The week after the announcement, the Ranker School was opened and the sanctuary had to postpone the admission of most people due to the high number of applications and low number of teachers for every course.

People were randomly admitted until the maximum allowable number of students was reached; the others had to wait until those who had been selected were done or quit a course.

For the optional courses and prerequisite courses there were a lot of teachers so a lot of people were admitted. But the featured courses had a lot of students and few teachers, except for Karma is a Bitch which had no eligible students as no one outside of her company had learnt Karma martial arts and Magic which had no eligible students apart from the ones Deji trained.

Aura class:

In the aura class the Island Devils, apart from Bella, were facing a group of 30 students of different Ranks above Rank 2 to Rank 5. The teens were nervous as their students were all adults, while Bola was in her element.

She took the fore front and said “I’m sure you people already know what aura can do is why you’re here so I’ll skip the intro on what aura is. To activate aura you need drive or motivation, and lots of it. We will be putting you through exercises to solidify your resolve and challenge your motivations, you must stick to our orders or the training won’t work for you and you won’t get your 40% en-code back as it would be seen as you resisting the teaching. Any questions?”

A man raised up his hand and said “Can we see you using aura first? To show us the end result”. Bola said “Good question. We won’t show you our aura, if you don’t believe, you can leave but you won’t get your money back. We are not the ones that will motivate you, you will motivate yourself. Don’t picture us doing it, picture yourself doing it. Not showing you will help you to focus on your goals and not our achievements. Any further questions?”

The class members murmured for a while and a hand was raised by a woman and she said “In the course description it was said that the training might not work for everyone. Why is that?” Bola answered “That is because not everyone might have the required mindset for aura manipulation and we don’t know everything about the unlocking of the skill so we also are still learning. Keep bringing your questions”

The person sat down and a woman raised up her hand and said “If all we need is drive and motivation then we don’t need you right? Why should we patronize this course any longer?” The woman was a member of the Pure Aura Dojo who had not unlocked the skill; she felt that the sanctuary was stupid for teaching it for only a small amount of en-code.

Bola had become meaner after her experience with Jade and the Island ordeal so she wasn’t the nice teacher she once was. She replied “If you feel you have learnt enough then you can leave and try on your own; there are many people who wish to sit where you’re sitting”

The woman frowned and the class members looked worried as the tension in the air rose. A man raised up his hand and said “Why are these teenagers the ones who are to teach us, aren’t there some adults who already know the skill?”

The class members looked at the man in anger thinking, why was he trying to raise the high tension even more? Maduro smiled and answered “Because we know better and have more life experience than you”.

The man who asked the question frowned intensely and Ife smiled and said “Without any further questions and with such a perfect atmosphere let us begin the training. We will be asking each of you some questions and based on your answers we will give you a training scheme”.

The lesson continued with the teens asking their students some questions about their experiences. Different answers came up as people experienced different things and were driven by different motives. After that the students asked about the specific fighting style they all had and their preferred weapons, there were close range fighters, long rangers and people that were a bit of both. And after the question and answer section they all were given heavy armor regardless of the answers they gave and were told to fight undead in a Rank 6 horde in an area that had not been raided.

The class was stunned by the decision of the Island Devils. They wondered ‘Why did they ask so many questions if they were going to give all of us the same treatment?’ ‘I’m a Ranger why am I being told to fight undead at the front lines and with such impeding armor?’ ‘If strength is all it takes to get aura I would have already gotten it’ ‘If I don’t get aura after 3 lessons I will quit, I don’t think the sanctuary knows how to teach it yet, it’s as was said in the course information. They don’t know how to teach it well yet, it was foolish of me to join the first batch’.

The Island Devils didn’t realize it but their training method forced their students to follow their instincts to trust them even though the Island Devils seemed to not know what they were doing to anyone who scrutinized them normally.

High Mind class:

There were 10 students in Mira’s class, all Rank 2s. Mira said “I hope you’ve all read the disclaimer that prevents you from suing in case of a loss of life or a permanent mental injury”

Some of the students gulped and they all replied “Yes maim”. Mira was shocked at their response and said “Don’t ever call me maim, my name is Mira call me that, I don’t care for pointless respect”. The students were surprised but they all nodded showing their agreement.

Mira continued “The High Mind skill is a skill that allows you to use your mind and body like a weapon or a device. The better you get at it the more control you have over your body and mind, you will be able to calmly assess situations and fight without your emotions getting in the way as if you’re playing a video game. When I got this skill I was Rank 4 but it allowed me to defeat Rank 5s almost instantly, for Rank 2s it will probably feel like you’re invincible. As I speak, many high Ranks are going through this training right now to get the skill, although they are not directly under my guidance they have paid for the current lesson you’re going through.

The High Mind skill is a powerful and essential one but you must do something extremely challenging to get it: you must overcome the fear of death. I know some of you might assume you’re not afraid of death but I assure you, if you were not afraid of death you would have unlocked this skill. It’s going to be very challenging and not all of you might succeed but the results are worth the effort”

The students looked convinced as their faces showed resolve. Mira smiled and said “Let’s do this then. The training is going to happen in a horde, let’s get going”.

Mira’s class went to a Rank 6 horde and began their ‘training’. As of now there were no Rank 5 hordes around the sanctuary, they had been exterminated. The Rank 6 hordes usually had more than one Hive monster.

The class went painfully for the students of the aura class. The armor was always in the way of their combat, they were tiring out easily and they were supposed to do this for a week. Their instructors had left after instructing them to not take off the armor no matter what even after their training sessions.

The armor had terrible protection; it just added weight and friction. If they were hit by the undead the armor provided little resistance to the undead attacks and just let them go through, combined with the fact that they were all facing low Rank undead that would never give them trouble normally and only gave a meager amount of en-code to them.

Many people were fuming, at this point only their determination would see them through their own anger and the training.

The High Mind class was having it the worst as they were dropped into a dangerous part of the undead territory and abandoned by Mira. They couldn’t escape and the place they were abandoned at had a lot of Rank 3 undead.

Most of them started crying and some of them said that it was a hoax and the sanctuary wouldn’t just abandon them like that. They soon found out the hard way that they were alone; no one saved them regardless of how bad their situation got.

Mira had left some Rank 4s in charge of watching the Rank 2s and had gone to her next class.