Life Giver

After Instructor Redfire finished his 'demonstration' of the test, he paid great attention to how the students reacted.

He knew that many of the students would be demoralised or even scared of the test but the goal of this act was to give those students with potential, a chance to shine.

Of course contrary to his 'goal', Instructor Redfire's true motive was very simple.

'This is what it's all about.. Having a little fun now and then.' He thought to himself secretly.

Soon enough, just as Instructor Redfire had seen in previous years, a small group of students walked towards him for the next test.

A dozen young students stood forward, some of them tall and muscular with confidence beaming out of their eyes, others cool and calm their eyes shining with intelligence, and a couple seemingly simple minded brutes wearing excited expressions on their faces.

No doubt a strange group of people but their potentials were clear, these students were those with the courage, intelligence or simple blind luck that gave them the opportunity to grow faster and further than the others.

Instructor Redfire felt relieved as he saw these students stand before him and when he looked at Casmir, the weakest looking of the group by far, he smiled.

In his usual rough voice mixed with an unusual amount of joy, Instructor Redfire spoke to them.

"Good! I hope you're stronger than the last lot!"

Instructor Redfire pointed at two students in a seemingly random manor before continuing.

"Unfortunately only ten people will be tested at a time, you two will wait until next time but I won't forget your actions." He said meaningfully.

Instructor Redfire pointed at two of the more intelligent students, they, just like Zaya, understood that this was another test to find those courageous or intelligent enough to be given more attention in training.

Instructor Redfire's words were simply a subtle guarantee that they would not be forgotten simply because the test was designed for ten people instead of twelve.

"As for the rest of you, you have two minutes to organise yourself." Instructor Redfire said as he placed the wooden board down and sat down to 'recover'.

The group of students observed each other for a moment before Zaya spoke up.

"I'm Zaya. We need to organise the strongest of us in the centre directly against the instructor and balance the remaining strength equally on each side of the board or we'll risk weakening one place too much."

An Elemental student in the form of a tall red-skinned man nodded at Zaya's suggestion before he spoke out in agreement.

"I'm Ferun. You're right, I think for now it's best if we have a simply one on one competition to gauge our strengths. We should start as soon as possible, we don't have much time."

Most of the Students here were 4th or 5th advancement cultivators but it was hard to gauge their physical strength based on their cultivation, they needed to independently verify each others strength.

A particularly muscular yet short student stepped forward, he was from a race with a similar appearance to humans.

"Braham! I'm the strongest here. I'll gauge your strengths and rank them." Braham said in a very confident voice.

Naturally some of the students disagreed with Braham's simple assumption that he was the strongest but they were smart enough to understand the best way to prove their strength was to simply test it.

Zaya spoke up and quickly explained a short test, Braham would be the tester for now and he would test everyone by locking hands with them and physically trying to push each other over. They would have 5 seconds and Braham would help to rank everyone's strength regardless of who was stronger.

With less than a minute and a half left, no one wanted to waste everyone's time so Ferun stepped forward and locked hands with Braham.

"Start!" Zaya called out.

"Ughhhh...AH!" Ferun called out after falling over only a couple of seconds.

Braham was clearly much stronger, he pushed Ferun's arms backwards immediately causing Ferun to lose his footing and fall over..

No one was particularly surprised by this result, Braham was clearly confident in his physical strength where as Ferun looked weaker in this regard.

However soon enough, as more of the ten students were tested they realised that Braham was monstrously strong in regards to physical strength. There were only two people who could hold up against him, Zaya and a student from the floral races named Daroch.

Daroch was from a tree descended race called the Plains Ent, his body was shaped in a typical bipedal structure 2 arms, 2 legs, a head and a torso. However his features were tree like, he was covered in bark that made his body ridged yet tough and his head and back were covered by a thick layer of foliage.

There were few people from the Floral races living in foreign nations like the Heldan Republic because their cultures and needs were very different compared to energy races like Elementals and animal races like Humans. Nevertheless Daroch was one of the few and Heldan Academy was one of the places that could accommodate someone like him.

Braham was pleasantly surprised to find someone as physically gifted as himself but he didn't expect to find yet another person near his level of strength, Casmir.

After all his training with Zaya and the continued use of the Life Body Cycle, Casmir's physical strength had grown far beyond what normal humans were capable of. When he first started training with Zaya, she had been surprised to find Casmir's physical strength was nearly on par with her own but in only 4 days, his strength had slightly surpassed hers.

Braham and the rest of the students didn't expect anything from Casmir, he was only in his 1st advancement but he was clearly with Zaya so they believed he was simply a lucky tag along.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, they were incredibly wrong, Casmir's physical strength was very high. Braham could still beat him but he needed to use all of his strength compared to needing only 70-80% to beat nearly everyone else.

Just before time was up Braham had tested everyone and he ranked them all neatly, Braham was the strongest followed by Daroch, Casmir and then Zaya. The other students had similar levels of strength so it was decided that Braham and Daroch would maintain the centre, in front of the instructor, while Casmir and Zaya each supported the very end of each side.

Still 'resting' nearby, Instructor Redfire watched the group of students prepare and test each other, he very much approved of their quick thinking and preparations.

Suddenly he called out to them, "Times up! Come on now, lets start!"

Instructor Redfire stood up with a slight smile on his face as he raised the wooden board and the group of students arranged themselves in their agreed order.

"Prepare yourselves!" Instructor Redfire called out as the students pressed their arms on the wooden board.

"3!"

"2!"

"Use all your strength!" Zaya called out as she and the rest of the students dug their feet into the thick gravel to leverage their strength.

