When they were first told to spin a jump rope, the cadets found it absurd, thinking, ‘What is this?’
They felt it was a prank only kids would play, wondering why they had to do something like this.
Especially the knight candidates felt a strong sense of rebellion.
However, the moment they saw the jump ropes marked with red.
“What, what is this!?”
Is this a jump rope?
…Isn’t this a steel bar?
A steel rope made by weaving iron together.
Was this made for them to hold?
Harboring doubts that perhaps only the exterior looked like this, the cadets picked up the steel ropes, but.
*Thud!*
It was heavy.
It was so heavy that if they weren't careful, their wrists nearly snapped.
It was that hefty.
From the handle to the rope.
……And they were supposed to jump rope with this?
This was an absurd notion.
However
*Swish! Swish!*
“This is fun!”
Kunta started jumping rope like a child who found a fun toy, and seeing this, the cadets spun their ropes with a hopeful heart.
Thinking that instead of being scared beforehand, they should just try it.
But sure enough.
“Ah, it won't turn!”
“How am I supposed to spin this!”
If just lifting it was overwhelming, how on earth were they supposed to spin it!
“Ughhhh!”
It was a relief they had at least learned the Aura technique; only when they fully mobilized the flow within their bodies did the rope finally turn.
The jump rope they had dismissed as a joke at first, they were now spinning with their lives on the line.
If they were careless, there was a risk of their wrist or elbow getting dislocated.
*Swish! Whish!*
However, they gradually gained confidence.
They were certain that if it was the Aura technique, no, if it was ‘themselves’, they could spin it.
The thought that they might be able to complete the required number of reps—.
*Smack!*
*Thud...*
“……”
…It seemed like something terrible would happen before they could complete the count.
A cadet spinning the jump rope—no, the ‘steel rope’—was struck by it and immediately fainted.
*Thud, thud...*
Once one went down, a chain reaction occurred, with cadets getting struck by the ropes and fainting one after another.
The cadets shuddered, and unknowingly had no choice but to stop spinning their steel ropes.
If it accidentally hit their heads, it felt like a real disaster would occur.
“Weaklings, you pass out just from getting hit by that? Tsk tsk, so weak, so weak.”
-…….
The cadets felt this wasn't an issue of weakness, but an issue of life and death, but they couldn't bring themselves to argue with him.
For good reason.
*Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!*
“Why are you struggling so much with something so easy, huh?”
…The instructor spun the steel rope, which they found dizzying, so smoothly that it looked incredibly easy.
Then, in the middle of it.
*Wham!*
The steel rope struck his head hard.
…It definitely struck him hard.
“Ah, a mistake.”
His head had not a single scratch, and was perfectly fine.
He just looked a bit embarrassed about making a mistake while being so confident.
Is that even human?
“A-Are you not hurt?”
“It hurts. But I endure it with willpower. A knight must be able to handle at least this much.”
“It doesn't seem like it, though...”
Isn't that only possible for you?
-The entire cadre of cadets struggled to hide these inner thoughts.
* * *
Ihan hadn't just unreasonably prepared a steel rope of such absurd weight by simply applying his own standards to them.
He had his own common sense, and he was aware that his body was special.
But precisely because of that, he knew.
That they could ‘sufficiently’ handle this much.
“Some cadets might have already noticed, but the weight of the ropes differs by color. Yellow is an average, light jump rope, while green is 3kg. Red is all 10kg.”
-T-Ten kilograms!?
A wave of commotion erupted.
Especially those with the yellow and green ropes looked in horror at the ones holding the (blood-stained) red steel ropes.
They had been spinning those until now?
However, paying no mind to the commotion, Ihan continued his explanation.
“This instructor remembers the sparring match on the first day. Except for a few, the vast majority were subdued by me in an instant. Ah, if you don't remember, let me know, I'll make you remember.”
…Their pride was hurt, but no one argued back.
Because it was the truth.
However, Ihan wasn't bringing up yesterday's events to humiliate or embarrass them.
