Before leaving the house the next morning, the roommates hugged each other as they knew they would not see each other again on the way back. At first, Mahon didn't feel comfortable, but even Wyrran and Kali went to embrace him on their own. Allen wiped his eyes as they left together, mumbling something about his injury hurting him, but no one was fooled by his poor excuse.

They arrived at Yordar’s classroom and Mahon went to his usual seat as he didn’t plan to challenge anyone. He was not even sure he could win the strategy duel with how he constantly messed up Ratho and Nightmare metrics. And also he stood absolutely no chance in the fighting duel.

His plan for the next weeks was to ignore his future roommates, train hard on his own and reach that minimal physical point where he could move his body like his mind wanted. He also intended to take advanced lessons with Yordar to remedy his strategy problem, but he would first have to convince the man on the next strategy test.

His roommates joined him soon after they had recorded who they wanted to challenge and submitted their requests in a box over Yordar’s office. Like every morning, the professor arrived right on time with his usual slow but energetic demeanor. He grabbed the box and went to talk with his assistants. Soon after, the assistants left for another room with the box and Yordar stayed inside the main room, facing the eager students.

“The time has come for you to compete in your first challenge and I’m here to explain exactly how the strategy duel will be held, so listen carefully.”

He grabbed a white chalk and went to the board to write down the main points.

“When we call your names, you will go to the assigned room, where one professor will be in charge of your duel. I will hold myself one duel here in the classroom and all of you are welcome to spectate, but you must remain silent. Otherwise you will be asked to leave.”

He pointed nonchalantly to the door, and they all knew he would promptly eject anyone who hindered the progress of the events.

“During the last weeks in class, we studied twenty problems of two armies facing each other in different scenarios. As the class progresses, more and more situations will be studied and more problems will be added, but for now we will only use the twenty you know of for the duels.”

“The challenger may choose between two options. Either he chooses one of the problems and his opponent selects his side first. Or a problem is selected randomly and the challenger selects his side first.”

Yordar scrutinized the room to see if any questions arose, but the instructions were simple enough that there were none. He nodded happily and continued.

“During the simulation, you will play turn by turn, issuing written orders to your army, and that army will be moved around by the professor in charge. First, you will need to issue three orders and then one order each turn. Your order will be effective after three turns and you will not be able to modify it once given to the professor.”

“I think you understand that we’re trying to depict a realistic situation where your orders take time to be transmitted and where you can’t see in advance the moves of your opponents. We will be indulgent for the first rounds and take our time to explain and afterwards we will go faster.”

“The professor will be the judge of who wins, given the scenario’s victory conditions. If you win, you can go to the training field where professor Lorsan is waiting for you for the fighting duel. If you lose, you can issue another challenge if you want, but as today there will be a lot of duels, you will be added to the queue and we will let you know when it’s your turn. Does anybody have questions about this?”

A lot of people raised their hands and Yordar frowned his eyebrows.

“Ignoring questions about the process of issuing written orders in the simulation, does anyone have questions?”

The students all lowered their arms and Yordar seemed pleased this time.

“Good. Now I will give you an example of what a strategy duel will look like… You,” He pointed to a random student at the first rank, “come here.”

The student joined Yordar and bowed politely to the professor.

“Stay there, in front of me. So, let’s say I’m the challenger and I decide to pick the situation numbered seven when army A has to cross a bridge protected by army B. As I chose the scenario, you may select your side first. Attackers or defenders?”

“I choose army A, the attackers, professor.”

“Good, good. Now, let me set up the scenario.”

Yordar took out a big paper from a pile and unfolded it on the ground. It depicted the scenario they had previously studied on a five by five meters map with a representation of a bridge crossing a river, a nearby forest and other minor elements. The professor then grabbed a box of wooden furniture that depicted different warrior units and expertly positioned them on the map to mirror the initial positioning of the scenario. Finally, he picked two packs of envelopes, numbered one to a hundred, and gave one to the student.

“You will write on these papers your instructions. That is, the next three moves you want your army to do and put it inside the envelopes one, two and three. Simple isn’t it?”

The student acquiesced.

“Then I will open both our envelopes numbered one and move both our armies accordingly. I will resolve the conflict and interactions should they occur. We will then both write our next instructions and put them in envelope number four. I will read our envelope number two and proceed to move our army accordingly while we write envelope number five and so on… Is that clear?”

The student hesitated but Yordar gestured for him to start writing nonetheless, while he himself grabbed a sheet of paper. Once both men were done, Yordar collected the envelopes and opened both ones with the number 1 on it.

“You decided to move all your units forward while I decided to move my elites up north.” He read the instructions before moving the units on the map accordingly.

Both men wrote their next instructions and the show continued for a time, alternating between reading the instructions, moving the units around and writing the next orders. It unfolded at a fast pace until there was a confrontation between two units, at which point Yordar stopped to expand a bit.

“So your unit is ill-equipped against mine and my morale is very high. I charged on your flank, which means you will have trouble retaliating. My judgment for this fight is that a quarter of your unit dies whereas mine is mostly left intact.”

