I CHOSE to be a VILLAIN, not a THIRD-RATE EXTRA!!
Chapter 213 - 213: Reminder of Talent (1)

Ashok's eyes scanned the wave of students charging ahead like overzealous warhorses thrown into battle without a second thought as they charged recklessly for desire to reach first place.

It was almost comical.

Up front, leading the stampede like a shining standard-bearer of youthful delusion, was Leon.

His strides were long, yet eerily calm—like someone who wasn't even trying.

His face betrayed no tension, not even the faintest flicker of discomfort despite the thirty kilograms of Tricelium metal wrapped around his arms.

Ashok tilted his head slightly as he jogged at his own unbothered pace far behind the rest, watching Leon pull ahead with ease.

'Understanding one's ability is important… but pure stats don't lie,' he thought, as Leon effortlessly completed the first quarter of the field in the time most students were still pushing through the opening hundred meters.

That was the Hero of Light and youngest of the Nine Stars of the World for you.

Ashok's attention drifted next to the second position, where the race wasn't quite as calm.

Gideon.

Trailing just a step behind him was Zog.

The once-proud Varnok, who had started his run with a thunderous roar that could have rallied a barbarian horde, had now been overtaken by both Gideon and Zog with surprising ease.

His strength was undeniable, but speed clearly wasn't his forte.

Still, he was far from struggling. Now running in fourth, he matched pace with two others—Elara and Mira.

The main characters—were clear ahead of the rest.

Only after this lead pack did the remaining crowd begin to show themselves—students of the Wyrd Class intermixed with the Aether Class started to surface.

'This is the reality,' Ashok thought to himself, his gaze following the figure that remained ahead of the others. Leon, who was not just keeping his pace—he was accelerating.

'Even without mana, without aura, without access to the energy that most of these brats cling to like a lifeline… prodigies remain prodigies.'

'People love preaching about hard work. About persistence. About how, with time, dedication will always beat out talent. And maybe, just maybe, that's true. But only if the talented waste their lives sitting around doing nothing. Only when the gifted grow complacent, distracted, or lazy can hard work surface.

But what happens when the talented runs with all his strength, all the time? Never stops pushing forward?'

'That's when hard work becomes a fairytale. A bedtime story for those who want to feel better about mediocrity.'

The truth was not only noticed by Ashok.

The rest of the field— where the most of the students from both Aether and Wyrd—began to notice the same thing.

Leon had already crossed the half-field mark, his figure pulling farther ahead with each breath, while the rest of them—all of them—were still clumped around the one-third stretch.

The realization began to bloom across the crowd like a slow, bitter frost.

At first, many had raced forward hoping to catch him—to maybe even outpace him.

There was pride, after all.

A desire to prove themselves.

But that hope was cracking now. No longer fueled by dreams of victory, their legs began to move with something else:

Acceptance.

One by one, quietly, without saying a word, the students began to recalibrate their goals.

Leon was no longer a rival.

He had become a monument. A landmark. Something to be admired, but not challenged.

Their minds began to shift.

Now, they looked to those who were still within reach.

And three targets stood out.

Varnok. Mira. Elara.

They were in the next tier—the ones trailing behind Gideon and Zog, still within sight, still possible to beat. But there was a specific hunger aimed toward Varnok and Mira in particular.

Two members of the Aether class.

Two figures with non-human heritage.

A barbarian and a beastkin.

Primitive.

If we can't beat Leon, we'll beat them.

Ashok watched the shifting tide, the mental switches flipping like falling dominos.

'A bunch of kids clawing for scraps beneath a crumbling illusion of equality,' he thought.

Ashok moved with a rhythm that was neither forced nor lazy—a measured, disciplined pace that allowed him to maintain a steady jog without putting unnecessary strain on his body.

Every inhale was drawn in smoothly through his nose, and every exhale timed through parted lips as he made sure his breathing pattern never faltered.

'They're all obsessed with who's ahead of who, a meaningless pursuit of superiority. Running themselves breathless just to outpace someone they'll never reach, all for a title that won't even last the day.'

No, Ashok had no interest in those games. While others fought over scraps of recognition, he aimed for the actual win.

'If someone truly wishes to rise above the gifted,' Ashok mused as he kept his tempo consistent, his eyes sharp, 'then they must possess something the gifted do not. A cheat. A twist. A secret weapon.'

It didn't need to be something grand or flashy.

In fact, the subtler, the better.

