Xero left the classroom and following students from his class out of the massive castle school he walked a path until the class grouped up with 6 others and met at a large field.

Around the field were some stands, the field itself was a race track but it was extremely huge and spanned 1 kilometer for one lap. Within the space were fields and courts for different physical exercises. Looking upwards there were floating magic rings and huge pillars in a second field meant for training flying for the familiars and for those big enough mount flying so that the student could be accustomed to the heights.

Xero walked around and sat at the far side of the stands and from a small magic bag he got to carry his things around, he pulled out his notes. Magic bag are a uniquely enchanted item, to make it the familiar needs to be trained with enchanting magic and space magic so that the familiar possesses the space magic to create the small dimension in the bag and enchant the bag with it. It’s a hard profession to become because both types of magic are incredibly difficult.

After a while more classes arrived until there was a total of 9 on the field and in the stands. Each class has around 40 students so with nine classes that was over 360 students present. After a long time a hulking bear like man walked onto the field and he was grinning extremely widely showing his teeth. He was the PE teacher, the bearman Grunt Crack. As strange as his name is he is extremely capable of keeping to his name.

“GET IN LINE BRATS!” He shouted and like a shockwave it slammed into the students causing them to shiver.

Xero just looked at him and smiled before putting the book away and walking down. He knew the old bear for a year now and the old man took a liking to him. His philosophy is “If you want to fight, do it with your own fists.” The main reason for this is that his Familiar is extremely unique and can only augment his defense capabilities because it's a Living armor. He pounded the thing so much that it was akin to reforging and can now take a dragon's hit but because of this he needed to train himself tediously forcing him to forge an iron will and monster like strength which is why even his voice has such a powerful pressure.

Because of the fact that Xero had low magical talent he would do more physical exercise so he got really familiar with the old bear.

In front of the man that stood 235 cm 18 lines formed of 20 peoples every two lines would be one class.

“Alright brats, I will say this right now. Forget your damned titles, they don’t mean nothing to me. You could be the crowned prince of any nation but I will still pound your flimsy bodies into shape no matter what it is.” He shouted at everyone like a military general. It wasn’t far off since he actually trained the commanders for many nations in the past.

“Now then, lines space out 2 meters and summon your familiars. Need to see what I have to work with.” He said and the lines began to move to the sides until it was spaced out and everyone summoned their familiars.

He walked slowly from one to the next and reaching Xero his eyes brighten and he looked at the Imp. “Kid, your pick is sure as unique. Also the white eyes…?”

Xero sighed dejected, “He is blind, even worst then a bat.” Xero said.

“Hmph, stop looking like that.” He said and pats Xero’s shoulder and moves on. After a few more minutes he walked in front of the nine classes. “Alright, those with humanoid creatures stay where you are, this with winged four legged reptiles form a group on the left, those with wingless four legged reptiles on the right. Those with birds form a group next to the winged lizard group, those with winged snakes for a group next to the birds, wingless snakes next to the wingless reptiles, Aquatic animals next to the wingless snakes, aquatic humanoids next to the humanoids, winged humanoids next to the humanoids, all remaining beasts form one group.”

The groups were determined by the familiar and would determine the training. Xero looked at the Imp’s back and saw the small wings so he led it with the mental link as a guide to the winged humanoids group.

From there he began to go from one group to the next and instruct the groups on their training methods.

Xero looked at the people in his group, there was seven people including him. One an elf girl with thumb sized hummingbird girl that was buzzing around her. The rest were humans, 3 boys and 2 girls. Their familiars were a blue furred winged bakeneko that walked on it’s hind legs, a cherub, a pink skinned white winged goblin, a green fae and a dragonewt hatchling. With Xero that was 4 human boys, 2 human girls and 1 elf girl and all the creatures were newborns or still infants meaning they were extra small compared to the adult. Xero looked more curiously at the pink goblin that was also female and had some hair but didn’t look so wrinkled.

