“So what you’re saying, is that poor, sweet, innocent Leah, has to be the shield against our enemies now… Tony, couldn’t you have lost on purpose?” Edward asked, looking to the suddenly very pale boy, who realized what he had done at the end of last term with his victory over Leah.

“If he had, he’d fail and be kicked out of the school though. Losing on purpose is a definite fail.” Izuki pointed out with a look towards the prince of the Empire who scratched the back of his head sheepishly at his teacher’s rebuke.

“I’m impressed though Tony, you almost had me there!” Vince said with a grin, leaning his shoulder into Tony’s, unbalancing the shy fifth ranked student…

Of course, this meant that two students at minimum had dropped in rank, and Leah and Jade both looked both depressed and determined.

Determined to increase their ranks, and depressed because as the two girls of the class, they were somehow at the lowest ranks…

Liza didn’t count, despite her cuteness that had Jade and Leah smiling from time to time, Liza was firmly a tomboy in her mannerisms.

Hiiro was more feminine than her, so that said something.

There was, indeed, one good thing to that situation though… Hiiro had finally gotten a chance to face Liza one on one, due to their strength being in the same strata…

The result of the conflict was unfortunately as expected, with Hiiro failing to defeat Liza… she was just too fast, and just as physically strong as Hiiro. Not to mention her usage of an Armament and her Clad in the fight while Hiiro was still learning to do one of the two.

Liza’s first piece of her Clad was a single gauntlet on her right hand, showing that Liza’s Clad was an armour-type, and that complete mastery of the Clad would allow her to always have a protective suit of armour at hand, one that grew with her strength at that.

As it was, Liza just used the gauntlet as a shield and occasionally a bludgeoning tool, as Hiiro’s ribs could attest when he lost the match.

The other rankings hadn’t changed really, except for Tony moving upwards by two ranks, forcing the original holders downwards, and he did so with the assistance of his own Armament.

Referred to as ‘boomerangs’ as supplied by the Headmaster once Izuki managed to describe the weapons, the two weapons were bladed both on the inside and the outside, the only ‘blunt’ parts being the cloth covered sections on both ends of the weapons.

Liza, upon learning the weapons names, collectively named them ‘Dark Bolts’ to the enjoyment of everyone in the room bar Hiiro…

He still didn’t understand the need to give everything meaningful name, even if both of his parents agreed with the sentiment, saying ‘named items and skills are stronger’.

When asked why, his parents just said it was because of the idea that ‘only special things are named’. A normal sword wouldn’t be named, but a named one couldn’t be normal.

That sounded like nonsense to Hiiro, but he shrugged, technically Sages could change the world by writing with Essence so who was he to say that naming something to make it stronger was impossible?

Anyway, the weapons, as far as Tony could tell, were made to be thrown, and they came back to their wielder too…

With their black colouration marred only by a single line of yellow along the centre of the weapons, once thrown at high speeds they looked almost like black circle flying at a person except for that yellow line and the wrappings for handles.

Using the weapons, Tony had managed to bypass Leah’s defences when she hadn’t expected the weapons to return to their wielder… she was already surprised when they were thrown after all.

After watching Leah’s surprise defeat, Jade stepped up to battle Tony, watching out for the weapons and their ability to be thrown, so instead of standing back, she rushed forward, seeking to keep the battle close to take away the advantage of the range of the weapons…

The problem was that, despite seemingly being capable of being used as ranged weapons, and made for that purpose according to Izuki… well, the Dark Bolts were being wielded by Tony.

Who was a close range specialist before he was a long-range specialist…

Suffice to say Jade bit off a bit more than she could chew when Tony used the two large boomerangs as twin blades, causing the fight to devolve into some strange cat and mouse fight between the two.

Jade was quick, capable of finesse and danced between many of Tony’s blows, replying with her own attacks and trying to keep Tony close, but not close enough to defeat her…

Tony on the other hand was all about speed, and with the berserk nature of his fighting style, he simply charged, trying to attack Jade with his full force, blasts of Lightning trailing the Dark Bolts redirected towards Blade Bombs, the Darkness trying to encroach on Jade’s legs to trip her up fought back by the blinding Light radiating from Jade’s rapier.

