Days at the academy started early whilst finishing late, some student may have only had four classes to deal with whilst others may have seven.

It all depended on how driven the student was.

It was Bryn’s second day and he had already bumped his number of classes up to five, this wasn’t because he was driven but due to circumstances beyond his control, it was unexpected but not entirely unpleasant.

Alas, that did not matter for the moment as that class would always take place at the end of his regular day; he would have four classes to deal with before he made it to spell creation with Professor Blackwell.

The first of which he was heading towards now, and it was also the one he was least looking forwards to.

Tactics!

Just thinking about the class made him bored.

He could imagine it as he walked into the class room, a boring teacher that would advise on how to maintain a proper formation, historic tactics and the ‘pros and cons’ of going over a wall instead of around it!

Least to say, Bryn was not looking forward to the class, and his mood was not helping.

He may have slept for several hours but it had been far from ‘pleasant and refreshing’, he had his mana Attunement to thanks for that.

Armani’s smile was not helping his mood.

“What has got you in such a good mood?” Bryn asked whilst laying his head down on the table.

“Just psyched up for Tactics, Aren’t you” Armarni asked in giddy surprise.

Bryn looked at Armarni as if he was an alien, “What are you on about, do you actually like reading about Dead generals or summit” Armarni asked as he thought back to history class back in high school where he had once learnt about Rome and someone called Hannibal.

Armarni lost his giddy look for a second of confused doubt; it was only when he realised that Bryn had missed Tactics the day before that his mood was reinvigorated.

“Oh, you missed class yesterday…. you’re going to like this” Armarni answered with a knowing smile.

Bryn was about to ask what he meant but Armarni motioned for him to be quiet, the teacher had arrived.

She wore three quarter length trackies and a sharp white and black hoody, two custom made pick axes were secured to the back of her waist.

“Morning children, let’s hear what you got?” she asked with a French accent whilst perching on the corner of her desk, the question freely open to the floor.

Surprisingly, it was Armarni that answered first.

“How about joining flamethrower with Gale” Armarni shouted out proudly to which the teacher nodded ecstatically.

“Yes! It’s been long established that elemental skills can both counter one another, but also buff each other, Next!” the teacher explain before another student shouted out.

“What about mixing stone bullet and homing shot” another student shouted out before others chorused after them to a cheerful teacher.

“What’s going on?” Bryn whispered to Armarni who was happily listening.

“Tactics isn’t about directing a group into battle, Alexa has to deal with that crap in leadership, Tactics is about how to prepare and overcome whatever is thrown at you, Professor Constance tasked us with thinking up skills that we could buy at the altar that could be used in tandem” Armarni whispered before calling out another combination that he had thought of.

Armarni sat back in his chair and listened.

“Maybe this class isn’t going to be so bad” He murmured to his self.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet” Armarni beamed from the side before drawing Bryn into the debate on combination skills.

The Class went on like that for a while before the students began to calm down before the teacher called an end to the exercise.

“Good, I’m happy that you all thought on what I asked of you but one thing that I noticed is that many of you only thought about combining two types of skills together, the [Aegis] system knows thousands, possibly even millions of skills and some of these may not be able to work well with another skill but that doesn’t mean that it can only be used by itself, sometimes it takes several different skills working together to make that perfect combination” the teacher advised sagely before switching topics.

“Okay, now, as I said yesterday there is three ways to go at a problem, now what were they?”

“Head on”

“Correct, Next”

“Around”

“Correct, Next”

“Give up”

“Exactly right and these are the three tactics that a Hero uses to overcome any given problem”

“Sometimes a Hero can face a problem head on whether through strength of arm or mind, other times they can overcome it by avoiding it entirely, leaving the beaten path to dodge the problem all together, but in those times where there is no hope of overcoming it or going around it, there is only one path left, to retreat”

“You may think that it is against the Heroes code to retreat” the teacher said in air quotes, “but you would be wrong! Heroes need to be willing to do anything to achieve their mission, and sometimes that means running away so they can try again when they have better prepared, this is called a ‘tactical retreat’” The professor said whilst a number of older student walked in to the class room from outside.

Each and every one of them looked like there were enjoying themselves, cocky grins plastered on their faces and eager eyes a plenty.

