The Ranch

Henri (1)

The carnival ends with a bang and by the next day, videos and rumors have spread far and wide. Almost everyone was talking about the latest gossip. An instructor was killed on stage by a newbie. Although there have been rumors of incidents like this in the past, they were never as popular as this one for the main reason that it happened in front of too many people.

The next week was spent with Kai healing from his and taking a break from any strenuous activities and Tih being recognized and avoiding the boy. A few individuals connected some dots and recognized Tih from the tag fight with Instructor Kane and his disciples and started keeping tabs on any other rumors on him.

Tih, the main character, didn't even realize people were scared of him and were trying to stay away. He stuck to his usual schedule and went to Parkour class with Sherlock and Lucien. Kai decided not to come because of his injury.

Class passed peacefully, not including all the other students staying as far away as possible from Tih. After class, Instructor Henri told Tih to stay back while everyone else left for their next activity. Sherlock and Lucien waved goodbye before departing, leaving only Henri and Tih behind. Today is the day Instructor Henri decides to bring Tih along for his personal training session, as he said he would during the carnival.

They ended class at the edge of the forest, so they didn't need to waste any time starting. They don't need to warm-up, because the parkour class was like a warmup for them.

Henri leads the way, as he's more familiar with the region's terrain. He's increased his speed by more than triple of the class's speed. The route they're taking is also far more dangerous, but Tih easily keeps up.

This was actually more of a test for Tih. Instructor Henri already knew he had surpassed the league of his classmates by observing him in class ever since he won the newcomer's tournament, but wasn't sure how good he was. Henri didn't want to bring him somewhere potentially dangerous in which he wouldn't be able to protect both himself and his student, but now he has some confidence in Tih.

"Tih, Do You Want To Help Me Traverse An Unexplored Area In The Mountains? I Usually Go By Myself, But It's Always Better To Have Multiple People Just In Case Something Happens To One. And I Believe You Have The Abilities To Keep Pace With Me."

Tih nods, he's already explored most of the mountain region anyways. He has maybe one more mountain left to traverse. He's already ventured to the top of all the other mountains, in all the caverns, the bottom of all the cliffs, behind any waterfalls, and seen most of the hidden housing structures.

Since he's agreed, Instructor Henri takes him to a relatively safe area with a section he hasn't completely explored before. They run around the area, look for good places to try new stunts, and even create a new mini-course for Henri's classes.

They decide to take a break when Instructor Henri becomes out of breath. He tries to maintain his calm composure of a teacher, but when he glances at Tih to see not even dazed by their exercise, he gives in and sits on the ground.

Instructor Henri is even more astonished by Tih's physical prowess after accompanying him for the past couple hours. Tih managed to match his pace the entire time and even surpass it during some instances.

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I laugh to myself.

What an outstanding genius.

I considered myself one, but now I see I was making a fool of myself.

I'm how they would describe it as "trash" compared to the child. Ha! But so are all the other so-called "geniuses" on this insufferable island.

I can feel my smile turning genuine as I look at the boy. Shall I tell him?

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"Tih." Instructor Henri pats the ground beside him. Tih takes a seat on the grass.

"As You Know-" Henri stretches his black uniform to show a green and bronze star, " I Have Two Ranked Professions."

Tih nods.

Instructor Henri gazes at the two stars that should fill him with pride. He chuckles," I Was Fairly Surprised When I Received The Green Star. I Had Never Intended To Get So Far In That Occupation." Instructor Henri explains how he joined that occupation to fund his meals and daily necessities. It was a job for the sake of being a job. The reason why he got a star was because he worked harder than most people, he had never intended to reach such a level.

Henri explains to Tih that to receive a badge, you can either wait for headquarters to send you one when they determine you're of a high enough Proficiency or pay for a test in which the headquarters will be the judges. The problem with this method is the fact that they use the average levels of everyone in the past couple generations of the island and compare you to them. That means they don't have many good examples for less popular professions, especially the higher ranked you become.

For example, an occupation like Parkour. In the history of the island, the number of stars given for the Parkour occupation can be counted on one hand. With such a limited number of examples, it's hard for the headquarters to determine people's ability.

Parkour itself is in a weird place. It's been put into the category of combat classes, but it really isn't one. It has no attack or defensive moves, but this is what the headquarters used when testing Instructor Henri.

See, he really wanted to climb the rankings and be the first silver star Parkour Instructor, so he went to ask to be tested by headquarters.

The test that headquarters gave him was to continue fighting people of different levels until he was defeated. Now, this obviously put Instructor Henri at a disadvantage. And don't get them wrong, headquarters didn't purposefully make things hard for him, they just don't understand Parkour well enough to create a balanced test for it.

To climb all the way into the bronze rank, Henri must have defeated hundreds of people in a row. Usually, this would be enough for someone to earn a silver rank, but the debatable part was Instructor Henri's method of fighting.

He would continue to dodge everyone's attacks, doing this for hours on end for his opponent to tire out and quit on their own volition. He did this for each and every one of his opponents. His test must have gone on for over a week, during which he didn't get time to rest or take a break. He only got to eat or take a bathroom break between fights. Fighting a single person wasted the time it would take to watch a full-length movie.

Although this evading method was effective, headquarters deemed it counterproductive as a fighting style. But they still couldn't ignore his achievements, so he received a bronze star.

"That Test Drained Everything Out Of Me. By The Last Few Days, My Body Was On Autopilot And I Kept Fighting Through Willpower Alone. I Don't Even Know If I Was Still Conscious."