Asher headed toward the venue for the Weapon Training class, his steps steady and unhurried. The morning atmosphere around the Academy grounds carried a subtle chill, the kind that brushed against the skin like a silent reminder of discipline and routine. Stepping into a high-rise building, Asher maneuvered his way through various corridors, passing multiple classrooms and training halls with ease. The Academy was massive, but after days of exploring and memorizing routes, navigating it had become second nature to him.

He arrived before a large reinforced door. Without lifting a hand, Astra flowed forward like an invisible current responding to his will, pushing the door open with a soft rumble. Stepping inside, he immediately noticed that some students were already present, scattered across the wide space as they waited for class to begin.

'System, what's the time?' Asher asked calmly within his thoughts.

[The time is 8:47 AM, Host.]

He gave a slight nod at the reply. His eyes scanned through what was supposed to be a classroom, but calling it that felt almost laughable. There were no chairs, no desks, and no writing boards. Instead, a vast open expanse stretched before him, looking more like an arena than a learning hall. The size alone rivaled that of a colosseum, its high ceiling arching above like a silent dome of expectation.

Some students were seated cross-legged on the polished stone floor while others stood in small clusters, conversing quietly. Asher, uninterested in small talk or pointless chatter, made his way to the far wall and leaned against it casually. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself a moment of stillness as he waited for the instructor to arrive.

To him, it made perfect sense. This was a Weapon Training class. What purpose would seats serve here? Weapons were not mastered through sitting and listening to theory. They were learned through repetition, pressure, and the unforgiving friction between blade and intent.

Time passed slowly, minutes blurring together as the soft murmurs of students filled the expansive hall. Asher remained motionless, conserving his energy, his presence calm but sharp like a sheathed blade.

He opened his eyes when the system informed him that only two minutes remained before the official start time. His senses stretched outward, and he immediately detected familiar presences. Turning slightly, he spotted William and Finch seated together on the ground not far from the center, quietly conversing. He looked away without much interest, his expression unchanging as he returned to his silent wait.

A single minute later, the air rippled.

Space itself tore open at the center of the classroom, forming a stable portal that shimmered with controlled spatial energy. From within that rift, a woman stepped out, her presence instantly shifting the atmosphere.

She stood tall at six foot eight, her posture straight like an unsheathed spear pointed toward the heavens. Her long black hair flowed freely behind her, and her pupils, equally dark, observed the students with calm sharpness. There was no warmth in her gaze, but there was no malice either, only a strict, silent demand for discipline.

Asher, William, and a few other students recognized her immediately. She was the same woman who had taken them from the Canestane Barony to the Separate Dimension. The same woman who had been assigned to oversee their time as Star Academy candidates. The woman who had, without hesitation or mercy, taken the eyes of a student simply because he had dared to look at her with lust.

She was Instructor Jane.

Jane's black eyes swept across every student present like a blade tracing throats, not with killing intent, but with an authority so absolute that it silenced the entire hall without a single word. Conversations died instantly, fading like candle flames snuffed out by a cold wind. The portal behind her remained open, the spatial tear humming quietly like a restrained beast.

When the time hit exactly ten o'clock, down to the precise second, she finally spoke.

"My name is Jane. You may refer to me as Instructor Jane, and nothing else. You may only refer to me by name when you reach my level of power."

Her voice was steady, sharp, and entirely devoid of unnecessary emotion. Just from her first sentence, the smarter students among them could already tell she was a no-nonsense instructor, straightforward, strict, and without patience for foolishness.

"I am your weapon instructor," she continued, "meaning I only teach you about the weapon, and nothing more, nothing less."

There was a sharp clarity to her tone. Each word was delivered cleanly, not rushed, not dragged, but firm, like the precise cut of a mastered blade.

"I understand that some of you may not use weapons and prefer hand-to-hand combat," she said, her gaze briefly shifting toward a few students who fit that description, "but that will not work in my class. Everyone must have a weapon. If you have none, then today marks your first day wielding one."

She paused, not for dramatic effect, but simply to allow the information to settle.

"I will not grade all of you with the same expectations," she continued. "For example, those who prefer hand-to-hand combat, I do not expect you to suddenly abandon your style and magically master a weapon. No. I will grade you as novices, because your goal is simply to become proficient with a weapon while retaining your original combat style. Those who already use weapons will be graded differently. And even within that, each of you will be measured according to your own talent and how far you can push yourself from your current level. I do not expect everyone to make the same progress."

She paused again, allowing the weight of her words to settle in. Her teaching philosophy was simple, progress was personal, not standardized.

"I am not here to teach you weapon theory or any of that useless nonsense," she added, her tone sharpening slightly. "On a battlefield, only the moment matters. Not whatever calculations were drawn on a board. That is why there are no chairs and no teaching board in this room."

A hushed silence settled over the hall. No one moved. No one dared to speak.

"Now," she said, shifting slightly, "for how I qualified to be your instructor despite the diversity of weapons that exist, my talent is called Omni-Arm Synchrony."

Her voice did not rise in pride when she said it. She stated it plainly, as though it were nothing more than a fact.

"This talent grants me universal adaptive mastery. Experience gained with one weapon automatically converts into mastery with any other weapon, even without prior exposure."

A faint stir rippled through the students, disbelief flashing across many faces.

"In other words," she continued, "if I trained with a sword all my life and then I touched a spear, every experience and movement I learned with the sword would instantly convert, allowing me to wield the spear at a master level without having trained with it even for a second."

Silence.

Pure, disbelieving silence.

The entire class was stunned. Many students looked as if their understanding of talents had just been overturned. How could a talent like that even exist? It sounded like something that defied the very nature of skill acquisition. Even Asher, usually composed and detached, found himself momentarily shaken as he looked at the woman before him with a new level of respect.

'I truly love overpowered women,' Asher mused inwardly. After all, it was simply impossible for someone with such a talent to be mediocre or just barely talented. Those born with such an ability were destined to carve their names into the world with overwhelming force.

Jane, completely unbothered by their stunned expressions, simply turned and said, "Follow me."

With those words, she stepped back through the open portal behind her, disappearing into the spatial rift without another glance.

Without hesitation, the students began moving, each stepping through the portal one after another. As the last student crossed the threshold, the portal sealed shut behind them with a faint ripple, and the vast classroom fell into complete silence once more.

_________

AUTHOR'S NOTE: We have fallen back to the 20th rank.

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