"1!!!" Instructor Redfire shouted.

Suddenly as both sides pushed forward, a mountain's worth of pressure descended on all the students.

"Ahh!" "UGHH!" "GRR!"

Groans and cries leaked out of the students mouths as the wooden board almost seemed to bend under their collective might.

Neither side moved, their strengths were matched.

The spectating students were both surprised and delighted, many of them had not realised that Instructor Redfire was indeed beatable and his previous arrogant display of strength was simply an act to fool the students into thinking that even with the 'suppressive bracelet' on, he was unbeatable.

Of course none of the students, included Zaya and Casmir, realised that in fact Instructor Redfire was not weakened at all, the true face of this test was not to reach an arbitrary level of strength but to be able to push yourself to your limit.

Instructor Redfire would adjust his strength to the maximum the group of students were able to exhibit and force them hold their strength at this point. Only by pushing their limits would they pass, not by simply being the strongest person.

Sure enough, everyone being tested was giving their all, Casmir, Zaya, Daroch, Ferun, Braham. They were all giving everything they could, their bodies shaking, bones creaking, skin splitting.

It was only at this moment that Instructor Redfire could smile wholeheartedly, content that his students were not holding back, that they had learned to not limit themselves.

20 seconds were left now, but to each of the students every second was a nightmare. Being able to focus all their effort and will on a single thought, 'Push!', was far harder than one would think.

It meant forgetting about winning or losing, forgetting about whether you had enough strength to see it through and simply knowing that you won't stop until there's no more strength inside of you.

The gravel beneath the students feet started to crumble, unable to resist the pressure any longer. If this were a normal type of gravel the student may have already slipped and collapsed but this gravel although it looked perfectly normal had a special property.

It's traction and friction were incredibly high, the more pressure put on it the harder it would be to move, so even though the gravel was faced with the pressure of ten capable low level cultivators, it would not collapse beneath them and allow them to fall over.

However even with perfect sight, some things would be missed.

With only 5 seconds left, the student standing next to Casmir suddenly slipped, his shoe had ripped in half under the pressure and the students face had hit the floor before he even realised what had happened.

Instructor Redfire was the first to notice what had happened, he didn't want the whole group to fail because of such a small accident but he couldn't shift his strength in time to stop the addition pressure being distributed onto the group of students.

A small wave of additional pressure spread out from where that student was standing.

Normally this pressure wouldn't mean much but the students were all at their limits, this small wave was akin to an unstoppable train bearing down on them, especially for Casmir who was the closest to the fallen student and the main strength of this side of the team.

During the test Casmir had his eyes closed, he was using all his strength to push the wooden board, he didn't even notice when the student next to him fell over but he did feel the pressure suddenly grow.

Casmir was focusing his full attention on the pressure bearing down on him, so when this small wave of pressure appeared he felt it clearly, in a moment of panic Casmir activated the Life Body Cycle to heighten his senses.

He could feel the wave of pressure slowly moving down his arms when suddenly, the muscles in his arms under the influence of the Life Body Cycle started to vibrate like a violin string. This vibration created a resonance wave that travelled down his arm and countered the wave of additional pressure for just half a second, long enough for Instructor Redfire to redistribute the pressure appropriately.

Casmir's team mates didn't even realise that something had happened, somehow Casmir alone had resisted the addition pressure of his fellow student to both his surprise and that of Instructor Redfire's.

By the time the fallen student had got up and the rest of Casmir's team had realised what had happened, the test was over.

"Stop! You have succeeded." Instructor Redfire shouted out as his looked at Casmir strangely, he was certain that he had accurately judged Casmir top strength so he was as confused as Casmir as to what had happened.

Unfortunately now was not the time to investigate the matter, Casmir and the rest of his team mates all fell backwards in exhaustion as their arms fell limply to their sides.

Casmir's arms were in a worse state than the rests, instead of a simply pain and heat from his muscle's Casmir could feel a distinct shivering sensation from them as they were out of his control.

Instructor Redfire called over some senior students with some simple medicine to rubbed on Casmir's teams arms and any other sore area's.

As the students were being treated Instructor Redfire spoke to them and the spectating students.

"Congratulations, you have passed this test." He looked at the student who had previously fallen and said, "All of you have."

Naturally the student who fell was completely relieved after hearing he had passed, he was understandable nervous after having nearly cost his whole team their victory.

Instructor Redfire then turned to look at the spectating students. "Right, as some of you may have already figured out, this isn't a simple test of strength. This was a test of willpower and control over your physical body."

"I am not looking for you to be able to produce a specific level of strength, alone or combined. This team of students was pushed to their very limit for a full minute and did not break, that is what I am testing whether they can reach their limit or not."

"Oh, but they had it a little easier than most of you, they were courageous, clever or simply lucky enough to stepped forward after I tricked you into believing that this test was pointless. Regardless of why they did so, their test was easier because they stepped forward first."

Instructor Redfire raised another malevolent smile as he said. "For all subsequent strength tests, they will be 30 seconds longer!"

Naturally instructor Redfire's explanation raised a lot of discussion and even approval amongst the students, until he announced the additional time for the strength test that is.

The arena was soon filled with the unwilling shouts and cries of over a thousand students.

Instructor Redfire happily faced these complaints head on.

"WHAT WAS THAT?!?!?! YOU WANT AN ADDITIONAL TEN SECONDS?!?!" He shouted in a booming voice that almost seemed to create a gust of wind that passed the students ears.

The spectating students were frozen stiff by the deafening sound and then silenced by the clear threat.

Instructor Redfire grinned as he heard the silence clearly enjoying himself more than he should have...