CHAPTER 221: REMINDER OF TALENT (9)

The students on the field shifted their gazes toward Adlet almost in unison, their necks tilting, their eyes narrowing.

He was the obvious example—the only one who had paced himself from the very start, jogging with that infuriating calm while the rest of them had burned their lungs and legs like fools.

Yet now, hearing Griselda’s words, they couldn’t tell whether to envy him or mock him.

Because if she hadn’t praised his approach outright, that meant even his tactic wasn’t beyond reproach—it placed him barely a step above them in her judgment.

Still, there was one thing no one could ignore.

Adlet hadn’t bowed his head.

While Varnok—the very same barbarian who had been howling like a beast at the start—hung his head low, shoulders drooping as if to hide from the sting of her words, Adlet stood there with his hands buried in his pockets, chin lifted.

Instead, he stared right at Griselda.

The gaze wasn’t loud or showy, but it was sharp enough to cut. A silent message, one that every student standing there could read clear as ink:

"I will not take my strategy wrong."

That single look made them uneasy.

They found themselves glancing between Adlet and the beastwoman instructor, the air thickening with the same tension that always came before a spark caught fire.

’Mr. Special is about to pick another fight,’ thought Gideon, and excitement surged through him. He could already feel the corners of his mouth twitching into a grin, his stomach tightening with anticipation.

But before his mind could conjure the scene—a verbal clash, perhaps a duel to follow—it was shattered by Griselda’s next words.

"Though I don’t consider the strategy applauding,

I am also not against it. Because the task was to run twenty laps. It is far better to run slow and complete rather than to burn yourself out and collapse like the majority—like failures who could not even finish."

The students stiffened thoughts and whispers dying before they could start.

Griselda’s gaze swept over them, pinning every face in place like insects under glass.

"Remember this just because the name of this course is Endurance Training doesn’t mean you train your endurance by spending it recklessly. Preserving your endurance,"—her voice dropped to a low growl—"is also part of the training.

If you face ten enemies, the tenth will not cease his attack simply because you exhausted yourself fighting the previous nine."

Even though this was only supposed to be a Physical Course, Griselda’s words cut much deeper than muscle and bone.

They embedded themselves in the students’ minds like iron nails, hammering home a realization many of them should have had before their first step around the field—that their choices, their impulses, had been foolish.

Images flashed through their heads: Leon sprinting ahead like a blazing comet, Varnok roaring with pride and spending his breath like a War General, and themselves blindly chasing after both.

If they had struck the right balance between conserving stamina and spending it, if they had paced themselves like Adlet, the ordeal could have been grueling but not crushing.

Instead, they had been swept up in the whirlpool of ego and competition, and it had chewed them up.

Even Leon, standing at the front with sweat still dripping from his chin, felt the weight of that truth.

He could see it clearly now. The hunger to be first had drowned out his rationality, turning every lap into a personal war he had to win, and in the end it had cost him pushing into every last bit he could muster.

If he had run as Adlet had run—he might have crossed twenty laps in less than two hours instead of staggering across the finish line like the rest.

The thought bit into him, sharp and cold.

He glanced at Adlet, as searching look were in his silver eyes, as if expecting to find some sign of strain that would explain why?

Why was he the only alone had resisted the tide of competitiveness.

But Adlet’s face gave him nothing—only that maddening, unreadable calm.

"Now look at the faces of these sages," Griselda mocked suddenly, her voice cutting through their haze of reflection like the crack of a whip. "As if they’ve just gained profound realization."

The sting of her words snapped every bowed head upright.

And then she smiled.

It wasn’t a warm smile.

"I am sure Since you’ve all gained

this... ’wisdom,’" she said, her tone sharp and almost playful, "I am certain it will be easy to run twenty laps around this field in one hour."

The words landed like a thunderclap.

Students stiffened. The thought of running again—now—was a nightmare, but the idea of doing it within an hour? Their minds balked.

’Here it comes,’ Ashok thought, his expression unchanged even as his eyes glinted knowingly.

Griselda’s smile widened as she delivered the final blow.

"Now—consider this an individual task or a class task, I do not care,

Only those who can run twenty laps around this field in one hour by the end of this month will move on to the next part of Endurance Training. And don’t forget those who I chose to give weights will have to wear weights in each and every classs,"—her grin turned sharp—

The words dragged across their nerves like a blade.