A unique edge—no matter how small or big—that could not be copied or trained by anyone else.

That was the only way for someone ordinary to surpass the extraordinary.

And Ashok had just that.

The knowledge of the future. That was the cheat that will make him greater than these prodigies.

Meanwhile, Griselda stood silently at the edge of the field, arms crossed behind her back, her sharp eyes scanning the running students with practiced precision.

Her attention was first drawn to Leon, who was now speeding past the three-quarter mark of the first lap.

Behind him were a handful of others desperately trying to keep up, and a large group clustered somewhere near the halfway mark.

Then her gaze shifted to the odd one out.

Adlet.

He had only just passed the quarter mark.

By all visible standards, he was trailing behind everyone else in the field.

But instead of irritation or disappointment, Griselda's sharp eye narrowed with intrigue.

She can tell by looking.

He was holding back.

Griselda's eyes gleamed ever so slightly, not out of amusement but curiosity.

Through her skill, she could read the stress placed on every student's body like a diagram—and by her estimation, Leon was currently pushing himself at about seventy percent of his full physical output.

Adlet, on the other hand?

Barely twenty.

'Is he starting slow intentionally? Perhaps planning to accelerate later?' Griselda's gaze lingered a moment longer on Adlet, her sharp feline eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

'Or… does he already understand the purpose behind this training?'

But as much as her eyes could analyze bones and muscles, they couldn't peer into thoughts.

And so, without a word, she pulled her gaze away from Adlet.

He was, after all, still within the rules.

As long as he didn't stop or break out of line, he could run at whatever pace he pleased.

She had nothing more to say.

Her eyes shifted back across the track.

Just as she did, a blur of motion shot past the start line.

Leon, completed his first lap and seamlessly began the second, barely losing pace.

Standing at the starting point near the training field's entrance, Robert—the fourth-year Teaching Assistant—watched as he clicked his tongue.

'No wonder,' Robert thought as his eyes followed Leon's back.

'The one personally nurtured by the Saintess herself wouldn't get tired so easily.' He raised an eyebrow. 'But I do wonder—how long can he maintain that pace? After all even the most blessed bodies have limits.'

As Robert remained in his place, arms crossed and gaze steady, more figures began to flash by him.

Gideon, Zog, Varnok, Elara and Mira

They passed by him in tight succession, not far behind Leon.

Robert's brows furrowed slightly.

'Not a single one from the Wyrd Class among the Top Five? What are the Third Years doing—sleeping through the new batch's arrival?'

'If this keeps up, another arrogant bastard like the Crown Prince might rise unchecked—and we all know how that ended. It seems I'll need to remind the Wyrd upperclassmen of their responsibility.'

After all this cannot be allowed to continue.

The students of the Wyrd Class, though spread out across the track, could still feel the weight of Robert's gaze—piercing, cold, and judgmental like the glare of a hawk circling a field mouse.

As they neared the end of their first lap, that invisible pressure bore down harder on them.

Some clenched their teeth.

Others picked up speed.

But all of them—every single one—lowered their heads ever so slightly as they passed him, like criminals avoiding the eyes of a warden. Not a word was exchanged, but the message was clear:

They were disappointing him.

Robert as he stood immersed in these thoughts—debating which methods to employ to reignite the hunger in his juniors as he tortur-Trained them.

He noticed a shadow approaching from the corner of his eye.

'Huh?' He blinked.

Someone was still on the first lap?

Turning his head, Robert saw a lone figure calmly jogging toward the line with all the urgency of someone out for a morning stroll rather than a soul being worked to exhaustion.

His brow furrowed in confusion.

By now, most of the students had long passed the halfway point of their second lap.

Leon had completed three fourth from completing his second.

Robert's jaw twitched slightly.

'He's… a full lap behind?! Now What is wrong with this kid?'

The sheer absurdity of it knocked the wind out of Robert's train of thought. For a moment, he just stared at Adlet's back—watching the boy pass the starting line and begin his second lap, with the same unbothered expression.

Robert couldn't take it anymore.

"RUN FASTER!" he barked.

But the response?

Nothing.

Adlet kept running, like a man too far above the clouds to hear the complaints of those yelling from below.

And to Ashok, Robert's command might as well have been the wind.

'Let the Muscle-Brained gorilla yell to his heart's content,' he thought dryly.

He didn't even dignify the shout with a reaction. He had his plan, and no amount of bellowing from a glorified Teaching assistant was going to knock him off it.