After having a surprisingly good lunch, it was time for his afternoon class. His next class was basic weapons. Unfortunately, Sable and Jack didn’t have the same class. While Jack was finding a seat, he noticed the girl he had seen earlier with white hair. She was sitting by herself, but now she had a weapon with her. The weapon was a simple looking staff that was as long as her. The staff seemed to have some basic designs on it, but Jack couldn’t see it clearly from far away. Jack decided to go sit near the girl, he just couldn’t get rid of his curiosity over the girl.
A short boy walked in while they were waiting for the teacher. Jack literally choked when he saw him. The boy was slightly short, a little stocky, and was carrying a crap ton of guns all over his body. The guns were all sorts of types and designs, some looked old, others looked like brand-new models that had been infused with magic. Jack wasn’t the only one to notice the boy, most of the class was distracted by him; with all his guns he made a lot of noise as he walked. The boy didn’t seem to notice anyone looking at him and casually walked to the only empty seat left, which happened to be between Jack and the white-haired girl.
“Hi.” The boy reached his hand out and tried to shake the girl’s hand. “I’m Chad.” The white-haired girl looked at his stretched-out hand confused. Then she slowly reached out and shook it tentatively.
“Ariel.” She said.
Then the boy turned and did the same to Jack. “Hi, I’m Chad.”
“Uh hey, Jack.” He shook his hand.
Then Chad sat down and started talking to both of them as if they had known each other for years. Jack and the girl looked across Chad at each other confused. A moment later the teacher entered. And the class quickly stopped talking. His teacher was Choi again. Chad had been pointing at each of his guns and excitedly telling the group the names for each, but he quickly shut up like the rest of the class. Choi looked over the crowd. He stopped when he saw Chad. Chad beamed at him, he had a big wide smile and waved enthusiastically. Not an ounce of self-doubt in his mind. The boy oozed confidence, but not a normal confidence, more of a childlike confidence that was mainly excitement. Choi seemed unfazed and then continued to scan the crowd.
After scanning the crowd, he spoke. “I see some of you brought your own weapons. That’s good, but for today we will just be learning the basics.” Chad instantly lumped forward with sadness, not hiding his groan at all. Choi ignored him and continued on. “Today we will be learning basic weapon classification and purpose.” The wall behind the teacher suddenly started to rise, and rows and rows of weapons started to reveal themselves behind the teacher. Chad instantly perked back up, he starred at the various weapons with stars in his eyes. “There are three main types of weapons, melee, ranged, magical. These can be broken down further. The types can and usually are combined for greater effect. The standard weapon issued to each civilian is the elemental dagger.” The teacher quickly pulled a knife out of nowhere, Jack had no idea where the weapon came from. He noticed Chad look at the knife incredibly seriously then narrowed his eyes at the teacher probably wondering the same thing as Jack.
“Where the hell did that knife come from?”
“The elemental dagger can absorb and use any of the elements, becoming an extension of their body. The knifes also are able to enhance your abilities and can be used as a focus point when creating large elemental effects.” The teacher pointed the dagger at the ceiling and shot a blast of compressed air from the dagger. “The elemental dagger is a combination of melee and magic. The standard pistol issued on the battlefield is a combination of magic and ranged.” With a flick of his hand and some crazy speed he switched the dagger with a pistol. Again, he was so fast it looked like the knife just changed into a gun. “The pistol uses elemental power shards as ammunition. This allows it to shoot any available elemental bullet types.” He fired the gun into the air, first a fireball flew into the ceiling, then a water blast, then a blast of electricity. That was the first time Jack had seen electricity used since coming to the academy. Fineus had used it a couple times while they were training. The blast didn't seem to harm the ceiling, but it got the class murmuring excitedly at the use of magic. The teacher quickly silenced them with his hand.
Throughout the next couple hours Choi went through various types of weapons. Some were crazy varieties that Jack had never even thought of before. Other weapons were much more common, some just as simple as a spike on a stick. It turns out, anything can kill as long as you know how to use it. Jack really didn’t like learning how to kill, he had never killed anything before. Thankfully Choi didn’t focus on killing, but it did seem to be the main point of the class. Eventually Choi brought out a target to shoot at instead of the ceiling.
A weapon that stood out to Jack was a slow shooting rifle that had a giant scope on it. The gun took forever to charge up, but it could pierce through almost anything. Next was a pistol that was eerily similar to the one that Bones had used. It would fire bursts of bullets. These bursts were incredibly compact and would fire a large amount of rounds very quickly. Another interesting weapon looked very weird; it was a bent stick with pulleys that were attached to a string. Some students laughed when the teacher pulled it out. Jack didn’t recognize the weapon though and looked at it curiously, how could this be a weapon he thought. That’s when the teacher pulled out what must be the ammunition to the weapon.
