บท 8: Exam and Courses
With light steps, Acheron sneaks to a place a few meters behind the bear. In this case, he couldn't use his cultivation to attack, but he didn't mind using Qi to hide his scent and conceal the sound of his movements.
Fortunately, his physique was more than enough to wrestle with the bear if it came down to it. Naturally, he still ended up choosing a sneak attack.
The reason Acheron had to use Qi in order to lighten his movements was because the density of his body has already crossed the normal human threshhold. While he looked lean, his body mass was already over a hundred kilograms. Unless he used Qi, he would expose himself too easily.
Acheron jumps, quickly closing the distance between him and the bear. His sword, aiming for the back of the bear's neck, pierces like a hot knife through butter, directly passing through the spine and the rest of the neck. Just like that, the bear was beheaded, blood spurting in all directions.
Opening up the bear's chest with his sword, Acheron quickly finds the magic core hidden inside of the heart. Throwing the bloody magic core into his backpack, he resumes the hunt.
Acheron was planning to hunt as many beasts as possible during these few hours. As he didn't know what number of beasts most would be able to hunt, he could only do his best. It didn't hurt to show off his talent either way.
As Acheron continued his hunt, he came across many candidates, with some even being mere corpses. Another situation he came across was a fight between small group and a pack wolves. They were clearly in a bad situation.
While he didn't care about their lives, he still decided to act. He moved like a lightning bolt, every swing of his sword beheading a wolf.
Finishing his massacre, the teenagers looked at him with a bit of fear and reverence. Not sparing a word, Acheron quickly gathers his spoils of war and continues his journey.
All of the beasts in the forest were weak enough to be killed by normal non-cultivators, not to mention someone with superior physical strength like him. It couldn't even present a challenge for him.
An hour later, everyone had to return to the academy grounds. Only around 70% of those who entered were able to return.
A team of people working in the academy began counting everyone's spoils of war. After that, the professor responsible for the examination began to announce the results of the top ten contestants
When he reached the top three contestants, composed of Jenny Hemmingway, Mani Tuthik, and Acheron, his eyes were full of praise, especially towards Acheron. After all, in the timespan of the combat exam, he was able to score 45 magic cores, with the other top scores having a maximum of 26 magic cores.
It is worth mentioning that those with cultivation were mostly only in the Qi Harmonization and lower Qi Gathering realms. This obviously showed the strength of Acheron's body, being able to be compared in strength to cultivators already.
Returning to their accomodations on their own, they now had to wait a day for the next exam, a written exam.
While this exam wasn't that important for Acheron anymore, it was very important for those who failed to hunt any beasts, or those who directly skipped the combat exam. Failing both exams means you have to return home, after all.
A day quickly passed, and with Acheron's evolved intelligence, the exam was a breeze.
A bunch of professors and instructors were gathered in an office room, taking a look at the top scorers of this year's entrance examination. The one sitting on the only chair was the Crimson Dragon Academy's headmaster, Kelos.
"Please take a look at this, sir Kelos." said one of the professors while handing over a bunch of files. They just happened to be Acheron's files.
"Top scorer over a decade, normal background, no criminal record, decent combat techniques, abnormally powerful physique. Easily the student with the most potential we've seen in a very long time. It would be a waste if he became a mere combatant. Pay attention at what courses he will sign up for and then we'll decide how to best nurture him." commented headmaster Kelos.
Meanwhile in a pretty lavish dorm room. This is where he'll spend the next two years. Acheron has just finished wearing the academy's uniform, a black full-body combat suit. It stuck to his skin and allowed for a great array of movement.
He's managed to find specific information about the Arantara Alliance entry spots. All he had to do was enter the overall Student Rankings, and maintain a position within the top three students in the next two years, as that's when the alliance's envoy will arrive and assess their worth.
Fortunately, two years were more than enough for Acheron to obtain everything he needed from this academy, from actual experience on the battlefield to crucial knowledge required while traveling through space.
After receiving the list of courses he could sign up for on his student account, he quickly decided on what he needed.
'Nightmare Training, Advanced Combat, Advanced Spacefaring, Spaceship Engineering, Cultivation 101' considered Acheron. This was every course he felt he required for his future.
Although 'Cultivation 101' was relatively useless to him, he still had to pretend to slowly cultivate.
There were many more courses he would have wanted to sign up for, but he decided against it for now. While he wanted to study artifact forging and herbalism, books from the library would do for the first year. The academy's library was open to everyone with enough Crimson Dragon points.
Nightmare Training was basically a physical endurance course, where one is supposed to complete a difficult marathon of natural and man-made obstacles, all while wearing weights on the entire body. As long as Acheron picked the heaviest weights, he could take the opportunity to refine his physique further, not to mention increasing his mental resilience to the limit of his current lifeform.
Advanced Combat introduced students to the basics of combat techniques and precise Qi manipulation for the sake of physical enhancement, at least for the first-year students. Though Acheron figured he could skip them as needed once he displays his talent in cultivation and enters the Foundation Establishment realm, where one can use Qi outside of the body.
Advanced Spacefaring taught everything about spaceship piloting and navigation, along with basic maintenance. Supplementing with Spaceship Engineering in order to learn not only greater methods of maintenance, but also how to build spaceships from scratch is what Acheron decided on, after some deliberation.
No matter how much knowledge he wanted to cram into his brain, it was easy to accomplish for Acheron. With his intelligence, he could become a valuable researcher and scientist. Too bad, this was considered one of the stupidest decisions in his opinion. Any and all technology could be acquired from other forces spanning the universe, either by buying or by stealing. Wasting time in the research department of the coalition was simply foolish.
Tomorrow was the day all of this training began. Acheron would have to go through Nightmare Training at dawn everyday, while the other courses were scattered across the week.
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