“For each solution to overcome a problem there is a way to train it, to face a problem head on then you simply need to get stronger, faster, to overcome a problem by going around it, you need to develop your critical thinking, learn to think outside the box and grasp what is on hand at the time to overcome your problem.”

“Finally, to escape from the problem, you simply need to learn the best way of retreating, and as I mentioned yesterday, the best way I have found that requires no skills nor power… is parkour” she said to which the classroom cheered in hushed joy.

In turns out that Whilst Bryn had been dealing with getting his ‘seal replaced’, the rest of his class had been running atop the buildings of the academy and jumping from one to another playfully with each other.

Only from the looks in both the teachers’ and the second year’s eyes he didn’t think things were going to be as easy-going today.

“As you can see I have invited a few of the older years to help me with the next part of my class” The professor said before retrieving a token from her pocket, “This is a Tier 2 [Aegis] token, it can be redeemed at the altar for a single tier 2 skill, if any of you manage to evade the second years until the end of the class, then you will receive a token to buy a skill when you visit the altar next week” The professor said before looking at the clock.

“You have twenty minutes until the end of class; I will give you a two-minute head start…. begin!” She said and the students burst from the seats and started to run.

Bryn headed for the door but was pulled back by Armarni.

“No, this way” he shouted before climbing up the wooden racking that Bryn only now noticed went all the way up to the roof above.

Bryn and several of the other students began to climb whilst others ran for the door.

It only took thirty seconds to reach the top but it was thirty seconds into their head Start he wouldn’t be getting back.

Bryn stood atop the roof and looked across the campus grounds, the Tactics classroom was taught atop one of the small hills that were in the centre of the academy, it was also attached to every other building in the vicinity by one form or another.

Looking about, Bryn realised that this was by design; the entire area was a free runner’s paradise.

Open and slanted roofs, tiles, stairs, balconies, overhangs.

The Architecture of this part of the academy was entirely mad; it was almost as if one building was built next to each other with this type of training in mind.

Bryn could even see in the distance that the forest was dense enough that if he wanted to then he could probably jump from tree branch to tree branch as well.

“Just follow me, I’ve got a plan” Armarni said as several student fled in every direction before he took off running as well.

The Two of them ran across the roofs as they headed towards the centre of the academy and away from where the majority of the other students had headed in.

They would jump from one roof to another when it was small enough but if the gap was too large then they would take alternate paths across balconies and paths that ran across the courtyards before climbing back up.

They could hear and see the second years in the distance as they chased down the rest of the class, a signal flare had been set off to signify the beginning of the chase but Bryn was thankful that Armarni had grabbed him and led them away from the direction most of the others went in otherwise they would have been caught like the others and their chance of winning the token would have been over just like that.

The two made it to the central palace of the academy. It was the tallest building around and several towers were built around it and grew in size to match it, each growing higher as they were built closer to the central palace, an area off limits to the students.

“Let’s go” Armarni said as he began to climb up a railing and onto weathered bricks.

Higher and higher the two climbed before stopping atop the second lowest tower.

Stone columns held up a rounded red tiled roof, it looked like the space could have once been used to hold a bell but now it was just a paved roof with no way to access it but for the way they had just used.

“I saw this place yesterday and thought it would be a good place to hide out for a while” Armarni said as he sat down at the edge of the tower.

Bryn walked over and gave a precarious look down before deciding to simply lean against one of the stone columns.

The two could see over the entire academy from where they were hiding.

They could see the keep where the techniques class was taught up on the cliff.

They could see the farm that looked like Istanbul’s blue mosque by the plains.

Beyond it was the forest that travelled into the distance where a town could be faintly seen, beyond that was only blue; a sea surrounded the island the academy was built on.

It was a truly beautiful place which no words could adequately describe.

The two sat there as they watched the class go about the chase below, they laughed and joked as one student after another was caught, their desperate attempts at escape, they’re successes and they’re sometimes painful fails.

From what they had seen they could tell there was a quantifiable difference between them and the second years, and that difference was mana.

Some of the first years had attempted to use mana during the chase but they were simply too new to it, any time the two had seen another student try to use it to escape was a time they had seen someone take a nose dive off a roof.

