Rrakavasha resigned from his teaching post at the academy and returned to the Cloud Knights, trading quiet halls for the clatter of armor.
In this war-torn era, casualties in the Cloud Knights were devastatingly high, and turnover was shockingly fast. A few hundred years was more than enough for an army's faces to be replaced entirely, names forgotten, and stories lost.
When Rrakavasha stood in full armor behind General Teng Xiao, surveying the assembled ranks, none of the Cloud Knights below recognized him anymore. To them, he was simply another officer, anonymous beneath his helmet.
Teng Xiao gave a brief introduction and deliberately chose not to mention the family name, avoiding any weight of expectation or historical burden. He only announced an appointment, crisp and official.
"Effective immediately, Cavalry Captain Rrakavasha will serve as the entire Cloud Knights' Chief Swordsmanship Instructor and Chief Physical Training Director."
The announcement was mercifully short, yet it stirred undercurrents throughout the assembled army. Almost no one questioned it openly, though whispers rippled through the ranks.
Everyone understood that at a critical moment like this, with the Divination of a great calamity and Cangcheng entering full wartime alertness, the one entrusted with such responsibility could not be an ordinary person. Trust had to be earned, but authority was already given.
Rrakavasha offered no explanation, no grand speech or promises. He let his actions speak instead.
He threw his family's secret physical-conditioning program at the entire force without holding anything back, sharing centuries of accumulated knowledge freely.
Even for long-life species accustomed to hardship, this kind of training was absolute hell.
The basic regimen, running at fifty kilometers per hour while carrying an additional 3KG load, was only the appetizer, the warm-up before true suffering began.
The truly spine-chilling parts came afterward, designed to break bodies and rebuild them stronger.
After clearing the fundamentals came mobility drills that pushed reflexes to their limits.
They had to move at high speed through dense obstacle fields, dodging attacks that could appear at any moment without warning, as well as cunningly placed traps laid along the route.
After mobility came barehanded combat, flexibility training, strike accuracy, force control, body tempering, and more esoteric disciplines.
For example, flexibility training required compressing the entire body into a tight ball, folding limbs in ways that defied natural anatomy.
Terrifying, wasn't it?
Accuracy training demanded that every strike hit a specified target area within 0.2 seconds, no exceptions.
How large was the target zone?
About as thin as a straight line drawn with a fountain pen, barely visible to the naked eye.
Force-control training required producing the exact requested power output on demand, with an error margin no greater than 0.1, tested against calibrated resistance pads.
After all of that came the most frightening part: body tempering.
Fire exposure, cold water immersion, controlled lightning strikes designed to stimulate muscle fiber growth…
After a whole chain of combined methods applied systematically, the Cloud Knights filled the training grounds with agonized wails. Yet when they emerged on the other side, they were reborn as something harder, sharper.
Those who'd once believed their strength had hit an insurmountable ceiling discovered that under Rrakavasha's relentless pressure, their combat power was skyrocketing at an almost unbelievable rate.
Compared to this hellish training, the army-wide swordsmanship training sessions felt almost gentle by comparison, almost meditative.
The Cloud Knights' sword forms had been passed down for generations, familiar to everyone who'd ever held a blade.
After the special conditioning, using those same forms in actual battle became far smoother, more intuitive, as if the movements had finally settled into their muscle memory properly.
It made people sigh with bitter understanding, realizing that sometimes, unless you force yourself past perceived limits, you never learn where your true boundaries actually lie.
Just like that, eight months passed quietly in a blur of training and preparation, and the annual military camp tour arrived on schedule.
This was a longstanding Xianzhou tradition, meant to let academy students experience military life in advance through supervised visits and carefully controlled practical training.
Back then, Rrakavasha himself had become famous during such a tour by meeting certain challenge conditions and defeating dozens of active-duty captains in a single exhibition battle, a record that still stood.
Now that former trainee was an active captain himself, testing and evaluating the next generation.
When he received the list of schools falling under his responsibility for the tour, his gaze paused on one name.
"Zhenshan Academy?"
Among the student roster was Jingliu, the only daughter of his friend Yu Huai, a merchant he'd known for decades.
In his memory, she was gentle and poised, a wealthy family's cherished daughter, carefully sheltered and burdened with her father's hopes that she would inherit the family business rather than pursue anything dangerous.
Rrakavasha had not hidden his return to military service from Yu Huai. In private conversations, Yu Huai had practically begged him to pay extra attention to his physically frail daughter and prevent her from pushing herself too hard during the tour.
On the day of the tour's beginning, Rrakavasha appeared before the assembled Zhenshan students in full military uniform, armor polished to a mirror sheen.
