Seed of Titan-Chapter 73: Who Doesn’t Love Big biceps?

Shortly after, Aldea hastily entered the room. She briefly scanned the surroundings and immediately ran toward James.

Seeing James’ condition, Aldea quickly knelt down and put a hand on his neck. Her mana surged and a healing wave emanated from her palm.

A minute later, Aldea stopped her spell. She inspected James’ condition and breathed a sigh of relief. Standing up, she looked at Enda sternly and asked, "What happened?"

Enda quickly explained the situation earlier. After he was done, Aldea turned around and walked to Drai.

"From now on, don’t spar with any first-year," Aldea ordered.

"Uhm... Okay."

Sensing Drai’s reluctance, Aldea held Drai’s shoulders, looking straight into his eyes.

"Drai, this is for your own good. If I weren’t here, James could’ve died."

Drai looked at Aldea’s eyes and saw that they were filled with concern instead of scorn.

"I understand, Miss Aldea," Drai said. He pursed his mouth afterward, feeling quite guilty for what he had done.

Aldea warmly smiled and patted Drai’s shoulder.

"I’m not blaming you for what just happened. But you should be aware of the disparity between you and your peers. If you need sparring in the future, you can ask your seniors instead. I’ll let the other seniors know about this matter so they don’t underestimate you and get hurt too."

"Thanks, Miss Aldea," Drai noddingly said. He was relieved that he avoided killing a fellow student, but he was worried he needed some time to adjust to his increased power if he didn’t want a similar accident to happen again.

Aldea then talked to Enda and Rofalo briefly before leaving the cellar.

Rofalo walked to the first-years and said, "Well, I guess that’s it for the spar. Thanks for enlightening my crew, Drai. It was an unfortunate accident, but James was asking for it. Maybe he won’t be as brash after you taught him a lesson, hahaha!"

Drai chuckled and said goodbye to Rofalo and the wary members of Swift Squad before walking to Natalia who was waiting by the exit.

"Don’t forget the meeting later!" Enda shouted from the side. He was still monitoring James who was lying unconscious on the floor.

Drai and Natalia gave Enda an OK sign before leaving the cellar, heading toward their usual café.

***

"Something like that happened?" Flo asked, surprised by Natalia’s story.

Natalia nodded while lifting her mug, sipping her hot chocolate.

"I’m glad James was okay. I’m sure VV’s image will get worse if one of their members died while training in the headquarters," Auri said, smiling wryly.

"Serves him right. He’s one of the Drai deniers in my class. You know that he often belittles Drai, saying that he’ll crush him to a pulp and whatnot?" Jian remarked while cutting his food.

"Is that a thing in your class? ’Drai deniers’?" Auri asked with a raised eyebrow.

After swallowing a piece of meat, Jian explained, "You know our students are a bit too passionate about fighting power. So when stories about Drai spread, they were mostly divided into two groups: the believers and deniers—that’s what they’re usually called."

"Well, I don’t think it’s strange for people to doubt Drai’s stories. After all, they do sound quite absurd. If I didn’t personally know Drai, I’d probably be a denier too," Natalia remarked.

"True," Jian agreed. He then finished up his dinner and gulped a glass of water. After wiping his mouth, he turned to Drai.

"How’s the thing I asked you last night?"

Drai was in the middle of munching a steak. He finished his bite before saying, "I’ve told the professor about it. He said he’ll get back to me when he’s free."

"Nice! He didn’t outright reject me, so that means there’s a chance," Jian excitedly exclaimed.

"What are you guys talking about?" Natalia asked.

"Jian wants to ask Professor Ravi to participate in his research," Drai answered.

"Really?" Auri asked, turning to Jian.

"Yep. This father wants a bite of Drai’s cheats too," Jian said, smirking.

"Then I want to join too," Natalia suddenly said.

"Hey, get in line, dragon lady. This is my idea, so I get to apply first," Jian reprimanded.

"Why should there be a queue? Maybe we can both get accepted. Or are you scared that the professor will choose me over you?" Natalia remarked with a challenging tone.

"Heh. You should level up first before acting smug, Nat."

Jian’s comment slightly irked Natalia, who immediately replied, "Doesn’t the research require a tough body? Even though my level is lower, I’m certain these scales are tougher than your wimpy skin."

"What wimpy skin? This is called fair skin, F-A-I-R. Don’t spout nonsense just because you’re jealous of your handsome father."

Natalia cringed at Jian’s words so she turned to Drai instead.

"How about it, Drai? Can you ask Professor Ravi about it?"

Drai was just finished with his plate of steak. He laid back on his chair, rubbing his full stomach.

"Sure. I’ll tell him later."

"Thanks, Drai!" Natalia said before looking at Jian with a smug smirk.

Jian didn’t bother to respond since Drai himself had agreed to the matter. He was also afraid that Drai would get annoyed by their bickering and retract his offer altogether.

"Oh, right. You should train your endurance a bit in case you’re accepted, Nat. The procedure’s pretty painful," Drai added.

