“Fuck! How is his face so firm. What is his body made of?” Jeremiah said as he could feel his right-hand trembling from the impact just now. He was mage type ability holder with all his ability’s power based on spells attacks.

“I told you, didn’t I? That it wasn’t my fault that he did not fall unconscious with my first hit.” John let out a chuckle and said with a proud expression. Almost as if he had redeemed himself of some shame.

“…” Jeremiah only glared at him and maintained his silence. He did not have to reply to this guy’s random comment.

After a while Jeremiah finally spoke again in a cold tone, “You think I give a shit about your frustration! What is your life worth without any ability? If you don’t know then let me tell you, you are nothing but a parasite that feed on the resources of the academy without yielding any results, yet you dare to fight with me for a woman.”

“But I never said… that I like Emilia” Randy said in a low voice after coming to his senses.

“No shit, who are you kidding. You never said it, but who doesn’t know that you had feelings for her, after all, you spent time together since you were fucking kids, am I right?!” Jeremiah let out an outburst in an angered tone. This fucker thinks that just because he spent some time with a girl, he owned her or something. How dare he try to get in his way every fucking time when he thought that he had her, like today. If he had not come when he did, then perhaps, she would not have said what she did just to escape the both of them.

“Can’t you fucking tell that she doesn’t like you?!” Jeremiah asked rhetorically and then continued, “Why am I wasting my time on you, just set up everything and beat him up. I will just sit here and watch as usual. I had dirtied my hand just to punch him earlier. Fuck, it really hurts! I should have just burned his face instead.”

Jeremiah let out a series of curses as he walked away and sat down on his comfortable couch. He took out an expensive potion from his pocket and chug it down in one go. It was a healing potion meant for healing broken bones. Although he could have asked one of the girls here, who was a healer, to heal him, but he chose not to. Because she would not be able to complete her job probably without enough mana and he does not plan on giving her a mana recovery potion that is expensive as hell. A few moments later, Jeremiah could feel his bones repairing itself from his consumption of the healing potion.

“Phew… Now that’s better.”

Jeremiah looked down at his fully healed knuckled and let out a relief sigh, but a moment later, he turned his head up as he looked at the situation in front of him with anticipation.

At this moment, one of the girls created a barrier around Randy and the three other male students, trapping them inside. There was something special about this girl’s barrier— it can block out sounds from inside the barrier from coming out of her barrier. It was her Ability’s specialty— Barrier Manipulation. The other girl was on standby, ready with her healing abilities.

One of the girls spoke at this moment with a disgusted expression on her face. “I really don’t want to do this again.”

The other girl who had finished setting up the barrier replied with an annoyed tone. “Why are you acting innocent now of all times. How many times have we done this for you to be chickening out right now?”

“…” The healer girl was quiet for a while before insisting, “Whatever, I don’t have to explain anything to you. I have to focus on my university so I will eventually quit doing things like this anyway.

The healer girl said and then turned to the three guys who were standing over Randy with a grin on their faces and said, “Anyway, hurry and finish quickly I don’t want to stay here for long. I have somewhere I need to be.”

“Hey Amanda— “

“Alright, don’t worry, we will be quick this time, Hehe.” Before the barrier girl could reprove of the healer girl’s cowardice, one of the male students suddenly interrupted her and replied to the healer girl’s demand.

“Okay.” The healer replied, still with a disgusted expression.

As soon as she replied, the three male students, including John from earlier approached Randy. One of them picked up Randy and held his arms behind his back firmly with his strengthen physique. Meanwhile, John and the other male student prepared their fist as they looked at Randy fiercely with only one aim in their minds— using him as their faithful punching bag.

At this point, Randy finally understood what they were going to do to him. Unlike before, where he could at least guard against the attacks or block any vital attacks that the assailants launch on him, but now, he was so tired and weary from his training earlier, so he could not even fight back let alone block attacks. As if that was not enough, they even restricted his movements by holding his hand behind his back.