“I felt it yesterday, but the basics of the Swordsmanship Department cadets are severely lacking. Especially the knight candidates. You claim to aspire to be knights, yet you have absolutely no fundamentals. So I ask, ─are you truly serious about becoming knights, with only that level of skill?”
-!!!?
It was a sufficiently insulting remark.
Even though they had lost miserably, they were children of knight families.
And yet, to question their seriousness...!
This was a huge blasphemy.
But Ihan scoffed at their insolent stares.
“Those who felt my words as an insult, open your ears and listen well, you are idiots. You don't even know what you lack, and you've probably lived only hearing sweet words from others. Because you only have sycophants around you, your fundamentals are that pathetic. If you bastards go to the battlefield, you will either die first or live a long time. The reason you'd live long? Because you'll get injured before even deploying, crawl around, and rest in a villa with good water and air, since the military isn't foolish enough to deploy pathetic bastards who can't even manage their own bodies, you hopeless half-wits.”
“……”
An uncomfortable silence fell.
They even wondered if being bad at jump rope, or rather, being in pain from getting hit by that absurd jump rope, was such a terrible thing.
And to say their basics were lacking.
There were some who couldn't admit this, and Ihan snorted as if he expected it.
As expected, there was no one who would understand just by being told something.
Therefore, it would be useless to talk until his mouth went dry a hundred times.
“There will probably be guys who can't accept it even if the instructor says so, naturally because they are fools. I didn't expect much from you either. So I'll show you a textbook to make it easy to understand. Cadets Kunta, Arno, and Garand, step forward.”
*Thump.*
“Kunta, is here!”
“I roughly expect what we need to do.”
“Hmm, this is exactly what my old man does, are you perhaps his hidden son?”
The three stepped forward as if they had been waiting for it, and Ihan was satisfied.
Yes, that was the right attitude for learning.
“You should be ashamed. The most capable among you carry it out without a single complaint, while those with below-average skills are the ones complaining the most.”
Ihan gave a signal with his eyes.
There was no explanation, but they understood perfectly, and silently carried out the task.
*Whoosh, whooosh-!*
The steel ropes moved with a heavy air-splitting sound.
Kunta handled the steel rope freely as if playing with a fun toy, while Arno executed the jump rope with a model, stable posture fit for a textbook.
Garand seemed to be doing it roughly, but maintained a posture just as stable as Arno's.
The steel ropes passed over without an inch of disarray, and though there were differences in speed and they were sweating like rain, they spun the ropes over and over without showing any signs of fatigue.
Past ten, to twenty, and beyond that, thirty.
Slowly but surely, they filled the count.
It even made them doubt if it was something that could be done so stably.
It was completely different from the guys who couldn't even do three and only got injured.
Just as a few cadets who had voiced complaints lost their words and reddened their faces, Ihan.
*Tap!*
Suddenly tapped Kunta's rope, breaking the rhythm of his jump rope, causing it to strike his back hard.
*Slap!*
Following the slapping sound, the bursting sound was so intense that it sounded like being hit with a whip and a hammer simultaneously.
That went beyond pain; it was a situation where one would worry about bones and a three-month recovery period.
However.
“Hmm, In-Instructor is mean. Kunta hurts...”
“Don't spout nonsense. It's perfectly bearable.”
“Pain is pain.”
“Stop grumbling. ...Tsk, I'll buy you something delicious later.”
“The instructor is a good person!”
He looked fine.
Of course, he wasn't completely fine.
His skin had turned red, showing there was an impact.
Even so, it was hard to believe he could endure such a heavy impact.
Perhaps-.
“If there is any cadet having pathetic thoughts like, ‘Perhaps it's a Barbarian's ability?’, pluck out your eyeballs right now. Especially those who have learned the Aura technique, pluck them out twice; what use are eyes that cannot see even when they exist?”
...Before the ensuing harsh words, a different kind of shame from earlier blossomed.
