Chapter 13: The Hell Class

I woke up the next morning excited to attend the rest of my classes. Last night me and Vivan spent most of the afternoon in the library, had dinner and then went to our dorms after having dinner. When I came back I was surprised to find that my roommate wasn't in the room. His stuff lay on his bed but other then that it was as if he was never there.

I looked towards my roommates bed to find it already empty. I was a bit surprised to find him already gone, it was still pretty early in the morning and the first classes didn’t start for another two hours. Just how early did he get up that he was already gone?

Deciding that it was time to get ready for the upcoming day I climbed out of my bed, got everything I needed for the day, and went down to the dining hall to get some breakfast.

Entering the dining hall I looked around to find almost no people there. I went to get my food and found a spot to sit down and eat. I took a few bites of my food and took out one of the books, “Bestiary of Ancestral Beasts.” I opened the book and began reading, only looking away to put some food in my mouth.

The bestiary began with the introduction of what the Ancestral Beasts are and the history behind them. From what the book explained so far there are three categories of Ancestral Beasts: Avian, Aquatic, Terrestrial. Each category possessed three types of beast, making a total of nine. Having one beast from each category on each continent.

Avian beasts consisted of a Phoenix, the Void Dragon, and a Griffon. Each one of these beast was said to contain the power to wipe out a great city, while all together they could lay waste to a at least one third of the continent.

The book continued to talk about the terrifying strength of each creature and their descendants. I continued reading the book to find out some sort of clue of where they used to live. Finally, I found a bit of information that I was looking for.

Each beast was said to have resided on one of the continent, on the highest mountain that could be found. The Void Dragon could be found on the peak of the Halcyon Mountains, the Phoenix in the Ash Mountains, and the Griffon within the Storm Range.

I put down the book, trying to grasp the astounding information that I have just learned. To think that one of the ancestral beasts used to live so close to Prares. I definitely had to visit the top of the mountain one day if I could. Who knows, maybe I would be able to find something interesting there. Especially since the Void Dragon lived there.

Looking around I noticed that a lot more students were present and that the dining hall was filled with a lot more noise, no longer peaceful and quiet like it was when I had first arrived. I finished up my food, cringing at the cold taste. I folded the tip of the page I as reading to bookmark where I stopped reading and decided that it was time that I headed off to class.

I still didn’t know where exactly my classes for today were so it would be better if I arrived earlier to find them. My first class of the day was Self-Defense and after lunch I had Energy Training class, which I was slightly curious about. Like what would they teach me there? How to properly refine energy? Or will it be just a class where you sit down and refine energy for the whole class period?

Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t even realize I was already before the building where my class was supposed to be. I examined the building, to find out that it was just a one story building that was very wide. It seemed to be made out of wood, yet had some small mixture of stone and some other materials.

Looking over the building, one more time I entered inside. The inside was rather simple, it was just a giant room with a wooden flooring that had two doors on one of the walls. Inside the building there were already a few students sitting on the floor chatting among themselves, while a few just sat by themselves waiting for class to begin.

I looked around to see if there was anyone that I recognized from some of my other classes to find a few people from my Beastiology class and two people from my Herbiology class. Since, I didn’t know them or even talk to them I didn’t bother to go up and greet them. I just sat down by one of the walls and looked around to see what kind of weapons the rest of the students possessed.

From what I could see a sword was the most common weapon amongst the students, while a few had a spears, daggers, bows, and some other weapons that weren’t commonly used. Since I used to work in a blacksmith shop I could easily tell which weapons were good in quality and which were just on the border of being useable.

Most of the students had very good weapons that could probably rival some of the work that Markus made. There were only a few weapons that were of bad quality and I assumed it was because they didn’t use weapons as their primary choice of offense or couldn’t afford to buy a good weapon.

As I sat against the wall, more and more people started showing up for class and one person caught my eye that I was surprised since I didn’t really think I would meet him here. Heck, I didn’t even think he was a gifted.