Looking at the humanoids there were goblins, kobold and common humanoid monsters and the aquatics had merrow which are ugly fish with human form, some crustaceans with human shape and all other different types of low grade fish with human form.

When Grunt reached his group and he looked at Xero strangely. “Shouldn’t you be with the humanoid group?” He asked. Xero simply turned the Imp slightly showing the wings making him mutter, “Ah!”. With a nod he looked at the rest. “Alright you seven gather up.” He said.

The others walked forward and formed a horizontal line in front of him.

“Now then, Fae and hummingbird sprite, your physical strength is too pathetic. Your physical strength is a manifestation of theirs and vise versa. With such small physically weak familiar they won’t be able to handle any of the burden from magic and will blow up several hundred times before they can do one spell at their limit.” He said. Then took out a 3 kilo iron ingot with a metal chain melded on the top and moving over he opened the little shackle and put it around their neck which quickly started to drag them down. “Their current objective is to fly 1 lap in under 10 minutes with this weight. As for your girls…” He said and pulled out leather bound ingots that had zippers that sealed the weights to the arm and legs. “Five kilos for each arm. You have the same objective.” He then points out Xero, the pink goblin and cherub. “Imp, Goblin and Cherub, only running for now, before you can fly fast you need to run fast.” He pulled strapped on the same weights but there was only 2.5 kilos in each leg and arm it kept the floating cherub on the ground and it was pouting. A cherub is a little angel with the physical appearance of a 3 year old with curly blonde hair. In truth when he hit the ground he was unable to stand because he didn’t know how to walk. “The three masters will also run for physical exercise.” He said and strapped down the two others with 20 kilos total but reach Xero he strapped him down with a large vest that weighed 30 kilos plus the 20 kilos.

“Sir why does he have the vest?” the master of the cat asked.

“Because he trained extensively last year and 20 kilos won’t affect him at all.” Grunt said and pulled a small military jacket that fit the bakeneko just right but it was weighed gear so now he was on all fours. “Stand on your hind legs and run 1 lap.” Similar to all the other people the master of the cat got the 20 kilo between his five limbs.

“Alright just wait and we will start all together.” He said and moved to the remaining groups. No one talked to anyone and when he was finished.

“Alright brats! You have your instructions, get to them!” He shouted and and everyone began to move.

Xero looked at the Imp and then decide to tell it to follow his footsteps. It instantly follows him on slow heavy steps. He looks back and wonders something, “This is a good time to check how the commands work.” he thought, “You will follow me only by stepping on the trail I leave.”

With that he suddenly bolts and runs while being careful and watches. The imp sniffs and after a moment it begins to follow his scent. “So it will try and use all its abilities to follow my order.” He thought and nodded. “If his sense of smell was even half as good as a dog's then it will be able to single out my scent in the middle of all these.” With that thought he picked up the pace and started to run but every so often he would look back to see the imp barely running.

Drawing his magic sword he starts to channel mana through the Imp’s body. He doesn’t try anything big and just gives a small amount of mana that isn’t even one tenth what is needed for a spell. The effect was instantaneous as the imp felt the mana and gained energy to start running again. It moved the mana to its arms that were in pain and Xero withdrew his sword and started to run. Every two minutes he would stop and adds a little more mana and always pushes it a bit while watching to see the imps reaction. This was to see the limit that the body could handle mana.

He eventually reached the end of the first lap and 15 minutes later the Imp came breathing ragged releasing puffs a black air.

“Oi kid, your imp is weak as shit.” Grunt said.

“I don’t need you to tell me the obvious, anyway what is going on?” Xero asked.

“It’s body probably heated up and air passing through heated ash normally produces polluted air. It’s just tired from you pushing it.” He said.

“I didn’t push it, I told it to follow my trail and I just ran. Every two minutes I would add some mana to his body to energize him.” Xero said.

“Ah! I see. You idiot!” He shouted and hit Xero’s head but not hard but enough to hurt.

