Wren was highly disappointed. He’d walked into his armament training class expecting to pick up a weapon, learn a few moves and feel like a badass for a little while. But after his chat with Instructor Ash he was feeling the complete opposite of badass. Whatever that was. To find out that he couldn’t attune with his weapon was a bit of a blow, but to find out that he was actually the only person in his class who couldn’t attune hit even harder. He was back to feeling how he had before. He thought that with the revelation that he was actually quite talented as a natural elemental that maybe he would feel like he was actually good at something, like he was meant to be at the academy. And he did for. For a while. But it only took one small conversation with the instructor to bring back all those old feelings. Shows how superficial those feelings were. But now he felt like he didn’t belong, like he was an imposter. It was a horrible feeling, something he wouldn’t wish on his worse enemy. Even Chadwick.

But he wouldn’t let it show. He might have felt like that on the inside but he would be damned before he let anyone see him like that. So he did what he always did. He steeled himself, plastering a smile to his face and disappeared into the crowd as soon as he could.

~

Ash had gathered up the recruits as soon as the last one finished their attuning. It was time to begin the second half of the lesson. There was a mix of all kinds of weapons, a couple axes, a hammer, the odd long sword, but most of the recruits were sporting either a spear or a short sword. She was pleased with how the first half of the class had turned out, the recruits didn’t have many problems attuning themselves with their weapons thanks to the meditation they’d been taught the previous day, she did have to give out a few tips here and there but that was to be expected, they were only kids and they were new to everything.

Of course there was the one recruit that hadn’t been able to attune with their weapon. It had been quite a surprise to be honest. Pretty much any elemental was able to attune themselves with a rank F armament, no matter what weapon type it was, it was the easiest to control and generally only took a small amount of EP directed into the weapon to make the connection. She hadn’t been lying when she told the boy that there were cases in which an elemental wasn’t able to attune themselves to any weapon but she just hoped it wasn’t the case with this recruit. Hopefully when he picked a different weapon in the next class they would be able to overcome this issue and move on.

“Now that you’re all attuned with your weapons, you should start to feel what the effects are. The interesting thing about armaments is that you never know what kind of buff you get until you actually attune yourself to the weapon. Obviously we as instructors know the buffs and capabilities of your weapons as we’ve used them countless times, but when it comes to newly crafted armaments it’s a complete mystery, even if you take into account what kind of monster they’re crafted from.”

The recruits were engaged in the lecture. She was a good speaker and she clearly knew what she was talking about, not to mention she was beautiful and holding a wickedly sharp spear in her hand, that was definitely one way of keeping their attention. She searched the faces of the recruits, looking for the boy who couldn’t attune. She wanted to make sure he was okay, that he wasn’t feeling too down and left out, but she couldn’t see him at all. It was like he’d disappeared, which was impossible because she’d know if anyone tried to breach the cloud wall around them.

“So I want you guys to find a little space and just test your weapons, don’t worry about form or technique or anything, we’ll get to that in a bit, just focus on the feeling of what your weapons are giving you.”

She watched as the recruits separated and trundled off to test their weapons. The armaments they’d provided the recruits weren’t too powerful, they would only enhance their speed or strength by a small amount, maybe even provide them with a bit more stamina. She didn’t care too much about the effects the weapons were having on the recruits though, she was focused on getting them to understand the connection between elemental and armament, if the recruits couldn’t understand their weapons and figure them out, then they’d basically be the same as a regular old weapon.

She started making the rounds, eager to see just how capable these recruits were.

~

Wren was stood off to the side of the class feeling like a bit of spare part. He was swinging his spear around aimlessly, bored out of his mind. It was clear that if he couldn’t attune to the spear then it was pretty much useless to him, he wouldn’t be getting anything more out of the lesson.

“Ah there you are.”

Wren spun around quickly to face the instructor.

“Here I am.” Wren said limply.

“I thought you’d disappeared off somewhere.” Ash said.

“Kinda hard to do with these big old cloud walls blocking my way.” He responded.

“Ah so you did want to disappear off.” Ash said with a smirk.

Wren blushed, having been caught out.

“Well it’s not like you’d miss me, I’ve got nothing to contribute to this lesson it seems. Pretty bad teaching method if you ask me, but hey I’m not the instructor.”

“Why would you say that?” Ash said cocking her head.

“Well since I wasn’t able to attune I’m basically cut out of the lesson, doesn’t seem very…” He paused, thinking for the right word. “Teachery.”

“I can see how you’d think that way. But you’ve got to understand, it’s a very very rare case in which an elemental isn’t able to attune with an F rank weapon, armaments are very intuitive, hell they even teach you how to use them themselves.”

“You what?” Wren asked, confused.

“Oh my bad, that’s the next part of the lesson, getting ahead of myself here. Either way, feel free to join in or just sit out the rest of the lesson, it’s up to you.” She said smiling before she walked away.

“Um thanks I guess.” Wren mumbled, not sure whether he should have been uplifted or downtrodden by their chat.