Zero Potential: Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The next day, an hour before the sun was set to rise everyone in the training rooms were awoken by loudly blaring alarms. Everyone but Terra, who had spent the entire night in what was now a set ritual of cultivating her mana and filling up her massively empty reserves of energy. Through the few hours of meditation, she managed to get a good thirty-seven percent of her now overly large mana pool filled. This was more than enough for most events, at one point in her past she remembered taking down an entire army with just half of that level of power.

“All right you maggots, it is time to get up and get your bodies into shape. I know you all have Zero Potential for improvement, but it has been proven that even the slightest bit of physical conditioning can have exceptional results for power. So given how little each and every one of you have, you had best make the most of this time. Now get up!” Helga, the Zero Potential female dorm mother shouted, no sign of her elderly demeanor present. Now she was all fire and brimstone, violently grabbing the mattresses of students who dared to remain sleeping, even after her warning.

For Terra, getting up was easy, despite not having slept all night, her body was fine, as a simple Cleanse, Rejuvenation, and Minor Heal spell were all that was required to make sure any lingering effects of staying up all night were not felt by her. Despite the three spells being used, the cost of energy against her power reserves was negligible, so negligible in fact that by the time she got up and her crisp and clean uniform still held to her, she was back to her starting thirty-seven percent. These spells and spells like these that were used in very specific ways were what Terra called multipliers, or spells that rather than costing you power over the course of a few hours would in fact increase your overall effectiveness.

In this case the Cleanse would purify her body of any toxins that might build up over time, then Rejuvenation made it so that all the cervices that had toxins purged, were then filled up with helpful substances. Then once everything was filled, the Minor Healing would take the newly placed helpful substances, and make sure they were fully woven into the body. This process also made it so these base layers were more substantial to build upon. This was important, as her body was once again fifteen, which meant that all her previous conditioning and tempering were already lost to time. This was an unfortunate side effect of constantly fighting and losing to the being of supreme evil, but one that Terra actually grew to relish. As each restart meant that she would have that little bit more of a chance to improve, that little bit more of a reason to try harder, to experiment.

Honestly, after a night set in meditation, Terra felt that this restart where the being of ultimate evil was laying low was a gift. It posed new challenges, many of which she had never considered before. It also forced her to depend on herself, which after so many battles and restarts, Terra knew the only one she could always rely on was herself. Others would cower, would buckle under the pressure. Many of the elite classmates would talk a big game, only to turn and hide, or crumble due to fear. No, barring a few small examples, there was only one person who would ever remain with her on the final battlefield, her and the being of ultimate evil.

With barely any thought, Terra, who was in the lead for the Zero Potential class, mainly due to her being the quickest to awaken and pack up her gear was the leader of her class’s formation. Despite her size, standing at just over five feet seven inches, her presence all but demanded those that followed her to stand at attention. When other girls tried to speak, Terra would peer back, causing unknown tensions to form on the back of the would-be talker. Then, feeling the increased pressure, they would invariably turn to see Terra there staring at them. This look, this unseen pressure that she exuded was more than enough to keep many of the already frightened Zero Potential girls quiet.

The Diviner girl was one that Terra made sure to look for, she was in the exact middle of the pack, silently standing there. A sort of forced tension put into her movements, it was clear that she was trying to act frightened, but was doing poorly at it. Once again, this action by the Diviner only caused Terra to question her more. With Terra’s increased scrutiny the Diviner did turn her attention towards Terra, and then shifted her gaze slightly to the right and saw someone that made her freeze. Turning her own head, Terra looked to see that Helga too was staring at the girl, then seeing the reaction Terra and Helga locked eyes. There was a clear challenge of command being given by Helga in her stare, one that Terra readily accepted by a simple head nod. Seeing the gesture Helga was briefly caught off-guard by the gesture, but soon quickly recovered, as she too gave her own nod. With that Helga gave a glare to the rest of the girls who were all now quiet and at least mostly standing in some semblance of order. Terra on the other hand turned to look once more at the Diviner who was ramrod straight, staring straight forward as if she had been in the military for years.

Seeing the military bearing within the Diviner, Terra was now more suspicious than ever of the odd girl. Before she could get too far in her scrutiny of the girl, Helga spoke.

“Follow me, do not make me look bad. You all will lose, you will be last, but you will not quit. Do you hear me! The minute any of you quit, is the minute I begin your discharge paperwork, where you will be sent to whatever hell hole you are assigned, whether you are fully trained in your magical abilities or not. Do you all hear me?”

“Yes Ma’am!” Terra spoke, her booming voice was echoed by a weak cascade of “ma’ams.”

“Let’s try that again!”

This time, all the girls cued off of Terra, and were loud enough to be fully heard and understood.

At that, Helga nodded in satisfaction, “better. Now let’s go.”

And like that the Zero Potential group of girls went out to the practice field to line up an hour early for physical training. Why an hour early? Well, if the school was to get any use at all out of these students, then they needed all the extra training they could get.