Even on the off chance a first year succeeded in using their mana to do something, the second years did it twice as fast with twice as much grace.

The minutes passed by as the number of first years still in the chase dwindled into single digits, the two had genuine hope that they were going to win that token, but it was not to be.

Bryn and Armarni heard two soft bumps from behind them and noticed the two second years that had just jumped from a higher tower.

“I told you there would be a couple first years over here” one of them said the other.

“I know, I wasn’t questioning that, I simply said that I didn’t see the point in checking the tallest tower first, ain’t no first year making it up there” the other replied nonchalantly as they walked towards Armarni and Bryn as if their capture was a full gone conclusion.

“Hey now, we can work something out” Armarni tried to talk them down as he realised his little hiding spot offered no means of escape now that they were found.

“Sorry Kid, Teach will have our ass if we don’t play fair” one of the second years said as they continued to move in closer.

Bryn all this time was looking for a means of escape and whilst he had found one, it was definitely not a good one.

“So Armarni, how badly do you want to get out of here” Bryn said jokingly before looking to the two second years that had stopped to see what they were going to do in wonder.

“If you’ve got something in mind then just do it” Armarni said before he felt Bryn pick him up and throw him like a bag of potatoes off the edge of the tower.

“You bastard!” Armarni called out as he flew backwards through the air before landing in an open room atop the smallest tower next to theirs.

“Bye” Bryn said before he jumped after Armarni who had rolled with the fall and was already climbing down the other side of the tower.

The second years rushed to the edge of the tower before looking on in amazed amusement.

“Motherfucker actually threw him; did you see that” one of the second years said whilst excitedly slapping his partner on the chest.

“Dann, that was wicked” he said as he watched Bryn jump off the lowest tower to the roof below.

“30 second head start”

“They earned it”

The two second years joked as they watched Bryn catch up with Armarni; they began to laugh when they heard Armarni start to curse Bryn out.

“What the hell Bryn, you trying to kill me” Armarni shouted as he escaped alongside Bryn but Bryn was a bit sheepish in his reply.

“What? It worked didn’t it” he asked before giving a quick look behind him to see the second years had started chasing them again, much like him they had jumped from one tower to another only they did it with a lot less worry as to whether they would make it or not.

“So, what now?” Bryn asked as they arrived at a junction.

“Split up and everyman for themselves, good luck” Armarni said without stopping and took off across the roof in the opposite direction to which he had been running.

“Scaredy Cat!” Bryn shouted out jokingly to which he could see Armarni flip him off in the distance.

Instead of continuing to run along the roof Bryn decided to drop down a level, he jumped down to a balcony before climbing inside a small window that led to one of the long hallways with wooden beams extending over the path below.

He carefully jogged along the wooden beams before arriving at a class where a teacher was stood in front of a white board lecturing on the formations that he had been so dreading before attending tactics earlier that day.

At the back of the classroom, he could see Alexa staring back at him as he looked through the window.

He waved.

She Pointed.

The second year tackled.

Bryn and the second year bounced off the wooden beams before falling down to the hallway below, the Class was interrupted by a loud bang and a soft girly giggle before it was back to full lecture mode again.

“Get Some!” the second year jumped to his feet and shouted over Bryn’s prone body before heading back to the tactics class, “Hurry up” the second year shouted before Bryn got to his feet and chased after him.

The two made it back to the class with about 5 minutes left on the clock, but the game was already over, every first year had been found and nobody had won the token.

“Not a bad effort but no winners today” the Professor joked as she waved them off towards their next class.

Bryn had met back up with Armarni and the earlier tension had all but gone.

“Not a bad class huh” Armarni joked knowingly to which Bryn could only agree.

“It’s literally DnD Tag…That was fun as hell” Bryn jovially spoke back before he noticed that Armarni had stopped walking along the hallway and was heading towards a wall.

“Good, I hope you are up for putting what we just learnt into practice” Armarni said before point to Arai that had joined up with his group for another Hunt to obtain his lost sword.

The two heard Arai cursing from atop the roof when the last of their classmates exited and he realised they were already gone.

The two arrived at the clifftop keep unmolested but the journey itself was a bit odd.

It turned out that they weren’t the only ones to decide to journey the academy via the roofs, it was a common route for the older years only the way the older years went about it varied greatly from how they were doing it.

