"Fuuuu...." Rui exhaled as he raised his hands and crouched his body, bending his knees. At a distance there were numerous cylindrical tubes stacked parallelly pointed at him. This was part of the hand-eye coordination training he was subject to.
The machine shot three balls at Rui. He swiftly launched his hands reaching for the balls, hoping to catch some of them.
"You missed! Repeat!" His supervisor instructed sternly. Rui crouched into a ready position once again. Heightening his senses and putting his body on edge.
He'd already given up on trying to catch all three of them, it was clearly too much for him. For now, he tried catching just one of them. It was only after diverting his attention on one of the balls, that he finally succeeded in catching it, much to his delight.
"Better." His instructor nodded. "Focus on what you can do, with enough practice and hardwork, you'll grow to be able to do more."
"Yes sir." Rui nodded.
He found the body-eye coordination training the hardest. He was undoubtedly the worst among all the novices. The combination of him being the youngest and the most challenged in this regard made his performance in contrast to his peers.
If it had been any other student his age with his performance, this most certainly would have affected them negatively, but Rui took it in stride. He could feel as though he'd grown stronger, this feeling triggered euphoria, which only pushed him to be train even more intensely.
Of course, this was merely a sensation, not real. It was impossible for a novice to grow that fast. Rui estimated in ninety days' time, he would be able to observe significant improvements.
"Once again." His instructor instructed. Rui nodded, getting into his stance, he was determined to perform just a bit better than before, slow and steady won the race.
The rest of the day was a series of training sessions one after another, Rui jumped around different types body-eye coordination training sessions, until he received a break at the end of the day.
"Phew" Rui sighed as he refreshed himself with a bath washing away the seat and dirt that a whole day worth of training had accumulated. He quickly dried himself up before putting on some casual clothing. He intended to hang out with Kane and watch the duel between Nel and Felix.
('Hm?') Rui's eyes spotted Cara fiddling with what looked like an insignia, as he headed to the door, which she promptly hid, with a sharp look directed at Rui.
Rui ignored her gaze with a mild sigh.
('As reserved as ever, I see.') He shrugged inwardly. He would not bother interacting with someone who clearly had a problem with social interaction.
He quickly headed to the Apprentice dormitory, and tagged Kane along to the Apprentice sparring center.
"I'm fortunate to be able to witness this match at all." Rui shook his head.
"True." Kane nodded. "If both of them were Martial Apprentices, you would likely have not been here for this."
Martial Apprentices had a lot of freedom in the Academy, meaning they could register duel for any time of the day they wanted. Rui only had a small window of freedom every day where he could travel to the Apprentice sparring facility to witness duels, he would miss all duels that didn't happen during his break period.
The reason he was able to catch the duel between Nel and Felix wasn't because of luck. But because one of the two of them was the same as him; a novice student.
This wasn't unusual. What surprised Rui was that that student was not Felix, the novice student was Nel!
"I was really surprised to learn that Nel wasn't a Martial Apprentice." Rui murmured.
"Yeah, but the condition to become a Martial Apprentice isn't related to combat prowess. It's related to your Martial foundation and your Martial Path." Kane explained. "Nel is extremely formidable, but not because of his Martial Prowess; his skill and technique. Rather, his power comes from his ridiculous physical prowess."
Rui nodded, he'd seen Nel in several performative training sessions, much to his and everyone else's shock.
"If he's this strong without even being a Martial Apprentice..." Rui pondered.
"Then he'll probably be the strongest Martial Apprentice when he does become one." Kane completed.
"We'll be able to learn more about his combat prowess in this duel." Rui noted. "Do you know how strong Felix is?"
"Yeah, I didn't know he'd become a Martial Apprentice, to be honest." Kane admitted. "We'd met six months ago, back when I'd just turned into a Martial Apprentice, and he was still in the Exploration Stage back then."
"So, he must have turned into an Apprentice somewhat recently." Rui concluded. "Furthermore, if you only knew him in his Exploration Stage, then he hadn't discovered his Martial Path back then, correct?"
Kane nodded. "Yeah, I'm rather curious about what his Martial Art is about."
They made their way to the Apprentice sparring center bantering lightly.
They immediately noticed a huge crowd once they reached the facility.
Kane whistled "That's a lot of people."
"It is the first duel of our batch, after all. Also, it's a duel with the novice topper, and a Martial Apprentice. It would be weird if it didn't gather this kind of interest."
Kane nodded with an intrigued expression. He was quite curious about the fight himself. Just then;
"My, the two of you are here as well." A voice said to them
Kane's enthuse immediately fell, recognizing that voice instantly. Rui sighed as well.
"Yeah." He responded lightly.
"Any thoughts on who's going to win?" Fae asked them both, particularly Kane, since they both were acquaintances of Felix.
Kane shrugged, resigned that she wasn't going anywhere soon. "Unless Felix experienced a massive growth spike, he probably can't win."
Fae nodded. "But he challenged Nel despite observing his performance in the Entrance Exam and Evaluation Exam, that likely means he's confident to some degree."
"It all depends on how rational he was when he challenged Nel." Rui shook his head in response. "I was there when it happened, trust me, the guy looked like he was about burst a vein."
"Hmm..." Fae turned to the sparring ring. "Then we'll just have to see how much of his decision was rational and how much was emotional, I guess."