“...Awkward,” Garrett mumbled under his breath. Desmond tensed up for a moment before returning to writing his letter. Derek’s mouth hung open for a moment before snapping closed.

He glanced around for a bit before shrugging, “I think I’ll take a walk. Garrett, want to come with me?”

The larger boy turned to him and nodded, leading the way to the door. Out in the hall, he turned to Derek, “What’s his problem? We were just trying to be friendly.”

Derek thought for a moment, “I don’t know the guy. It could be anything or we could really take him at face value that he is here to learn and has paid a lot of money to do so. I guess if I paid that kind of money I wouldn’t want to be disturbed either.”

Garrett nodded, ducking his head to avoid the frame of the stairs, “I guess I can see that, but isn’t meeting the other young talents of the region part of the benefit of coming here?”

They descended the stairs in silence. Derek looked over at the taller boy as he opened the front door of the building, “Sure, but perhaps he’s not interested in meeting Magic Warriors or people who would need a scholarship to come here? I don’t know. Where to first?”

They looked around from the lawn between the men’s dorms and saw other boys leisurely strolling, wrestling on the lawn, reading under trees, and other activities. Garrett pondered for a minute before pointing at a bulletin board on the lawn near the cafeteria. It appeared to have a map of the campus on half of the side facing them. “I suppose we can go check the map and see if there are any interesting landmarks we can check out.”

This seemed like a good plan to Derek so he leisurely followed his friend over to the board. There were already a few guys gathered over there studying the map and determining where they wanted to go. On the other portion of the board were notes that had various rules that the administration wanted to remind them of, sign-ups for various excursions and competitions and notes from the various students either offering to buy or sell various items or requesting or offering services like tutoring and crafting. As he was perusing the advertisements he heard Garrett speak to him, “It looks like there is an Arena on the east side of the Academy with some training grounds to the north of it, do you want to go over there?”

Derek knew where those were as his room at his mother’s house overlooked those training grounds. He figured it wouldn’t hurt to head over there with Garrett, “Sure man, let’s check it out.”

They headed north between their dorm building and the cafeteria and passed a few academic buildings before coming into an open area. To the northeast of their dorms stood the Arena; a five story open air amphitheater. Around it were arrayed dozens of training yards with small horse pens and changing rooms spaced around them. The training yards had low wooden railings to differentiate their space from the pathways and the rest spaces that were interspersed between them. All of the training yards had benches for spectators to sit comfortably.

As they walked through, Derek saw that several training fields were in use. Some had people practicing or receiving instruction alone or in groups, while others had people sparring. Some of these fields had quite large groups gathered nearby to watch.

After walking half a mile they arrived at the Arena. It was not in use and they could only go out into the spectator’s area to see the massive number of seats and the dirt floor in the pit of the arena itself. Derek inagined demonstrating his skills before such a large crowd as could be crammed in here and he felt a slight anxiety from the thought of it. Seeing his friend gape at this, Garrett laughed, “If you think this is big, wait until you get into the Colosseum in the outer city. There is nothing like winning a fight in front of seventy thousand cheering spectators. It’s the greatest thrill of all time!”

Derek sat in the shade and looked across the grand space in front of him as he considered what it would be like to perform in front of such a crowd, “Was it that great? It seems like it would be terrifying to me. I would be afraid that I would mess up.”

The larger boy leaned against the ramp wall and looked down at him, “Sure it is kind of terrifying at first, when you are getting ready, but when you come out into the arena and after your eyes have adjusted to the light, the people kind of blend together, and the noise they make becomes a garbled roar, and the most important thing is the guy across from you. He’s the only thing that seems real and you know you have to beat him so the crowd becomes this unreal thing that is mere visual and aural background at that point. Yeah, you can get cues from the sounds and movement, but you have to process those at the back of your mind and focus on that man in front of you.”

