Chapter 108: Obstacles

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For all that everything now seemed different, classes and life at the academy had no regard for the life-changing revelations that Cayden had experienced. And as much as he might have wanted to do so, he couldn’t simply skip his classes, not if he didn’t want to arouse suspicion.

And after his angry march across the campus, the one thing he couldn’t afford was more suspicion.

“...nobles jumping out of his way! Eyes glowing in anger! And on top of that – destruction of academy property!”

Cayden would have groaned, had he the spare breath for it. He was currently running around the arena before that morning’s Frontline Combat 101 class, Jeremy at his side.

“...it can’t…have been all that impressive…” Cayden got out between gasps.

Over the months since the start of the semester, Instructor Barry had gradually increased the intensity of the equalizer on their runs, matching the average improvement of the class at a whole. Unfortunately, while Cayden had unquestionably improved in power at the academy, little of that improvement was in his strength or endurance stats. Running under the effects of the equalizer enchantment was just as hard now as it had been on his first day, and talking only made it harder.

“Nah, not that impressive,” Jeremy responded. In contrast, he’d leveled up twice in the last three weeks, and the formine race had both strength and endurance as two of its primary stats. It wasn’t easy for him, but it was much easier than it was for Cayden. Easy enough that he could hold a conversation without pausing to gasp for breath every two words – especially when he had something exciting to gossip about. “You just got lucky with the timing. The controversy with Amanda Del’vise just died down, so everyone’s primed for something new. Not to mention the rumors of Velic Vaas apparently leaving the library just after you looking almost as angry.”

Jeremy gave Cayden a pointed look, but Cayden ignored the not-so-subtle probe for more information. “Lucky me,” he gasped out instead.

“JEREMY! CAYDEN! If you’ve got the energy to chat, you CLEARLY aren’t running hard enough!” Instructor Barry’s voice yelled across the arena, cutting off Jeremy before he could reply. In unison, they increased their pace, finishing the rest of their laps in gasping silence.

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Frontline Combat classes were always interesting. While Instructor Barry would occasionally give more ‘intellectual’ lessons on positioning and their role as fronliners, the vast majority of the classes were focused on training their bodies rather than their minds.

Which posed an interesting conundrum – how could they ‘standardize’ training sessions for a large class of students when there were such huge variations in those students’ capabilities? Any strength-based exercise, such as lifting a standard weight, would be trivial for half the students and impossible for the other half. And the same applied to training any other stats.

The answer? They couldn’t. At least not entirely.

A certain amount of variance in the students’ capabilities could be accounted for with ranges of equipment. Stuff like the assailants and the equalizer were useful because they allowed Instructor Barry to customize the level of difficulty for the students. But even those had their limits, not to mention the other issue with attempting to physically improve stats: the students’ natural limits to their stats’ growth.

Because of [Physical Training], Cayden had pretty much maxed out how much natural improvement he’d be able to get from any of his physical stats, and he knew at least a few of the other students were the same. At that point, exercise was just a matter of maintaining their current level of fitness rather than pushing for any further improvements. It wasn’t common, but it was possible for people to lose stats if they grew lax in their training.

So rather than spending the entirety of the classes pushing the students to improve their physical stats, Instructor Barry trained them physically in other ways.

That day, it involved obstacle courses.

While the strength stat gave someone physical power better than even the best olympic athletes on Earth, it didn’t give them the understanding on how to use that power. Dexterity helped with this somewhat, allowing them to move exactly as intended, even without extensive practice, but for many things there was no substitute for experience.

Someone with all the strength in the world might struggle in a race to climb up a rope compared to someone with only mediocre strength, but experience in climbing ropes to back it up.

Which was the purpose of the obstacle courses.

Tip-toeing on tall poles, crawling through sand under ropes, dashing across rolling logs…everything was geared to force the students to move in ways they weren’t used to. So that when they were eventually forced to move in that way in the midst of a battle, they would be prepared.

