My next day at the academy was not a very pleasant experience as the moment I entered the indoor classroom, every single Feles there gave me an expression of fear, had the events from yesterday had some kind of effect on them? I didn’t see why they would need to fear me, after all Instructor Willis had been the one who had tried to attack me, unless he had twisted their view on me too.

Instructor Willis completely ignored me as I took my place sitting on the floor with the others, he didn’t even look in my direction, almost like he wished I didn’t even exist.

I wanted to walk out of the room right then, but I remembered what dad had told me yesterday and knew I would need to get through this different form of hardship to keep my promise to Tigra.

It was then I wondered how she was doing in her class. I could only imagine what high level skills she was learning, or combat drill she would learn first. I was snapped back as Instructor Willis’s voice broke into my thoughts.

“I am again happy to welcome you all to your official first day at the academy, today I will be covering a lot of basic knowledge I hope will help you progress into fine warriors.” He was smiling, acting all kind, but I knew differently from my experience with him yesterday. “We’ll first go over the history of Cathopia.” I stared absent mindedly at him, seriously Cathopia’s history.

“It all began with our first king, who came across these empty lands, filled with an ancient forest said to show the life force of all who were born there, creating a connection with the Animalia and nature. Single handed he built the first buildings of our grand city, which can still be seen in the lower levels of the castle and of course documented in many of the books in the castle’s grand library, which is free for all to access.” I put my hand up confused about what he was talking about. “What is it Fang?” He sounded annoyed I had interrupted him in his little story.

“The first king didn’t build the city alone,” I began remembering the stories both mum and dad had told me about. “The king had the assistance of Fang as they fought away the darkness from the land, Cathopia being the first beacon of hope in a world plagued by darkness.”

Instructor Willis shook his head. “Simply bedtime fairy tales,” he commented brushing my words aside. “Like your name, he is simply made up.”

“He isn’t!” I raised my voice.

“Your clan has always been fascinated with old legends which mean nothing.” Instructor Willis looked down at me with such disapproval in his expression. “I will teach you our real history, there was no dark power, just an untamed land waiting for the rise of Cathopia.”

“You must be blind,” I snorted. “There is always darkness.” I crossed my arms, realising nothing I said was going to get through his thick skull, and he would continue to tell a false history to these other young Feles, did he want our real history and the legend of Fang wiped clean, yet I wanted to fight his lies. “Fang was real, the proof lies in his talisman.”

“There is no proof to the legends being true.”

“There is the temple and books,” I snapped. “What about the four bridges named after his talismans.”

“More fairy tales,” snarled Instructor Willis growing more impatient with me. “It is customary to name things such as bridges and ships.”

“Larana is proof.” I pointed to my arm. “She was one of his talismans.”

“No talisman spirit has lived that long.” He had an answer for everything I said, it was starting to irritate me.

“Nothing you say will reach the ears of someone clouded by darkness,” whispered Larana.

“But.” I glanced at her bracelet.

“I’ve seen this many times, trust me,” said Larana.

Instructor Willis sighed. “I will let you off seeing as you are still young, you are easily fooled by old stories and buildings which were built to simply entice one’s curiosity.” He smiled at his own comment, if he thought he could change my mind on the subject he had another thing coming. “Now try to just listen.” I just snorted. “Now where was I?” He pondered.

I was not happy about this, but again I had to remind myself why I was here, for Tigra, unfortunately to grow in the ranks and get to Guardian I had to go through all this rubbish with Instructor Willis.

Instructor Willis followed on with his fake history, well I say fake, most of it was correct, it was just missing how Fang saved the world from darkness, then together they built Cathopia. He continued through our history including the first trees planted in the orchard and the connection made between the tribes around Panthera, creating the peace and trades between them that we have today, but again Fang was the one who first brought the tribes together to face the darkness, it was them who built the first settlement that became Cathopia.

“Hmm.” I mumbled to myself, even with the history I knew, I felt it was missing out a whole lot of information, like how this peace was brought about, I was certain it would not have been easy in the dark times mum and dad had described to me, a place almost deprived of life. I thought about checking up on the information within the library Instructor Willis had mentioned, perhaps all his information wasn’t all rubbish.

This was how most of my lessons went with instructor Willis, his understanding of the information he was giving was flawed in all the wrong places, passing on these false truths would perhaps put Cathopia in danger, the danger dad seemed to fear was coming.

