Cleaver Of Sin

Chapter 218: Demonstration

Within the vast class hall, the students’ eyes gradually settled upon Melissa as she resumed speaking after a minor disruption had briefly broken the flow of her lecture. The air was still, every pair of eyes expectant, waiting for her words to carry weight once again.

”So, as I was saying before I was interrupted,” Melissa continued with an almost unnerving calmness, her tone smooth and composed, ”Astra is the basis for everything. Your abilities, whether simple or grand, depend heavily, indeed, gravely, upon it. Yes, there exist certain abilities that do not require Astra energy in order to be activated at all, but that does not mean they cannot be augmented and empowered by Astra.” She spoke steadily, her presence serene as she stood upon the raised stage, her arms gently resting on the podium as though she carried the entire lecture with ease.

”The majority of you,” she pressed on, her voice sharpening slightly, ”see Astra control as nothing more than a stepping stone, something you believe you must endure learning before you can skip directly to your awakened abilities. That, at least in your minds, seems to be the fun part. After all, every one of you desires to become the strongest overnight, to wield your awakened powers with immediate mastery.”

Her words fell like weights upon their ears, the tone matter of fact yet merciless, stripping away illusions.

”But those are fantasies,” Melissa added, her voice cutting through their dreams like a cold blade, ”pure, baseless fantasies without Astra control.”

Her declaration struck hard, for it was undeniably true. Many people, not just these students, learned the rudimentary principles of Astra control only to abandon it the moment they could control their awakened abilities. They cast aside the foundation, eager to grasp at what glittered, blind to what truly sustained their strength.

”Without excellent Astra control,” Melissa continued relentlessly, ”you may as well kiss progress goodbye and welcome stagnation into your lives as a permanent resident. Many so-called geniuses, or those blessed with enviable abilities, fall short precisely because of this mistake. They convince themselves they can bypass the discipline of Astra control, choosing instead to force mastery over their abilities alone. And where does that lead? To failure. If Astra were truly so useless, no one would bother with it at all. People would not still, to this very day, risk their lives traveling to the Blessed Lands or the Cursed Lands in search of treasures related to the Astra energy”

Her tone was brisk and sharp, neither indulgent nor kind. It carried the crispness of authority, yet laced with a warning clear enough for even the dullest among them to grasp.

”The very first lesson I will teach you today is this,” Melissa said, her voice now carrying a note of finality: ”The fastest and most guaranteed way to stagnate is to abandon your Astra control.”

Her words settled into the atmosphere like heavy stone dropped into still water. Silence fell across the entire hall. The truth of her statement resonated with many of them, perhaps too deeply. A vast majority of the students had indeed neglected their Astra training, focusing entirely on their awakened abilities.

Of course, this failing was most prevalent among the commoners; the noble families already knew better. To the nobles, Astra control was basic knowledge, instilled into their children from birth. They trained it rigorously, regarding it as essential as breathing.

Among them sat Asher, whose Perfect Astra Control ability was the very reason he had achieved what others could only envy. He had been able to cultivate and train three different affinities simultaneously within the span of a single month, achieving monumental progress that most failed to achieve even after months. In fact, the growth he attained through this method had far surpassed the meager progress he once made when he focused solely on training his lightning affinity for an entire month after first awakening it.

Melissa allowed the silence to deepen, giving the students the chance to digest every fragment of her words. She did not rush them. Her crimson gaze simply swept the hall, watching their faces tighten in contemplation, watching the flickers of doubt and self-reflection burn through their eyes.

After a long minute, she continued, her voice smooth as usual. ”Unlike certain instructors you may have learned under before gaining admission into the Star Academy, I will not bore you with endless theories or cloud your minds with empty lectures. No, I do not merely talk. I demonstrate.”

She let her words linger, drawing the room taut with suspense, before resuming. ”There is a misconception, one that nearly all of you harbor. You believe that without possessing an excellent ability, or at least something considered passably strong, your future is already written, that you are doomed to mediocrity, perhaps even destined to weakness. But I tell you this now: with enough Astra control, even someone wielding the most ’useless’ ability can stand tall in combat.”

The room shifted uneasily, the students exchanging uncertain glances. Then Melissa lifted her hand. Her palm extended sideways toward the class wall, her gesture deceptively simple. The students watched, confused, uncertain of her intent. Before their thoughts could coalesce into clarity, her hand erupted.

A compressed torrent of raw Astra energy shot forth from her palm, a violent stream collapsing into the wall. The impact shattered the stone, collapsing an entire section of the classroom in a thunderous explosion. The blast tore through the hall with terrifying force; bricks cracked, stone splintered, shards of glass rained down like jagged hail. Dust billowed into the air in suffocating waves.

Students panicked, instinctively leaping backward, their bodies scrambling for safety as the world around them collapsed.

But one figure did not move, Asher. Lightning bent to his will, flowing outward in waves of crackling brilliance. It coalesced into a dome that wrapped around him in an electric embrace. Debris crashed upon the barrier but was instantly shattered apart by the raging arcs of lightning coursing across its surface. The storm of his defense devoured all threats, allowing him to remained seated and untouched in the chaos.

When the dust began to settle, the class stared at Melissa as though she were a madwoman. She had destroyed the wall without the faintest concern for their safety.

Melissa, unmoved by their judging gazes, casually waved her hand. The dust hanging in the air dissolved instantly, vanishing as though it had never existed. She saw their thoughts, their indignation, but she did not apologize.

Her voice was flat, brisk, and unforgiving as she spoke: ”If you cannot dodge or react to something as simple as a collapsing wall, then you have no reason to be here. You would do better to leave now, to embrace expulsion and spare yourselves the disgrace of mediocrity.”

The silence that followed was heavier than before.

”Now,” she said after a pause, ”what you just witnessed was nothing more than an attack of pure Astra energy. Nothing more, nothing less. Understand this, someone with even the most pathetic of abilities can wield power of that magnitude with sufficient Astra control. And that,” she added sharply, ”is only the beginning.”

Then, with another wave of her hand, reality seemed to bend. The shattered wall that had moments ago been reduced to rubble began to reform before their eyes. Dust reversed its course, swirling back into stone. Shards of glass lifted from the ground, reassembling into windows. Concrete, sand, and cement knitted themselves together seamlessly. In seconds, the wall stood whole again, pristine and unbroken, as if her devastating strike had never touched it.

The class sat frozen in awe. Many had never seen such a phenomenon before, not even from their noble peers. It was nothing short of miraculous.

But Melissa, indifferent to their astonishment, simply raised her hand once more. Astra surged into being, coursing through her as golden light coalesced. A magnificent spear of shimmering energy took shape in her grip, gleaming with brilliance. Without hesitation, she hurled it into the ground beneath her feet.

The explosion that followed was even greater than before, a devastating shockwave bursting outward with cataclysmic force. The floor quaked, and the hall reverberated as though the foundations themselves trembled beneath the might of her will. But again, with a mere gesture, she restored what she had destroyed, repairing the class around her as though time itself bowed to her mastery.

The students stared in silence, caught between terror and awe, between reverence and disbelief. Melissa remained calm, as though she had done nothing remarkable at all.