It was, in all honesty, a great fight that had Hiiro watching with a smile, wanting to be included in such a fight but knowing that it wasn’t his face.

Oddly enough, Hiiro wasn’t much of a fight junkie, but he did like challenges… compared to him, Edward was much worse.

Eventually the chase did come to an end though, When Tony finally threw one of the Dark bolts at Jade, the former fifth ranked student dodging just barely, attacking Tony to take advantage of his loss of one of his weapons while knowing the weapon would be returning…

Except the weapon didn’t continue, instead stopping just a bit behind Jade, still spinning despite not moving, as it grew wider and wider…

Then Tony sunk into the ground, shadows swallowing him whole to Jade’s surprise.

It was at this point that Tony fell out of the black circle created by the spinning Black Bolt, holding the other in hand, he grabbed Jade, resting the blade against her throat, ending the battle with Tony’s victory.

“It’s no wonder he won… Tony was always a close range fighter, and his weapons are perfect for him. They can be used at close range and mid-range, and they can even be used to get closer to an enemy.” Hiiro pointed out.

The only reason Tony hadn’t defeated Vince was because, like Tony, Vince had improved quite a bit since the start of the new year, especially with his use of his Elements as more than attacking.

Vince had always used his Wood Element to disturb his enemies, but not really to attack, and used his Light Element to attack with rays of burning Light.

Tony could now attest that Vince’s repertoire of abilities expanded massively.

Tony could recall being hit with a flash bang, running into an ‘invisible’ barrier of Light, getting hit in the stomach with a tree growing at an angle, poisoned at one point, getting almost eaten by another plant and finally being defeated when Vince shot a seed against his sternum, the seed bursting into vines which locked around Tony, immobilizing him long enough for Vince to rest his pistol against Tony’s skull.

Another amazing battle, one that Vince almost lost numerous times as shown by the many cuts he had, and the almost broken arm.

Vince and Tony trained together the most; they knew this fight would be a close one, with Vince narrowly eking out a victory.

“So… once again, Tony is the first to advance among you all. I’d say that makes him the most talented in regards to growth, but there are more factors than just that after all.” Miya pointed out, and some of the students looked down in a bit of worry.

“So until you all have an Armament or Clad, training will be mostly halted, you need to have one to maintain your lead on the other classes.” Izuki warned, getting nods from everyone but Liza and Tony.

“As for you two, work on mastering what you have Liza, Tony, it’s up to you to decide whether you want to try and learn a Clad or simply focus on mastering your Armament, either way, it’s up to you.” Tony and Liza nodded both understanding that they had different things to do compared to their classmates.

That wasn’t to say the others were weak, Liza was practically a freak of nature considering she was on the verge of reaching four Stars already, and Tony’s growth was subtle and unexpected until moments like these.

And the other second year S-Class students had their own oddities that made them monsters in the same vein as these two, such as Hiiro’s weapon skills and growing versatility, Edward’s extreme physical ability, Jade was a burgeoning crowd controlling defensive specialist, Vince was the single greatest long range expert in their year and possibly among the third years too, and Leah was capable of almost multiplying the strength of those whose side she fought on.

They were all monsters, being behind by a bit in one thing meant nothing in the long run.

“Come on you all, we’ll give you the information packets, and we’ve managed to get you all excused from extracurricular activities, so we have as long as necessary to get you all to the point you should be.” Izuki said with a smile, which drew awkward looks from five of the students…

Knowing that all that ‘free time’ was still being taken up by training, well… yeah, they couldn’t be happy, though they weren’t mad about getting stronger at least.

So the class moved towards their training area, already knowing that the training, while worth it… it wasn’t going to be that enjoyable.

As they moved over to the training centre for the second year S-Class, the Headmaster looked out from his office to see the group of students moving... more importantly, focusing on his adoptive daughter.

The only reason Liza escaped having the title ‘Princess of Metal’ was because she wasn’t a Metal Sage, though Donovan was glad that she wasn’t tacked with that title.

