I finally managed to make Alex stop his scheming and get ready for work. As we entered the classroom, Mr. Ralph starts chewing us out saying "Hurry up you two, the new students are almost here! I'll dock your pay the next time you're late..what are you waiting for? Start preparing!"

We quickly finished prepping the class and got in position next to the sparring grounds outside of the class. Not long afterwards the new students started walking in. A whole slew of freshly minted knight trainees that came to the academy for training to become proper knights got into their seats while chatting amongst themselves. After the class got settled in Mr.Ralph gave a self introduction and told everyone to do the same. Most of the introductions were boring as they were either zealous knights ready for training, nobles or your average teenager, but a few stood out among the boring introductions that caught my eye.

After some bratty noble finished his self introduction a girl stood up to introduce herself, and everyone's eyes instantly gravitated towards her. She was a beautiful specimen of a woman with curves in all the right places; curvy hips, bountiful breasts and looks that could kill. With straight blond hair that fell to her shoulders, and emerald green eyes that captivated onlookers she introduced herself, "my name is Maria Stadford and I am here to train as a knight so that I may protect the glorious kingdom of Megallia and his highness as my predecessors have done throughout history".

She promptly sat down after her short and curt introduction saying no more. The next few introductions went by quickly and ended shortly after Maria's. Once that was said and done Mr.Ralph said some boring curriculum stuff that I tuned out. I was brought out of dreamland when he told everyone that there were going to be sparring matches happening to see how everyone fared in actual combat. "Maria and Stolas will face off against the 2 assistant mages Matthias and Alex as they had the highest entrance exam results." Mr.Ralph says and then tells us to ready for battle and put on our gear.

Maria looked at me and Alex with a look of disgust as if she were looking at utter filth which caught me off guard so I asked her " Hey why do you seem like you hate me and Alex when we haven't even done anything...wait Alex did you pull another one of your stunts? Is that why she's angry?" I say and stare at Alex with an accusing stare. Before he could even refute my claim I'm interrupted with "Silence you criminal, I do not want to hear your rubbish nonsense, now let's get this public whipping of yours over with".

I was left entirely confused. Criminal? Me? How do I look like a criminal to her? Then it dawned on me that she was staring at my collar the whole time she spoke to me. She must have thought I was a criminal slave! Criminals can become slaves if their crimes are sufficient enough to warrant it, and that's what she must have thought I was, a criminal slave. Criminal slaves are also the only form of slavery still legal in the kingdom. I wanted to refuse her and tell her I'm not a criminal but by this time she had left to put on her armour and other gear.

"Hey cheer up man, look on the bright side, you get to be in the same class as that hot chick, and she wouldn't believe you even if you told her you are not a criminal slave even if you told her." Alex pats my back while pulling out his trademark war axe and was giving it a few test swings. He was right, she wouldn't believe me if I did tell her. I mean who in their right mind would believe someone with a slave collar on? It would take a special kind of stupid to fall for that. I sighed in resignation and get ready for the battle knowing that the beauty of the class would neverendingly hate me, and all because of this stupid collar. I didn't even get to ask her out on a date yet, which made my mood drop further.

With the preparations complete we headed outside to the sparring grounds where others had already started fighting. A flurry of magical enhancements and martial arts were being used. Martial arts were the warrior equivalent of a magic attack, but usually more melee oriented.

The sparring match was ready to go but we were cautioned by Mr.Ralph with "Make sure you do not cause any serious wounds. This is a sparring match and not a duel to the death, make sure you remember that. Any deaths caused by either side will result in being punished according to the law", and with that the fight began. Maria instantly rushed out to lop my arm off with her two handed sword while Stolas ran towards Alex to prevent him from interfering with Maria. Taking out the mage was standard tactics in a fight as they provided offensive,defensive and support in one bundle, so they were the primary targets in any battle.

What they didn't realise was that Alex over here was also a mage, even though he didn't look or act like one. He spread a toxic gas using one of the obscure magic spells that he created or learned from ancient grimoires. With the gas spreading he cast poison immunity on us both and proceeded to rush at Stolas, who was now cornered between the toxic cloud and Alex. I on the other hand had to jump back in order to narrowly avoid the vicious swings from Maria.

I quickly cast several ice spears and fling them at Maria but they were simply deflected with her sword or dodged entirely. She used a martial skill 'Lesser Speed Boost' and dashed towards me even quicker than before. While casting Ice Wall to block her off I start melting the ground right in front of the giant wall of ice with a jet of flame magic. It turns the rock around the wall into a puddle of lava around 1 metre in size but before I can make it any larger the wall of ice was literally smashed into pieces. That crazy girl ran through the wall of ice without stopping but I expected that, which was why I made the puddle of lava in the first place. Shards of ice go flying all around me so I cast a simple mana shield in order to protect myself from the shrapnel. As soon as she was through the wall she placed her foot down to jump at me but was met with a smoldering hot floor, granted it did cool down a fair bit from all that ice flying into it but it was still an uneven lump of superheated rock.

Maria's face contorted in pain as her feet were being cooked by the heat, but she ran towards me nonetheless. As she was about to reach me she was met with a giant war axe to the side and was sent tumbling away a few metres. Alex seemed to have finished his fight with Stolas, who was now a miserable twitching heap that occasionally vomited. Seems like he was done in good by Alex, poor guy.

"How's it going dude, you about to wrap things up over here too?" is what Alex asked me as he hefted his war axe onto his shoulders while grinning. I did simply replied with "yeah yeah I'm just fine, she would have stabbed herself with ice spikes from the proximity spells around me". Since mages were the first target in any battle, what mage wouldn't prepare a few traps to deter any would be attackers? I had already prepared several spells in a radius around me including explosive traps, ice spikes, and even a few wind tornados that send you flying into the air or into a tree far away from me. Needless to say the battle was as good as won before it even began, but that was to be expected as the knight trainees were just that, trainees. They had no actual combat experience or knowledge. They were here precisely because they were trainees and needed to be taught actual combat knowledge and gain experience in a safe environment.

Maria propped herself up with her sword and started to hobble towards me but was stopped by Mr.Ralph who had been watching the whole fight. "34 seconds, pretty good for new students. Head over to the medical station to get any wounds treated. Stolas might take a while though..poor guy was bullied by Alex". With that the sparring matches ended and everyone in the class was told to get first aid and head into the classroom afterwards.

While me and Alex walked into the class to help the teacher ready for the lecture Alex started teasing me about how Maria considers me and him criminal slaves. I retorted with "the next time you set fire to Vorlander's clothes with stink flames and need a person to help take the fall with you, count me out" and sped up my pace with Alex chasing me while sputtering apologies and complaining how he needs me for some grand scheme of his.