The usage of mana was standard, the types of abilities they had seen wasn’t.

The two entered the classroom and professor Kane immediately called out to them.

“I take it yesterday was a success then” he directed to Bryn who nodded his head slightly, “Somewhat, they managed to create a flow for me to use but it is severely limited” Bryn said whilst taking a seat alongside Armarni.

“You have already established a flow? Very good, that was actually what I was going to teach you today anyway so wait until I’ve finished explaining to the rest of them and I will explain the next step to you and the rest of the legacies as they should have been born with a stable flow.” The professor said before taking his place at the front of the class.

Professor Kane waited for a few minutes as the last strangler’s of the group arrived, the ones that were this late were usually the unlucky ones that had been caught by one of the older years and had been ‘tuned up’ so the professor didn’t mention them being tardy as they already weren’t in the best of moods.

“Good, that’s everyone” he called out jovially before carrying on.

“Yesterday I taught you how to access your Soul realm and draw it to specific parts of your body; today I am going to teach you the next step to this technique, mana flow!”

“Mana flow is where you draw your mana out of your Soul realm and establish a constant flow around your mana veins”

“Achieving this means that you will be able to access you mana quicker, you will have a constant defence ready to fight off foreign invading mana, and that it will be constantly refining your body whilst it is flowing so you will constantly be getting stronger and healthier, there are no negative consequences to this technique, only positives!” The professor joked whilst posing with his strong body.

“So, to achieve this state you first need to draw mana out of your soul and ….” The professor explained to the rest of the class the how but Bryn wasn’t too interested, even now he could feel the mana flowing through his veins, it wasn’t the powerful surge that he briefly felt when the seal had been removed, but it felt more like a stream flowing down a dried up river bed.

Only the water felt as dense as mercury and instead of the refreshing feeling you get when you drink perfectly cold water, it felt like Whiskey was flowing through his veins and all of his negative inhibitions were released and fighting against his will to come to the surface.

Essentially it felt like a sober person being inside of his drunken body but being unable to stop himself from doing stupid shit no matter how wrong he knew it to be.

Bryn had heard about being ‘Drunk on power’, but he was an ‘Angry drunk on power’, and that was with his power sealed to six percent. Any higher than that and he would turn into ‘Murderous drunk on power” or maybe a “psychotic Drunk on power”.

“Over here” The professor called out as he had finished teacher the rest of the class, Bryn left Armarni behind and joined up with seven other students.

Most of them, like Bryn, were Legacies, but there were a few regular humans that were just geniuses that had figured out the how of mana flow themselves.

“Seems that you lot have already established your mana flow I’ll teach you a new technique as the only way to improve your mana manipulation now is through practice” Kane said before holding up his hand and lightly cutting into it with a sharp knife, blood was drawn.

The small cut flashed with power before it began to rapidly seal itself, after a second Kane used his thumb to wipe the blood away, not even a scar remained.

The student around him went to ask how he did it but Kane motioned for them to remain quiet, that wasn’t the technique he was going to teach them.

This time Professor Kane held his hand for all of them to see, and then he stabbed himself in the centre of his palm with the same knife he had used before.

Bryn jumped back to avoid the expected burst of blood like a couple other students but there was not spurt of blood, there was no cut, there was no wound, there was nothing.

The knife that had so easily cut him before had failed to do anything this time!

Bryn looked at Kane with the same look each of the students that had watched had, Kane for his part smiled in amusement.

“The technique is called [Reinforcement] and alongside casting spells, it is one of the most common techniques used in combination with mana manipulation” He said before intentionally making the mana that he had coated his hand in visible.

“The principle to this technique is the same as when I asked you to direct your mana to one part of your body yesterday, only this time you need to direct it towards your skin and coat it in mana” he said before directing the mana that only covered his hand to flow down his arm and across his entire body.

“This technique when done right is equivalent to turning your skin into marble” he said before dispelling the reinforcement and then directing them all back to their seats to practice.

Bryn sat back down next to Armarni who was concentrating with a face that showed he was making little progress in establishing a mana flow.

Bryn held out his hand and stared at his palm, he gathered his mana there like he had been taught the previous day, now he simply had to take it to the next step and coat the outside of his skin.

