Orion spent the entire night with the book open on his lap, repeating the same instructions until his eyes burned.
He did everything it asked. Breathing patterns, hand positions and mental focus. It made sense in his head.
His body still refused to respond.
No warmth. No pull. Not even a faint pressure beneath his skin.
It was as if his body refused to admit mana existed.
He knew what cultivation was supposed to feel like. The problem was the silence, the complete absence of feedback.
This body belonged to Midka. So why couldn't it feel mana at all?
Eventually, he decided not to rush into meditation and chose to sleep instead.
He turned off the lights beside the giant bed. It had been an intense day, starting with the Hunting Zone and ending in frustration.
He fell into a deep sleep that felt like it lasted only a minute.
Then he woke up instantly.
Day was just breaking when someone knocked on his door.
By the time Orion was dressed and awake enough to form thoughts, Teacher Remy was already walking him out.
Breakfast happened fast in the dorm kitchen. Leile wasn't looking good with this sloppy breakfast. Poor girl looked angry to military teacher for rashing everything.
Then Remy led them to a smaller building set apart from the rest of the grounds, the kind of place you didn't enter unless you were invited.
"You're going to love this place." Remy gestured to the sleek structure with a grin. "It was built specifically for S-Class students, so we don't have to deal with annoying crowds. The only downside is finding a partner if you want combat training. Most S-Class students are mages or possess special bloodlines."
"What is that smell?" Orion wrinkled his nose, detecting a metallic tang in the air.
"Likely blood. We had a bit of a mess here yesterday." Remy shrugged, looking completely unbothered by the stench. "A duel broke out involving one of your future classmates. Some upstart who expected to be in S-Class issued the challenge. It ended in a draw, mostly because they mauled each other until neither could stand."
Orion instantly knew who he was talking about. The two self-proclaimed leaders from the Death Maze.
One was the golden-haired princess. The other looked like the kind of guy who'd fall in love with his own reflection if you left him alone long enough.
Teacher Remy struggled not to laugh and shook his head.
"Normally, both were talented enough for S-Class. In fact, Valerius would've taken S-2 if you hadn't appeared." Remy shook his head, clearly amused.
He glanced at Orion. "Even without the exam ending properly, both were guaranteed selection."
Then his tone shifted slightly. "But in the finale, Valerius made some moves that got people killed. That alone kicked him out of S-Class. He was placed in one of the worst A-level classes. His family is probably the only reason he didn't get a trash ranking."
Orion barely remembered any of it. His attention had been on the portal. And Valerius had looked so arrogant that Orion had preferred to focus his attention on a sexy blonde instead.
"Let's focus." Remy clapped his hands together, the sound echoing in the quiet yard. "First, I'll show you what basic combat looks like. Then we'll do simple physical training. We'll finish with mana training. The doctors want to see you right after lunch."
Orion had no objections. His only curiosity was the mana training and whether he could succeed as a mage.
They left their belongings in a sunny spot opening to the garden on the side of the gym-like building.
Orion snatched the wooden sword Teacher Remy threw at him and smiled with excitement.
He felt like he had been waiting for a moment like this all his life back on Earth. He was living every man's dream.
But in the blink of an eye, Teacher Remy was right in front of him.
Orion didn't even have time to raise the sword.
Crack!
The blow snapped his head sideways. For half a second, the world tilted and his vision stuttered.
Pain erased all of his fantasies in an instant.
He had thought he was stronger than average mages because his stats had increased. But Teacher Remy had struck him at a speed he couldn't even track.
"Lesson 1." Remy stepped back, tapping the sword against his palm casually. "Always act as if the worst-case scenario is about to happen. If you don't know how strong your opponent is, be ready to defend yourself instantly. Otherwise, you lose your neck."
Remy's calm tone made it worse.
He wasn't joking. He just didn't need to sound serious.
But Orion understood the lesson, so he didn't waste breath answering. He threw his whole body to the side and lunged at his opponent's shoulder with the wooden sword.
Teacher Remy was gone before Orion realized what happened.
"Lesson 2." His voice came from behind, close enough to feel the breath on his neck. "Always focus on the general picture. If you get stuck on the momentary state of objects, you die."
A fresh blow landed on the back of his neck.
Orion hit the dirt. He remembered that his body's agility was three times that of a normal human and cursed internally. Things weren't going as expected.
For several minutes, he took hit after hit, never quite able to catch Remy's rhythm.
None of it was random. Every strike demanded a correction, and every correction exposed a new mistake.