The pretty boy that I had met back in Kraposs walked in with the sword that he bought back then at his side. He looked around the room as if looking for someone, showing no sign of recognition when our eyes met. I watched him walk up to the wall opposite of me and leaning against it. I just sat there waiting for class to begin, wondering where Vivian could be. From what I remember she was definitely supposed to be in this class. Unless she slept in or got lost she should of have been here by now. I highly doubt she would sleep in, so she most likely got lost.

Finally a tall and scary looking man walked in through the doors, causing the whole room to quickly quiet down. He had a very good body build and a couple of scars across the parts of the body that could be seen. The one that caught my attention particularly was the one that ran across most of his face. It started from around the edge of his right eyebrow and all the way down to his left cheek.

All the students including me just watched the scary looking guy walk to the center of the room, until he stopped and looked around.

“I’m Instructor Vikram, and I’ll be teaching this year's Self Defense class. In this class I expect you to follow all of my orders. I do not wish to hear any of your complains or any whining. If you do something that goes against what I said, or fail to accomplish the task I have given you the whole class will be punished. So if you do not wish to be hated by the whole class, I suggest that you suck up any complains that you have or will have. You will also receive a punishment if someone is late. Now, all of you divide yourself by year. You have two minutes.”

After the rough and booming voice of the Instructor stopped resounding throughout the room, complete silence engulfed us all. Not a single person said a word, not wanting to gain the attention of the Instructor. Finally, I heard someone speak quietly from behind me, who I assumed was an upperclassman.

“Damn it, we got unlucky this year. Instructor Vikram is the worst teacher you could get. He grades the most harshly and his punishments are extreme. I heard that even the Principal is a bit scared of him.”

“Aww, seriously? And here I thought that we could get Instructor Aylen. She’s a bit harsh, but her looks definitely make up for it.” I shook my head as a small smile appeared on my face when I heard the other student’s reply.

However, my smile didn’t last long when I remembered Vivian was still not here. If not for the Instructor saying he would give a punishment to the whole class for being late. I just hope that no one would take it out on her when she shows up.

“Why are you all still standing? Do you think that the timer will start when someone decides to move? I’m afraid to tell you that’s not how things run around here. You have one minute remaining. If you fail to accomplish this within the remaining time there will be a punishment awaiting you.” Vikram’s voiced boomed through the room.

I looked around the room to see everyone's faces pale from learning that there might be a punishment. Everyone started gathering into groups, trying to find their own respective groups. I looked around myself and started looking for other people who were first years. After a few people I managed to find one person, but the pressure from that one minute kept getting bigger and bigger.

The way that I saw it there was no way we could make it within the given time. The an idea hit me, I put my hands around my mouth in a U shape and shouted at the top of my lungs.

“FIRST YEARS GATHER OVER HERE!” The room grew completely silence as everyone turned to look at me, even the Instructor. However, he looked at me a bit surprised before looking away.

The silence quickly ended as groups of people started to approach me, some of the people from the second and third years followed my examples and barely within the given time we managed to gather into our groups. We all stood in our represented groups, watching the instructor to see what was our next task.

Instructor Vikram looked like he was about to speak when the sound of a door opening could be hear and all the eyes looked towards the entrance doors to see Vivian walk in. I could hear grunts and curses throughout the whole room the moment Vivian walked in, which slightly confused her from what I could see.

I lightly sighed myself thinking that we escaped one punishment just to receive another one. Vivian just stood by the doors looking at the three groups and the Instructor, not knowing what to do.

“Why are you late?” Instructor Vikram asked, his voice loud as ever.

“I’m sorry, I’m a first year here and still don’t know exactly where everything is and on my way here I got lost.” Vivian quickly apologized.

Vikram just looked at her not saying anything, “It’s your lucky day muffin top(A/N:wanted to say cupcake but given the time era, I don’t think they had cupcakes), since you are new and one of the first years managed to impress me just a little while ago, I’ll let this even slide this one time. However, mark my words. In the future do not let this happen again or there will be consequences. Now hurry up and get to your group before I change my mind.”