Simple

20 minutes later and Bryn found out that it wasn’t so simple.

It turns out that mana does not like leaving the body.

“Teach, can I get some help, I can’t get my mana go past my skin at all” one of the other students called out as they too were finding this technique difficult and had had enough of trying to figure it out themselves.

“That’s your problem right there, allowing your mana to leave the confines of your body is the next step in this techniques, this step is merely the bridge to that step” the professor called out as he went up to the chalk board and drew two lines that separated the board into three areas.

“The bottom part is the internal part of your body; the top part is the external world…you need to fill up this middle bit so that is flows into both the internal and external” Professor Kane explained visually and that was enough for Bryn and the others.

Bryn held out his hand and gathered up the mana the same as before, only this time instead of trying to push it through his skin so it coated the outside; he directed mana into it and then let it fill until it naturally overflowed to the outside.

Feeling like he had succeeded, Bryn called out to the professor.

“Erm, professor Kane, how do we test whether we were successful or not” Bryn asked as he gave a panicked look to the knife on Professor Kane’s desk.

Professor Kane chuckled when he noticed where Bryn was looking, “Don’t worry, we will not be using a knife to test whether you were successful or not…on the other hand, I’m assuming you’ve all took a punch before” The professor called out and the entire class, there and then, knew where this was going.

Lunch was uneventful but painful.

By the end of the class, Bryn’s bruises had bruises.

It turns out that whilst he and a few others in the class could use ‘reinforcement’, maintaining it and making it strong enough to deal with an incoming punch was another thing all together.

Armarni and Alexa had made a few jokes about Bryn’s new ‘look’ much to his displeasure, but when he reminded them that they would be learning this technique in the next few days they soon shut up.

A few of the older years had showed up to earn some easy gear but Bryn had realised that it wasn’t the top students of the older years that were taking advantage of hell week for the most part, it was those that were at the bottom of the food chain and the little duel the three of them had with the legacies yesterday had scared off most of the small fries.

Lunch quickly ended and Bryn made his way over to the third class of the day, his speciality course, taming.

It was when he had crested the small hill that hid the ‘Farm’ from the majority of the academy that he realised his class had already gathered outside with their beast partners, Leena too was there.

Quickly getting her out of her cage, Bryn snuggled up to the exited little pup before letting her down to run about the field in the first bit of freedom she had probably had in quite a long time.

Most of the field had the grass cut short but the best way to describe the field in its entirety was ‘diverse’.

The field extended into the forest with no border so the magical beasts were free to enter and explore, a medium size river calmly flowed down one side of the field before aiming towards the centre lake, and whilst a lot of the field was mowed, there were plains and plains of long grass and untamed wildflowers growing all around the ‘Farm’.

After a couple minutes of Leena frolicking in the field and playing with the other young beasts, vice Principal Solomon showed up with his own partner, a clouded snow leopard.

“Right kids, today is all about taking what we learnt yesterday and putting it into practice” he said as all the students gathered before him.

“Each of you should have now managed to create a bond with your partner and if you haven’t then I will speak to you separately afterwards” he said to which most nodded in affirmation, but a few shied away embarrassed.

“The bond allows a tamer to both understand and communicate back to their partners at a speed and level that no verbal communication can ever achieve, you can feel your partner’s desires and wants, fears and trepidation so much that they almost become a part of you, and this is what makes a ‘tamer’”.

“We use this connection to teach and train our partners so no wild beast can outperform, outmanoeuvre or outsmart them, So that no matter what enemy we face, we know our partners have our backs” Vice principle Solomon said as he stroked his partner and it purred and put its head into his palm.

“Now, first things first, I’ll speak to those that still haven’t established a bond before coming around to each of you individually to advise on what type of training would best suit your partners, in the mean time I advise you to play around with the bond and attempt to get your partners to follow your commands whilst using it” he said before walking off and calling for a few students that were falling behind the rest.

Bryn led Leena, who was almost tripping over his feet, towards an open area in between the long grass and wild flowers.

Seeing the vividly coloured flowers Leena sped off and started jumping up and down, sometimes diving into the long grass before diving out at a butterfly that was flying lackadaisically nearby.