As he said so, Yordar placed some red pieces depicting a skull on the student’s units to fill its surface up to a quarter, symbolizing what he had just said.

“Does anyone understand how that works now? Do we need to continue further? Is there any question?”

“When do you know who won, professor?”

“The victory conditions of these scenarios are translated to fit the simulation. In that case, the defenders will win if they manage to last a hundred turns or annihilate their opponents before. For the attackers, they have to cross the bridge with more than half their troops.”

“Thanks, professor.”

“In most scenarios, though, if you reach up to a hundred turns, the fight is considered a draw and for the purpose of the duel, it’s considered a win. That is, you will have to decide who is the best in the fighting duel.”

Yordar watched around and answered the few other questions that arose. At some point, his assistants went back to the classroom, having finished sorting out all the challenges, and started to call out names. Allen was amongst the first to be called, as he had challenged the person ranked 71th among the First White. Delphyn, his duo, had also been called and Mahon knew she had challenged the 70th First White so they could duo challenge and stay together after ranking up.

Mahon spent his day with his roommates watching the strategy challenges unfold. At first, it was slow as the students learned the process, but as everyone witnessed the duels happening in the main classroom, they got more familiar with it and it went increasingly faster.

Unfortunately, Mahon didn’t have the opportunity to see his roommates' challenges as they all went to side rooms that you could not spectate. But the fights were interesting enough in the main classroom and he was most interested in how Yordar resolved the orders given by the two protagonists.

He had some fun with Zac when they tried to guess what would happen when two units crashed into each other. Finding who would win the encounter was doable, but it was way harder when they tried to predict how much loss the units would withstand.

They attentively listened to Yordar analysis, as it was a good opportunity to learn. In class, they had mainly talked about strategy in a broader sense and what one should aim for in the different scenarios. They had never gone into such details and they found it greatly instructive. They didn’t know why this method had been chosen for the strategy duel when they were all pretty much novices, but they enjoyed it all the same. The rules were simple enough and the possibilities near endless, which made it a great way to confront their strategic abilities.

As Mahon’s roommates managed to win their strategy challenges, they moved to the training fields for the fighting duels. A duel was already ongoing when they arrived and they learned that they had to queue, as each duel was under the supervision of Slander. They were quicker than the strategy duels and the instructor did them one at a time. The atmosphere was both tense and jovial and soon they cheered for Allen and Delphyn duo duel and then for Wyrran and Kali duo duel.

They had to fight with blunted swords in some kind of standard arena with sandy ground. Only by touching vital areas could one ‘kill’ his opponent, and it was Slander who announced when someone was out. Once your opponent was taken care of, you were declared victorious and exchanged your rank token with your adversary. In the case of duo duels, it was the exact same rules except it was a two versus two fight. Even if you had one of your teammates down, as long as you took out both your opponents, your team won and both you and your duo ranked up.

Allen and Delphyn easily won against their opponents because of their impressive coordination. They managed to split the enemy duo in no time and put them down one after the other.

Wyrran and Kali duel was way harder as Kali was weaker than Wyrran and they had aimed high for their first duel, straight up to First Green rank. In the end, it was Wyrran’s own strength and agility that decided the outcome and he remained the only one standing in the arena at the end of the fight. He and Kali went back to the group bruised and breathless but with big smiles as they showed them their new green badges. The rest of the day was spent in a good mood, alternating between watching strategy duels and fighting duels.

When the time came for the last fighting duels, the whole class was sitting around the arena, yelling and cheering at the protagonists. Mahon focused on the last duel as he witnessed Jorik going in. Finally, he would be able to watch him fight. The man had challenged the second highest ranked person, a woman named Taenya Grexisys.

Both Jorik and Taenya were incredibly proficient with a sword and the exchanges were so fast it was sometimes hard to follow. Clearly, they had trained with the sword for a long time before coming here. Although Mahon had issues moving in Ratho, he could easily follow a fight and understand everything that happened. His mind analyzed the strikes, the stabs and the dodges as easily as if he was in Nightmare.

The speed was way faster than what he was used to, but he could still follow students fighting. He was impressed, though, by the sheer speed at which the fight unfolded. In fact, if not for the occasional misplacement or the simplicity of some moves, he might have wondered if they were not accomplished veterans instead. But he realized now how much difference there was between Ratho and Nightmare.

They were at least a couple times faster than him when in Nightmare, alas, their techniques were still inferior to his. If the humans had been able to reach such a speed in Nightmare, they would have crushed the Amentiae without a second thought. He clenched his fists in anticipation of the time he would be able to wield such power. How cool would it be to move so fast after spending decades slowed down by the strange atmosphere of Nightmare? To land strong hits with ten times more power…

The fight ended with Jorik rolling under the blade of Taenya with surprising agility. He tapped her sword away before stabbing at her chest and this time the exhausted woman didn’t have the time to dodge and Slander called the end of the duel under the applause of the crowd. Mahon was ready to walk away when he realized Slander had not moved.

Another duel?

“There is one last fight!” Allen excitedly cheered beside him.

“Another one after the second rank had been challenged? That means…”

Zac's voice ended short as Ravatoris entered the arena.