Derek thought about that for a while as he imagined fighting in front of such a large crowd. He wondered if that was what it would be like for him. After a while he looked up at his friend whose silly grin and far off look made him seem to be reliving past glories or imagining future ones. He laughed quietly as he stood up, “Come on, Garrett. I am sure we can make time to spend here and at the Colosseum during the term. For now, let’s go down to the training fields, I want to see what all the fuss was about down there.

The big guy shook his head to bring himself back to the present. “Ok, that sounds fun. Maybe we will get to run into some of the pretty girls I have seen around here!”

Derek chuckled at the brute as they came out of the Arena and back into the training grounds. There was quite the commotion off on the west side of the grounds. It seemed a large group had gathered around a particular training yard on the western border of the grounds near the main north to south avenue.

As he approached, Derek saw that on a raised platform Desmond was sparring with another young man. The man was quite handsome and gave off an air of confidence as he and Desmond tested each other. Underneath the practice armor, the man was wearing a white coat and pants with gold highlights. The symbolism and coloration on the coat gave away that he was some sort of acolyte of the Sun Goddess.

The Church of the Sun was one of the few other organizations outside of the Thorne Clan that specialized in Holy Magic. Many of their spells were filled with religious significance for them. This led the Thornes and the Church to collaborate and butt heads on many occasions. Their relationships were often tumultuous.

Derek and Garrett were able to find a place next to the fence surrounding the training ground and were able to get a look at the following spar. The two were quite skilled at swordplay but the acolyte had an edge in both skill and level. Derek could sense it, a greater amount of essence gathered in the acolyte, indicative of almost half a tier of further progress than Desmond.

The fight continued for a while longer, and the crowd only continued to gather. Derek didn’t even notice as another spectator joined them. The newcomer spoke up as the other fighter was putting Desmond on his back foot, “Pretty good, aren’t they? What do you think about them Derek?”

Derek was startled by the question. What is more, he was startled by the man who had asked him. It was the Dean of the Magic Warrior’s College, Karl. He saluted him before responding, “They are both very good. The Acolyte’s form is near perfect and Desmond is much more creative with how he fights. I believe that if Desmond was closer in actual level to the acolyte he would have quite a high chance of defeating him.”

The Dean smiled as if satisfied with Derek’s answer. A quick flurry of attacks from the Acolyte finally caught Desmond off guard and broke through his defenses, effectively ending the duel. Karl turned his attention back to Derek, “Why did it sound as if you were holding back? Was there something you opted not to say?”

Derek was rather embarrassed by this, “Err, yes. While the Acolyte’s form is near perfect it is formulaic and lacks creativity. Any creative foe with as much sword fighting skill and close enough attributes would easily dispatch him. As for Desmond? He’s nowhere near as polished as he could be at this age. It is almost as if he was taught by a typical armsman. He isn't terrible, but he isn't great either. Desmond as he is can be defeated as he just was, by exploiting his weaknesses in the fundamentals. He will sometimes be able to come up with creative solutions to counter his disadvantage as he is but eventually a fighter with better foundational training will eat him up.”

Karl nodded before walking off. Derek was unsure about Karl’s intentions after asking that question and just walking away, but he didn’t have long to ponder before he was rudely interrupted, “So, you think you have what it takes to criticize other people’s sword forms. Are you willing to prove it?”

Derek was surprised by the question and turned to see the speaker. It was the young man who had just defeated Desmond. Desmond was standing behind him a little red in the face. He seemed pretty angry about what he just heard. “Yeah, Derek do you want to prove it? Can you even beat me? Who are you to comment on other people’s ability?”

Derek shook his head, he didn’t know how to defuse this situation now that it was already lit. He started to respond, “I was just stating what came to mind as I watched you fight…”

Desmond stepped forward angrily, “Will you fight or will you not? I didn’t ask what you were saying.”

This provocation set Garrett off, “Listen Desmond, if you want a fight you can fight me. I haven’t had a good exercise in a few days. Let’s do this.”

Desmond laughed, “I have beaten you before, I can beat you again. Come on up, I don’t mind embarrassing you in front of all these people.”