The phone rang, drawing a raised brow from Donovan as he looked at it, wondering who would be calling him right at this moment…

Walking back to his desk and sitting down, he picked up the phone, unwilling to greet…

After all, this was his private number, if someone knew it, they knew exactly who they were calling.

“Namaste Donovan, it’s me.” Donovan rolled his eyes, even if the person on the other end of the phone couldn’t see it.

“You know, just because you say ‘it’s me’ that doesn’t actually say who you are Goku?” Donovan asked, knowing that his conversation partner was probably rolling his own eyes at Donovan’s reaction.

“Please, you knew it was me from the moment you heard my voice. Anyway, I got a question for you.” Donovan blinked, wondering why the Monkey Sage would need to ask him anything…

“Uh, sure?” Donovan said, wondering why Goku would call him over a question, especially considering they were going to be meeting up in a few months anyway.

“There’s this kid, staying at my temple for a couple of days. Normal human kid, named Nero. Apparently he’s a philosophy student interviewing the leaders of each school. Claims he visited you and Yule. Can you confirm this?” Donovan blinked trying to recall…

Yes, he remembered meeting the young glasses wearing boy, Liza even mentioned that her class was friends with the boy.

“Yes, he visited me here at the school, asked me some questions on ‘common knowledge’ for Sages as well as one or two personal ones.” Donovan recalled for the sake of the other King, who was just silently listening.

“… Donovan this boy is strange.” Donovan immediately dropped the smile he wore while recalling the interaction, his face neutral even as every bit of metal for a few kilometres moved a bare millimetre.

“…Strange, how?” Donovan asked carefully, knowing better than to dismiss the anything the King of Lightning had to say.

“I can’t be sure how he is strange, but he definitely is. His luck, that’s something that can’t truly be explained, but it’s more than that… the boy just freaks me out a bit.” Goku eventually said with what sounded like his ‘I give up’ voice, leaving Donovan to wonder…

That was the second person he had heard say that something wasn’t quite right with Nero… the first being Liza, who claimed that Nero was just a little bit too likeable.

And now the King of Lightning was also saying something was off about the boy? When Donovan and none of Liza’s classmates caught anything?

“If what you’re saying is true… well, the boy might need to be watched rather than being left alone.” Donovan pointed out, and Goku chuckled on the other end of the phone.

“Exactly what I was thinking. It’s why I let him stay in the Temple without meeting me. He thinks I’m busy in deep meditation.” Donovan laughed openly at that, imagining Goku actually meditating for an extended period of time.

The King of Lightning was indeed the monk, but the man rarely meditated for more than a half hour or an hour a day, the rest of the time being spent lazing around, training or reading magazines.

The idea of Goku actually meditating for what the boy thought was ‘days’ was laughable.

“You are cruel. If he really is not as he seems, I approve. If he is innocent… shame.” Donovan shrugged as he said the last bit, noticing within his senses that the second year S-Class students were split into meditating and physical training…

Hiiro and Edward were the ones physically training, so certain of their weapons that they just believed that they needed more Essence to force their Armaments into existence.

The others, Vince, Leah and Jade, were meditating, the first to figure out how to generate what he fully believed was his Armament, Leah meditating because regardless of whether she had a staff or not, meditating was not bad for her, and Jade was meditating because being in complete control over her Elements was an integral part of her fighting style.

She’s be jumping between physical training and meditation, increasing her reserves before learning control, and then repeating the cycle.

“I don’t care what he is, sometimes I just like messing with people. I’m not going to appear in front of that kid until the day before I head to the Empire for the meeting.” Donovan got Goku’s idea immediately after he spoke, looking at his desk for a moment in confusion.

“You… want to offer to take him to meet Grigori, don’t you? Giving you more time to observe him?” Donovan asked, getting a grunt of affirmation from Goku.

“Yes, hiding how you truly are for over three months is an impossibility unless you were some super spy like Grigori is at times.” Donovan could agree with that, hiding who you were for any extended period of time was really difficult.