“Leena, Leena, come here” Bryn called out as he tried to practice what Solomon was saying but Leena, being the little pup that she was, was completely oblivious to his attempts.

Bryn was not amused as he watched Leena’s long tail wave about whilst her butt was stuck up as she continued to stalk the infamous butterfly.

‘What did he say… to use the bond to communicate’ Bryn thought to himself before sitting down on the grass and attempting to enter his soul realm.

After going down the water-slide of mana again, Bryn was back into his chaotic soul realm that had not got any better, only now there was a constant stream that flowed into the passage that he had entered through.

“God that’s disturbing” Bryn said as he turned around to see where the stream of mana went, only to find that it went into the mouth of a giant mask, his mask.

The only difference to the one that took the form of his coat of arms was that its mouth was open and several golden chains blocked most of the mana from leaving.

“That must be the seal” Bryn said as he went over to inspect it as this was the first time he had really looked around his soul realm since changing his seals back then, his mana flow hadn’t established itself yet so he hadn’t seen this gate before.

As for what he thought as to what his mask looked like, well, he had seen it before on the palm of his hand but there was difference between something that’s 4 inches wide compared to something that was five times the size of him, it was a lot more imposing.

Moving away from his mana gate, he floated over towards where his bond with Leena was, once again he was greeted with the similar gate to the previous one, only this time is was a 2D version of Leena’s head with her mouth action as the gate, a magic curls grasped between her teeth.

Bryn could see on the other side of it was Leena’s soul realm, and in the centre of it was her soul.

Nothing had changed from the last time he had been there.

‘Now, how should I go about doing this’ Bryn thought as he questioned how to communicate through his bond.

“Leena, Come here” Bryn called out from his side of the bond before waiting a few moment and realising that when nothing happened, he wouldn’t be able to tell whether anything did actually happen in the realm world or not.

Quickly exiting his soul realm and opening his eyes what he saw was not Leena coming towards him, it was Leena lying on his back with the butterfly having landed on her nose.

She had somehow lost the fight with the butterfly.

Unamused, Bryn tried again and re-entered his soul realm and made his way back over to the bond.

“Let’s try this again” he said as he entered into her soul realm and called out again, “Leena, Come here” he said before exiting his soul realm to find Leena in the exact same spot.

“Ugh” Bryn groaned before going through the entire process again.

“Okay, that didn’t work…what if I use mana at the same time” he thought before reaching behind him and willing a wisp of power to separate from his soul realm and join him in Leena’s.

There was an immediate reaction as Leena’s soul realm seemed to shudder upon its entry.

Bryn stopped for a second as he questioned what he was supposed to do now when he remembered what happened back in the bonding process, when he had used his mana to convey his intentions to Leena.

Figuring he had nothing better to try out, he held on to the wisp of power before concentrating on it, and what he wanted it to do.

“Come here Leena” he said to which the wisp of mana vibrated and sent out pulses of power into Leena’s soul realm, each pulse eliciting its own reaction.

“Now that time something definitely happened, here goes nothing” Bryn said before jumping out of his soul realm to find Leena whimpering just in front of him.

It was a success, but “oh Leena, I’m so sorry” Bryn said as he comforted the distressed pup, plucking her off the floor before resting her on top of his legs where she began to calm and relax under the rhythmic petting.

Seeing that she had calmed down Bryn entered into his soul realm again but stopped before he tested any further, ‘there has to be a better way than this’ Bryn thought as he was getting pretty irritated with the coming back and forth out of his soul realm just to relay a simple order.

It was at this time when he noticed his own gate in the back ground and the stream of power that flowed into it without any assistance.

That was the problem Bryn figured out, currently he was directing a single wisp of mana to Leena every time he wanted to communicate with her, if he wanted to have a permanent connection established then he needed a permanent power supply to enable it.

Entering back into his soul realm he once again drew on his mana, only this time he did not will a wisp to appear, he directed a stream to connect to the bond.

AS soon as the stream connected the eyes of the bond glowed with power before a filament of mana covered the gate into Leena’s soul realm.

Bryn knew, almost instinctively, that he could now communicate with Leena whenever he wanted to.