"I am the person in charge of this tour." His voice carried across the courtyard effortlessly. "You may call me Captain Rrakavasha."
In the crowd, Jingliu froze completely, her breath catching.
She'd never imagined that the mild, refined teacher she'd glimpsed a few times at her father's estate could transform so completely once he donned military armor. The difference was staggering, like watching a scholar become a predator.
"The Cloud Knights' disciplines are strict," Rrakavasha spoke without a trace of a smile, his tone carrying faint but unmistakable authority. The students, barely in their teens, hardly dared to breathe under his gaze.
"Therefore, if anyone still has questions or doubts about conduct expectations, speak now before we proceed."
The moment his words fell, the area became so quiet you could hear a pin drop on stone.
After several heartbeats passed with no response, it became clear they all understood perfectly what to be careful about and what lines not to cross.
"Good. Follow me."
Suppressing her shock at the transformation, Jingliu followed the group as they changed into standard-issue training uniforms and officially stepped into the once-in-a-lifetime camp tour experience.
Rrakavasha first took them to observe an accuracy drill already in progress on the main training field.
At the center of the vast space, holographic silhouettes of Abundance monstrosities were being projected in rapid succession, their grotesque forms rendered in perfect detail. Vital points were marked by black lines as thin as individual hairs, barely visible unless you knew exactly where to look.
Cloud Knights soldiers had to strike within 0.2 seconds of the target appearing, hitting the black line with absolute precision or failing the drill entirely.
Watching the experienced soldiers miss again and again despite obvious skill, the students exchanged nervous looks, reality setting in.
Jingliu raised her hand tentatively. "Captain Rrakavasha… that target line is as thin as a thread. Can anyone really achieve a seventy or eighty percent hit rate consistently?"
"Of course." His response was immediate, matter-of-fact.
He said nothing more. With his left hand, he retrieved a standard training longsword from a nearby rack, and with his right, he took a black piece of cloth and deliberately covered his eyes, tying it securely.
The soldiers currently training instinctively stopped their exercises, drawn by the sudden shift in atmosphere.
"Don't blink."
Sword light flashed like lightning.
Rrakavasha did not move his feet even slightly. His wrist flicked with minimal motion, and the blade drew afterimages through the air so fast they blurred together.
The projected monstrosity refreshed again and again at maximum speed, yet the sword seemed to possess its own eyes, locking onto the hair-thin black vital line every single time without fail.
Ten strikes in one second, all perfect hits.
The training system's slow-motion replay showed zero deviation from optimal strike paths, the blade kissing the target line with mathematical precision.
For a long moment, the entire field fell deathly silent. Then it erupted into stunned uproar, voices overlapping in disbelief.
"Just now… did the sword even move? I couldn't see it!"
"I couldn't even see Captain Rrakavasha's hand motions at all!"
"That line is hair-thin, thinner than thread, and he was completely blindfolded. How is that physically possible…?"
Not only the students, but even the observing Cloud Knights who'd trained for decades were also visibly shaken, their professional composure cracking.
They knew exactly how difficult those ten strikes were, having failed them countless times themselves. It was far beyond what ordinary people could achieve, even with enhanced Xianzhou physiology.
Especially Mianxue and Qinghan, who'd been singled out for special training.
Their assigned drill today happened to be accuracy practice, and they'd witnessed Rrakavasha's demonstration firsthand from the soldiers' side.
Only now did they fully understand why the General had sent them specifically to find that unassuming "academy teacher" months ago.
A true master could never be judged by appearances or peaceful demeanor alone.
Jingliu stared blankly at Rrakavasha's back as he held the sword loosely, her heartbeat inexplicably quickening in her chest.
Since childhood, she'd seen her father mingle with merchants, scholars, and refined cultural guests at endless banquets. Yet she had never once witnessed swordsmanship so sharp and precise, so utterly beyond normal comprehension.
That gentle teacher who'd smiled politely at her father's table… had been hiding this side all along, this lethal perfection.
"The Cloud Knights shield the Xianzhou from annihilation." Rrakavasha turned to face the students directly, his voice grave and weighted with experience. "There can be no margin for error when lives depend on your blade."
"If you cannot kill an Abundance monstrosity with one precise strike, then on the battlefield, those creatures, terrifying in their regenerative ability, will not give you a second chance to correct your mistake."
The boys and girls held their breath in absolute silence, the reality of war settling down on them.
In some eyes, a quiet fire ignited, ambition sparking to life. In others, disbelief and fear lingered like shadows.
…Just how terrifying were these enemies that the Cloud Knights were forced to train to such impossible extremes in order to survive?