Randy felt a sense of crisis and he suddenly spoke with a trembling voice. “H-Hey, W-Why don’t we talk about this?”

John and the other student exchanged looks with each other and they could see the grin on each other’s face at this moment. John turned and looked at the worn out Randy and said, “No chance, loser!”

BAM!

“Argh!” Randy was hit in the face yet again, the moment John finished speaking. There was a stinging pain on his nose at this moment. Earlier Jeremiah also hit his nose when he attacked so when John hit the same place, the pain was enhanced.

“W-Wait!”

“Shut up loser! It seems that my previous punch was not enough for you since you can still talk like this. How about another one” John said as he threw another punch at Randy. This time it was not aimed at his face, but his stomach.

Bang!

“Oof!” Randy could not help but cough up whatever food he had in his stomach at this moment.

“Cough! Cough! Argh… P-Please stop, I-I just finish training, m-my body can’t take anymore.” Randy said amidst breathing and panting and after speaking, he continued to cough erratically.

“Do I look like I give a damn whether you are tired or not? I only need to beat you senseless, and my job would be done then. Hey Peter, what are you doing? Come and join in. Don’t forget that we need to finish this quickly, since the girls are not staying long.”

Peter gave John a knowing look for a moment and replied with a slight smile, “Alright! I thought we would take turns like usual, but this is fun.”

The moment Peter finished speaking the aura around him changed. He was a martial artist who was currently in the body forging stage. He awakened a martial arts aptitude during his ability awakening and so, he had been practicing martial arts since then. Unlike John who seemed to have an enhancement type of ability which relied on mana to utilize, his ability relied on vital energy present in the body and that of nature, Life energy or Qi as used by the Asians back in the day when martial arts were prominent. When the rifts appeared, and the world was pervaded with various types of energy. Some lost arts were revived throughout the past decades.

Peter who was brimming with vital energy right now walked towards John who was currently still punching Randy ruthlessly without holding back. When he got closer to them, he said with a grin on his face. “Move!”

John knew how impatient and ruthless this guy was when it comes to beating people, so he did not stand in his way and said, “Alright, but make sure you don’t accidentally kill him. That would be troublesome.”

Peter stopped his foot that was about to take a step and then turned around to look at John and John looked back at him with a frown, meaning he was being serious.

After a while, Peter said with a smile on his face, “Of course, do you think I am stupid? Do I not know how to hold back?”

‘That is what I am worried about. You don’t hold back at all.’ John inwardly cried upon hearing Peter’s supposedly reassuring speech.

“Hahaha…”

Peter saw John still carrying a serious look on his face, he laughed in response and then he approached Randy who was currently panting and groaning from his whole body hurting.

A sound of laughter reverberated throughout the barrier, but it could not make it out of the barrier as Jeremiah who was watching everything only saw figures moving about in a barrier that restricted their voices from ever coming out of the barrier. At this moment Jeremiah had a wide grin and a sinister look appearing on his face as he watched the worm squirming and screaming without a voice. He watched the whole scene as if he was watching some silence movie all alone as he leaned back on his comfortable couch with an alcoholic beverage in his right hand. He was really enjoying this.

Peter turned and looked at Randy who was panting at this moment and laughed loudly like a maniac before saying. “Randy, right? Don’t worry I will make it quick. I am a very generous guy you see, so I won’t make you suffer too much.”

“Whoosh!” A sound was heard in the wind as a fist infused with vital energy charged towards Randy.

“Boom!”

“Kack!!!” A disturbing sound resounded in the barrier shortly after the clash. Due to the sound suppression, the cracking sound reverberated more clearly as everyone shuddered, including John when they heard the ‘crack’ sound of a bone cracking.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!” Randy screamed so loud as if he wanted to cough up his throat.. After the impact of the attack, he felt his shoulder bone break, causing an immense pain to wash over his entire body.