Listening to Instructor Willis go on and on, I felt my eyes lids getting heavier until eventually I fell asleep. I will admit that was how must of the classes learning about stuff ended, listening to his boring voice could put anyone to sleep and well it did to a few other students in my class.

Larana was always helpful when it came to waking me up before Instructor Willis finished. She would blow a gentle breeze around my ears, or under my nose making me sneeze really loud, which always made me feel quite embarrassed as everyone would be looking at me.

“Never seen a Feles sneeze before.” Would be my usual response.

When it came to training Instructor Willis was just as useless, he told everyone how to hold a sword, I thought he was going to base most of the training depending on the skills he had seen on our first day at the academy, obviously that was a lie.

Unlike the others who always seemed to get a well done, I always got a disapproving look, as if everything I did was wrong, but I didn’t listen to his comments on my families fighting style as it had been taught to all those in the academy during my father’s youth.

“Now left, right, left, right.” He instructed as each one of us had a dummy in front of us to strike. We’d spend an hour just doing that, most couldn’t last that long as they had yet to build up the muscles to hold a sword for an extended period of time. I was one of the only ones who lasted for that period of time, but even though some were impressed by my stamina, others still feared me, so much so I never made any friends.

The only things taught in the basic class were history, knowledge about elemental types of talismans, and basics on how to use a sword, from attacking to defence, all stuff I had already learnt.

Only when I trained with dad in the early hours of the morning, did I feel I would make any progress, it was the only way I would keep up with Tigra as dad knew all the things they were doing in the high classes, even King Alton helped out by passing on anything new they were doing.

“Thanks again Alton.” Dad seemed grateful for his help as I finished running around the castle.

“I wish I could do more,” he admitted. “I still believe what you told me about Alex, when you had your awakening.”

“Awakening?” I repeated coming over, only just remembering dad mentioning about a small awakening when I first started training with him. “When will I know when I have mine?

“It’s hard to describe.” Dad was thinking on how to answer. “You’ll just have to wait until you have yours.”

“When?” I asked curious.

“When you come into contact with a great darkness,” answered dad. “Only then will you understand your true purpose in this world.”

“My true purpose.” I stared at him, wishing he would give me more information, but sometimes he never did. I guess I would have to discover most things on my own.

Dad grinned. “Let’s try something new.” He brought out the sphere; how was that something new? “Instead of avoiding the sphere I want you to attempt to catch it, and you’re allowed to use Larana’s power.”

“Won’t it shock me or something?” I stared at the sphere remembering all the times it had inflicted injury upon me.

“No.” Dad shook his head. “This is a different mode, instead you will be rewarded by learning new skills as you progress through the levelling system.” The sphere began floating. “You have an hour to catch it.”

I stared at the sphere as it moved through the air like a wild animal. I pictured it as a little bird, letting this wild instinct rise up from within me. I had fought this feeling off so many times during my training with the sphere, this time I would actually get to chase it.

“Yeah!” I yelled, pouncing forward at it. It quickly moved away from me, it was fast, but captivating, glinting in the light from the rising sun.

“You sure he’s ready for this stage?” asked King Alton.

“Every Feles needs to understand their wild instinct, it’s about time he learnt to rely on it.” Dad glanced at King Alton. “You know it is necessary in combat and hunting prey.”

“Yeah, yeah.” King Alton let out a sigh.

The more focused I became on the sphere, their voices faded away and I felt all my senses focused on my prey. My ears twitched listening to its movements, my tail swayed wildly in anticipation of its next move.

“I will catch you.” I let out a low growl. As my instincts took prime control, I felt a small tug of my energy flowing into Larana, was she feeding off this feeling too?

Without a single thought I ended up using her power multiple times, trying to pull the sphere towards me or into a dead end for capturing, but no matter how much I tried I couldn’t catch it, it was either too fast, or just out of reach. I found I spent half of my time climbing up trees, and the side of buildings just to reach it.

An hour passed and I was exhausted. Laying on the ground after falling out of a tree for the sixth time, it floated above my head as if it were mocking me.

“Damn you.” I cursed allowed.

“You’ll catch it eventually.” Dad was standing above me, the sphere landing in his hand. “You’ll soon understand how to read your instincts, it will also help with the growth of your clairvoyance.” He held his hand out. “Come on, that’s enough for today.”

“Thanks dad.” I grabbed hold of his hand.

“How do you feel your classes are going?” Dad asked as we headed off together.

“Instructor Willis is full of rubbish,” I smiled as I told him. Talking to dad about how everything was going, always made me feel better, just like Tigra he was my best friend.