Merry Christmas. Happy HOLIDAYS

Chapter 19: One arm

Aion walked to the knight department corse. Previously he decided that regardless of what department he entered he would work on his assassination skills with his Grandpa. The most important thing however was understanding his soul and making it heal faster.

He located it and could now speed up the process but what he truly wanted was to be able to write more than three at a time similar to his first time. And for that the best way was to increase his knowledge of arrays pertaining or dealing with the soul. Walking into the class room where an instructor knight waited Aion thought of Iris’ strength.

None of the Knights he fought came close to her in terms of brute force, as Iris had strength to rival those one level above her. Aion realized this when he fought others at the sixth level and compared their strength to hers. Every class consisted of about fifty students for the first three years, after if a student was well liked by an instructor he could be taken in as a personal student and learn personally from his or her instructor.

If a student was not taken as a personal student he or she would continue attending courses in large groups until he or she graduated or reached the age limit for attending the academy.

The only prerequisite for graduating was to reach the fifth level of the advanced rank in the human stage, something most found quite difficult. Other than that the age limit was twenty five as the students grew older the number of students also dropped.

“Good now that you’r all here I can begin. My name is Gill Redhammer, you may call me Instructor or Instructor Redhammer. Today I will be explaining how your classes will work, what is expected of you, and some general knowledge that might help you in the future.”

The man who spoke was of average height reaching a meter and a half, a large muscular build, long hair tied back, and a scruffy beard.

“First you will have five days for yourself, in this time you are expected to work hard on your own. Second we expect you all to reach the minimum of the fifth level of the advanced rank in the human stage but that is the minimum you must all strive to reach the grand stage at the least before you graduate from this academy.

And finally I am to give you some information on the difference in ranks so as to making a breakthrough easier. There’s a reason why we have ranks for the human stage the primary rank consists of riding the body of impurities, the intermediate rank focuses on nourishing the body with elemental energy and moving the energy inside of your body, and once a person reaches the advanced rank that person will be able to move elemental energy outside of one’s body and use it to attack. Also remember that there is a difference in strength between ranks, do not fight those above your rank, while fighting those in higher levels is possible and quite common rank is different and generally should not be under estimated.”

Aion and the other children listened to his words and put them to heart after all these thing were important.

“That's all, anyone who doesn’t have an adequate technique can go to the library’s first floor and pick one up. Now follow me to the training ground.” Following that the class went to the training where they would spend most of their time on bettering their combat abilities. The Instructor proceeded to explain the importance of an adequate mount but never neglected to state that personal skill was the most important.

In his opinion a mount was a partner a knight relied on for mobility in a large battlefield and anything more was just extra help. Since this was just an introduction of what they would be doing the class was dismissed after everything was explained, so Aion began to head to the library to see if there were any arrays on souls that he didn’t have and might be able to examine.

The library was one of the largest buildings in the academy with six floors and enough space to hold a third of the students at the same time. As he walked in Aion saw an old man sitting with his eyes closed, this was the librarian.

“Hello, soul related books and arrays… Please.” The old man was startled and quickly opened his eyes. He usually sat at the entrance to the library and guarded the first two floors while an elder instructor guarded the rest.

Having reached the grand stage usually he would be able to feel the presence of anyone who entered so siting with his eyes closed would not be a problem, but this child in front of him had hidden his presence so well that if he were not to of heard him speak It would have been impossible to know he was there.

“Child do not startle an old man, as for the books you want follow me.” The old librarian lead Aion to a table and grabbed some of the books regarding souls and gave them to him.

“Child this is everything for now, read through what you can and leave it there when you are done. And next time do not hide your presence from me when you come, it would't do anyone any good to kill this old man from a heart attack.”

The librarian left muttering something about assassins. Aion was content with the books he acquired and instead of trying to understand them he instead began the process of memorizing everything to study it later when he fell asleep.

It took him five hours to memorize the books that the old librarian brought him. Leaving the library Aion headed to his dorm. The dorms were for students around the same age and would be shared for as long as a student desired to stay in the school.

On his way back Aion was stopped by a group of the children lead by one of the nobles he faced in the small entrance tournament.

“Humph I told that you should back down but you didn’t, now we’re here to teach you a lesson. You might have been able to beat me using the tournament rules one on one but I'm going to show you the influence a noble can have.” Aion decided to ignore them and continued walking. Enraged by this the group attacked Aion without waiting any further.

Facing a group of fourteen Aion would not hold back and immediately pulled out Melli who was resting in a special sheath located on his lower back.

“Melli wake up.” The Blade then released an ethereal green fire that took the shape of a young saber rabbit. Because of the Soul Rune technique along with the Lightning Tyrant's Body technique Melli had reached the second rank and become extremely sharp and sturdy.

But it's greatest effect was Granted by the strengthening of it soul giving the disturbance it caused in the soul of others a much greater effect. The attacking children suddenly felt a headache and became dizzy, taking this opportunity Aion delivered multiple strikes to each person using the pommel of the dagger and his fist.

In a short time all the children who attacked him where on the floor morning in pain. Seeing that they no longer posed a threat he walked off continuing on his way to the dorm.