"Make sure, to inform the task to the failures who are lying in the infirmary."

Beads of sweat rolled down foreheads—as the students realized the depth behind the command that was given casually by the Instructor.

After all, how could they not feel despair? This wasn’t a matter of shaving off a few minutes—it was a mountain of an hour and a half they would have to erase. And not over a year.

Just One month.

For most of them, that wasn’t training—that was a death sentence wrapped in a deadline.

Griselda, of course, smiled when she saw the horror in their faces. It wasn’t the warm smile of reassurance; it was the smile as if pouring salt on wounds.

"As for those who can’t complete the task by the end of the month," she said, her voice calm but heavy, "their names will be simply cut off from this course. I will mark them as failed in this course."

The word failed hung in the air like an executioner’s axe, its weight alone pressing down on their already aching bodies.

And just as someone at the back drew in a breath, lips parting to protest, Griselda moved.

A faint shimmer of power rippled through the field as she let a sliver of her Aura leak.

It was enough.

The pressure hit like a wave—heavy, invisible, and suffocating. The student who’d dared to open their mouth found their voice strangled in their throat, their complaint crushed before it could even leave their tongue.

The silence that followed was absolute.

"This course," Griselda continued, her tone sharpened by that faint, terrible pressure, "does not have any examination at the end of the semester."

"This course," she said, her voice dropping lower, "is the exam."

"So," she added, "you will have no choice to voice any meaningless complaints you have in your head."

Her hand moved, and her finger leveled like a commandment from a judge.

"You," she said, pointing straight at Zog.

Her hand shifted, slow and deliberate.

"And you." Her finger aimed at Mira next.

"You two—stay behind."

Then, without a hint of ceremony, she turned back to the rest.

"The rest of you," her voice cracked the silence, "class dismissed."

Before the students even had time to react to Griselda’s words, a ripple of confusion moved through the group.

The instructor’s order for only the beastmen siblings, Zog and Mira, to stay behind struck like an unexpected bell, and thoughts of ’why them? why only them?’ buzzed silently in their heads.

There is no way the students will not be curious as to why the teacher only asked only two students to stay behind and told the rest of them to leave.

Zog and Mira themselves weren’t any better. Zog’s ears twitched with uncertainty, his tail giving an involuntary flick, while Mira glanced between her brother and the ground as though the answer might be written there.

The unspoken question lingered in the air, and the rest of the class waited for someone—anyone—to voice it.

But before anyone could gather their courage, one student broke the rhythm entirely.

Adlet.

The moment the words "Class dismissed" left Griselda’s lips, he moved. Not a glance to Zog or Mira, not a flicker of hesitation to see what might happen next—he simply turned on his heel, and walked away.

He didn’t care about the reason for the siblings staying behind; he already knew. There was nothing new to learn by lingering, nothing interesting enough to waste another breath on.

Ashok’s mind was already on other things—another class he had to attend, the External Art training session which meant his schedule today was the tightly packed.

Every second spent here was a second stolen from something else, and he wasn’t the type to waste time on curiosity when he already had the answers.

Griselda’s gaze followed him as he walked, her feline eyes narrowing slightly. Her eyelid twitched—a tiny, almost imperceptible movement, but enough to betray that he’d unsettled her.

’Is that what total obedience looks like... or is it just plain defiance dressed up as indifference?’ she thought, her mind caught between irritation and reluctant amusement.

She had expected the students to ask questions or at least watch closely, but Adlet didn’t even turn his head. He left the way someone leaves a room they have no reason to return to, the way someone walks away from a conversation they don’t need to hear.

The rest of the students, still standing there, shuffled their feet awkwardly. Their gazes darted between Griselda, Robert, and the retreating figure of Ashok.

They hesitated—uncertain whether to stay and see what would happen next, or to follow his lead.

Robert’s sharp, cutting voice tore through their indecision.

"Someone’s already left," he said, his tone low but laced with irritation. His eyes scanned over the group like a hawk sweeping a field. "What are you all waiting for?"

He jabbed a finger toward the exit, his voice turning into a bark that cracked over the field.

"Aside from the two told to stay, the rest of you—get moving. Class is over."