There were three separate obstacle courses, each one at a different difficulty. Which obstacle course students raced on was self-selected; the obstacle courses were varied enough that there was no single stat that would determine which one was most appropriate. Of course, if Instructor Barry caught anyone slacking on an obstacle course under their capabilities, he would make sure they regretted it.

Multiple people could run each obstacle course at the same time, so aside from the initial long lines at the beginning of class, no one had to wait long before taking their turns. Cayden started at the easiest course, completing it easily in under a minute before moving on to the medium-level course.

This one proved to be much more of a challenge. His arm was almost completely regrown, but it still ended in a stump, his fingers and claws yet to return. Which made the climbing wall much more difficult. It probably would have been entirely impossible for him if not for his claws – while most of the other students had to rely on hand- and foot-holds to pull themselves up, Cayden could dig his claws directly into the reinforced wall, making his own holds.

[Inertia] was also a huge help. At the start of the course, he turned his [Inertia] down to its lowest possible value, effectively lowering his weight to a third of its original value. Only once was this a detriment, when he had to dodge through a tunnel of spinning wooden limbs. Even with his lowered [Inertia], he wasn’t quite quick enough to dodge all of the speedy projectiles. And with his [Inertia] so low, a single hit sent him spinning backward into three other limbs before being knocked from the course entirely.

The second try was a bit better. Without any other skills that consumed mana, he had plenty available to increase his [Inertia] before that obstacle. Foregoing any attempt at grace, he simply hunched his shoulders and charged through the spinning limbs, coming out the other side with a few bruises, but victorious.

The third and then fourth attempts were even better. He had no way to measure his exact time, but he was able to tell each run was faster than the previous. So with renewed confidence, he decided to attempt the third obstacle course.

Which was a mistake.

It was on the other side of the arena from the other two, and was identical to the second obstacle course, with one exception: the equalizer enchantment. Cayden didn’t know what setting the equalizer was set to, but it was high enough that even walking through it across the arena was a bit of a struggle.

He didn’t even make it through the first obstacle.

Three times he attempted the rolling log. He managed to make it almost three-quarters of the way across before falling on the third attempt, and he simply lay on the sand for half a minute to catch his breath before getting out of the way for the next student trying their luck.

It was simply too much for him to handle, at least at his current stats. Cayden wasn’t sure how the equalizer worked, but after so many training runs, he was familiar with its effects. It wasn’t simply some overwhelming pressure like increased gravity or weight – every movement felt slower, more unsure, less controlled.

It was as if his stats were reset back to their base human values.

He knew that wasn’t exactly what was happening. It was hard to remember exactly how he felt without his increased stats, but he knew this wasn’t completely identical. And besides, that would have been an insanely powerful enchantment if it were, something they wouldn’t be willing to waste on simple teenage students training. But it was close enough to its effects for that to be the best comparison he could come up with.

It wasn’t too much of an issue when the equalizer was used on their daily exercises. When all he had to do was place one foot in front of the other, he was able to push through the exhausing effect. But on an obstacle course? When every minute shift of balance was the difference between success and failure? It made it significantly harder, forcing him to devote that much more effort and focus to his every action.

Cayden figured it was only a matter of time before they integrated the equalizers into their spars as well.

Regardless, for now, completing the obstacle course with the equalizer active was outside of his capabilities, and he walked back to the second obstacle course in shame. His only consolation was that only five of the other students were making it further than him on the third course, Ignar one of them.

“Hah! Come back to join us lonely plebs on the second course?” Jeremy called from his spot at the end of the line as Cayden stood behind him.

“Eh, I couldn’t have you feeling lonely,” Cayden answered as he continued to brush off the sand that still stuck to him after his last fall.

“Well, on behalf of us plebs, then, thank you for your consideration,” Jeremy said, before pausing. “...I bet I can crush you on this one.”

“Do you now?” Cayden asked with a growing smile. “How much are you willing to wager?”

“Eh, it doesn’t have to be much. It’s more about crushing your ego than your coin purse.”

“If you say so – one silver then?

“You’re on.”

