Chapter 43 - Mock combat

All basic combat and support classes ended yesterday, and the last one was… hard.

Following the difficulty of creating an arrow, the following teacher was all about long weapons that were free from the body, meaning we had to create an entire weapon without attaching it to us.

The mana manipulation and concentration needed to maintain any mana-based creation outside the body was immense. While the weapons morphed from our bodies used inner mana to help control and maintain it's form, the ones created without the connection were made entirely by ambient mana, which was a lot harder to work with.

The arrow was small enough that we were capable of mastering it's creation and launch in a few weeks, with the 'launching' part being the hardest because the further it was, the more complex the manipulation needed to keep it up.

With long weapons the difficulty was in the size, though we could throw it if we needed, no one except the teachers were able to maintain such volume too distant from themselves.

Theory was the same, both arrow and long weapons were similar, but in practice the challenge was potentially increased with the size of the creation.

Dora, our instructor for the long weapons and last basic combat class, fought mainly with long weapons, and her preferred one was a scythe. A SCYTHE. A real life scythe, that thing was taller than Dora herself, the blade was about 50% of its height! If not for her shining long blue hair tied in a cute ponytail, she would be the perfect impersonation of Death, skinny enough to see the cheek bones, deep red eyes and skin.

Maybe I can suggest for her to change her attire for a black cape hiding her face and hair? With her skills, I'm sure she would inflict fear upon the enemy just by existing and walking the battlefield.

She instructed us to start with the creation of a plain old stick, then making it longer and longer until it was at least a bit taller than us. After that we were free to play with the blade as we pleased. We were allowed to choose between using the plain staff as a blunt weapon, make a small blade on top to use as a spear of any kind or try to make it a bigger curved blade that copied hers. She did not care as long as it could kill someone.

Most of the students were using a plain staff because that was all they could create, maintain, swing around AND that could still take some damage and not dissipate in light. The improved post-near-death-experience Melvin, and the others that were more capable, were using a simple spear at best.

Dora did say that we were free to play with the blade, but she highly recommended the use of a spear with a simple pointy blade at the top until we got more mastery in the use of longer weapons. Even the geniuses that were capable of creating a more intricate blade decided to follow her advice and were using the same blade model that was recommended.

It took the students about two weeks, bit more than half of the time allocated for Dora's class, to master the basics of the weapon creation. And another few days to get to the point of having enough skill to keep it up for long periods of time and with sufficient strength to handle a real low level fight without busting into mana particles.

The remaining days were used to teach new fighting forms more suited for the use of long weapons. The katas were kept very generic to be useful for any long weapon, staff, speark, harpoon, scythe or whatever long bladed stick we choose to use. Later on we would apparently have the opportunity to specialize in one type, but it was recommended that everyone trained the basics for ALL weapons as the skill could come in handy at some point.

The absolutely great warriors were able to fight with every type and change the weapon in between blows during a fight if they chose to do so. Truly an amazing ability, but nothing we could pull without painstaking effort and training.

No information was given to any of us about what comes now that we had no classes. And the lack of information brings us to the current predicament.

Jade is not here.

All 7 of us woke up and went with the normal morning routine. It was expected for Jade to arrive around now and acompain us to the arena where the classes took place. Some days she was earlier, others a bit late but it never varied longer than 5 min before or after.

Except during the period where she was the main teacher, but that does not matter now. The main issue now is that almost half an hour has passed from her normal time and she was not here.

"Do we look in her room?"

"I don't know, what if she IS there? Then what?"

"We wake her up of course… she is late"

"Who's going to wake her up? I don't want to die right now, you know?"

A heated argument between the girls was in progress. They had already searched for her in the entire house except her own room. She was nowhere to be found. No one wanted to go in her room, they were all justifiable afraid to wake someone like her. Jade was usually nice to others, but she could also be cruel and kill someone without a notice, as we witness during her classes.

The only casualties we had in any class this year happened during her watch, and one was actually killed by her. There was not a single person that wanted to play with her and maybe press the wrong button.

"It's already pretty late, let's just go to the arena without her." Mayara was the unspoken leader and decided our next action. The others just agreed, it was a decision as good as any since they had no idea what was happening now and it was already more than one hour late.

As they all standed up in a single line and headed for the exit, Mayara reached for the door, but before she made contact with the knob, it twisted on its own and it opened from the outside. Jade was there.

A sign of relief could be heard from all. We were just in time to not miss her.

"Oh, Hello Hello! How are you this good morning?" No one answered, they were all too startled with the unusual question, she hardly inquired about our wellbeing. Jade ignored the silence for a single second as well as the doubtful eyes of her students and continued. "So, today is your day off. Go do whatever and tomorrow morning I will come at the same time... Bye"

She closed the door and vanished.

