Mr Alexander looked at Leo and sighed “I guess I expected this. Welcome to the Guild where you will spend the rest of your life fighting in shadows for humanity future.”

“That doesn’t make it sound enticing.” Leo smiled wryly. “And why the guild?”

“Officially we don’t even have a name it’s what we call it on the inside. Since most people here had worked for Adventurers Guild in their past lives. You should go back to your room and rest for the night. Your training will start tomorrow.”

“Thank you.” said Leo standing up. The principal looked at him questioningly. “For protecting me.”

“I haven’t done anything to be thankful for. Your life is still in shambles and will not be the same ever again.”

“At least I’m not dead yet. That is enough to thank for.” He smiled and turned around heading for the door.

“Ah and one more thing.”

Leo turned around once more.

“From now on you should call me commander.”

“Yes Commander!” said Leo saluting with his right hand. “Goodnight Commander.”

Mr Alexander scowled at him and Leo grinned before exiting the room.

The commander body shone for a second and pulling out a glass and a bottle out of his desk said. “I guess that’s okay.”

-*-

Next day Leo was woken up by an alarm. Looking around the room he noticed that the sound was coming from a device on the wall next to his door.

It was small rectangle block that was now shining in blue, walking up to it he found a button and pressed it.

Infront of his face appeared a holographic screen with Mr Etan on it. “Goodmorning. It’s time for your training. Your clothes should be already in your room, change and in 5 minutes I will come for you.”

Leo looked at the screen little groggily from the sudden wake-up.

“Your answer?”

Leo looked at him little surprised but remembering what happened yesterday he shook his head and answered: “Yes, sir!”.

“Good, now hurry up.” and the screen was gone.

Leo walked up to the wardrobe inside his room and opened it. Inside he found a simple blue tracksuit. It looked very similar to the one he was wearing.

Looking at himself he saw that his clothing despite being clean, probably it was cleaned when he was being healed and unconscious, was torn in few places. He took it off and put on the new one.

He didn’t wait long before the door to his room opened and saw Mr Etan entering who was wearing his usual suit.

“Good, you are ready. Now follow me.”

Leo nodded and started following behind Mr Etan who already turned around and left the room.

“Can I ask something?”

“Yes?”

“Since Commander Alexander needs to be called commander how should I address you?”

“Since I’m not an employed here by the military but by the principal, you don’t really have to address me in any special way. I’m only here as an instructor and the only person I take orders from is the principal.”

Leo nodded his head.

Soon they reached an elevator and entering it Mr Etan pressed the button for the lowest floor.

When they stopped and the door opened Leo saw a big training hall that was at least twice the size of the one at school. At the same time, the equipment used here looked much more advanced. Weights with gravity control spell on them, target range had mana magnitude measurement device.

There were quite a few adjacent rooms here and he saw one of them being entered by a group of four people wearing full body combat armor, two of them also had some kind of short metal poles in their hands.

He followed Mr Etan further into the room. They were heading in the direction of one of the walls, when they got closer he saw that three people were waiting there.

First, he noticed a man standing there with his hand crossed, he was huge compared to Leo, at least 7 feet tall and very well built, his head was also bald.

Next, he noticed someone he recognized. Jennifer was standing there fiddling with her white hairs while leaning against the wall.

The last, person was sitting down, resting their arms and head on their knees. All he could tell about them was that they had shoulder length black curly hairs.

Leo waved to Jennifer and she noticed him and waved back but as soon as she noticed who he was with her smile disappeared.

“Hello, Mr Hunter. Where is Colonel Smith?” Asked Jennifer.

The person who was sitting down till now brought up their head. Leo noticed it was a man, when he looked into his eyes it seemed as if he was not really looking at anything, the man had deep brown eyes.

“Your instructor till now was sent away somewhere else by orders from HQ. Leo here our newest recruit will join your group as you still have only three people and I will become your new instructor.” Mr Etan explained.

Now the whole group looked at him, even the person who was sitting down seemed to show some interest.

“But… don’t you have already squad one under your care?” asked Jennifer.

“They are already trained well enough. They will pick up the rest themselves and it was a direct order from the commander so I think you don’t have any objections?”

She seemed like she actually had some but didn’t say anything.

“Good, now introduce yourself to Leo, take the armor and we will meet in room number four. I want to see what you are made of.” said Mr Etan before turning and walking away.

Jennifer looked at him her face didn’t seem happy but she didn’t say anything.

