Although Isabella casually told Nero to go beat Vilhelm, she did not believe in the slightest that it was possible. Even ignoring the fact that beating him even once would be no easy feat, beating him twice was basically impossible. It was not without reason that everyone in the academy had basically acknowledged that he was a prodigy.
Although she had glanced through Nero’s file, and saw that he had many merits and accomplishments, he was the only one. Many cadets in the academy had prior service and merits, yet where were they now? Certainly they were somewhere, but definitely not in any position to challenge Vilhelm.
Nero, on the other hand, lowered his hand and smiled softly. While he was quite interested in that prodigy, and had every intention of challenging him to see what he was like, it wasn’t as if he had been in any rush. Now, he had an official reason to challenge him, so that would certainly speed up the matter.
Naturally, Nero would first do his due diligence. If Vilhelm was so highly regarded, it would be foolish of Nero to face without any preparations.
At the same time, Nero added something to his goals. While his long term goal for KMA remained to attain the maximum power this place could afford to give, his short term goal became to join the Valkan legion in less than a year. Since Isabella thought that one year was the minimum amount of time required, beating that expectation should provide him enough of a challenge to keep him engaged.
The rest of the day went pretty much as expected. Nero paid full attention in all the classes, though for now they only covered very basic stuff, much of which overlapped with knowledge he already had. Then, at noon, there was a second round of drills.
This time, instead of push ups, Nero had pull ups, and instead of a jog around the drill ground, he got to jog on a very basic and standard course which basically covered different levels of slopes. At the same time, some parts of the course had him run through sand, while others ran through shallow ponds or over pebbles, basically having him run over various types of terrain.
After the second drills was lunch which, once again turned more into a competition of how much they could eat as quickly as possible rather than a time for them to socialise.
After that came training. Just as Nero was excited, ready to learn about combat in a group or as an army, he discovered how they would be starting their training, and all his excitement faded.
Since, as officers, they would be leading soldiers, they needed to be intimately familiar with every aspect of the army, and that started with the bottom. So, what their training started off with was establishing a new base in an unclaimed area.
From how to ensure that the location was safe, to how to check for various dangers, to what kind of defences to set up at each phase of construction of the base, and so on. They learned setting up tents, creating logistics hubs, how to establish the layout and so on. While Nero did not doubt the importance of all this, he also had no idea how much he could be lectured about setting up tents in the wild.
Finally, after training, came the part of the day that most of the cadets were actually looking forward to. It was not their free time - no, it was time for their mandatory competitive sports!
Every day they would be assigned a new sport, and today the game they were going to play was volleyball - only it was different from the game they had played in school.
The ball was a specially crafted, aetheric tool, and its weight was determined by the amount of aether inside of it. While they had to play the game like regular volley ball, in the absolute split-second contact they had with the ball, they needed to input a sufficient amount of aether.
If they put too much, the ball would become too light, and would likely fly out of bounds. If they put too little, the ball would be too heavy. They had to put in just the right amount, and the only way to do that was by feeling the aetheric resistance of the ball. The issue was that they literally only had the moment of contact to do all that.
Of course, at more advanced levels, they could purposefully put too much or too little aether as a part of their strategy, but they were far from skilled enough for that right now. For the forty minutes they played, they were not able to sustain a rally for more than three exchanges.
As a prize, the winner would have one lap removed from their drill the next day, while the losers would get two extra laps. The difference was not huge, but it was enough to motivate them to play with all their might!
Finally, the time for sports also ended, allowing for the much anticipated, much awaited free time. During this time, the cadets were meant to revise their knowledge, participate in the Crucible challenge, and participate in any number of productive activities that the academy afforded them. For these fresh cadets, though, their free time was when they could finally relax their aching bodies.
The sight of forty cadets, laying on the floor in their own sweat, looking up at the sky with dazed expressions caused Nero to chuckle.
Honestly, the day had been extremely busy, barely giving them any time to think at all. To them, it felt like the day had been going for weeks already, and they had no power left - mental or physical - to do anything else.
"Guys, it’s free hour. Don’t you want to do anything?" Nero asked as he nudged the cadet on the ground with his foot.
"I want to sleep. Go away," the cadet responded, not even bothering to open his eyes.
Nero chuckled, and looked at the rest. Every single one of them just lay there on the ground, exactly where they stood when free time began, as if they all had some kind of prior agreement.
Even Luna, with all her pride about being strong, just lay there like a corpse, not moving at all.
Nero suddenly heard some light snoring, and just shook his head. Seeing as how none of the professors were bothering to wake them up, and that there were guards nearby, Nero just left them there as he went off to explore the academy.
There were two places he wanted to find - the battle arena where the Crucible challenges took place, and the library. Besides that, he also wanted to find his friends.
He didn’t mind whether it was Silas, Gabriel, the Dale brothers, Harold or Wendy, or any of the guys and girls who were with him during Lumina. As long as he found someone he knew, he could learn more about what to expect in the academy. Till now, no one had addressed the ever present Monarch’s Dominion either, as if it was just a normal thing.
He was not fond of being left in the dark, so he sorely needed to gather some intel. As it happened, he had only just begun to explore the academy when he stumbled on the Battle Arena. It was hard to miss, considering the massive ’Battle Arena’ written right in front of the building, and the stream of senior cadets slowly heading in.
The building was large, and yet it only had a ground floor as well as a mezzanine floor around the edges of the great hall that constituted the building - mainly it served as seating.
Compared to the rest of the academy, which was relatively empty and serene, the battle arena building was bubbling with activity. There were at least over a hundred cadets in the building, many of them up on the mezzanine watching the fights as a form of entertainment, or waiting in line for their own turn.
Some fights drew a crowd, while others fought without attracting any attention. There were countless referees, and a large number of medical staff available.
The scene was both lively and impressive, though a single glance was enough for Nero to tell that the Crucible List’s purpose could not be for effective combat training. In fact, after a certain threshold of combat competence, prolonged exposure would be detrimental.
First, the over reliance on only physical combat was far removed from reality. The only thing it could serve as practice or training for was decision making under pressure in time critical situations. In a real fight, if someone relied on the habits formed here, they would be in trouble.
Second, everyone seemed to be using the same combat style. It wasn’t surprising - they all went through the same training in school, and built the foundations of the same style. While that was good to start out, fighting too many people with the same fighting style would leave them unprepared to face an enemy that fought differently.
Surely the army had already taken measures to address this concern.
While Nero was taking in the sights, he suddenly noticed that there was one person fighting with a distinctly different style. When he looked over, he spotted a familiar face, causing him to break out into a smile. Wendy.