It took about a couple of minutes for the instructor to divide the students, leaving Warden with twenty-three students. Although closebatants were high in numbers among the studentspared to any other ss. After all, there were also plenty ofbat instructors in closebatant sses.


    "Now you''ll form a pair and spar together," Warden announced. "You have sixty seconds to make your pairs."


    Warden was delighted to have eleven pairs of boys and girls and a lone guy by the end of sixty seconds.


    "You,e here," Warden called the blonde lone guy. "You''ll spar with me. What is your name?"


    "Dirk," the youth with blond hair and a handsome face said proudly, "Dirk Archer."


    "Alright," Warden said. "Everyone will spar three times with their pair. Dirk, take notice of who performs well."


    "Instructor," Dirk perked his eyebrows. "Aren''t we supposed to spar?"


    "Yes," Warden told the boy dismissively and turned to the eleven pairs of boys and girls. "And I forgot to mention, none of you are allowed to imbue your weapons with energy, but you are allowed to cheat as long as you keep all the injury within your vessels."


    A thin girl with a sleek sword raised her hand.


    "Yes?"


    "Ars Quin," She introduced, bowing slightly. "Instructor, you''re allowing us to imbue energy in our bodies, is that correct?"


    "As long as it stays in your body," Warden confirmed. "Begin."


    Rows of students positioned themselves at equidistant intervals and began sparring with various weapons. Warden found that most students chose someone of a simr ss like a swordsman who went for a swordsman, spearman with a spearman, or heavy weapons with heavy weapons.


    Only Dirk waited with an annoyed look in his eyes, while the rest of the ss began sparring. Warden watched them all with a studying gaze. It didn''t take long for him to notice more than a few of them were simply not putting in any effort at all. A few of them weren''t even acting to show that they were sparring.


    It looked like nothing more than they were ying with one another, only making slight contact with their weapons.


    Warden noted their faces with a cold smile and turned towards those who were performing well. The girl who asked the question, Ars Quin, stood out among the group. Although shecked raw power, she was quick on her feet, and used her imbuing almost better than anyone else. She let out no spark of energy from her body.


    Even still, she was losing in the spar, her opponent was a young boy with a bored look in his eyes. His imbuing skill was among the worst, but with high attribute points, he wasn''t having any tough time dealing with her swift attacks. The boy probably had double of her attribute points, and was probably among the top of the ss.


    The sparring ended pretty quickly, barely taking over five minutes. "Alright," Warden called. "I see three among you managed toe out undefeated in the spar. Congrattions to you." Then he turned his attention back to the pairs who did nothing but a mockery of the ss. "However, I find some of you verycking."


    Warden pointed at the three pairs. "You six, go run tenps of the ground before the ss ends," Warden said.


    "Why, instructor?" A guy of the six asked, his voice clearly mocking. "We sparred as you asked, why are we being punished?"


    "As I mentioned, you all areckingpared to the rest of them," Warden said.


    "As if," A girl with a pigtail said. "I can easily take on any one of them."


    "Shut up, and do as I asked," Wardenmanded. A couple of them flinched at his forceful words, but the front two, the girl and the boy, didn''t even show an ounce of fear or respect.


    "Instructor, it is merely the first day," the guy said again.


    "Fifteenps," Warden said. "I''ll increase onep with every second you waste."


    "What if we don''t want to?" the guy began. "What if we--"


    Warden red his aura and coerced it to assault the private space of all six of them, especially the leading boy.


    "You!" the guy''s face paled along with the rest of them. "You don''t know who my father is."


    "Twentyps," Warden said chillingly, making a little void energy spark his eyes in purple.


    "I''m going," one of them said, swallowing a breath and began running. The rest of them followed, excluding the leading guy.


    "You''re not going to get away with this," the leading guy said. "My father can--"


    "I have heard enough from you," Warden said. "Fortyps for you."


    His aura now only took hold of the lone guy. Warden didn''t forget to imbue the deadly intent into it, making the boy feel he was under the gaze of a predator.


    His face was already wet with sweat, legs shaking to stand straight. Warden withheld just in time for the guy to not wet his pants as soon as his legs gave way.


    "Fortyps," he said. "Make sure I see your face after you finish."


    It was almost impossible for the guy to run fortyps in the remainder of the ss unless his attributes were close to the Iron rank threshold, which he clearly did not. Warden inspected it was around forty for his physical powers, which would barely be enough toplete the fortyps without having a rest. The ground was prettyrge, onep was already close to eight kilometres.


    The boy scrambled quickly as Warden instructed someone in the ss to keep track of the number ofps they ran.


    "Now for the rest of the pairs," Warden said. "Now you''ll spar together against one another. I''ll give you two minutes to rest and prepare."


    His voice seemed to call them out of their stupor as Warden turned his attention to the lone boy.


    "Now let''s finish measuring you up as well," Warden said. "Come at me, don''t hold back at all."


    Dirk Archer swallowed a breath and nodded, unsheathing his de.