Dungeon Prowler : One Man Army

Chapter 9: dodgeball?

On the morning of the fifth day Yunan and Bai met in the library again. it seems for some reason, instructor Bai did not have his own class, with him using the library most of the time, but that does not hold true, he was just too lazy to hold a whole classroom for just one or two students, and he thought the library would be more suitable since it's easier to reach materials there.

When both yunan and Bai made it to the library, Yunan noticed that Bai was well rested for a change, and he was a bit more energetic than usual, so his thoughts ran wild in fear of what Bai might task him to learn if he needed such mental acuity. But his fears were unfounded as the class was divided into two parts, simple arithmetics where Yunan started to practice the 4 basic operations.

Although addition and subtraction are easier to practice mentally, he learned multiplication and division and some related tricks. on the second part was basic geometry, as in calculating the surface and circumference of the most popular shapes. This was the first actual "class" in its classical meaning both Yunan and Bai had since they started in this academy, 5 days late but better late than never.

The first homework Yunan got was to memorise the multiplication table up to 10 and perform calculations faster on his mind, as for geometry he was to memorise the formulae for the basic shapes. After going through the content of the lesson one last time, Bai told him that from next week they would be integrating multiple classes at once, and there would be no telling how he might include other classes into the scheduled ones. Yunan could foresee the type of mess he was going to step into, also he understood the underlying intention Bai had, to learn more and faster with better efficiency than the other kids.

When Yunan and Leol met for lunch at the diner, and discussed the changes Bai was about to introduce into the routine, Leol started to find himself between two choices, first stop coming to Bai's lessons or completely change classes and join Yunan under the tutelage of Bai. Although bai did not mind having more students come to his classes, he would mind them coming into only some of his lessons and not all of them, thus Yunan and Leol decided to first talk to Leol's teacher and take his opinions into consideration before committing to either choice.

"so, how are you feeling about this afternoon?" Leol was the first to dive into the thorny subject. "honestly, i am terrified, i already want to skip the lesson, he was so ordinary this morning, i mean he was well rested and looked presentable, i was too stressed when i saw him" Yunan replied in self deprecation " why not come with me? you have nothing to do and you will have to take fighting lessons sooner or later, how about it?" Yunan tried to get his friend to come by so they might share the torment and support each other, and after some persuasion Leol agreed to come with Yunan in the afternoon.

when the duo came to hall number 5 they found Bai already inside standing next to a few baskets full of hand sized rubber balls, the kind kids play around with, the type that does not cause damage when hit but still hurts more than it had any right to.

Bai motioned to the boys to come closer to him then asked them " do you know about dodgeball?" both kids shook their heads "then listen carefully to my explanation, it's quite easy actually, there are two teams, namely me and both of you, each player starts with 10 points. next, the teams throw balls at each other, meaning you throw balls at me and i throw balls at you, for each ball caught you gain a point, and for each ball that hits you, you lose a point, the team that reaches 0 points first loses."

"Those who have 0 points will leave the field, if you catch a ball you can give that point to a teammate and bring him back inside the field. understand?" both boys nodded their heads and Leol could not help himself asking "where did this game come from?"

Bai answered him momentarily "It is very popular in the academies of the bigger cities, it started as a teaching method for soldiers, to help them stop flinching from potential pain, and help them gain awareness of their surroundings and pay attention to their teammates, later on it was adopted as children's game in the aristocratic community as means to brag about how good their children were" after a moment of silence Bai advised the two boys " i think you should focus on running away and not getting hit, catching the balls gets easier after that".

Soon after, Yunan and Leol stood on one side of the court and Bai on the other. 2 baskets full of hand sized rubber balls stood on either end of the court, and soon the aggressive trading of balls started, Bai used just enough strength to keep the kids helpless but still have enough time to see the ball coming, giving them the illusion they could dodge it or catch it. soon both Yunan and Leol were out of play, Leol went out without catching a ball while Yunan caught two. Bai noticed that Leol had a worse physique than Yunan, since the latter lasted almost twice as long, and was not even as tired as the former.

Bai also found that while Leol was just throwing away balls at him hoping one would hit, Yunan was more precise and his balls came closer to Bai than Leol, the difference was very obvious, so for the second round he told them to just dodge and the difference became even more notable than before, Leol needed body enhancement urgently otherwise he would lag too far behind Yunan and maybe stagnate and stunt his growth because of it. on another point, Yunan who would start to notice the gap, might even try to lower his performance to let Leol catch up and cover for him, or worse starting to slack off because such a huge gap is hard to fill, thus thinking Leol would never catch up, Yunan might give up trying his best and do just a bit better than Leol and not grow to his full potential.

Along the afternoon, Bai had changed forms of the game in order to gauge the strength and weakness of both Yunan and Leol, once he had an idea on that the two kids were complaining about aches and pains all over their bodies, they lay there on the floor of hall number 5 jesting about and laughing at how one was hit in the face and how the other hit himself, bai looked at them gently and pelted them a few more times claiming "the bell has yet to ring, you can rest either after it rings or you die before it rings" the boys just rolled about on the floor laughing at each others misery.