"Really? How painful?" Natalia inquired.

Drai then described the pain he had to go through, starting from the initial testing.

Jian silently laughed as he watched Natalia’s face rapidly turn pale.

’If I didn’t meditate last night, I would probably shit my pants too,’ Jian thought amusedly.

"...and that’s why a couple sessions of body squashing would be great. There’s some suitable boulders at our usual training ground. And perhaps add some head training while you’re at it in case you get a nasty head pain like I did. Maybe put a blunt nail on your forehead and hammer it since that’s kinda how it felt during the procedure," Drai suggested.

"Are you trying to kill me?" Natalia remarked.

"Hehe, don’t worry. The key is to start easy and quickly ramp the pain until you can barely handle it, then stop at that point and endure for at least 30 minutes. It would be better if you can manage one or two hours though."

Drai was quite passionate with his explanation as this was the first time he ever shared his training methods to his friends. It was usually the supervisors of his Body Training 1 class who were inquisitive about his training.

Natalia grimaced as she pictured a nail getting hammered on her forehead. She didn’t want to hurt Drai’s feelings though, so she still nodded, albeit insincerely.

Drai suddenly turned to Jian, asking, "You want me to train you too, Jian?"

Hearing the dreadful offer, Jian quickly made an excuse.

"M-maybe not. O-our faculty students have to follow our professors’ training methods to the tee if we want to pass the class, so I can’t train with other methods."

"Oh... What a shame then. I guess it’s just you and me, Nat."

While Jian was sighing in relief, Natalia was pursing her lips as she nodded reluctantly to the "kind" offer.

Meanwhile, Auri and Flo looked at each other knowingly, both holding back their laughter.

Suddenly, the door bells chimed and Christo entered the café, heading straight toward Drai and Co’s table.

Sensing an escapeway from the suffocating topic, Natalia hurriedly asked, "Why are you so late, Christo?"

Without ordering, Christo took a seat and replied, "I was busy. And it’s not like I’m obliged to be on time for this meeting. It’s just a prelude before our actual meeting after all."

"Do you want to be a valedictorian that much?" Auri asked. As diligent as she was, Christo seemed even more fervent in studying.

"That’s not my goal at all, although I won’t reject the honor if I do receive it. And what’s wrong with busying myself with study? It’s not like I have anything much to do—I’m not really a combatant like you guys so there’s no point training all day long," Christo answered shruggingly.

Jian had an urge to comment about the fun activities that Christo was missing out on, but he decided to remain quiet in case Christo decided to counter him by bringing up Tamara again like he did before.

"Yeah. We non-physical classes have a lot on our hands beside combat and physical training," Flo said, supporting Christo’s statement.

"I understand that Flo has a lot of botanical study and research to do, but what exactly do you do outside of practicing spells, Auri?" Natalia couldn’t help asking.

"Me? There’s a lot, actually, but their mainly related to magic theories and applications," Auri replied.

"Enlighten us," Natalia urged in attempt to prolong the topic lest Drai decided to talk about training again.

"Well, for example, there’s basic elemental conversion. The study is centered around the basic elements—you know, fire, water, etc.—and how they can be conjured through the conversion of other variables, such as bonding hydrogen molecules to oxygen to create water, or isolating combustible materials from soil and heating them up to create fire. There’s a lot of chemistry involved," Auri explained.

"Fuck chemistry," Jian remarked, to which Drai nodded in agreement. Just listening to Auri’s basic examples had made his head spin.

’And here I thought my int was quite high,’ Drai said to himself, lamenting his limited brainpower.

"But how will this help with your spells?" Natalia inquired further. "Aren’t you unable to wield natural elements?"

"Yes, but based on my professor’s words, this accumulation of knowledge will help open up new skills or even augment the ones that are supposedly accessible by default," Auri replied.

"It’s the same for my classes too," Flo chimed in. "What we study aren’t necessarily helpful for now, but it gives insight to the potential of nature, which in turn increases our own potential."

"Hmm... I think I get it now," Natalia said. "It’s like when we learn about basic biomechanics during our combat class. Most of the extremities are either inapplicable or impractical, but they certainly shed light on our body’s potential. Right, Drai?"

"Yeah," Drai said. He couldn’t recite all the lessons on top of his head, but he remembered pretty well when Samara talked about the correlation between muscle elasticity and force production.

During that particular lecture, Drai theorized that if his muscles and bones could stretch like rubber, he would be able to multiply his force output by a lot. However, he had yet to figure out a suitable training to improve his muscle elasticity aside from stretching, which deterred it from being a top priority.

"And that’s why you shouldn’t judge me badly just because I don’t train crazily like you do, Drai. There’s already a lot of theories on my plate," Auri said.

"Uhm... Can’t you train while studying? Maybe bring some dumbbells to class and do curls during lectures? I know you’ll look way cuter with big biceps," Drai said.

While Jian and Christo burst into laughter, Auri, Flo, and Natalia facepalmed.