Popping out of his soul realm for hopefully the last time, Bryn placed Leena in front of him, only this time he didn’t go into his soul realm to communicate with her, he felt at his mana, he felt the bond and he spoke.

“Leena, sit!” he said and transmitted his intentions and desired through his mana, though the bond and straight into Leena’s soul directly.

Leena looked at him questioningly for a second before doing the impossible.

She sat.

“Yes!” Bryn called out in celebration and Leena began to run around her master to share in his joy.

“Follow!” Bryn called out before jumping to his feet and running away to which Leena followed as quick as she could behind him.

“Jump!” he shouted and she leapt.

“Hide” he said and she hid within the long grass before jumping back out when Bryn called for her to come back out.

The pair of them played about with this new bond for several minutes under the questioning eye of the other students, some of them may have been amused to see the ‘demon spawn’ play so happily, some were jealous that he had learnt how to communicate properly before they had, but it was Solomon who was looking at Bryn with true happiness showing.

“He’s just like you my sweet Juliet” He said before wiping a tear away and made his way over to interrupt Bryn and Leena’s playtime.

“Having fun are we?” he asked as Bryn and Leena skidded to a halt.

“ah, Sorry Teach, sort of lost myself there” Bryn Admitted coyly.

“No worries, all the best tamers act the same way when they first establish a true connection” he said before noticing something about Leena.

“Hrm, When you chose…Leena, back in the exam, did you perhaps not read the description as to what type of magical beast she is” Solomon asked to which Bryn shook his head.

“no sir, I read it, she is a ‘Carolina Island Hopper’”” Bryn responded.

“Hrm” Solomon nodded his head thoughtfully, “then why are you having her train in a field” he asked before pointedly directing his eyes towards the nearby river.

“Ah” Bryn called out in surprise before realising his error, Leena was an aquatic beast; she was at home in the water, not on land.

Bryn motioned to rush off but before he got too far Solomon called out to him, “She may struggle at first but once she manages to take a few steps, rely on her predatory instincts and everything else will come naturally” he said before turning to advise another student.

Bryn led Leena to the water’s edge where she precariously tested the water with one of her paws whilst she sat on the edge of the bank.

“Come on Leena, Stop being such a Scaredy cat, Go in” Bryn joked before Leena jumped into the water.

He was scared for a moment as Leena whimpered whilst she struggled to swim but within seconds she had transitioned into a doggy paddle and after that, she had pulled herself out of the water and stood atop it.

“Wow” was all Bryn could say as Leena shook her wet fur dry before running along and jumping across the water’s surface playfully.

Thinking back to what Solomon’s last words were, Bryn knew what the next step was.

“Leena…hunt!”

Leena looked at Bryn for a moment before her eyes narrowed and she looked at the water around her, she walked across the water with her nose down as if she was sniffing, but in reality she was peering through the water to find what lay below.

Finding her quarry her head seemed to slip into the water without causing a ripple before her body followed in motion.

Seconds passed but Leena didn’t resurface, Bryn was starting to get worried but there was a sudden explosion of water as a fish jumped high into the air with Leena right on its tail.

The two landed but no matter how hard the fish tried to escape it was no match to Leena who was using her long tail to propel herself through the water.

With a quick bite the fish was caught and the fight was over.

Bryn was immensely proud of his little pup for catching her first fish but as he noticed that she wasn’t coming back to him with her quarry, he knew he had a problem.

“Leena, Come here” he commanded to which she tried to fight but when she noticed that there was no ground to argue she swam over to him before dropping the fish at his feet despairingly.

Seeing that she finally followed his command Bryn congratulated her and pet her so much that her earlier despair was already forgotten.

It also helped that Bryn gave her the fish back once he had gotten his point across.

The rest of the class amounted to Bryn sitting at the edge of the river with his shoes and socks off to the side and his feet resting in the water, he would watch and direct as Leena continued her attack on the local fish population.

Eventually she had had enough and came to rest beside Bryn whilst enjoying her spoils but all good things have to come to an end, the class was over and it was time for them to part.

Leena went back into her cage, only now it was filled with a score of half devoured fish, and Bryn went on to his next class with a new promise in his heart, he would learn the ‘recall’ technique as quick as he could so that he wouldn’t have to keep parting with Leena and then the two of them could always be together.