Vivian nodded and thanked him, before looking around the room and spotting me. Quickly she jogged up to our group and stood by me. I greeted her quietly before looking back at the instructor, managing to catch a few thankful and respectful looks towards me.

“Now that you are all in groups, I want you to introduce yourselves amongst each other and then get into pairs by the order of your identification numbers.”

Identification numbers? When did we get those? I tried to remember when I could have gotten an identification number, the only time I could think of was when I got my identification badge. I pulled my badge out and examined it more closely to find a number engraved at the bottom of the badge.

1-203

Finding no other number, I assumed this was what I was looking for. I looked at the number, wondering how the order worked. The one I assumed was the year you were in and the rest was the number of my badge? Not coming up with any other solution, I assumed that mine was correct.

Since the pairing is in order, I’m assuming it's the first person with the second and so on. However, before that we have to do introduction. It’s a good opportunity to find out what numbers people have so I have a good idea of what the order will be like.

Deciding I should probably get down to it, I looked around to see some people already talking amongst each other. I turned to Vivian to see her talking to a person already. I was about to go walk up to someone and go introduce myself when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I turned around to find a slightly pale looking boy behind me. From what I could see he looked like he was around two years younger than me. He had white colored hair with a purple streaks throughout it. He was a head shorter than me and a bit skinnier than your average person.

“Hey, I’m Atilius. What’s your name?” I asked.

“I’m Hyst, it’s nice to meet you. I really liked what you did back there. A lot of people seem to be grateful to you because of what you did.”

I smiled, a bit embarrassed at the praise. “It wasn’t anything grand, all I did was yell so that I could find the first years. It’s not my fault no one else was smart enough to think of doing that. No offense to you or anything”.

He just laughed lightly in response. “Now worries, none taken.”

We continued to talk for a bit more about random things before I managed to ask him what his identification number was.

“My number is 1-317” he replied. I repeated it in my head a couple of times to remember it better.

“Hey Ennius, remember the number 317 for me.” I told Ennius, thinking it would be better if people tried to remember it then one.

“Huh? Why should I do that?” Ennius responded back, sounding like I just asked him something completely unbelievable.

“Please, it would help me if you did this for me. Plus, it’s not even a hard task. All you have to do is remember a couple of numbers. It doesn’t even have to be exact, just remember the general number.”

“Ughh, alright, I’ll help you out.” Ennius replied with a sigh.

“Thanks, you’re a great help.”

I finished my small talk with Hyst before going to find someone new to talk to. I ended up talking to a couple of people before I heard the Instructor’s booming voice.

“You have two more minutes to get into pairs.”

Everyone started to hurry up, asking every person they saw what their number was. A small line started forming when people started to get a general idea of what their number was.

I looked around for Vivian since I knew our number most likely were right next to each other. I spotted her amongst the crowd of first years and made my way towards her.

“Hey, what’s your number?” I asked her when I managed to get her attention.

“1-204,” she replied. I nodded, seeing as my assumption was correct.

“Lets try to find some people with numbers near ours.” I told her and started to try and remember what the closest number to me was and who it belonged too.

“Hey, Ennius the closest number to me was around 250 right?” I asked Ennius just to make sure I was right.

“The closest number that I remember that was closest to you should be 233. I believe it belonged to the kid with black hair and a greatsword on his back.”

“Oh, thanks Ennius.” I looked around for a kid with black hair and a greatsword to find him talking to a group of people who started forming a line.

“One minute remaining!” I hear Vikram announce. I hurried up my pace and quickly arrived at the group with Vivian.

I found the black haired kid already standing in line between two people. I walked up to him and asked him what his number was right away just to make sure I remembered it correctly.

“Your number is 233 right?” The black haired kid nodded in response and I turned to the person on his right and asked him what his number was.

“My number is 218.” I turned my attention to the person next to him.

“What’s your number?”

