--- [Alex’s perspective] 1 month later, where the F-rank exam was held
“Maintain it! Come on! Just a little more!” – Leanne
My arms tremble; any minute now, my concentration will break.
The void in my palms disappear and I fall to the ground in exhaustion.
“Four hours and 35 minutes. That’s a new record!” – Leanne
For the last few hours, I’ve been constantly maintaining the void in my hands to absorb an endless stream of rocks she’s firing at me.
This is probably my least favorite training exercise…
It’s insanely time-consuming, and extremely exhausting.
It is necessary though.
Stamina is just as important as everything else.
Not only for drawn out fights, but it’ll let me use a higher output without running out of steam too quickly.
When she first started training me, I was only able to do it for about two hours.
That means my stamina has more than doubled since then.
“Take a 20-minute break, then let’s move on to BDM training.” – Leanne
In between my heavy breaths, I try my best to answer.
“O… K…” – Alex
She isn’t giving me much time to rest, but I don’t mind.
I want to get strong, and I want to get strong now.
The thought that Seth is alive when my brother isn’t, makes my blood boil every waking hour.
I don’t have time to rest, not when he’s still around…
Every day that passes is another day he got away with his heinous crimes.
So, her style of teaching is perfect.
--- A few minutes later
“Alright, time to get up! We’ll do rock smashing with the usual rules.” – Leanne
“Got it.” – Alex
I stand up after my short rest and get ready attack.
“Level one.” – Leanne
She summons a boulder, and I immediately smash it into a million pieces.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Level two.” – Leanne
She summons another, and yet again, I easily destroy it.
During this exercise, I’m not allowed to use charged attacks.
We do train that as well though, just not during this exercise.
“Level three.” – Leanne
She summons yet another boulder, and just like before, I destroy it with a single punch.
“Level four.” – Leanne
Another one appears out of thin air.
I shake my wrists, making sure my joints are loose.
I take a deep breath, then punch the rock with almost everything I’ve got.
Yet again, it’s destroyed by a single attack.
Level four is as far as I went when we first started training.
A level one boulder is designed to be roughly so hard that an average C-ranker could destroy it with one punch if they gave it their all.
Every level above that is twice as hard as the one below.
When we first started training, I could destroy up to level three with a single attack, while level four took multiple.
That means I was roughly four times stronger than most C-rankers.
That tracks.
Even back during the battle festival, I could tell I was strong enough to beat some of the weaker C-rank contestants.
Yet, I didn’t stand a chance against Seth, who’s also a C-ranker.
The thing is, each rank has a wider range of variance in strength levels, than the last.
The difference between the weakest F-ranker and the strongest F-ranker is much smaller than the difference between the weakest C-ranker and the strongest C-ranker.
“Level five.” – Leanne
I destroy it with one punch.
“Level six.” – Leanne
I destroy it with one punch.
It took every ounce of strength in my body, but I did it.
I destroyed a level six boulder with a single attack…
That’s three levels higher than when we first started.
Doubling my stamina in a month is already impressive, but it pales in comparison to my power…
I’m now roughly eight times stronger than I was just a mere four weeks ago…
Yet…
I know I’m still not strong enough to challenge Seth.
The variance is simply too high when it comes to C-rank and above.
I’m dozens of times stronger than an average C-ranker, yet I still can’t compete with him…
Since I’m the Emperor’s son, my growth rate is significantly higher than his.
If we both kept training endlessly, I would one day surpass him, there’s no doubt about that.
However, even for me, my progress will start slowing down eventually.
It might only take a few more months until I surpass him, but it could also take years if I’m unlucky.
My progress has been significantly faster than usual since I’ve been training with a B-ranker, but that novelty will wear off soon.
I can’t stand the thought of him still breathing, so I’d rather not potentially waste years trying to catch up to him.
That’s why Leanne and I agreed to this…
We would train for a month, and if in that time I ended up being strong enough to fight him, we’d arrange the fight then.
But that clearly didn’t pan out.
Not that either of us expected it to…
There have been two times before when I’ve suddenly grown significantly stronger, and that has been when I got help from that thing inside me…
If I can learn to tap into that power at will, I could beat him a heck of a lot faster than if I just trained normally.
So from now on, my training will shift away from all-around training, and focus entirely on learning to master that power.
That’s not the end of the story though…
Just like I want Seth dead, Isaac wants Gael dead.
I already made Leanne agree to help set up the fight between him and Isaac as one of the conditions for joining The END.
We were planning on arranging both fights at the same time if I somehow did get strong enough to fight Seth by the end of the month, but that didn’t happen.
However, it would be unfair to Isaac to make him wait any longer when I have the means to arrange the fight at any point.
That’s why we agreed that no matter what, his match would still be happening.
Today is the last day of the month, so tomorrow, we’ll be momentarily setting my training on pause.
Leanne will go back to Solis to find Gael, while I’ll go find Isaac.
We figured a week should be enough time to find them, so a week from now, we’ll meet back up here again, and Isaac can finally get his revenge.
