A week has already passed. Seven whole days… For Quin it had been the worst time in his entire life, and no matter how hard he tried to, he could not find the way out of this nightmare.

The next few days finally brought change: he began to open up a bit and even started talking with his friends again. Although those strong emotions and the nightmares still remained, he was happy that -- even though Dreon and Alinor were obviously burdened by the previous events -- his friends seemed to bear it better than most of the others, while Aline seemed to be the strongest among them: being one of the few who did not even look like she was influenced by the whole thing at all.

The sun rose marking the start of a new day, the thirteenth, since that day.

Following their daily routines the students arrived at the school, and waited obediently for their teacher.

“Good Morning everybody! Here is today’s schedule! You will start with training class as usual, but afterwards you will not have normal classes: instead there will be a few classes regarding the attack that happened nearly two weeks ago,” he said.

He swept his gaze around the yard, checking the kids’ reactions and after nodding slightly, continued.

“There, all you need to know about that creature will be explained. I have only two things to say to you which you better engrave into your minds. First I want to tell you how our capital got its name, as it wasn’t always called Crows’ Road. We suffered countless sieges during the centuries but we always prevailed, no matter the size or strength of the force attacking us! In the end their corpses and remains decorated the road alongside our city and we left them to the carrion eaters to show our would-be-enemies what their fate will be. Gradually the whole road was filled with crows feasting on the dead bodies, for weeks and that’s why the city is called Crows’ Road.

“I won’t go into hour-long explanation, I'll leave you with one last thought and a question regarding it. Although in those attacks we also had significant losses, we never backed down, never gave up and ended up getting stronger. Do you really want to be the generation who will be remembered as the one who couldn’t defend the city and left it to ruins, bringing shame to our Ancestors?

“Secondly, I know most of you who saw that thing were truly frightened during those few moments, and I can clearly see that hasn’t changed! You still look like you’re pissing your pants! Here is the important thing however: In your heads, you all think that it was some kind of powerful, terrifying monster, but in truth it was pretty weak!”

Hearing this, the children were in complete shock.

Unbelievable!

How can the beast, which looked as horrible and terrifying as if it crawled out of hell itself, furthermore, one that ate several of their classmates in mere seconds, be weak?

“After a couple years of proper training, around the age of eleven, one could kill that worm without breaking a sweat!” the instructor continued without paying any mind to the kids’ initial disbelief.

“Alright, that’s all I have to say about this. If you are not stupid, then you have already understood what I meant. If you are, well then it’s unfortunate. Anyways, it’s time for running!”

Thus they began their first lap with their thoughts lingering on the matter.

Weak? That creature was weak? I know that the teacher is probably telling the truth; why would he lie to us? But it’s just unbelievable! I wasn’t even able to move, and I could barely follow its movements with my eyes. Is it really possible to kill that thing after only a few years of training? Can there really be that much of a gap in strength if you train for some years? Quin was entirely submerged in his thoughts during the exercises.

The training class was over before they knew it and Quin joined his three friends while walking to the school building.

Alinor suddenly stopped and turned to Aline, Dreon and Quin, who were on his left.

“You know guys,” he said, “During the class, I have been thinking... About what the instructor said; how that creature was in fact really weak. I have been really afraid these past days, and I constantly had nightmares about that creature. To this point, I had no doubt that it was really powerful, something I’d never be able to defeat.”.

Then he began laughing for a few moments.

“A few years! Imagine that! It would only take a few years of training to be able to beat a creature like that, and here I have been terrified for days! What a relief!”

After laughing a bit more, he turned back continuing his walk, but now he was completely cheerful.

The three of them had different reaction to Alinor: Aline had a calm smile as usual, Dreon was deep in his thoughts, and Quin was slightly confused; but nonetheless they continued their walk back to the school building.

The special classes began with the teacher being Nyra.

“As I always say, we should begin with the basics. So the first question is, what was that creature?” she asked, and even children who were previously not paying attention to her, turned their heads towards her. The question clearly piqued their interests.

After the incident, they asked teachers and their parents several times about that monster to no avail. Knowing this, Nyra was not surprised at all at their reaction.

“I think that you all remember the Governor’s speech a couple of months ago. He mentioned strange creatures, who ambushed one of our legions and killed them. That beast was one of them, albeit an immature one. Although sadly our knowledge about them is still greatly lacking, we managed to discover numerous things.

“To make it easier to understand let’s start by talking a bit about the martial path itself. As you all should know, the Derelict Stage - in which you currently are - consists of three levels, and the average person reaches the last level around the time they become ten years old. Though at that level they can start to perceive qi, that does not amount to much. However, the next stage is when you can truly start to build the foundation of your martial prowess, the Qi Foundation. This stage has three sub-stages and each of them have three levels, the first sub-stage being called Core Establishment. At this point you will have high enough elemental affinity and mental strength to start to form your Qi Center in your dantian region. After entering the first level your power increases by leaps and bounds.”

Nyra paused for a while, before continuing the lesson, “We call the worm-like creature you encountered as Shriekers, and their growing period is similar to some insect species: they go through a type of metamorphosis, with their second stage being the one that you have unfortunately encountered. At this stage, their strength should be around that of a weak child at the first level of the Core Establishment sub-stage. What does this mean? Four or five more years with proper training, and there would be no difficulty for you when facing them. Of course, if you neglect your exercises it is a whole different question.”

Although most of the kids have already accepted what their instructor said, hearing Nyra’s speech further confirmed these facts.

“I guess your next question would be about the other stages and their strengths. From our observations, we concluded that they have four stages in total, each one being stronger than previous ones. Their exact level of power would probably be too hard for you to comprehend, thus I will provide you with a suitable example. A completely average human of around twenty or thirty years old could deal with a fully developed Shrieker without much effort.

“Nextly, how was it able to get into the schoolyard? That is something we do not have a certain answer for, only theories. Our current hypothesis is that after their battle with the first legion, a couple of these creatures decided to follow the soldiers back to the city and somehow sneaked in. Sadly we were not prepared for something like that to happen within the school grounds or even in the city itself.”

During the remaining part of the class, Nyra talked about the less interesting and minor details regarding this matter, and after it was over, the children were escorted home as usual.

After getting back home, Quin finally had some time to think without being disturbed. On this day a lot of things have happened and he needed some time to digest them. He went to his usual place, his bed, where he lay down and submerged in his thoughts.