By the time Orion noticed the pattern, his muscles were trembling.
He hadn't expected personal training to feel like a beatdown.
Finally, when there wasn't a spot left on his body that hadn't been hit, Teacher Remy began to pity him.
"One minute break!"
Orion immediately threw himself next to Kalista, who was sitting on a picnic cloth watching them. He lay face down on the grass and smiled at her through the pain.
"Kali, I demand you protect me. He is abusing your boss…"
The nickname sent a brief, unwanted shiver through Kalista's back, but her face stayed blank. She was trying to decide between smiling or beating Orion herself when his break ended.
Over the next stretch of training, Orion had to take a few more breaks. But he understood the rhythm enough to realize he was constantly getting hit in the same spots.
If Teacher Remy was going to hit his right arm, he usually struck the part under the shoulder or the wrist, forcing him to drop the sword.
His front knees, ankles and back hips also took a lot of hits. His neck and forehead were among this brutal instructor's favorite targets. Orion didn't think of this as sparring anymore.
By the end of the session, Orion didn't think of it as sparring anymore.
Still, he managed to block a fast lunge aimed at his forehead.
He felt that his instructor had been holding back more for the last minute. But he was happy to have blocked an attack for the first time and didn't care about the details.
Just as Teacher Remy was about to pause the training, his eyes widened. Orion's wooden sword accelerated more than usual.
Orion's instincts took over.
His body moved before his thoughts caught up.
Strike and Thrust overlapped in a single motion and slammed into Remy's stomach.
[Congratulations! You have learned a new Ability!]
[Combat Mastery (Basic) Level 1:
Passive Ability. Increases body stability and reactions while fighting. Helps the user learn combat faster]
Orion knew one thing for sure. Nothing about this was getting easier.
His body was just learning how not to die.
"You weren't supposed to have any martial training before coming to school." Remy rubbed his stomach, looking genuinely confused. "In fact, after that fiasco earlier, I was almost sure of it. How did you pull that off?"
"I just copied you." He shrugged, wincing slightly.
"Normally, your body's physical level is at the peak Awakened limit. You're almost as strong as an Acolyte, but the other aspects are just that of an ordinary peak Awakened. I was keeping my strength at the level of an ordinary Acolyte during all that training..."
Orion understood then what two basic skills could do when combined, even if their levels were low.
"Normally, we would move on to physical training, but let's not take a break while things are heating up. We're completing a full hour!"
Orion wondered how Remy knew the time without a clock, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.
Remy's muscles tightened.
Mana, or something close to it, gathered along the wooden blade as he swung.
Orion tried to block again. But a force that made his entire arm scream in agony knocked him to the ground. His sword shattered.
"Lesson 3." Remy stood over him, looming like a giant. "If you don't know what your opponent is doing and there's mana involved, always dodge. Unless losing your arm isn't that important."
He paused, as if choosing his words. "Even if you lose an arm, a new one can grow back. That's why professors are already designing special combat techniques for someone who heals like you. You'll start learning them in a week or two, once they've collected enough data."
Teacher Remy pretended to wait for him to stand up, then suddenly slapped him on the head with the flat of his sword.
Then he examined Orion's body as the boy scrambled on all fours to grab a replacement weapon. Although he didn't say it, he noticed that this kid with no combat sports history was excessively athletic.
After a few more minutes of brutal sparring and a couple of dirty tricks from Remy, Orion started to read the sword a little better.
His body even started to automatically block or dodge things he remembered from before.
When they took a break, he looked at his skills from the system window and immediately noticed the reason for the change. All the skills he used passively or actively were developing.
[Combat Mastery Level 1 > 3]
[Strike Level 1 > 3]
[Thrust Level 2 > 3]
"For now, we just prepared your body against people with strength and speed above your level." Remy wiped sweat from his brow. "We started closing your reaction gaps in the crudest way possible. After a few fine adjustments, the chance of you dying from sudden movements will decrease greatly. Now we need to tire you out thoroughly with basic physical fitness training."
"What do you mean by tire out?" Orion narrowed his eyes, suspicious.
"Did you plan to meditate while hopping around like a bunny on caffeine?" Remy scoffed.
"You will be tired enough to give a kidney for a chance to rest a little. Then you will try meditation while your body starts entering sleep mode at the first opportunity.
If it didn't increase the success chance at least a thousand times, we wouldn't make mages do the same things. Their adventure of learning meditation is much more pathetic. Hahaha..."
After those words, whatever Orion had imagined as "basic training" vanished.
He had a bad feeling about meditation preparations.