.

It had nothing to do with fighting ability. He was comfortable saying that he had a better raw feeling for fighting than anyone else. Instinctually, he never had a problem with keeping up with the other students. It was the finer manipulation of kinetic energy that he was lacking. He was so used to compensating for it by using larger amounts of kinetic energy.

But with the restrictions, he found it impossible to do that. Of course, that meant the only way he could find an advantage was to bring himself up to their level slowly. Something that everyone in the class was realizing was closer than ever before. He rarely won his fights, but each day it was more difficult for his opponents to take him down.

There were even some weaker students whom he was beginning to beat with more regularity. That wasn’t to say that these people were actually weak. Not at all.

In fact, he believed that these students were better than many of the people he encountered at Goldencrest, except for a few select individuals. Some young boys and girls demonstrated a brilliant sense of fighting, despite being only Tier 2.

However, it was due to these students’ skills that he was compelled to enhance his abilities in a short period. He didn’t want to fall behind and keep on losing.

It had been over a couple of weeks at this point, and he was facing Barath for the dozenth time.

The other older boy was staring down at Julius with focused intensity. Slowly but surely, Barath had come to respect Julius. His group of friends did the same. It was almost as if they had forgotten that he was technically a healer in training and were treating him like one of the other students.

There hadn’t been a single curse thrown his way in the past week. Of course, there was still some light teasing and taunting, but compared to the first week. It was more like positive reinforcement than anything else.

Before Julius made his move, Barath had already preemptively charged in. If there was one thing that Julius worried about fighting Barath the most, it was the boy’s relentless aggression that was further accentuated with the explosive power behind his blows.

Barath was really good at maintaining every ounce of kinetic energy in his movements. Just like right now, Barath lashed out a kick at Julius’s knees, only to use that momentum to fuel the elbow flying at his head.

Julius didn’t know precisely how Barath did it, but the boy had a magical source of kinetic energy that he could access at the drop of a hat. Not only that, but he was able to extract more power from the same amount of kinetic energy than Julius.

It was likely some kind of skill or concept. It was also a stark reminder of why choosing three different affinities had its downsides. Julius likely could have chosen more powerful, specific skills if he had focused solely on kinetic energy. However, he just had to get greedy and get all three.

Not that it wasn’t going well up until this point. He didn’t want to be too presumptuous, but easily beating Tier 4s was clearly a sign that something was going right. However, it also meant that it was more difficult for him to stand on the same level against someone who specialized in a certain affinity, like Barath, when using only kinetic energy.

Julius put those thoughts to the side and ducked underneath the powerful strike from Barath. He got just close enough that he was able to siphon the kinetic energy away from him. The Tier 3 boy tried to resist, but if there was one thing that Julius excelled at more than the rest of the students, it was his willpower.

This enabled him not only to keep his own kinetic energy from being controlled by others but also to steal other kinetic energy more easily. His newly acquired uncommon skill also helped him.

None of them liked the fact that he was able to siphon their kinetic energy and always complained about it. He couldn’t lie either; he enjoyed it when they griped about it. It made him feel a little better about losing all the time.

Speaking of, Barath grimaced as there was nothing he could do as Julius took away some of his kinetic energy, repurposing it for his own attack. There was only so much he could do with it, though. It wasn’t as if he had the same skills as the others. He didn’t have any fancy amplification skills or special tricks to help him.

It was just raw control and power that blasted into Barath’s face, forcing him backward. Julius took advantage of this opening and stepped into the boy’s guard. Slamming another fist into his gut.

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Barath tried to grab his arm and pull him closer, wrapping him up like a snake. The other boy knew that he was ‘stronger’ than Julius and always tried to wrestle him when it got dicey. Julius had become aware of his tricks in these past couple of weeks, though. It was why he had already cocked his head back and smashed the crown of his head into the nose of Barath, using as much kinetic energy as his restrictions allowed.

The sound of cartilage and bone breaking rang across the room. He sensed the other students who had taken some time from their own training to watch wince as the blow connected. Their matches were always entertaining, at least that was what many of the students told the instructors when they were reprimanded for getting distracted.

He wasn’t exactly wrong either. Somehow, Julius and Barath always ended up rolling on the floor like a bunch of unruly children. This typically led to Barath’s victory because of the stupid restrictions. Or rather, that was how it used to be.

Today, Julius had changed the routine, and the headbutt rocked Barath backward in a complete daze. He then used a simple burst of kinetic energy to get in close. Although Barath was stunned, he wasn’t out of the fight entirely. A dangerous compressed beam of kinetic energy tore at Julius’s face, but he had sensed it beforehand, which allowed him to evade it by a hair.

Then, before Barath could stop him, Julius’s fist flattened the boy’s already broken nose in a spray of blood. He had to hold himself back from going in for more.

This was a spar after all, and he had already gone past what was normally acceptable in terms of violence. It was only because of their usual antics that nobody stepped in.

Barath also didn’t make any further moves to attack. He knew he had lost, and surprisingly, took it better than Julius expected. Julius half expected the boy to curse him out. But instead, he looked at the ground with a depressed frown as blood poured out of his face.