An akward silence established itself in the room. What had happened? Day off? Is today the first day off ever since forever?

"Ahm…. what do we do?"

"I don't know, last time we had some free time we were still on the Nest..."

"Yea… maybe just play some chess like old times? Or go out and… meet people?"

They decided to go out, see people... and play chess with the people they would undoubtedly meet.

Except Briana, she wanted to stay home alone to train more. Mayara was against it and forced her to come along. Their old teacher, Mila, was very clear that socialization was as important as any training and so she forced the sister to have a bit of fun.

The day went without any incident. All students were out of their houses, the green streets were busier than any other day I remember. Usually all these people would be inside the arenas training to kill each other, but now they were friends, chatting, playing chess in the never used tables there were always there, but no one had the time to use, or even friendly sparring, trading knowledge and so on.

It did not take long for the sisters to go separate ways, Mayara and Dinorah decided to join the chess group playing below the small trees, Briana, Melvin and Penny joined the sparring and weapons test happening in the open plaza, while the others just sat to chat in the grass fields.

During this time I finally had the opportunity to see other trainees and the level of skills of other people. Until now I only knew the people in class, not a very good sample to classify Melvin's strength.

Melvin stayed the entire time in this same group, trading pointers with others, testing weapons, talking about weapons, creating new weapons, imagining weapons and so on. I'm starting to think she has a kink about weapons.

Since we were here the entire day, and Melvin got to spar with several unknown faces, I can safely assume she is in the top crop of warriors present here. I would not say top, she lost to quite a few people, but she won a lot more.

It was a fun day, even though she basically fought and trained the whole day, it was a relaxing time with no pressure from the teachers. But of course it ended.

"Good morning, Good morning! Did you sleep well?" Jade arrived on time the next morning, as usual she asked something without the expectations to receive an answer. She never gives time for anyone to even think about answering and just proceeds with her explanations. "We only have two weeks before the Sprouting Day! Isn't it amazing how time flies here? Next year you will be having so much fun!" She started to giggle a little but continued "The new regime we will start today is solely dedicated to preparing you for next year! Let's go!" It is always worrying when Jade says we will have 'fun', but only time will tell.

She left and we followed her. Not a minute after, she abruptly stopped, slowly turned around and began to talk to us.

"Hey, you all know how to use space storage, right? You DO have the Seontto, the Ejwel and any other things you may own stored there right? We won't be back here for nearly two weeks so… " She eyed us for a bit, unusually patient, waiting for an answer. I think she had a bit of a guilty smile on her face, possibly for not warning us of what was to come, for not giving us time to prepare… Jade? Feeling guilty? Nop, it is surely just my imagination.

As the girls nodded confirming that nothing was left behind I noticed that everyone was a bit uncertain of the new situation. It was very abrupt news of not coming back home for a couple of weeks.

"Oh, yes… Also, no books or anything that is from the house is allowed..."

"I-I have a book with me..." Dinorah loved books and used to read at night almost every day.

"Why do…. Whatever, go store it in the house and get back here with only your personal stuff" Jade clearly asked about books because it was the protocol or something, she definitely did not expect someone to actually have one stored. The girl ran faster than I had ever seen her move, in no more than a minute she was back.

Once Jade had confirmed all was right she resumed the walk only for it to turn into a jog a minute later.

We ran for about 40 min, not enough to make anyone that had undergone this year of training to be tired or even break a sweat. Jade then stopped in a super spacious grassy open field. There was nothing there aside from people. Lots of people, several dozens of other teams were here and more were arriving.

"Ok, now. Let me explain to you the basics of what is happening now. This entire place will have its connection to Mother reduced, your Seontto will not connect as easily as before, you will feel a bit weak for a couple of days. We do this for you to get accustomed with the reduced mana and connection because when we get sent to war, it will be like this. The battles are not fought within Mother's bounds after all, which means you must get used to the new situation..." She proceeded to explain that what we will experience here is not entirely accurate, the war grounds are a lot further from Mother, the simulated cut is still about 2 times better than the actual war ground will be.

Ever since birth we have been in places with an extremely close connection to Mother and with lots of mana concentration in the air. Jade also made sure to inform us about the past. Before this two week preparation was implemented for the new trainees, there were cases of people getting in shock and dropping down in sickness for a while before getting used to the different atmosphere.

This also served as a means to introduce us to the art of floor sleeping since in the actual battle grounds we may not have a bed to sleep on, or even a barracks to go back to.