“Ouch! Damn it old man! What was that for?!” he complained.

“What you did was like adding steroids to him for momentary boost. No wonder it's releasing poisonous gases, damn it kid recall that thing and let him rest a bit. There is still about 15 minutes before the next exercise by then he should have recovered.” Grunt said and stalked off shouting at other kids.

Xero looks back at the imp and orders it back into the familiar seal. He then goes and sits down and drinks some water and looking at the seal he starts to move his small amount of mana into the seal and it lights up a bit as the mana was sucked in but soon it began to reject it so he just stopped.

He walked to his group for the second round of exercise and summoned it and found it had indeed recovered.

“Alright brats, you're all semi flyers, besides the fae and hummingbird are natural flyers due to their size. Now besides the physical training to help build muscle you have to actually ‘fly’. From what I can see the imp is wholly incapable without time and effort in developing its wings, goblin should be able to glide at best, the cherub can float but its flight speed shouldn’t be much, and cat…” He looked down at the wings about the same size but the cat was flying circles around the master before it landed on his head and curled up in a good spot to sunbath. “Yeah, stamina is his problem. Boy you will need to put him in shape with a lot of running, remember running before flying this is because stamina is extremely important.” He said and everyone nodded. “Now, the two tiny ones fly one lap at top speed while your two time them, I want a rough estimate of their speed, the cat I want timed as well. Goblin is to learn gliding, cherub train to fly faster and imp… you two remain here.” he said and dismissed them.

“So how do I train it?” Xero asked.

Grunt pulled out a piece of paper and began to write something and handed it to him. “Go to the cafeteria and give this to the women there.” He said.

Xero blinked and looked down, ‘Familiar is an Imp, all rotten or nearly expiring food can be given to him.’ He frowns and looks at the bearman.

“This thing is the one that most improves from balanced food and training. The thing is that to balance food and training you need a hell of a lot of food. His body burns energy faster than any other creature which is why they have a harder time training if you don’t feed them.” He said.

Xero still didn’t believe him which made the bearman sigh, “Put it like this, see the miss with the Blue Winged Salamander?” He asked and Xero nodded, “That little lizard’s training diet will be set for one sheep every two days at this present time because it's still an adolescent and because it hasn’t become anything bigger. That things metabolism can only break down the meat and bones after two days which is why it will eat much less but this.” He pointed to the Imp, “This thing can eat everything placed on the cafeteria tables like a bottomless pit because his body will constantly burn the energy to fuel its growth. This is why demons are mindless eaters until they become intelligent, they simply need too much energy to fuel their growth.” He explained.

Hearing to this point Xero’s lips kept twitching. “Won’t the type of food affect his future evolution?” Xero asked.

“Only after a while, it doesn’t matter with Imps because they are bottom feeders and normally scavengers eating even festering meat. To them it's better since the food is already softening up but that is why they need a lot of trash when compared to fresh meat.” He said.

“How much fresh meat would satisfy it?” Xero asked.

The bear man scratches his chin a moment, “Ten live bull down to the bone and you will satisfy the need for his daily training.”

The words caused Xero’s jaw to drop and he looked back at the imp after discovering it was a glutton.

“Alright, I’ll be going.” He said and the bearman nodded. Xero called the imp to follow him as he took the note and walked to the building and made his way to the cafeteria. The place was mostly empty but there were was one old lady with a floating witch in robes floating on a broom. The thing is that the witch looked to be in her mid twenties and the robe as glued to her body showing off her curves.

He walked to the women.

“Young boy why are you here at this time?” she asked.

He holds the note out and the old woman takes it and reads. Her left brow raises as she looks at the Imp and a small smile appears as she folds the note and stores it.

“I see, follow me then.” She said and turned on the spot. She lead him to a door on the left side on the side of the main table where the principal and teachers would dine. Passing through he found many short goblins moving dishes, clothes and many other things. The old lady skillfully walked through them and to Xero’s surprise the Imp was also able to easily move through the crowd probably due to his hearing allowing him to pick up the position of the others around him.