Terra approved of this, going so far as to use her own spells on not only herself, but a few of the girls who never quit. Granted this was effectively making it so that those that started off succeeding continued to do so, but that wasn’t what Terra was trying to cultivate. In this, she was trying to cultivate the actions of those that would push themselves that little bit further. For those that did, she would cast Cleanse, and Rejuvenation on each. Her spells were low, and subtle, trying not to make it so that she, nor the rest of her class stood out from the other children who had gathered. Instead, she cast low slow spells that would only show a low Healing capacity.

In her mind, she was trying to give those that pushed themselves, those that were actively trying to improve themselves all the chances they needed to actually succeed. This was why she felt such a help would be beneficial. Apparently, her actions, were not as subtle as she had expected.

Silent Casting: Tier I: You have proven the ability to cast spells silently by a master of the craft. Any attempt to cast spells silently are 10% easier to perform.

Gestureless Casting: Tier I: You have proven the ability to cast spells without obvious gestures by a master of the craft. Any attempt to cast spells without the aid of gestures are 10% easier to perform.

Subtle Casting: Tier I: You have proven the ability to cast spells subtly by a Sage of the craft. Any attempts to cast spells subtly are 10% easier to perform.

Seeing the messages, Terra realized she was being watched. No, not herself, but rather the workings she had been casting all morning were being observed. By whom? She couldn’t tell, also now was not the time to start casting her own version of Divination spells to see who was trying to observe her actions. No, for this, she kept her head down and continued to do pushups until she was told to switch to a different exercise.

Then true to form, an hour after the Zero Potential students began their training of rolling around the ground in their one provided school uniform, the classes that had more students with room to grow began to come out.

“Company attention. Form up.” Helga shouted, and with that, Terra was the first to jump to her feet and assume the position of attention. Within moments the rest of the students who were already tired began to rise to their feet as well.

The E-Class of students were ordered to form up in front of Terra’s group, who only managed to get into some semblance of a formation after being dropped a few times to do more push up, until everyone rose to their feet in a timely manner.

“Class,” the female teacher for the E-Class began speaking, “I want you to look behind you.”

Once the words were said, every student of E-Class turned around to look over Terra and the rest of her F-Class members. With that Terra knew where this was going but hated that this is where the school went to motivate students.

Then the instructor Continued, despite Terra’s inner anger at the comments she knew were to come, “those are the lowest of the low. The ones that are closest to being kicked out. I want you to look at them, and then realize that they are beneath you. If any one of them beats you today, you will soon find yourself in their shoes, on the back line, one mistake away from getting kicked out. Do you understand me?”

“Yes Instructor!” The class shouted.

Terra turned to look at Helga, their eyes met, and then Helga broke eye contact first, then turned forward. With that, a competitive fire ignited within Terra as she felt rage. Rage that these people next to her were considered trash, that their failure was all but assumed. Realizing this, Terra decided to cheat, for her class.

Mass Cleanse, Mass Rejuvenation, Mass Boost Stamina, Mass Boost Strength, Mass Boost Endurance.

Spell after spell was cast by Terra on the members of her class. Later on today, the platoon would be dismissed from here, where they would be allowed to go clean up, eat, and then attend different classes based on their vocations. For most of her platoon this meant they would be spending the entire day together, as Healing and Nature magic were a must for all F-Class students. Her only class that would be held independently of the others would be her Spatial magic class, which she would be one of three students in attendance, at least if her past life memories were anything to go by.

As the D-Class students came in, their instructor did just as the E-Class instructor had, with a muffled voice she spoke. “Class turn behind you, behind you are the rows of F and E Class, the moment any of them pass you, the entire class will be put onto probation for a week.”

Hearing this, Terra smiled evilly. At first she had planned to hold back, to make it so she didn’t stick out. But this, this constant denigration for her class, for her fellow classmates was too much. She didn’t remember this, that or it had been so long since she was anywhere near the physical limitations of the others, that she forgot. Actually, thinking back she remembered how as the chosen one, she had been secluded her first few lifetimes, to build up her strength, and stamina. At the time she was told that appearing in the formation would be a sign of weakness, particularly if she was seen to be slower than the others. Then when she was faster and much stronger, she was often kept out so she could continue to push herself further than she could in these tiny formations. That was why she never went through this in her past life. If she had, she hoped she would have stopped it, but that was always hard to tell. What she could tell was that this time, the entire process filled her with rage and contempt. It would have been one thing to come out and compete with these other classes naturally, but her class had been specifically forced to workout for an hour extra, before the regular classes came, thus lowering their natural potential. Making them the whipping children for the school from day one, the example of what not to be like.

Realizing all of this, Terra’s competitive streak was ignited, and turning to her boosted squad members she spoke in a commanding tone that came naturally to her. This was the voice she used to command people to charge at demonic forces to risk their lives, knowing that many who charged with her would die. This commanding voice is the same one that she used now, “F-Class, look ahead. Everyone and everything before you is an obstacle to the better future you want. See those students, they are afraid. They have the world given to them on a platter. They are told that they can achieve greatness if they just strive for it, in so doing they use us as the baseline of what failure is. Today we will show them our resolve.”