“Filthy commoner! I'll have my brother find you.” The dorms were large with no set order for age or department, every new student was given a random open spot. Just outside his designated dorm was an enormous tree similar to the ones in his murder’s territory, reaching nearly a hundred meters in hight.

His dorm was in building four room three-o-five, the dorm consisted of three rooms and a living room. Entering the living room Aion saw an older student who looked about fourteen years old.

“Hey, I'm Zack part of the archery department, you must be the new roommate.”

“Un, Aion”

“Ahh woe is me, another silent type roommate, kid your lucky our third roommate is quite famous in the academy. The others started calling him the One Armed Sword, but he’s usually only here to gather elemental energy in his room at night so meeting him will be hard for you.” Aion took note that this archer liked to talk a lot, he reminded him of Paul.

“Then Aion what department did you join? And if you wait for a couple of hours mister Sword will be here.”

“Knight department.” Hearing this Zack began to closely examine Aion, but aside from his eyes nothing was strange.

“Kid I hope you’re a noble or come from a large clan cause if not your gonna need some backing to survive in that department. I suggest you ask to be transferred quickly.” Aion thought about that and could only shake his head, it would be pointless, the head of the department told him that he would not be allowed to change to the assassin department.

“If your set on it then that's fine but if you need help, find me and I'll back you up. From now on you can call me Bro and I'll call you Little Bro, anything else is not allowed.”

“Un.” Aion didn’t have any luggage, making sure all the necessities were in his room. After it became dark the door to the dorm opened once more, a fifteen year old youth with one arm walked in. The youth looked fairly handsome with sharp eyes and face, a lean but muscular build, and short brown hair. The youth looked at Aion for a moment.

“Aion it good to see you again.” Aion and Zack were both confused not knowing how the one armed swordsman knew Aion. The one armed youth laughed.

“It seems you’ve forgotten me, but those eyes are rather hard to forget.” Zack stared wide eyed at the one armed youth.

“Bar this is the fist time I've heard you laugh in a while? And how do you know Little Bro?” In his life Aion didn’t have many people he could call friends, and hearing the name Bar brought back memories.

“Un. Friends.” Looking at Aion, Bar couldn’t help but sigh.

“Yes we’re friends. We meat around five years ago and I might have to drag Clad here just to get you to elaborate on what you mean. If you’r our new roommate and your calling Zack Bro then you can call me that too.” Rather happy to see his old friend, Aion smiled while nodding to Bar.

“Un.” Zack looked horrified but then started laughing while looking at Bar.

“If we have to get that little lady here to get him to talk, then he’s fine the way he is. But more importantly are you letting go of the silent swordsman act?” Bar looked at Zack then at Aion remembering the time that they spent together and Aion declaration of becoming an assassin.

The three continued to talk and Bar told Aion that because of circumstances he had moved to the swordsman department and Aion explained his place in the knight department.

Once they were done speaking Aion entered his room and jumped out the window towards the large tree deciding to sleep on one of the larger branches near the top. Early the next morning Aion was awoken by yells of some children.

“Aion you filthy commoner get out here I told you that I would come back with my brother!” Being so high up on the tree it took him a while before reaching the bottom and during that time the Nobel child did not stop yelling insults at him.

“Useless noise. Stop.” The group looking for Aion turned to see that he was standing behind them, within the group of eight year old children was an older child around the age of thirteen.

“So your Aion, runt you have been warned repeatedly to not oppose us nobles and you dirty the knight department with your presence. So I Sorvon of the house of the Blue Wolf am here to ask you to leave, after I've broken some bones.” Sorvon was confident in being able to easily take down Aion and brought a club with him in order to brake aion’s bones instead of his normal claymore.

“Melli wake up.” Seeing this the younger children backed away.

“Brother that's the weird dagger I told you about.” Sorvon seeing this smiled he had just reached the intermediate rank and was still affected by the dagger, although it didn’t give him a headache and make him dizzy it did blur his vision and made it hard to concentrate.

“That's a decent weapon and after I've beaten you down I'll be taking it.” Hearing this Aion no longer needed to wait and rushed towards Sorvon. But Sorvon wasn’t an opponent Aion could take on and just barely managed to doge a casual swing of the club.

“It seems your fairly impressive for trash, but it's pointless to struggle.” Aion took a defensive position knowing that this was going to be a difficult fight.

Because Sorvon was not taking Aion seriously Aion was able to dodge an over head strike and jump past the effective striking range of the club. While inside a good position he swung his dagger at Sorvon’s arm. Feeling his arm cut Sorvon jumped back and began cursing Aion.

“Commoner trash I'll kill you!” At this moment Bar stepped outside and glared at all the noble children and finally stopped his gaze on Sorvon.

“You what quarrel do you have with Little Bro.” Sorvon looked at Bar with fright as almost all the students knew who he was and none bellow the advanced rank would be willing to fight him. The reason was simple he was the personal student of the second swordsman a man second only to the swordsman department head, but he still had to keep his pride as a noble.

“Bar your overestimating yourself if you think that just because you have some reputation you can do as you please… But for today we will go back as classes will start soon.”