“You should be the last one to talk about someone’s ability to hide what they are, Hector.” The moment the name left his lips, Donovan winced at the static in his ear coming from his phone for a moment.

“Boy, do not test me again. I don’t care if you are Steel-Heart the Alchemist or whatever, I will destroy you if you challenge me.” Donovan’s face was in a grimace, realizing he had overstepped a bit, hearing Goku’s voice suddenly gain a faint Empire accent.

“My apologies sir. Won’t happen again sir.” Donovan said as simply as possible, hearing the grunt on the other side of the phone before Goku spoke once more, the accent gone.

“That being said, I doubt a kid younger than twenty could sneak his real personality by me. I just wanted to hear from you what was up from the boy. I also didn’t really feel like talking to that bastard Yule.” Donovan chuckled awkwardly at the mention of his rival…

Yule wasn’t a bad guy, necessarily… just stubborn, and isolated.

And no, ice­-olated was a bad pun, stop thinking about it Donovan…

Oh who was he kidding, he found it hilarious, but Donovan would rather not be accused of insanity due to suddenly bursting into laughter while on the phone.

“Yule’s not… that bad. He just likes being left alone.” Donovan tried to defend his rival, but neither he nor Goku believed his own words considering Yule’s aggressive nature around other Kings.

Oh when Yule was the strongest one in the room he could be more than a bit civil, but that changed when he encountered his peers…

He’d rather be left alone than face his peers, the only one he tolerated was Donovan and that was because Yule liked to challenge Donovan.

“Understatement, but I’ll leave you to your delusions. Good luck with your students, you’ll need it against Faina.” Donovan blinked, rolling his chair over to the window and looking in the direction of the training centre where Hiiro was busy training.

“You know, Yule’s Essence User is considered his best student, and so is Grigori’s… I wouldn’t have expected you to go with the flow.” Donovan pointed out getting a scoff from the other end of the phone.

“Fighting the flow of a river is stupid. Even if I didn’t give her special treatment Faina would still become a force to be reckoned with among her peers.” Goku almost seemed to be bragging about his student, to Donovan’s surprise… Goku rarely took pride in a student.

“Huh. Well Hiiro isn’t a bad kid himself, though he is still busy discovering his niche beyond weapon use.” Donovan admitted, without worrying about how Hiiro appeared to be the weakest of the four Essence Users.

“Ah, he’s the son of that Izuki kid right? Then he is one to look out for, even if he isn’t being nurtured to his full potential… I don’t know why you emphasize working together so much.” Goku admitted with slight confusion…

He wasn’t blind to the benefits of working together, but doing so to one’s own detriment seemed strange to the King of Lightning.

“I advocate it because weaknesses can be covered up in a group. More Sages would live if they could simply work together instead of competing amongst themselves all the time.” Donovan said, recalling a situation or two in the Fae War in which his battalions would be compromised by in-fighting only to be taken advantage of by the enemies.

“…I suppose I can see what you’re saying… that being said, you realize our Essence Users would have probably been better taught by the other?” Donovan blinked, confused as to what Goku was getting at.

“Faina is a spell-caster, but despite using literal magic, she is still a scientist at heart, a researcher… and considering your title as the Alchemist, she would have been better suited learning from you.” Ah, Donovan could see what Goku was getting at.

“As for the Kazuya boy, do you really think there would be a better teacher for a spear user? And don’t think I don’t know what weapon the boy uses, his father had always mentioned wanting to learn the spear but finding it a bit too late to pick up the art.” Goku wasn’t exactly wrong.

There was only one other who would be better suited for teaching Hiiro, but Donovan doubted she would ever teach the boy unless he managed to earn her attention.

But among the Academies, the best ‘Headmaster’ for Hiiro probably would have been Goku.

“I see your point, but don’t worry… I know you are actually quite brilliant with Spells when you want to be, and just because I do not have an Armament doesn’t mean I couldn’t teach him a weapon if I felt like it… I just don’t want to be accused of favouritism.” A small dig at the three other Kings was laced in Donovan’s words, drawing a barking laugh from Goku.

