The students slowly left the class, talking with each other the entire time.
Meanwhile, Shang slowly leaned forward and whispered.
"Is this because of, you know what?" he asked.
"No," teacher Niria answered. "You are simply the best hunter."
Shang looked with uncertainty at teacher Niria. "But I had help. The Storm Eagle young did a lot of work, and I wouldn't be alive without it."
"Could it have killed the snake without you?" teacher Niria asked.
Shang thought about it for a bit.
Yes, the Storm Eagle had injured the snake severely, but that was only possible since the snake hadn't noticed the eagle. After it had noticed the eagle, it had readied its weapons.
If the Storm Eagle had attacked again without backup, it would have been killed with certainty.
"No," Shang said, "but that doesn't change the fact that I won with help."
Teacher Niria frowned. "I don't like your dishonest behavior."
Shang's eyebrows shot up in surprise and shock. "Dishonest?" he asked.
"You are trying to fish for compliments," teacher Niria answered with annoyance.
"How am I fishing for compliments?!" Shang asked in shock. "I mean what I say! I had help, which means that the glory isn't fully mine. At most, I get 50%."
Teacher Niria looked closely at Shang.
He didn't seem to be lying.
"Have you not heard the other student?" she asked.
"I did. What about her?" Shang asked back.
"She said that no team accepted her, which is normal. Only very few students get to join a team that hunts a General Stage beast, and those students have to be the best and at the Peak Soldier Stage."
"Such a team consists of at least three General Stage warriors. Tell me, how much glory would that student get?" teacher Niria asked.
Shang blinked a couple of times. "Maybe 10%?" he asked.
"Maybe," teacher Niria said emotionlessly. "You are so caught up in your own world that you can't see the people around you."
Shang didn't say anything. He wasn't sure what teacher Niria meant.
"No one at the General Stage even thinks about hunting a General Stage beast solo as long as it isn't at least a level below them. Meanwhile, you act like it's a disgrace that you and a Soldier Stage beast killed a beast a full level above you."
"You think that you have to kill beasts alone, but that mindset is one in a thousand, and I don't mean the good kind. Your entire life depends on only yourself. If you make a mistake, you will die."
"To work with that mindset, you either have to be perfect or incredibly lucky."
Shang was a bit taken aback.
Yes, he hadn't even considered hunting beasts with a team.
It simply seemed unnecessary.
Was that so wrong?
If he hunted beasts in a team, how would he be able to push his Battle-Strength further?
If others constantly fixed his mistakes, how would he learn from them?
"You seem to finally understand," teacher Niria said with a cold tone. "So, don't annoy me anymore. Day of Chaos, before dawn, middle of the academy."
After she said that, teacher Niria left the classroom.
Now, Shang was alone in the classroom.
He looked at the token again.
Just earlier, he had lamented that he wasn't good enough to get a quota.
However, he actually was good enough.
Shang was below average in terms of fighting against warriors.
Shang was probably only average when fighting against Mages. After all, nearly no warrior has any experience in fighting Mages.
So, in those two things, Shang basically counted as a bad student.
He counted as a weak student.
However, when it came to beasts, Shang was incredible.
Why was that?
Experience.
He had lived in the wilderness for over six months, and he had killed so many beasts.
Additionally, he had killed beasts above his level several times.
Shang had pushed himself further than any other students in the academy when it came to beasts.
Shang looked away from the token as a gleam shone in his eyes.
'If everything is up to experience, I only need to gather experience to get better. I might be weak against other humans right now, but with enough experience, that will change.'
'I need more experience, but in order to accumulate that experience, I need time and lessons.'
'Seems like there won't be any more power bursts in the short time. Now, the time to learn has come.'
'My life as a student has now officially begun.'
Shang left the classroom and went back to his room. It was night now, which meant that there were no more lessons until the next day.
Shang took out his sword. "Let's go. We should work on the techniques. Thanks to teacher Loran, I think I know where I have to go to next."
"I, help," the sword answered.
"I'm counting on you," Shang said as he looked at his sword.
After that, Shang began to practice his techniques again. It had been a while since he had tried his hands on them.
"Bad."
"Good."
"Feel, wrong."
"Maybe."
The sword gave feedback after nearly every swing.
It was telling Shang when it felt that Shang's technique felt unfitting or incorrect.
Since the sword could now actually talk somewhat with Shang, he also slowly learned where its feelings came from.
After a lot of experimentation, Shang found out that the sword's likes and dislikes had been forged by how Shang had used it in the past.
Its taste had essentially copied what Shang had wanted his swordsmanship to be like in the past.
In the beginning, Shang wanted to get rid of all the awkward movements, and the sword also wanted that.
Shang preferred very offensive moves to other moves, and the sword also preferred those.
They were essentially two people with the same likes, dislikes, and goals.
This wasn't just a man practicing his swordsmanship.
This was a man practicing together with his sword.
None of the two were teaching each other. They simply gave each other feedback on what they thought of the technique.
They were experiencing the path to sword mastery together.
They were making decisions together.
They were two minds working on one job.
After several hours, Shang felt like he had arrived at a good place to stop. Of course, with only a couple of hours of training, his strength hadn't increased by much.
However, he had become more familiar with the techniques he enjoyed using.
The more familiar he got with the techniques, the more likely his instincts were to use them.
During a fight, it was difficult to plan. A lot of things happened in a very short time frame, and many times, the instincts of a warrior decided what attack to use.
This was one of the most important things in a fight. Putting techniques into one's instinct severely lowered the needed time to unleash them.
If a person unused to driving saw someone jump in front of their car, they would take a while to react. That person knew where the brakes were, but in their mind, they first needed to find the appropriate reaction.
A person that was used to driving would immediately push the brakes.
One was a planned action, while the other was an instinctual reaction.
After stopping his practice, Shang decided to work the last couple of hours on his Affinities.
It would be a long time until he would get anything useful out of this kind of training, but it was better to alternate different kinds of training.
And before he knew it, a new day had arrived.
And Shang would join his next lesson.