Garrett hopped over the fence and beelined to the Weapons rack. He pulled on the training armor which shifted to fit his size, then selected a great hammer from the stand. It made him look rather imposing with his height and reach.

By this point the acolyte had stepped out of the ring and joined a group of spectators that were fawning over him. These students seemed to hold this guy in very high esteem. There were several young ladies that seemed to be making exaggerated efforts to catch his attention. Derek didn’t really understand, but assumed that maybe the guy came from a powerful family or something.

As the two boys in the training yard were preparing to fight he heard a familiar cheerful voice from nearby, “Hey Derek, what’s going on here?”

Derek turned to see Alicia walking over with his mother and paternal grandmother. With them were his mother’s cousin that he had met before, Dean Charlotte of the Magic Schema college, and a couple of other professors in mage robes. They had a gaggle of students trailing in their wake. He smiled and waved them over, “Good morning Alicia, Professors, Mo… Professor Eona, Grandmother. I seemed to have provoked a few guys a little earlier when I assessed their sword skills, so they challenged me to fight them, but my friend accepted the challenge before I could.”

“Oh, you already made friends since you got here. I am so proud of you, ‘Student’ Derek~.” his mother teased as she pushed a lock of his hair back in its place.

Derek was terribly embarrassed by this, “Mo.. I mean, Professor Eona, you’ll be interested in my friend. He’s got a very peculiar schema and a scholarship. I imagine he will get a schema reset soon if the house is planning on nurturing him.”

That got her attention, most of the professors here were members of the Magic Schema faculty. They all glanced at him and some of them coughed when they recognized the boy. It was true they had competed to describe his schema in the most horrible way before and the memory was still fresh in their minds. Charlotte only needed a glance, “Oh yes, this boy. Eona, you will want to participate in this, his lineage might allow us to really explore applications in rare and abnormal bloodlines.”

His mother stopped teasing him to focus on the boy currently being dominated in the training yard. His physical strength and toughness were matched to a palpable connection to the earth and fire mana he was using. This required Desmond to be particularly careful of his opponent’s attacks, but Garrett’s proficiency with the weapons left much to be desired. Derek was already frowning, thinking about the process it would take to correct his incredibly flawed fighting style. The boy wasn’t even moving his shield around, instead leaving it as some kind of decoration on his left side.

It didn’t take long for Desmond to defeat his opponent, a quick feint above the shield at Garrett’s eyes caused Garrett to bring both the shield and the sword up in an exaggerated attempt to block it, and while Garrett’s view was blocked by his own tools, Desmond stepped in and drove the tip of his sword up into Garrett’s armpit. A white flash strobed out as the armor recorded the hit and protected the boy before causing him to freeze up and tip over.

The crowd cheered for Desmond, as he had demonstrated great skill, while Garrett sat dumbly on the ground. Desmond turned to him, “That’s twice I have beaten you now, and it isn’t some fluke. I am better than you, remember that.”

Derek had climbed over the fence to help his friend up, “Don’t worry about it man. He is better than you right now, but that’s because it looks like no one with any real skill has taught you how to use your weapons. I can only imagine you learned by mimicking what you saw others do. On the down side, you seem to have collected a lot of bad habits. On the up side, any change would be an improvement. So we can look forward to that.”

Garrett didn’t know what to think. Was his friend trying to cheer him up or make him feel worse? But he didn’t have much time to ponder as Desmond attempted to goad Derek into a fight again, “So Derek, are you going to let your meathead friend get beat up doing all your fighting for you or are you going to actually back up your words from earlier.”

Derek turned to him, “I can back up my words, but to be fair, neither of you are my match. I would gain nothing by beating you and instead bring shame to myself as a Weapons Master.”

Both of them gaped at him for a moment before the acolyte started to laugh, “Weapons Master? You? I don’t believe it. If you are a Weapons Master then I am the Arms Master of the Order of the Ardent Dawn.”

Most of the crowd around him started to laugh at that before another man's voice spoke up. “Oh, he is a Weapons Master, but I would be wary about calling myself the Arms Master of any order young master Reynald.”