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Sweaty and still covered in sand, Cayden finished the class owing one silver to Jeremy – after a single win and two losses – but in a noticeably better mood. The pressure of finding vengeance for his parents, of tracking down the truth of who was responsible for their deaths was still there. But it was muted.

Cayden had seen others consumed by anger. So single-minded in their pursuit of revenge, they’d forgotten the real reason behind their revenge. He refused to let his desire for vengeance taint his memory of his parents. They wouldn’t have wanted him to be so consumed by his anger that he wasn’t able to find enjoyment in the little things.

But neither would he allow himself to forget the goal he was working towards. It was a balancing act, to wholeheartedly pursue justice for his parents, yet to not give up on enjoying his life along the way. But it was a challenge he was committed to embracing.

So, as class let out and students filed out of the arena, Cayden waved goodbye to Jeremy and prepared himself for a conversation he expected to be…less than enjoyable.

“Henrietta! Can I talk to you for a minute?” he called to the shorter gorgon girl as she walked past him with a crowd of other frontline students out of the arena.

“Cayden! Of course!” she responded, brightening as she stepped away from the flow of people to join him. She leaned in for a quick hug before stepping back away. “What’s up?”

Cayden accepted the slightly-sweaty hug without complaint. Henrietta had spent the entirety of the class throwing herself against the first of the obstacle courses without too much success. When it came to one-sided builds, she was even worse than Cayden, though her durability wasn’t quite as good as his own, either. Though Cayden knew not to take her skills for granted.

In general, there were two types of noble students at the academy: those who fully devoted themselves to combat and increasing their capabilities, and those who were there simply to fulfill their societal obligation. The latter were usually at the academy for no more than a year, taking only enough combat skills to scrape by, and were the reason that, on average, the non-noble students were more capable than the nobles.

The former, however – students like Ignar – were the ones to watch out for. They gave just as much time, energy, and skill slots towards increasing their combat capabilities, yet also had the resources of the nobility to back them up.

Henrietta was one of the ones who fell into that group. Velic’s report didn’t have much specific on her skills aside from her impressive durability, but Cayden suspected she was more capable than she typically displayed. She was on the first-place princess’ team for a reason, after all.

“I was thinking…” Cayden began, lowering his voice and speaking slowly to let the rest of the students finish filing out. “Is there any way I could work for the princess more…directly?”

“What do you mean?”

Cayden shrugged. “It doesn’t feel like I’m doing much for her right now, and I’d like to change that. It just seems like this secrecy is doing more harm than good – I’ve only been on a single mission so far, and it wasn’t exactly the most impactful.”

“I’m sure the princess very much appreciates what you’re doing, but I can ask her,” Henrietta replied. And then she brightened. “Maybe you can be a guard, like me!”

“You’re a bodyguard?”

“No, not a bodyguard, just a guard. She has others to be her bodyguards, people much more powerful than me who her father hired. I’m training to be one of her guards.” At Cayden’s questioning look, she continued. “It’s similar, but there are a few differences. A bodyguard’s entire purpose is her protection – and nothing else. I’m also there for that, but I have other much more varied tasks too. I can carry messages for her, give instructions to servants or other employees; essentially I’m acting as a combat-capable attendant. It also helps that, as a noble, I have the authority to act on Princess Valeria’s behalf without offending other nobles.”

“Will that be a problem for me, since I’m not noble?”

Henrietta bobbed her head back and forth. “Hm, I don’t think so. Maybe for some tasks, but it shouldn’t be hard to keep you away from those.” Her smile changed, growing a bit more sly. “And with you courting me, you’re halfway into the nobility already.”

Cayden forced himself to keep smiling back. “Thanks – I appreciate it. I should get going, though. I don’t want to be late for my next class.”

“Of course! I’ll see you later! And don’t worry – I’ll convince Princess Valeria that this is a good idea!”

Cayden rubbed his face as he parted ways with his much-too-enthusiastic…friend.

On the plus side, he didn’t have to worry about convincing the princess directly.

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