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Late Morning - Mid Summer : Cirillo Knight Academy

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*CRACKLE-BAAAANG* The ground shook violently as Rhodes slammed Otis’s face first into the ground.

"Alright! The winner is Rhodes!" Almost all the knights started cheering immediately, with the ones who lost seemingly not caring, while taunting Otis for losing.

It brought a smile to my face to see such a nice atmosphere.

"Hey man, I can get you your winnings if you want." The knight who placed my bet glanced back at me with a wide smile on his face.

"Ah, I don't need it. You can just distribute it to the other knights that won."

He gave me a blank stare for a moment before smiling again. "What rich family did you come from?"

"Haha, I placed the bet for fun. I don’t want to take away from anyone else’s winnings."

"I like the way you think! In that case, I won’t reject it!" He happily turned away and trotted over to the dragon dishing out the winnings with a gleeful look on his face.

It wasn’t much longer after that that the dragon handling the bets made a little announcement saying each knight who bet on Rhodes would get some extra gold.

A mix of chatter and cheering spread through the knights like wildfire, but even though they were eager to figure out who gave up their winnings, I was already out of there.

Just after sending the knight to redistribute my winnings, I walked out to Rhodes.

He was helping Otis up as I made it to him. "Hey, you’re Rhodes, right?" He gave me an odd glance as I spoke. "I was wondering if I could use that other half of the clearing for a bit."

He tilted his head a bit as he looked me up and down, likely looking for an insignia band that was present on all the other knights. "That should be fine, but.. are you new here?"

"My name is Vasilias Whyte. I got permission from Orion Cirillo to come here and train with my Fenrir." Ilios popped his head up when he heard his name. "Regardless, I figured I should still ask you if I could take up such a huge section of the field."

"Ah, you know my brother?"

-I knew they looked similar...- "Yeah, although you’ll have to ask him for the details, we happen to know each other. He's in that little office building just inside the entrance if you'd like to talk to him."

"Oh, alright. Well, in any case, you're free to use the field. The training I'm giving the knights today shouldn't take up much space, but I apologize in advance if you catch some gazes."

He gave me a look with a bit of pity, which quickly pushed the wrong buttons, but I just laughed it off.

"Haha, I’m used to it, don’t worry. Thanks in advance for letting me use the field!

" Giving him a quick farewell, Ilios jumped off my back and trotted out into the clearing before turning around and taunting me.

-Hoh, you’ve got a lot of energy today!- It was the spark I needed.

Not wasting another second, I dashed out into the field and started the chase. -I’m gonna win today!-

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- Rhodes Cirillo ~

"Oh, alright. Well, in any case, you're free to use the field. The training I'm giving the knights today shouldn't take up much space, but I apologize in advance if you catch some gazes."

"Haha, I’m used to it, don’t worry. Thanks in advance for letting me use the field!" Vasilias gave a quick farewell as his massive Fenrir hopped off his back and ran out into the field, with him quickly following suit.

-Wow, he's pretty quick...- But I didn’t think to pay him much mind before turning back to the knights. "Alright you rich dumba*ses, finish distributing the bet winnings and get in line!" -I wonder what idiot put a whole platinum on that spar...-

As I was thinking to myself and waiting for the knights to finish up, the ground started shaking a bit.

*Th-th-th-th-th-th-thud*

-Huh?- It felt like two dragons were limit sparring, a spar meant to push dragons to their limit, where they couldn't hold back at all, but when I turned to the noise and expected to see two knights fighting, I was met with the sight of the dragon I just met having a seemingly casual agility spar with his so-called ‘fenrir’.

It made my eyes go wide. -That's almost as fast as Nero! And she focuses entirely on speed!- It was honestly incredibly intriguing to watch.

He was constantly getting tripped up and falling over, but he recovered nearly instantly and sprung back faster each time.

It was immediately obvious that the person we were watching was way out of our league. Even in just about 10 minutes, he got noticeably faster, and his movements were noticeably smoother.

"Since when was a monster like that around?" Otis was watching the spar in awe as well.

"I'm.. not sure..." -That seems to be his top speed… But to think he would even come close to Nero…-

After watching for a bit, the other knights, wondering what we were doing, started watching as well.

