Heaven's Greatest Professor

Warden began again. He didn't move at his top speed, trying instead to go more with the flow of the wind, and he hadn't found it any easier.

He hadn't found any signs of a grand formation or traps, so he could only begrudgingly agree that the blades of wind were a natural phenomenon. There wasn't any pattern to them. The blades of wind struck without warning, naturally.

However, other than the blades of wind, there were other—softer, less vicious—winds blowing in the mountain path. Warden tried to see if there was a connection between them.

The slower wind moved at its own pace, while the sharp wind attacked at its own pace. There seemed to be no connection between them to the naked eye. There was no spike in its pace when the attacks came, nor did it slow down. However, the blades of wind moved in the same direction as the slower wind.

"Well, this is something," Warden said, faltering on his way. He wiped the blood from his body. What if the attacks were just a terrible, swifter version of the slow wind?

Now, how do I read the wind? That's the biggest question for this trial.

With a little consideration, Warden removed his armour and cloak. They were little better than decoration in this trial anyway. Perhaps without them, he could better feel the wind's sensation striking him. He couldn't discount that.

He moved at half of his pace, the Anti-gravity script ready in his hands for an emergency. Although, this time his goal wasn't to traverse the most distance without getting thrashed by the wind blades. He needed to learn how to avoid them.

With the intensity the wind blades were growing stronger, they could probably severely injure him after he reached the halfway point. Currently, it was only fast, but lacking in cutting power.

But that could change at any time. He wouldn't have a clue... best, he learned how to anticipate their coming.

It wasn't really that difficult to feel the sensation of the wind flow. But the problem was that the disparity between the slow and swifter wind was just too high. Even if he could read the slower wind's path, his anticipation for the next attack was simply too slow to avoid them.

The disparity was so much that it made him feel that brute forcing his way through was the only path.

"Well, it's worth a try," Warden muttered. He used his radiance power to heal all the wounds and rested for a couple more hours.

Then he began constructing runes. First, he tried with stronger Anti-gravity runes. A Tier-5 anti-gravity rune was still far away from what his attribute could handle. It was simply too fast. But he still made one of them, thinking he could use it to block the wind blades. For the moment, he prepared a few Tier-3 and a couple of Tier-4 runes.

Tier-4 was the very limit his perception could handle.

Half a day had passed when he had prepared all his scripts, and he had to rest yet again, this time for at least four hours.

Warden didn't attempt to charge up the slope right after waking from his rest. Instead, he cooked some food that would last him a few days. He devoured a good part of it and then stretched in preparation.

Finally, he narrowed his eyes, looking up at the peak. Over a dozen fully functional anti-gravity scripts and wards were prepared on his body.

Warden triggered a Tier-3 Anti-gravity script and hurled it against the ground at a sixty-degree acute angle. His body rose up in the air and shot forward along the path, as he had relentlessly thrust the power of the anti-gravity script against the ground to keep on shooting.

The wind blades came unceremoniously. Warden dodged the ones he could; those he couldn't, he simply restricted their path either with the wards or an anti-gravity script.

His path wasn't smooth, but he avoided getting struck by the wind blades and becoming bloodied. He had used up half of his scripts within a kilometre, thankfully without any injuries. He wasn't going to stop within another kilometre.

Warden flew almost parallel to the slope upwards. The wind blades came from all directions: one from his right, two straight up, and one from below. To counter them all, Warden discharged the Tier-5 anti-gravity in all directions. It hadn't managed to disperse all the power from the wind blades, but it had slowed them down significantly.

By the time they were to reach him, Warden had already traversed tens of metres ahead. Patterns be damned, he was having fun brute-forcing the trial.

Warden had no trouble traversing the windy path for another five hundred metres. Then he finally met the final ordeal in his path.

Warden didn't see it hit him or where it came from... but soon he found himself being swept into a wind vortex. Countless wind blades swept over him, striking more than double the number of wind blades he had avoided on this run.

"Fuck!" He cursed, but his voice was lost in the maddening wind vortex. He barely managed to steady himself with the anti-gravity script. Now he would have to get out of it.

Warden clenched his teeth. The Tier-5 anti-gravity rune should be enough to counter the vortex's force and hurl him out of it. He was just about to prepare himself, imbuing his body with the power, when he saw a figure sweeping in the vortex just like him.

"Is that a person?" He wondered. Well, it looked like one. A slender figure, Warden could only make out the long white hair. A woman? Well, she looked like a young girl, about Xiv and Onia's age.

He didn't wait any longer. He timed the thrust and shot in her direction. Working against the vortex, the Tier-5 script wasn't as strong as it was elsewhere. Still, Warden was thrust right to her, and his reflexes worked in, catching her in his arm. She wasn't as small as he thought. She screamed, while Warden got both of them out of the vortex.

The speed at which he was going increased, as the script had no other force to work against. Warden couldn't stop in time, as both of them collided with the ground, creating a large crater.

"Goddamn it, I just had it," the girl shouted. "You idiot!"

Warden's mind was blown, quite literally. He still felt like he was still in the vortex. It had fucked up with his percept good, not to mention the mobility at which he moved. Needlessly to say, much less about shouting, his mind wasn't even capable of making out what she was saying.

The disorientation remained for several moments, by the time she had jumped up from his embrace. Warden sat upright and vomited out a good part of what he ate.

"Now I feel sorry for you," said the girl. She was up on the side of the crater their fall had created, looking at him as she shook her head.

Warden blinked at her several times as her external became clear to his eyes.

It might be wrong to say he found familiarity with every beautiful girl he met, but this girl.... she really seemed somewhat familiar.