Soon they reached a large door and opening it they found a large room with many trash bins.

“From now on you may come here directly, just wear this and no one will stop you.” She said and handed him a metal chain with a small charm at the end.

“How much can we take?” He asked.

“Just tell your familiar to eat until he is satisfied and you will know.” She said and turned on her heel and left.

Looking at the charm he put it around his neck and put it under his shirt then gave the order to the Imp. “Eat any trash in this room until you're satisfied.”

As soon as the words left his mouth the Imp took in a deep breath and suddenly grinned before it jumped. It would beat its wing but they were too small and he ended up landing face first but after sniffing he smashed into one of the bins before jumping into it before digging his way into it.

Xero scratched his head unsure of what to do so he just finds a spot near a pillar by the wall and watches. The pile in the bin slowly decrease and soon the Imp shot out of one trash bin and sniffed before rushing to another.

Each time he jumped out Xero could notice the figure of the Imp slowly change. The disfigured wings slowly fixed themselves into a proper bat wing shape. The skinny arms and legs began to fill in with muscle and he began to gain a bit of height but not much. The horns also began to change a bit gaining a blacker tone of color.

Only after a whole hour when the bell rang did the Imp stop eating and returned and Xero could only smile wryly as he examined the Imp.

“This is crazy, a glutton’s growth is crazy.” He muttered but none the less he stood up and left and along the way he met the old woman and thanked her for the help. Being noon right now it was already time for lunch so he called back the Imp and exit the worker area and entered the cafeteria where there were already a number of people.

He moved to a table on the furthest left side when looking from the entrance. Although there were more people he knew here it was also his section due to what year he entered so he couldn’t go too far but he did sit near the corners of the tables.

In no time at all the cafeteria was filled and as the food magically filled the tables a ringing came from the principals table. Everyone looked and the one standing was an old woman with glasses and a grey suit with her hair in a bun.

“Good, now with yesterday’s familiar summoning, I just want to announce to the second year students that during afternoon free period, the second years are allowed to go train in the element zones.” She said and the cheers from our year sound like a roar. “Now I will repeat the rules, Familiars are not allowed within the school without teacher authorization or it being part of class. Outside of the castle the familiars can be summoned but no fighting is permitted unless it’s a duel directed by a teacher. Within the element zone no fighting is allowed period, if you are found fighting then the culprit will be punished. That is all you may eat.” She said and sat down.

Like that everyone began to ravage the food but Xero just took a small bit mainly because he had been watching the Imp eat trash making his appetite be able less then normal.

“I guess for the afternoon I should go to the volcanoes to train the Imp. That reminds me, I should name it…” Xero thought as he ate in silence. After reaching his fill he stood and left. “Never was good with names so I will just call him Ash since he is made of it.” With that done he moved out of the academy and walked down a path down from the front doors and soon reached a large stone platform and in its center was an archway with a swirling vortex. An elder was sitting in front of it and as he arrived he opened his eye.

“Second Year Xero Null, I wish to go to the Volcano Training grounds.” He said.

“Familiar?” He asked in an ancient voice filled with Wisdom.

A moment later the Imp appeared behind him and the old man nodded. “Access permitted, combat with other students are prohibited, the ground possess low grade beasts that can be hunted for combat training, beware because they are still powerful enough to endanger your life. As you are a new second year you should only enter as far as the second layer which has the lowest tier beasts.” The old man instructed.

“Thank you for the advice elder.” He said.

The old man nodded and put his hand in a magic bag and pulled something out and handed it to Xero.

“This is a magic protection charm, if you are in mortal danger it will activate and teleport you out.” He said.

“Thank you.” He said.

With a nod the old man put his hands together like in a prayer and the portal turned red and the swirl stabilized showing a volcanic badlands.

Xero walked through with ready to start training his Ash Golem in a land of ash.