Sword God in a World of Magic

"Alright, Astor," teacher Loran said. "Go two rounds with Mattheo."

On the side, a young man with long red hair sighed. He had two very heavy and hard gauntlets with spikes near the knuckles. Surprisingly, he was using knuckles as his weapons.

Astor looked at Mattheo and gestured to the side with his head. The two of them had fought many times before. Astor was the most powerful person in the Advanced Grade Caterpillar Class, and Mattheo was the second strongest. Because of that, it mostly fell on Mattheo's shoulders to fight with Astor.

"It would be really great if you could hurry up and become more powerful," Mattheo said to Shang while walking past him with a helpless and somewhat joking tone. "I don't want to spar with that guy every time I come here."

"I'll try my best," Shang said.

Mattheo only chuckled a bit. "You do know that I was only joking, right? You can take all the time you need."

Shang wasn't quite sure how to respond. On Earth, he would have simply given off a polite and small chuckle, but right now, he just didn't want to. It was like it was just too much work.

While Mattheo walked to Astor, Sarah frowned with frustration. She had worked so hard, and she was absolutely certain that she could fight evenly with Mattheo. Yes, she had lost every match so far, but all of their fights had been even most of the time.

As one of the very few women in the class, Sarah felt like she had to prove herself. Oftentimes, women weren't seen as talented warriors by men. After all, the sad truth was that it was harder for women to reach the different levels in the Soldier Stage.

The power one needed to reach each level was universal. It didn't matter if the warrior was huge or small, thin or thick. Sadly, that meant that smaller and weaker people needed to train more than bigger people.

It only became irrelevant as soon as the warrior reached the Peak Soldier Stage. At that point, gender and size didn't matter anymore. After all, everyone would have the same starting point.

Sarah trained so hard and put so much effort into her career, but she still hadn't been allowed to spar with Astor. Sarah was mostly put against the fourth or fifth strongest in the class, which she always decimated in a fight.

When Astor was on a mission, Sarah would get to spar with Mattheo. Those spars were very even, but she hadn't been able to win yet. Because of that, Sarah was certain that she could also act as a sparring partner to Astor.

"Sarah, you go fight with Shang," teacher Loran said. "I haven't been able to properly see his techniques yet since Astor won that quickly."

Sarah frowned as she glanced at Shang. She was already annoyed that Shang was in her grade with a superior body. After all, the body was literally the only criterium that decides which grade someone belonged to.

even a subjective

Shang didn't even deserve to fight with the likes of Astor. After all, if Shang didn't have such a powerful

oblivious to other people's feelings. He could very well imagine how many people in

How did Shang feel?

didn't manage to reach the

situation gave off a feeling of

too embarrassed. Yes, it was bad that he had the most powerful body out of all of them, but Shang also didn't forget that he

he managed to reach a level that

powerful for this grade. After all, Shang

in this world, age

Everything revolved around power.

years old. As long as he was in the same

BOOM!

had already started fighting a couple of meters away, and very quickly,

This made Mattheo reach the same speeds as Shang, even though Mattheo had

barrage on Astor. With the speed of his two fists and the explosions, he let Astor gain absolutely no momentum. He was essentially barraging him with a storm of attacks

managed to be far more aggressive than Shang, and the pressure Astor was under was obviously also far higher

an attack yet. He simply didn't have any

Astor could win that fight. He was

just barely parry or evade an attack. Sometimes, he would push his shoulder forward and receive

had to have to pull something like that

such an avalanche of attacks for long. A couple of seconds later, he messed up a parry, and his

when

water, and it definitely couldn't

pushed him half a meter to the side.

the effect was

had just released an

had destroyed his shoulder got used by Astor. He allowed his shoulder to be shot back, and Astor rotated with the power.

then Astor