“134,” I was about to get into my spot when Vikram announced that the time was up. Instantly all of our faces paled.

“Now, as I have said before. Fail to accomplish the task, a punishment will be given. As for your punishment, run 20 laps around the building, for every person that fails to accomplish this the whole class will run two more laps.”

One person couldn’t take it anymore and asked what we all had been thinking. “Why do we keep getting task that are almost impossible to accomplish within the given time and why do we have to all receive the punishment when someone fails to accomplish the task? Shouldn’t we just have one person receive the punishment?”

Everyone looked at the Instructor to see what he would do, hoping not to receive a punishment for the stupidity of one of the students.

“The tasks aren’t impossible, the only reason you keep on failing them is because you believe that you have the entire time in the universe to finish them. This is a Self- Defense class, do you believe that in the future the enemy will wait for you to prepare yourself to fight? No! The enemy will strike at you at any chance give. The enemy won’t let you gain an opportunity to defend yourself. This is why I give you a time limit to accomplish these task.

It not only helps you accomplish things faster but improves your teamwork. If you haven’t noticed both tasks rely on teamwork to accomplish within the given time.

As for why the whole class receives the punishment it’s because if one day you are fighting amongst your comrades and the enemy manages to take one out they could easily break through your formation and wipe you out within seconds. That’s why teamwork is so important, one day it could save your life and then you will be thanking me. Now go run your laps before I make you run 20 laps around the academy instead!”

No one said a word as everyone hurried outside to run laps. It might not seem like a lot but after around seven to eight laps I could feel my body to begin to tire out. I could see some people already starting to fall behind. Even though my physical abilities were a bit enhanced because of the wolf powers I received it only made my endurance a bit better than an average person's. I embraced myself and continued running. After what felt like hours I finally managed to finish the 20 laps.

When I entered the building I found that only five first years managed to finish so far. There were a bit more second and third years, but given that they have been here longer I assume that they were in better shape than us, first years.

After waiting for a couple of minutes the rest of the people started to show up and after a couple more the last person finished. Well, if you can call almost crawling finishing.

“Now, finish the task I gave you before you went to run laps, you have two minutes.” Vikram announced and everyone hurried back to getting into a line and looking for their spot in line.

I went to my spot in line and just stood there waiting for the other people to find their spots. As I waited I noticed pretty boy walking down to my spot in line. Soon he was standing right infront of me.

“What’s your number?” he asked me.

“203,” I told him while observing his face for any signs that showed that he recognized me. However, he showed not a single sign of recognizing me, or just didn’t want to mention it.

“My spot is here could you make some room?” he asked me and I moved a bit to the side to make sore room for him.

“Thank you,” was all he said as he got into his spot and we just stood there not speaking to each other. Finally after what felt like way more than two minutes everyone managed to find their spot and we all got into our pairs. Turns out I was paired with pretty boy.

“Now that you have gotten into pairs you will spar with each other until someone wins. After that you can go that will be it for the day. I expect no one to be late next time. Oh, and make sure you coat your weapons with energy, I don’t want to clean up any corpses afterwards.” When he said the part about being late I could swear that he glanced at Vivian.That however, wasn’t my concern. My problem was that I had no clue how to coat my weapon with energy.

“Hey Ennius? Do you know how to coat weapons with energy?” I asked him, hoping that he knew.

“Who do you think I am? Of course I know! Just feel your energy, pull on it and imagine it coating your weapon.”

I took out my scythe and tried doing what he said. The moment I pulled on the energy within me I started feeling a bit nauseous. I ignored the unpleasant feeling and imagined the energy coating my weapon. When I thought I was finished I opened my eyes to see my scythe coated in a goldish white energy. I smiled at my success and looked at pretty boy.

I decided to introduce myself when I saw that he had finished coating his weapon. “Hey, my name is Atilius.”

“Amyas” was his only reply.

“Let’s spar then and get out of here,” I told him and he just nodded in agreement and got into a fighting stance.

