Chapter 29: That Was Impossible!
By the third cannon.
Ethan’s breathing had already become heavier.
His legs screamed in protest as spiritual energy continued reinforcing muscles that weren’t accustomed to such explosive movement.
One mistake.
One hesitation.
One delayed step...
And everything would be over.
He gritted his teeth.
"No..."
Just one more.
The fourth cannon began glowing. Students instinctively held their breath.
Boom!
The condensed spiritual projectile shot across the lane like lightning.
Ethan pushed every remaining ounce of strength into his legs.
His figure blurred as projectile brushed past the back of his uniform by barely a hair’s breadth.
Then...
He crossed the finish line of the first obstacle.
Silence.
Complete silence blanketed the assessment grounds.
Every student...
Every instructor...
Every professor...
Could only stare blankly at the unbelievable scene before them. The only thought echoing through their stunned minds was the same.
An F-Rank Guide...
A lowly F-Rank Guide they had all looked down upon...
Had somehow...
Against every expectation...
"Lucked" his way through the academy’s first obstacle.
Meanwhile, several students who had watched Ethan successfully clear the first obstacle decided to follow his steps and try the shortest lane. But they ended up retreating back to the long lanes after getting blasted by the balls. As they walked back with frustrated expressions, quiet murmurs spread throughout the training grounds.
"How did Ethan Ashford get through that?"
"Wasn’t he an F-rank Guide?"
"I’ve failed three times already, so how did he pass on his first attempt?"
"That doesn’t make any sense..."
Confusion hung over the area like a cloud, yet none of them could come up with a reasonable explanation.
The subject of all those whispers, however, wasn’t paying attention to any of them.
Standing before the second obstacle, Ethan narrowed his eyes as he carefully studied the countless glowing threads crisscrossing the entire area. From a distance, they looked almost beautiful, like strands of silver silk woven into a giant spider’s web, but after watching several students become hopelessly entangled before being wrapped up zapped and immobilized, Ethan immediately understood that appearances could be deceiving.
Compared to the first obstacle, though...
This one actually looked easier. Passing it wasn’t what worried him.
What worried him was how he was supposed to use his spiritual energy without attracting unwanted attention. After successfully clearing the projectile course, he could already feel far more eyes following his every movement. If he suddenly displayed something that shouldn’t be possible for a supposedly weak F-rank Guide, things could become troublesome very quickly.
His gaze swept across the glowing threads one more time before a plan slowly formed inside his head.
If he couldn’t see every thread clearly...
Then he’d simply let his spiritual energy see them for him.
His plan was simple.
He would shape a thin strand of spiritual energy into the form of a sword extending slightly ahead of him. Rather than using it to attack, he would use it like a walking stick, allowing the blade to lightly probe the path before every step. If the sword touched an invisible thread, he would immediately know which direction was unsafe before his own body made contact with it.
"...Ah, fuck it."
"I’ll use it anyway."
Taking a slow breath, Ethan quietly circulated the spiritual energy within his body. The faint golden energy gathered around his hand before stretching outward, gradually taking the shape of a transparent sword so thin and faint that anyone watching would barely notice it.
Keeping his expression perfectly calm, he slowly swung it left...
Nothing.
Right...
Still clear.
Up...
A faint ripple suddenly spread through the air.
"There."
Without hesitation, Ethan lowered his head and ducked beneath an invisible thread before taking another careful step forward.
The sword continued sweeping in every direction as he advanced. Sometimes it told him to move left. Sometimes it warned him to bend lower. Other times it forced him to jump over a nearly invisible strand or sidestep an entire cluster of converging threads. Although the process looked effortless from the outside, every single movement had been calculated only after the sword silently confirmed whether the path ahead was safe.
While Ethan peacefully focused on navigating the obstacle, absolute chaos had already broken out among the instructors observing the assessment from the sidelines.
Alex was practically foaming at the mouth.
"I’m telling you, I know Ashford!" he barked, pointing furiously toward Ethan. "There is absolutely no way that brat should be clearing these obstacles this easily! He cheated! I don’t know how he did it, but I’m telling you he definitely cheated! Otherwise, explain to me how an F-rank Guide managed to finish two obstacles faster than some of our top students!"
Several instructors exchanged uncertain looks before nodding along.
"Now that you mention it..."
"It does seem suspicious."
"I’ve never seen an F-rank perform like this before."
"Could he really have found some loophole?"
Their voices overlapped one after another, each becoming more skeptical than the last.
Only Davin, the chief instructor overseeing the entire assessment, remained silent.
Unlike the others, his sharp eyes had never left Ethan from the very beginning.
Naturally...
He had noticed everything.
He had seen the nearly invisible stream of spiritual energy Ethan had been controlling throughout both obstacles, and he had immediately understood what the young Guide was doing.
Not only had Ethan used spiritual energy...
He had used it brilliantly.
Davin’s gaze remained fixed on the young man weaving through the glowing threads with astonishing precision.
Interesting...
Very interesting.
Nowhere in the rules had he forbidden students from using spiritual energy during the assessment. In fact, this examination had been specifically designed to test how well students utilized every resource available to them. The fact that almost everyone had automatically assumed they weren’t allowed to use spiritual energy was their own misunderstanding, not the academy’s.
Even then...
Simply using spiritual energy wasn’t enough.
Davin knew that better than anyone.
Had the other students attempted Ethan’s method, most of them would still have failed miserably because the true difficulty wasn’t the technique itself but the flawless control required to execute it. Ethan wasn’t blindly relying on power. Every movement he made had been carefully planned, every step measured, every decision calculated before he committed himself.
For a brief moment, genuine curiosity flickered across Davin’s usually calm face.
How had an F-rank Guide developed this level of spiritual control?
No...
Perhaps the more appropriate question was...
Was Ethan Ashford truly an ordinary F-rank Guide?