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“The bow and arrow.” He said as he held up the ammunition. He attached the arrow to the bow and shot the arrow into a target that had appeared on the wall. The bow was completely silent, and the arrow struck the middle of the target and penetrated much deeper than Jack had expected. “Many look down at the bow due to its simplicity. But anything can be dangerous in the hands of an expert. Metal Manipulators can be one of the most dangerous elemental users on the modern battlefield. The strength of metal manipulators is the only reason for the constant viability of antique weapons such as the bow seeing as it requires no metal to operate. Every smart elemental user in the field carries as little metal as possible on them or has every piece enchanted so it can’t be easily manipulated.” A couple in the class laughed quietly at the weapon in his hands, but Jack was immediately interested in the unique ammunition style.
Chad beside him seemed to know everything about every weapon the teacher showed. He didn’t seem to have much interest in the melee weapons, but he still knew all their names and all basic information, including ammunition, fighting style, and general history. Jack couldn’t believe his knowledge; he was like a walking encyclopedia. The teacher even pulled out an old revolver at one point, Jack couldn’t help but think of Sable and his old revolver.
“The use of melee weapons in the battlefield is also a viability solely due to the enhancement’s element users are able to bestow upon themselves. The most common being the blade.”
“With all due respect.” A student had stood up, signaling they had something to say. “Who needs a knife in a gun fight anyway, all you gotta do is pull a trigger.”
Suddenly Choi who was standing at least 30 feet away from the student who had just asked the question blurred and was now standing right behind the student. He casually grabbed the student’s arm, twisted it painfully forcing him to fall face forward into his desk. “The enemy cannot pull a trigger if you disable their hand.” Choi continued to speak in his lecture voice as if nothing had changed. It was so fast; it took Jack a second to realize what had happened. Choi had used some sort of magic to quickly get behind the student and put them in some sort of arm bar.
“Next time Mr. Camden, please raise your hand when you have a question.” Choi gently released the students arm and lightly hopped back towards to front of the class, easily clearing 3 rows of tables. “Melee weapons are always looked down upon by the laymen, but they never run out of ammo, they never jam, and if used right, they never miss. But a common method used to make life easier for the unskilled, is to add a projective to a melee weapon. Such as the infamous Rifle Hilt Sword.” Choi flicked out a beautiful looking sword that had a full handle guard hilt. He pointed to the guard and said. “Within the hilt are 20 hollow point centerfire 200 grain shells that can put a hole in almost any armor.” After that he showed a rapier that could extend to three times its size, and back to normal with incredible speed. Interestingly there was also a gauntlet with spiked knuckles that could shoot out chains. One sword was completely technological, it had a small, advanced reactor in its hilt and its blade was a fusion coil that was bound around the front edge of the blade.
Gant had brought him some weapons to try. So had Phineas. None of the weapons had Grabbed his attention. Jack much preferred to fight from a distance. But Gantt had assured him he also needed to become proficient with close range weapons. None had interested him at all, unlike the. Pistols and rifles. Jack realized he was having such a hard time when looking at weapons with Gant was because Gant had only shown him weapons, he liked. There were so many more types of weapons than Jack realized.
“This class does not just cover weapons. We also cover armor.” A new wall appeared dropping down from the ceiling. The wall was much simpler with only 10 sets of armor in different shapes and styles. “The main armor worn by an army infantry man is the half composite body suit. He walked over and tapped on a suit on the left. It had big chest piece that covers the front and back of the chest, with the sides being a Kevlar weave padded fabric that is resistant to stabbing. The pants are almost completely covered with only small joints that are filled with the same Kevlar fabric. Most other suits of armor are based off the same design. Some prefer the more medieval plate style of armor. This covers the body completely but is harder to move. The plate style sometimes also comes in a full steel or metal.”
By the end of class Jack had asked Chad so many questions that they had quickly become friends. He enjoyed the presence of the easy-going Chad. Conversing with him it was clear that he wasn’t exactly normal. His personality was right on his skin, and he didn’t hide anything. He seemed to be willing to instantly disagree with something if he didn’t like it. But he also seemed to care about other people’s opinions. He was starting the think the boy was a genius when one of his guns literally shot off randomly almost shooting Jack as it did.
After profusely apologizing to Jack and Choi, Chad just casually sat back down and acted like nothing happened. Jack was pretty distraught until he saw Ariel laughing. Jack looked around and saw a couple people laughing and did his best to relax. It turns out the gun was not loaded with real bullets and had actually shot out a big blast of confetti. Jack looked around at the stuff and looked back at Chad, wondering just how dumb he was.
After an exhausting day Jack was back in his room. He was playing with Pyke. That was the name he had given the small mechanical rat. The book he had been given had lots of information on all sorts of mechanical creatures. The variety was impressive. Mechanical creatures are created by combining advanced science with magic. The origin of mechanical creatures come from Merlin Firedrake himself. Merlin was the first to create a mechanical companion. The records don’t have much on Merlin, but apparently, he was an avid designer and creator. Pyke was what’s known as a Ticking Rodent. They are a subspecies of mechanical creatures whose origin is unknow. Not much is known about them, they have not been studied to any great length and their abilities are mostly unknown. Jack couldn’t help but be curious though, looking at the creature its craftsmanship was too immaculate to ignore. Jack thought to himself. “I must know more.”