It was with a heavy heart that he met back up with Armarni for their next class, neither of them was really in the mood, Bryn missed Lena and Armarni missed part of his eyebrows.

Bryn had asked, there had been an alchemical experiment that had gone badly, really badly.

Lionheart could see this, but at the same time he also didn’t care, he was truly introducing them for the first time to the gauntlet, the obstacle course designed for people with super powers in mind.

“Gather up, Gather up and look upon her glory” Lionheart shouted as he directed the students to the gauntlet.

“This here is not your average gauntlet, no, this was designed with you students in mind, Kids new to their powers but already possessing abilities beyond normal human prowess, Heroes in training that will soon be facing their first foes but yet require a firm kick up their arse so they do not overestimate their abilities and get killed for it” He lectured before walking them past each part of the Gauntlet.

“Each section of the gauntlet will test you and push you beyond your limits, you will need to use everything that you have learnt so far to complete the gauntlet” He said before pointing to a random student to start.

The class watched as the student ran up to the gauntlet and attacked the first stage, ‘The Ladder Climb’.

Whilst the name may sound mundane, it was anything but, a normal ladder involved two poles with a bar being placed at an equal distance between them as it gets higher, the ‘ladder climb’ in the gauntlet involved a single pole planted into the ground with bars coming out of it randomly, better yet it was only one of many whose heights got larger the further into the gauntlet you went and even then there was more.

There was no direct path to complete the stage due to the randomness of the bar heights, and as Bryn watched the first student fall from gauntlet to the hard ground below with a bloody and broken nose, he found out that the ‘ladders’ rotated as well.

One student after the other attempted to the gauntlet and one student after another fell to the earth below, some were lucky and made it to the second stage under the applause of the class, but most ended up knocked off the ladders due to their habit of rotating at the most inappropriate time.

The class had followed along the gauntlet as the first member of the class managed to pass through the ladder climb thanks to being agility focused legacy, he posed and show boated from atop the second stage before walking across the aerial path.

The next stage of the gauntlet was based on a school game that they had all played at one point or at least had heard of, it was the ‘dodge ball’ Stage.

Only, Bryn and the rest of the class never remembered the ball being the size of a baseball and shot at the speed of a bullet, neither had the student that was atop the second stage so when the ‘ball’ came flying directly at his face, it collided with his forehead and knocked him out cold, his limp body followed the path so many of the students to attempt this gauntlet had and fell to the ground below.

Several students had attempted the gauntlet but none had yet to pass the second stage and it was now Bryn’s turn.

Under the encouragement of Armarni and silent despondent glares of the rest of his class, Bryn waited for the first rotation of the ladders before beginning his climb to the top.

The ladders were placed so that there was no set way to climb and after a few moments Bryn found himself almost swinging from one bar to the next, he climbed as high as he could before waiting for the next rotation to come and before long all the ladders turned as one.

Bryn made it to the top of the first stage before jumping the last gap to the beginning of the second stage, some of the students had moaned about him ‘cheating’ because he waited for the rotation before moving whilst others simply took notes for when it came to their turn.

Bryn slowly edged forwards as he passed along the second stage, his arms were held aloft in a boxers high guard, his eyes scanning through the gap so he could prepare for when the ‘ball’ came.

*BANG*

Bryn was caught surprised as he felt the ball impact on his guard, he had barely been able to see the ball coming at him, if he had not already had his guard up then there was nothing that he could have done to stop it!

Bryn edge further along knowing that his guard would hold, the ball had hurt and he had no doubt that he would have a bruise tomorrow but that was all, he could deal with the pain and he could deal with this stage.

*BANG*

*BANG*

*BANG*

*BANG*

The Ball kept being shot and each time he managed to overcome it, the power and speed behind the ball kept going up whilst the timing below each shot kept going down.

By the time he could see the beginning of the third stage, the ball was already being rapidly shot at him whilst his arms felt like tenderised meat.

‘I can do this; I’ve got this’ Bryn thought to himself and elation ran through him over his impending success.

It was only too bad that he didn’t see the ball that was shot from his side, it passed by his non-existent guard, impacting straight into his temple.

Bryn’s world went dark whilst his body was knocked dramatically off the side of the gauntlet.

He had failed the second stage.