For the next few hours, the training field became a graveyard of ambition.
Professor Hera drove them through the first foundational form of winged-boot flight with the quiet, merciless precision of a sculptor chiseling away every flaw. One by one, the determined students rose into the air, deactivated the winged boots, and then dropped.
A painful wail cut through the air when one failed to activate the winged boots again.
And Professor Hera came, giving the student a small bean.
It was not to heal the wound, but to suppress the pain before telling the student to continue.
Brutal is the only word to describe this new lesson.
By the time the sun tilted westward, most of the students lay sprawled on the cloudy expanse, chests heaving, limbs leaden, while the feathered boots were dark and dormant. Seeing such a sight from above, Professor Hera made a faint nod.
Neither approval nor disappointment; merely acknowledgement that they had worked hard.