Leo stood in front of them and introduced himself “My name is Leo Redmond. Nice to meet you.”

“We already know each other a little, I want to say I’m happy you decided to stay but now that I see what you brought on us I’m not so sure about that by the way I’m Jennifer Light.” She said smiling. She passed him her hand which he shook and despite what she said her blue eyes seemed welcoming to him.

The big man spoke up. “I don’t mind though, the colonel didn’t want to train us anyway. Maybe now it will get better. I’m Jacob Jacob, strange right? I still want to ask my parents what they thought when naming me when their last name was already Jacob. People call me JJ by the way.” Leo shook hands with him and he felt as if his hand was going to get crushed. Still, he didn’t show it on his face. JJ smiled at him.

Then Leo looked at the man who was still sitting down but he didn’t move. Jennifer walked up to him and kicked him causing him nearly to fall down.

“Yes?” he asked without bringing his head up. His voice sounded tired.

“Say hello to our new member.”

Without looking at them he brought one of his hands up and said “Hello.”

Jennifer shook her head. “He is always like that but he is quite useful at the same time so don’t pay him too much mind. We call him black.”

“Why?” asked Leo.

“We don’t know his real name. He never said it. He only said that black was what he was referred as in the past.”

Leo nodded his head and looked at the man. He would learn about him more in the future he guessed.

“We should get ready.” Said JJ picking up Black. “Hunter won’t wait forever for his prey.”

“And I guess we are the prey.” said Jennifer.

“Leo, come with me we need to change.” said JJ. Jennifer was already heading away.

Leo followed him to a side room. There was few stall in there.

“Just enter one of those and there will be a button inside with Armor written on it. Just take off your tracksuit and press it.”

Leo did and when he pressed a button a stream of black material came out from the wall and covered him from legs to the torso. Then a mechanical hand came out of the wall and he was suited with a black chest piece, arms guard and legs guards. At the end, it put a helmet on his head.

Leo touched the place where the black material and the helmet connected. It was smooth, there was no space between them. He left the stall and saw that his companions were already done.

“How do you feel?” JJ asked him.

“It was weird but what is it made of?” asked Leo.

“The black material is mana created shadow leather it’s very durable and transports mana easily and the rest is made of adamantium alloy. It’s also fitted with a mana core and can create a shield that will protect you from both mana based and physical attacks. Do you use a weapon?”

“Yes, an axe.” He said, JJ went to the shelf with metal poles that he saw earlier. “I also learned spells for physical defence and absorption barrier will they work with this?”

“Yes but it’s just better to fill the core you have with mana it will do the same. Still, it can be useful in situations where your armour gets destroyed.” He said passing him the piece he chose. It was one of the longest he saw. “Put some of your mana inside of it.”

Leo did as he was said, fortunately just putting mana inside an object was possible for him. When the energy entered the pole it shined a little and suddenly from the top two blades made of blue light came out. Making it look like an axe.

“Nice isn’t it?”

Leo nodded “Kind of light, but isn’t it dangerous to fight with those.”

“Isn’t our future work going to be even more dangerous, and don’t worry the chance that the weapon will get through your armor is small and even then we have good healers here. That is if they are set for training. In combat mode, they can slice anything in half.” He said.

Leo shuddered a little when he thought that someone could get sliced in half by it. Turning it out he nodded to the tall man.

Both of them walked out of the room and saw Jennifer waiting for them.

“Finally.” She said. “Let’s go, room four is already on. So how do you fight Leo?”

“I hit people with this.” He said bringing up his deactivated weapon.

“What?” she asked.

“I only know how to enhance my physical strength and some defensive spells. I can’t use magic outside of my body. So I just hit people, really hard.”

“Oh… well, since you are here you can fight but that means you will be our vanguard together with JJ. I shoot offensive magic and Black is support. We don’t have time to fully explain what each of us does so for now just follow JJ lead.”

“Sure.” Leo nodded.

They entered the room with number four on it and they found themselves in a large room that looked as if it was made from many cubes that glowed with blue light. Mr Etan was standing in the middle of it.

“You took a while.”

“We had to explain few things to Leo.” said Jennifer.

“It’s alright. Now can we get started?” as he said so the room around them shined and second later Leo found himself with the rest of the team on what looked to be a plateau on a big mountain. Little surprised Leo looked beyond the edge of the mountain and he saw the ground but it was very far away.