“Nice sword,” I told him, wondering if that would make him remember me.

“Thanks” was his only reply. Seeing as he most likely forgot me. I didn't bother trying to get him to remember me. I simply adjusted my footing and got into a fighting stance.

“Ready?” I asked him and he just nodded. We stood there, observing each other and waiting for someone to strike first. We began to circle each other looking for any openings in each other, ready to to strike as soon an opportunity appeared.

I decided to attack first since I had more of a range than him. I swung with my scythe downwards to test out his reaction speed. He easily dodge the swing and took the opportunity to dash at me and stabbed at me.

I changed my grip on my scythe mid-swing, similar to that of a saff and parried the stab to the side and tried to hit him with the end of my scythe but he just rolled to the side and we returned to our starting position.

This time he was the one who decided to attack me first. He lunged at me with his sword and swung it at my right, I raised my scythe to block the swing to find out that it was a faint. The faint caught me off guard and I just barely had enough time to raise the other end of my scythe and block the swing. However, it caused me to stumble and lose my balance a bit.

Taking the opportunity Amyas swung his sword again, which I blocked again, but the force plus my imbalanced form caused me to lose my balance completely and I fell on the floor.

He tried to stab me with his sword, but I quickly rolled out of the way and swung at his feet. Amyas jumped over my swing and proceeded his attacks. I dodged and parried his attacks, but couldn’t go on the offensive at all. I was forced to defend and just dodge his attacks.

I had to think of something or eventually I will make a mistake and he will break my defense. My brain worked completely overtime trying to come up with a solution on how to get out of this situation.

“Use a faint on him,” I heard Ennius’ voice in my head. “Pretend that you made a mistake in your defense and then when he goes for it you will get a chance to counterattack.”

“Alright, I’ll try it out,” I blocked a couple more of his attacks and decided this was a good opportunity to try for a counter attack. I pretended to make a tiny mistake in my form, which didn’t go unnoticed by Amyas. He took the opportunity just like Ennius said he would and tried to break my guard.

I quickly parried his incoming attack and side stepped to the right causing him to stumble forward from the power of his swing. Not wasting any time I swung with my scythe making sure that the blade wouldn’t hit him. I hit him on the back and sent him crashing down on the floor.

I slightly panicked remembering that my strength was slightly higher than normal, but relaxed when I saw him Amyas get up. He looked at me a bit pissed and surprised, but mostly surprised that I managed to counterattack so successfully. If only he knew that it was actually Ennius.

I swung my scythe at him horizontally, trying to end this fight, but to my surprise he managed to get up fast enough to dodge my swing.

He took the opportunity to attack me with a stab at the side that left me open from my previous swing. I rotated my scythe a bit, barely deflecting the sword up, which almost ended up piercing my neck.

I gulped, thinking that even if this sword wasn’t coated in energy I would still get severely hurt if not worse. I quickly snapped out of my shock and used my scythe to push him up, causing him to fall on his back. I quickly put the sharp edge of my scythe below his neck.

He put his sword away and I removed my scythe. “You’re pretty good, want to spar again some time?” I asked him. He was better than me and I could see it. If not for Ennius’ help and the little surprise at the end he most likely would have won.

“Sure, you’re pretty good yourself. You have very good defense, I couldn’t find an opening at all.”

“My teacher told me that preserving my life is more important than being able to defeat your enemy.” I told him what Ennius once told me.

“Your teacher is a wise man, I don’t think many people think like that” I swear that Ennius had a smug expression on his face even though I couldn’t see it.

“If you don’t have a class right after want to go get lunch with me?” I asked him, since we seemed to get along and it wouldn’t hurt to have a friend other then Vivian.

“Sure, I don’t mind,” he replied. I took a quick look around to see if Vivian was still here. I saw her talking to some girl with auburn colored hair. She looked like she was making a new friend I decided not to bother her.

I turned my attention back to Amyas and we headed of to the dining hall talking about our experiences with fighting and for how long we trained with our respective weapons.