“Look at that, you got a bunch of fiery girls over there this time.” One of the male instructors for D-Class spoke out from the far side of the formation.

Commanding Voice: Tier I: You have proven the ability to use a Commanding Voice by an Expert in the field. All attempts to use Commanding Voice are 10% easier.

Commanding Aura: Rank I: You have unlocked your Commanding Aura. All actions of friendly targets are 10% easier when in your presence, while all actions of enemy targets are 10% more costly when in your presence.

Those were new, well not new to Terra, but normally those came when she was given the command of a troop of soldiers. She never managed to unlock those this early, especially not the Commanding Aura, as that was normally something that only came when people were willing to lay down their lives for her. Now she had unlocked it on what was essentially day one of her true training. While the aura was something that was almost always on, she could turn it off, if she chose but right now she desperately wanted to keep it going. Then with her mind she chose only the members of her F-Class to receive the benefits of the aura.

“Whoa.”

With the presence of the aura, all the members of her class instantly perked up, while those in the other classes began to wilt slightly from the sudden debuff that was applied to them. Turning around, they all looked for the source of their discomfort, and found Terra.

“What are you doing. You can’t cast magic.” The girl in front of Terra said, glaring angrily at her.

Scoff.

Terra just smiled menacingly at the girl, before replying, “that isn’t a spell, that is inevitability creeping up on you.”

“Silence.” Helga shouted, a quick glance over showed that Helga and the other instructors were being affected by the aura. However, while the other instructors visibly began to shift around anxiously from the sudden spiritual pressure that was being released by Terra, Helga remained calm and resolute. Either she was unaffected by such a low aura, or her Attributes were so high that even a 10% decrease was nothing to her.

“Hey, I thought we said no Auras on the first day!” A male instructor called out from over a hundred meters away, once again he spoke over the entire gathering of female students.

“We aren’t Dave, one of the students found their inner voice!” Helga shouted before continuing, “now shut it!” instantly silencing the man.

Hearing that, Terra grinned widely.

“Don’t you get all high and mighty, I’ve got words for you too.” Helga said, Terra turning to look at Helga was not at all surprised to see that Helga was staring directly at her.

Terra, realizing the challenge, stared back.

There was a building of tension, one where it felt like wills were being pressed against each other. This was good, and what would be needed for Terra to press on to the next ranking. Feeling the spiritual pressure being released by Helga, caused Terra to grin widely as she relished the challenge and the chance to increase the efficiency of her Command Aura so soon.

Unfortunately, their contest of wills was cut short, due to the words of the Dean.

“I wanted to thank you all for coming out today. Since today is our first day of actual classes, we can do something that is somewhat of a tradition here for our school. You see, last night, you were all placed into different dorms, given clothing and allowances based on where you can go. This is a test based solely on where stats and measurements said you should go. Today though, we offer you the chance to choose where you want to go.” The Dean began.

Murmur.

At that all the students began talking to each other silently, but given that so many spoke their voices seemed to echo and multiply in the morning air.

“SILENCE!”

Crackle-thunderclap.

Silence.

The Dean shouted, causing a bolt of lightning to echo his words, causing the entire collection of students to fall into a hushed silence. Once the Dean was certain that everyone was once again quiet, he continued. “That is right, today, is the one day when you can prove where you want to be in this school. Those students before you are obstacles to overcome, if you pass them, you take their spot in their class. You will then get their resources, and their predetermined spot on this campus. Then if you survive this semester, you will be given the chance to do the same thing. The rankings are simple, there are six classes of students, 307 males and 281 females, meaning the top 51 males and top 46 females will be in A-Class, then the next will be in B-Class and so on, until those remaining will end up in F-Class. Today, you chose your spot and worth at this campus. Today you will be given three tests, a ten-mile warm up race, where you will be measured against your fellow students, followed by the gauntlet, and finally a one-on-one double elimination tournament.”

This was all new to Terra, but then again she had managed to avoid all this in her past lives. She didn’t know if this was something new, or if this was in fact the way the school had operated on their first day of every semester. She did know that today was considered mostly an elective as most of the students appeared to be exhausted by the time they entered class. Terra herself was also often tired from her own personal training so she thought nothing of this, but now she wondered.

“Here is the start of the ten-mile fun run, where you will go out, follow the entire trail of the campus, and we will know if you cheat or leave the trail at any time. Then the order that you get back is when you will be given the chance to run the gauntlet. Then once that is all over, you will be given the chance to prove your resolve in one-on-one duels. Any questions?” The Dean asked.

Silence.

The Dean nodded to himself, then before anyone could utter a comment, he shouted “begin!”

There was a pause, before Terra began running forward and through the members of E-Class before her and D-Class as well, pushing over the competition, before turning back and shouting, “F-Class, follow me!”

Thus marked the beginning of the most violent ten-mile entrance run in the campus’ history.