“Ha, jealous? You always did seem like the most accommodating between the four of us, it’s a nice contrast to Yule.” Donovan laughed at that, rolling back to his desk and looking at the computer screen in front of him.

“Well, being accommodating has advantages and disadvantages. My Academy is the most popular but I can’t focus on those I want to without a drawback… as for Valour, they’re the most strict but they can do favouritism without anyone batting an eye.” Donovan complained as Goku laughed.

“It was good talking to you again Donovan. I’m going to take a nap now, talk again whenever.” Goku greeted, apparently he was feeling tired…

Oh right, it was probably around midnight where the Temple was?

“To you as well Goku. I’ll see you in a few months.” Donovan greeted, hearing the phone click, the King of Lightning’s connection severed leaving the King of Metal to put down the phone, sighing.

The emphasis on growing the Essence Users because of their rarity… it already happened with multiple Elements, but it was definitely based on facts.

Those with two Elements were stronger on average than those with one Element when their Stars were equal…

And Essence Users had ten times the Essence someone would normally have of their rank, their compression and expansion rates in regards to their containers… it was beyond belief.

And because of how quickly their power grew, they also needed to grow more than normal to show off their power, the only reason they weren’t basically cripples was because the amount of power they threw around allowed them to use Elements equally.

So… maybe Donovan should have focused on Hiiro’s power, knowing that the boy would definitely be a juggernaut if he grew even to seven Stars…

But then Donovan recalled watching the group work together in the School Wide Tourney… remembering how Hiiro easily worked together with his classmates, the idea of being alone probably never even occurring to him.

No, Hiiro was someone whose strength was shown with others.

Donovan recalled what he knew of the other Essence Sages, even as he felt the on goings inside the training centre, the metal pieces inside vibrating slightly to give Donovan an accurate image of the surroundings of the metal.

Faina Alvez was a spell-caster, precise, calculating, a person of science, it was odd that she was training at the Temple but Goku was acknowledged as the best teacher out of the four Headmasters after all, if she was drawn over with promised lessons then she would have moved past her dislike of spirituality…

Again, it was ironic that a Spell-caster, who gets stronger through meditation, is practically an atheist.

Then there was Raphael Bisset, the musical Essence User, he was passive and enigmatic to his peers, but according to Grigori it was more that Raphael was a passive soul, living and letting live, an oddly quiet person bar his guitar… the very act of playing his guitar seemed to strengthen Raphael, getting Donovan to believe that Raphael actually subconsciously considered playing music to be the same as meditation.

The boy would be an amazing support Sage, and many people underestimate the idea of sound as a tool of combat, so even if he was alone Raphael was still a major threat.

The issue was the final Essence Sage…

Norman Granz was a swordsman, practically a knight, wielding a bastard sword with intriguing grace for such a hefty weapon, his mastery of his weapon was only matched by his ability to infuse an ‘anti-evil’ property into all his attacks, the property causing him to deal more damage to ‘dark’ beings such as Darkness Mystic Beasts, genuinely evil Rogue Sages.

It was still unknown how such ‘properties’ decided who they damaged, but there was an ‘anti-evil’ and ‘anti-righteous’ property known, there were also ‘anti-beast’ ‘anti-Fae’ and those cursed ‘anti-human’ weapons.

Oddities, but people capable of using properties or creating items with them were not an impossibility, it just showed the nature of the person using them, meaning that Norman was someone who sought to annihilate evil at his core…

That being said…

Something wasn’t quite right with Norman Granz, even if Yule claimed it was just a phase the boy was going through…

Discriminating against normal humans was abhorrent behaviour for a Sage, and Norman did so thinking it was normal.

Yule claimed that he was handling it, but Donovan hoped that Normal learnt his lesson before it was too late. Otherwise, he would be put down as a Rogue Sage eventually.

A Rogue Sage with an anti-evil property… stranger things have happened, but Donovan did not want to put down such a useful child.

From what the other Headmasters were saying, they were likely to bring their Essence Users to the International Juniors again…

They had already appeared at the International Juniors the year before, even though none of them made it that far, the experience would push them even more.

