“You’re going to have to buy me a new copy,” said Sakura, looking at him unimpressed, as he picked it up off the ground for what felt like the billionth time. “And not just one from the bookstore either, that one’s a first edition. You’re going to have to pay up, mister.”

Max didn’t understand. He had raised his strength stat by three points since he had first started doing this exercise. His finger was stronger now and should be able to hold the book up more easily. He should also be able to do it for slightly longer as well since he’d increased his endurance stat by one point.

Plop!

The book fell on the grass yet again. That time he hadn’t even managed to hold it up for five minutes. He was getting worse at the exercise the longer he did it.

Sakura got up off the ground.

“Where are you going?” asked Max.

“I have a quick errand I need to run over at the defense climber headquarters,” she said. “I’ll be back in two hours or so. Hopefully, you’ll have gotten better at this task I’ve given you. Seriously, you’ve been doing it for two and a half weeks and you haven’t gotten any better?”

Max’s shoulders slumped and the book fell off his finger.

“You distracted me!” yelled Max. “What kind of teacher are you!”

“Have fun,” she smiled and left him to it.

Max sighed and stared down at the book.

Why was this so hard? There must be a trick to it somehow.

If Sakura could do it, thought Max, then so could he.

He paused.

If Sakura could do it.

He realized he hadn’t actually ever seen Sakura demonstrate the exercise.

Was it possible she couldn’t do it?

Or, if she could do it, a demonstration would make it obvious on the method by which one did do it?

He grinned and picked up the book off the ground once more.

He was on the precipice of a big breakthrough.

* * *

“Good afternoon, Sakura!”

The whole defense climber department was cheery when Sakura passed through the door.

As the branch commander of the defense climbers, she was well-liked and respected in the department. She also knew quite a few of the junior recruits had crushes on her. Almost as many who were terrified of her and her powerful B-rank slice ability.

Sakura didn’t waste any time and went to her favorite clerk.

She looked furtively across the office and saw that everyone had returned their attention to their own tasks and weren’t focused on her.

“Did you look into that thing I asked about?” said Sakura.

“You mean, regarding last month’s monster wave?”

Sakura nodded her head.