"Just chill a bit until it's time… it really doesn't matter if you get separated from me, but you may want to stick together for the first couple days at least… The next two weeks are basically free time anyways…" She sat on the floor with her legs crossed and eyes closed. No further explanation was coming from her, and no one dared to inquire more. We all just copied and sat there waiting for something to happen.

Some time later a strong noise reverberated for all to hear followed by an earth shake.

Not too far from where we were a giant root was rising, blocking all passage between the plain field and the houses. I had not expected a physical blockage of that magnitude to be created in front of my eyes. It was fast.

In just a few minutes we were trapped here with a giant root-wall making our cell.

"Look at the sky, witness another of Mother's miracles" Jade called for our attention. At that moment a bubble started to grow from the center of the visible sky and in seconds it advanced to the size of the field, covering the entire area with a thin veil. As soon as it made contact with the roots and closed from all sides a breeze started to form.

It was not a natural side current, the air was being pulled from the center top of the bubble. With time I noticed a reduction in the mana, it was then that I noticed that it was being sucked in the center of the bubble, all energy was being drained from the air. The pull was so strong that the air was following up, but it was just a side effect of the mana being consumed from the place.

The effects of this were being felt everywhere, even Melvin began to have a hard time breathing. Experiencing the lack of mana in the air for the first time, some started to get visibly bothered. Others were shaking and sweating, and the more sensitive ones just straight up fainted. No one was NOT bothered, aside from the teachers of course.

The mana drainage stopped, the air stabilized and the teachers each spoke to their own group.

Jade addressed us "This is it. Uncomfortable right? But you get used to it, I promise. Now, the next thing is the Seontto, it will be hard to cycle your mana and replenish it, you will probably need lots of time in the beginning, and I highly recommend you to use it multiple times a day. Like, four or more, at least in the first few days until you get used to everything. It will ease the process… you may even start now..."

We all knew that a recommendation from her was basically a 'you must do it or else you will probably die' kinda stuff, so… Everyone summoned their own stone from the storage and started working on it. I could see other groups doing the same.

Our days passed incredibly slowly for the first week. Breathing was heavy, walking was hard, cycling mana was a challenge in itself, absorbing mana was near impossible, weapon creation was impractical, physical training was intolerable. But our bodies got used to the new situation pretty fast.

Improvement could be seen by the hour. At the beginning of the second week we were all basically capable of normal function. It was all still a bit slower than before, but nothing that bad. We even began to spar with other teams, and once that started, time went by quickly. As to compensate for the infinite first week, the second was easy going and actually a bit fun.

The teachers only stood by in case of any unexpected situation, but in general they did not interfere with anything unless approached by the students. They allowed us freedom, some even granted us the unique opportunity to spar with them without the fear of being mercilessly recycled. One of my favorite instructors was Kendra, she was amazing at identifying the flaws in every combat style and giving constructive feedback to the students. Really, she is amazing. Some people just have a special talent in teaching.

"YES MELVIN! Now faster!"

Melvin immediately turned around for another thrust, she kicked the ground cracking it underneath her bare foot and launched another attack with her sword, the fastest she had ever attacked… Yet the teacher stepped to the left and easily evaded the stab. "You are leaving your side open!" and as to emphasize she struck Melvin with a super fast swing, breaking her movement and smashing her into the ground by Kendra's feet. She lost again.

Melvin removed her head from the dirt, the impact was so big that a print of her features was left behind on the ground. She turned belly up gasping for air, alive, but exhausted. She could not stand up for another round immediately.

Kendra was a good teacher and a great close combatant warrior. She has been sparring with anyone that cares to ask. Noting that Melvin was done for the time, she crouched down and smiled at the defeated student.

"Your form is good, footwork still needs a bit of work and you are still slow, but you improved a lot! I'm proud!"

"Thanks Kendra" Melvin managed to answer as the senior reached out to her, and she accepted the help to stand up.

"Rest up and come back ok?" With a grin she gave a light tap on Melvin's back insisting her to leave the area.

It was good training, it was not only Kendra who was trading pointers with the students and giving extremely helpful advice, about half of the teachers were doing the same to pass the time. It could get pretty boring being on the same grass field with nothing to do for two weeks.

Melvin stepped out of the improvised arena and another student took her place.

The two-week camping training ended without greater incidents. When the time was up, the bubble shielding mana started to remove itself, the mana flew in the air again and I noticed every single person relaxing and breathing deep. It was a blizz to have this much mana again.

The big root separating the camp from the housing was soon retracted and we were instructed to go back home. It would be our last day here and we needed to have a good day of rest to be able to flawlessly participate in the Sprout ritual that would take place that night. Today is the last day of the year. Tonight is the biggest ceremony Efalem had, the birth of a new generation.

And it was also a time to celebrate our survival for two years and the start of a stage!