So they’d probably appear again this year…

Donovan would have to let Izuki and Miya know that they were to train that entire class as best as they could… Donovan at least wanted Liza, Hiiro and Edward to get to the International Juniors this year.

Eh, he’d hope, but Donovan wasn’t holding his breath.

And as if to prove Donovan’s doubts wrong-

“Yes! Wait… not again!” Donovan, had he been drinking something would have chosen to spat it out across his computer screen at that kind of timing…

Really, just when Donovan was wondering if it was really possible to get those students to the International Juniors…

Hiiro and Edward growled at each other, being kept back by Liza and Tony respectively as they tried to grab at each other.

“Bastard, you’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” Hiiro shouted at Edward who looked outraged himself.

“Me? You’re the one who keeps copying me!” Edward roared in return, even as Leah, Jade and Vince laughed at the sight, knowing that despite their annoyance, Edward and Hiiro weren’t truly angry with one another.

How could they be when they were such great rivals… they even unlocked their Armaments at the same time.

There was a strange, bone-white spear in Hiiro’s hand, looking like a white space marring existence itself, the only other hint of colour on it being the blade which was black, looking like ink flowing across it… because that blade definitely wasn’t stationary.

Edward, on the other hand, had two gauntlets, spiked and ridged, with his knuckles possessing points as if used to dig into an enemy when punched.

“Uh… what started that?” Izuki asked, never seeing his son so ‘angry’ even if he knew it was fake…

Well, he had seen his son angrier, legitimately angry too, but he was wondering why this was happening, his wife nodding her head in agreement to his question.

“Well, they both gained their Armaments at the same time… they also reached three Stars at the exact same time.” Jade pointed out, letting Izuki and Miya decode the previous conversation between Hiiro and Edward to find proof…

Yeah, it sounded like there was another thing they had done at the same time, and it turns out it was progressing to the next rank?

“That sounds… coincidental…” Edward spared a glance to his wife, his wife also looking just as confused as him.

They were evenly matched in talent? Their monstrous son had a rival who was this even with him, recalling that Hiiro had very nearly left his fight with Edward with a cracked skull, not that Edward could even walk away from the fight with his legs dislocated.

“You know dear… I think we were underestimating the other students in this class.” Miya whispered to Izuki, who nodded imperceptibly, none of the students catching the exchange as they were busy watching Edward and Hiiro get ready for a spar…

Izuki and Miya… well, they tried to be impartial, but Izuki and Miya were aware that their son was likely going to grow stronger than either of them ever would, and it was hard to acknowledge that he could actually be rivalled in terms of latent ability.

But since starting to teach this class, Izuki and Miya had their expectations a bit… upside down. That was to say the least of their thoughts.

Liza was the strongest in the class, Hiiro would never be able to compete with Vince’s long ranged ability if Vince changed to a bow, Leah was way better than Hiiro in regards to Spells, Jade’s spatial awareness and ability to use her Element in an entire area around her was beyond Hiiro’s, Tony gained his Armament and advanced first disregarding Liza, and Edward matched his growth rate almost exactly, with Edward being just as skilled in bare-hand combat as Hiiro was skilled with weapon based combat.

Any other place, Hiiro would be unique, a special snowflake to be groomed…

Here, in Elem High, the domain of Donovan Oren?

Hiiro was just one of the monsters being raised here, and judging by the smile on his face as his spear clashed against Edward’s gauntlets showed that he was happy with that.

Meanwhile, in a room with a statue of a skeleton, a few certain Rogue Sages sat, looking sceptically at their leader.

“Uh… Apostle, sir, not to question but…” Blake had to ask, he really did, because this situation seemed a bit too strange to be the work of the usually serious Apostle.

“I know it’s odd. And I fully agree with the sentiment, but… this person really would be the best person to replace that disappointment. Can’t even remember his name…” the Apostle complained, looking at the newest member of his group.

“Hi there. I’m sure we’re going to have a wonderful time together…” the teen said, a wide, stretched out grin covering his face… even as a four Star Sage, he scared them.