It meant there were quite a few who harbored doubts about whether it was a Barbarian's ability.
Scoffing at such people, Ihan continued his explanation.
“Though I haven't learned the Aura technique in detail, I still know the basics. The Aura technique is a method that instantly unleashes the body's latent potential, and that potential can be developed through effort and training. -Am I right?”
“That is correct.”
“Thank you for the sincere answer. As expected, you're more promising than the other guys. Do you have any thoughts on being a teaching assistant?”
“...I'll decline.”
“What a pity.”
It was Arno's answer, and he still didn't look tired even while spinning the steel rope.
It was already past 100 rotations of the steel rope jump.
“Cadet Arno is currently using the Aura technique on his knees, ankles, wrists, elbows, and shoulders. He's only protecting the areas at risk of injury from the intense exercise. Yet, he doesn't leak any unnecessary strength. He's jumping the rope with only light movements. And he's not utilizing the Aura technique for anything else. Do you understand what this means?”
“Ah...”
Reactions of finally beginning to understand started to emerge.
It was an infuriatingly slow comprehension that made him feel like he was teaching kindergarten cadets instead of academy cadets, and with a pathetic look, Ihan voiced the answer they would have also realized by now.
“It means that aside from the essentially necessary parts, Cadet Arno doesn't use the Aura technique at all, and is spinning the rope purely with his own original muscular strength and stamina.”
“...Y-You said you didn't know about the Aura technique, instructor, so how can you see through all of that?”
“I can tell by looking.”
“I-Is that so?”
“Anyway, the important thing is this. It means that Cadet Arno, as well as Cadets Garand and Kunta, have all firmly solidified their basic muscular strength and stamina. They aren't slackers who comfortably train by using the Aura technique for every activity like you lot.”
Although the Aura technique is hailed as an omnipotent power, the truth is that the person using the Aura technique is more important than the technique itself.
No matter how famous a sword is, if the one wielding it is third-rate, the reality is they can't even cut a piece of wood properly.
In that sense, those guys were lacking.
‘If compared to martial arts, it's like they only cultivated Neigong and didn't do any Waigong training.’
They couldn't even be a glass cup to hold water.
No, that's overpraising them.
‘Not even a glass cup, a paper cup would be a perfect fit.’
When will those things become proper people, really.
“Therefore, what you need right now isn't swordsmanship training or Aura technique training. Your priority should be building up things like stamina, muscular strength, endurance, and durability, you pathetic bastards.”
“...You sure took a long way just to say we need to train everything again from the very beginning.”
Garand's incisive remark.
It was Garand who had just reached 200 rotations just as Ihan's long speech ended, and the cadets' expressions grew increasingly dark.
Basic training? Now, of all times...?
“For your information, the section with the most eliminations in the knight order entrance exam is the stamina test. Strangely, they fail in the easiest section. Ah, right. You guys will just join your family's knight order anyway, so I suppose the stamina test doesn't matter? You'll join automatically without an exam. Heh, good bloodlines, right? Haha!”
“……”
Joining a family's knight order was no different from being openly called a ‘nepotism hire,’ and to nobles who valued honor as much as their lives, that was like telling them to bite their tongues and die.
With that, their rebellion vanished, and Ihan was satisfied that the dissent had finally disappeared.
He liked seeing their faces realizing their place.
“Well, don't worry. I have no intention of doing this boring stuff forever either.”
Will it be enough to just use up the entire first semester?
“This instructor guarantees it. If you just follow along well during this semester, the physical abilities of all the cadets present here will improve incomparably to what they are now. Of course...”
He lingered on his last words, scanning the faces of all the cadets.
His gaze seemed to say this.
“That is, if you can keep up.”
A gaze mixed with mockery, saying he didn't know if there would be anyone among them who could keep up.
The cadets personally felt his mocking gaze and thought.
They didn't know about anything else, but they would have no regrets if they could just land one hit on him.
……Though that would be a story for a long, long time in the future.