Only a few knights even spoke, and when they did, it was quiet. "Can you guys even follow them?"

"No..."

"Nah."

"Not even close..."

But even though they couldn’t follow along, they all watched in a trance.

*Thud-CRACKLE* The sound of the ground cracking ripped through the air as Vasilias came to an instantaneous stop, with his Fenrir pausing as well.

-Huh? What is he doing?- He was simply standing there, inspecting his paw. -Did he hurt himself?-

But long before I could even try to run out to check on him, his blank look turned into a smile. "Wait, couldn’t I just do that?" He mumbled to himself as he set his paw back down and moved his weight around it. "I CAN!"

*fwip-FWOOOOOOSH* He quickly disappeared from where he was, almost instantly jumping back up to the speed he was previously at.

But this time, his speed didn’t totally stagnate.

-Wh..what?!- As I watched him progressively accelerate more and more, an opaque white shell started to form around him.

It was a phenomenon I had only ever seen from Nero, one of my colleagues who was known as one of the fastest elders in northern Bahamut. -But even she can’t go any faster than that…-

Yet it seemed like Vasilias didn’t care. Before my very eyes, the opaque shell grew in size, and a deafening noise started to fill the air.

I watched intently as it grew larger and larger, and the noise grew louder and louder.. before eventually…

*CRRRRAAACK* The shockwave was mind-boggling, to the point that many of the knights had to put up a layer of silencing magic, but I was simply in awe.

-He really did it…- A man I had never even seen or heard of was doing what I truly believed was impossible right in front of my eyes.

But such a feat was impossible to achieve with only talent. -A half-breed would never be able to accomplish such a feat… But if he is a pure dragon, why are his scales so dark… He wasn’t using light magic…-

I gave him a skeptical look as he finally started slowing down to his previous top speed, this time with a relaxed smile. -What a monster...-

We all continued to watch him for quite a bit longer before I eventually managed to snap out of it and started our training.

-If we don’t start now, we will fall behind schedule…

- Turning back to the knights, I saw them all watching Vasilias in a trance as well.

"Alright!" My voice quickly snapped them out of it. "How about a challenge?"

Some of the knights' demeanors visibly darkened, with ‘oh no’ written all over their faces.

-They’ll be all smug about the bets if I don’t wear them out…

- "How about we do some limit sparring until he finishes over there? I’ll give 5 gold to everyone who completes it!

" Although we normally didn't do endurance sparring for more than an hour or two, I figured that was a safe bet.

-Seeing how casual he is at that speed, he should be able to last an hour. ..-

Hearing that gold was going to be a reward for the challenge, the mood quickly lightened up; after all, we all assumed even an hour was an impossibly long time to spar so intensely.

But oh how little we knew…

The quick 'challenge' that I figured would make for an easy and rewarding training day would very quickly turn into one we would never forget.

After around an hour, the guys were starting to get pretty tired, but they managed to keep their pace up. Vasilias had yet to slow down at all.

After another hour, when we would normally stop the training, the guys started to get a bit sluggish and stopped talking so smugly about the easy challenge.

Over the final hour, everyone started to run out of stamina one by one, with several simply giving up, and many others pushing through, redefining their limits.

But while it would inevitably be good for them to be pushed this hard, I couldn’t say I wasn’t worried. -I should give 5 gold to those who hit their actual limit and 10 to those who finish... If there is anyone…-

Looking over at Otis as he sparred with one of the knights whose partner tapped out, I could visibly see some strain on his face.

He had only been sparring with the knights who lost their partners while waiting for someone else to tap out, and even he was starting to show a bit of fatigue.

But eventually, one of the knights by me halted their spar and pointed behind me. "Ca-cap..tain.. he.. hah.. stopped..." As soon as he finished, he collapsed and laid down.

Turning around to face the field, I saw Vasilias sitting next to his Fenrir, both of them only lightly breathing, as if it were nothing but play time.

It was a sight that made me feel a mix of awe and intrigue. -Well.. he definitely isn’t a half-breed.. but he definitely still lied about his name...- I gave him an odd look as all the rumors about connections between the Whyte family and Ragnaroks came to mind. -I.. wonder…-