A/N: Sorry for the lack of an update, but I've been thinking a lot about how to write this next arc. I feel like I now have a good basic idea of where to continue from here, so hope you will enjoy it.

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“Welcome to Guardia, the best officer’s school of Ralom.”

Arnest followed behind the recruiter, an arm’s length distance between them.

The entrance hall of the school was nothing but white, except for a few benches and the wooden staircase.The stairs were centered in the room, and branched out along the sides of the room, in a boxed spiral upwards. There were a few young men, who wore officers uniforms, standing at a corner of the room talking. Arnest stopped and looked up. He could see the windowed ceiling in the opening between the stairs, which made it seem like a staircase to heaven.

The recruiter turned around when he noticed the lack of footsteps tapping behind him. Looking at Arnest, he smiled and said, “Impressive, isn’t it?”

Arnest didn’t avert his gaze and continued to stare upwards. “‘Yes, it is.”

“This is Guardia’s barracks, where all our students live.”

“How many students are there?”

“Twenty nine. Or actually thirty, if we include you.”

“Thirty?” It was only now that Arnest looked down and faced the recruiter with a bit of shock.

The recruiter chuckled a bit, as one who saw this type of reaction too many times to count. “There’s at least a single floor reserved for each student and their units.”

He then beckoned to Arnest and said, “ Come, follow me so I can show you to your living quarters.”

The recruiter led Arnest to the upper levels, which took qutie a while. Everything along the way looked extremely uniform. At the top of every two stair levels was a plain wooden door, with no decorations or fixtures on the walls. On each door was a wooden number, signifying the floor.

They arrived at a door with the number ‘74’ nailed to its facade, when the recruiter finally said “Here it is.”

Arnest placed his hand on the knob, turning right and pressing forward.

The door swung open and dust puffered all him and the recruiter. They started to uncontrollably cough, both shaking themselves clean of the unwelcome surprise.

When Arnest’s eyes were dusted, he peered into the room. It was a large room with rows of cots and a few sitting areas, equipped with chairs and tables. However everything was covered in a layer of grey particles, while cobwebs adorning the ceiling. A dim light was obscured by tattered curtains that illuminated pockets of the dismal living quarters.

“Why is it so dirty?” Arnest felt like he should’ve known better, considering the surprise he got when he first saw the barracks outside.

“Well, we haven’t had a new student in a while.” The recruiter walked into the room, pulling a chair out from the table. “Just think of cleaning this room as your first assignment.” he said as he sat down.

One of the chair’s legs immediately gave out under the weight, and crumbled into a pile of tinder.

“Haha, well I guess you’ll need to get a new chair too.” he said as he got up, unaffected by the fall.

Arnest blankly stared at him. Apathy seeped out of his expression.

Ignoring him, the recruiter said, “After you clean this room, come find me on the first floor. I’ll give you your next assignment.” and then he walked out of the room.

Arnest stood silently for a while before sighing. “I guess I’ll get started,” he said, pushing up his sleeves.

First he pulled down the ragged curtains from the windows and opened the windows. A breeze swept in, causing little dusty hurricanes to form. Arnest was, once again, quickly covered in dust from head to toe. Wiping himself down with the inside of his shirt, he proceeded to shake off the dust from the cots, chairs and table.

In the middle of cleaning, a young man who looked to be in his twenties walked into the room. Arnest was too engrossed in the task to notice, until he said “Hey, you must be the newbie.”

Arnest stopped what he was doing and looked up. He was a ghostly grey, covered in all the dust. It contrasted heavily with the young man's sleek officers uniform that shone a bright crimson.

“Yeah, I just joined today.”

“My name is Zorr Bosque. What’s your name?” he asked with a calming smile.

“Arnest.”

“Allow me to welcome you to Guardia, Arnest.”

“Thanks…” Arnest looked wearily at the young man. The young man radiated the aura of a native born Raloman. But then he remembered, “Are you related to Urbano Bosque?”

“That would be my younger brother. Have you met him?”

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“We were on the same team during the exam.” Arnest started to feel a little more relaxed.

“A friend of my brother’s is a friend of mine.” Zorr said, extending his arm out towards Arnest.

Arnest took his hand firmly and shook, both of them grinning. “So, are you just here to meet a new student? Or maybe you’re here to give me a hand with cleaning this room?”

“I was just wondering who would be able to get Instructor Maest out of retirement.”

“Instructor Maest?”

“You walked into the school earlier with him, right?”

“I don’t know, he never told me his name.” Arnest went back to cleaning.

Zorr sat down on one of the clean chairs, this time maintaining its structure. “I’m surprised you didn’t recognize him. He’s a legend around here.”

“What’s so special about that old man?”

“He’s a veteran General, who taught most of the current Generals. At least everyone except the First General.

“That’s interesting.” Arnest said as he started to connect the dots. It made a lot more sense now, the reason why he was sent to the best Raloman officer’s school, even though he was an Ingras.

“Well I just wanted to say hello, but I have to get ready to head out now. I’ll see you later.” Zorr said as he bowed and exited the room.

It took another hour or so until the room was finally devoid of dust. Even when cleaned and reorganized, the room wasn’t anything special but at least Arnest could breath now. He headed down the seventy four floors and reached the first floor. Knocking twice, he opened the door.

Unlike the room he was assigned to, the door opened up to a corridor with a series of other doors that lined up along the sides. In the center of the corridor was a desk that tightly scrunched up next to the wall. An older man, wearing a pair of jet-black glasses, was sitting behind the desk reading a small book. His legs were kicked up on top and he had a scrunched up face as he squinted at the lines of words. Arnest looked at the man, but he didn’t seem to notice or care much about him. He started to walk down the corridor looking for the old man’s room.

As he passed the desk, the man grunted, cleared his throat and said “Instructor Maest is the last door, to the east.”

“Thanks.” Arnest said, continuing down the corridor.

He reached the end, turned towards the right and looked at the door. There was nothing special that would indicate this was an instructor’s room, let alone Instructor Maest’s, but he opened the door anyway.

The old man sat on a padded rocking chair, staring out a window. It was around noon, so the brightness illuminated all the crevices on his aged face but his eyes sparkled with an uncanny vigor. His reaction to Arnest was delayed, but when he turned to him he started to chuckle. Arnest had tried to clean himself, but the dust was stuck to his clothes and in his hair. Even the flavor of dirt found itself in his mouth and he was unable to find a way to easily get rid of it.

Maest reached over to the end table to his side, picking up a bottle with purple-filled liquid. “You look just like Abdiel did, thirty years ago.”

“Instructor Maest, did General Abdiel recommend me to you?”

He stared at the bottle, took a swig and let out a satisfied sound. “You really should try some of this, it’s really good!”

“Sorry, I’m not very fond of alcohol.”

“This is a special type of wine.” Maest took another drink before saying, “It has a little something extra mixed in.”

Maest smiled and looked at Arnest. “You’re pretty smart, right? Take a guess what’s in it.”

“Is it made from some type of special herb?”

“No, this is mostly normal grape wine.”

Maest continued to look at Arnest, who was silently perplexed by the question. Before he could continue thinking about it, Maest said “There’s monster blood in this.”

Arnest’s face became even more puzzled. “Why would you drink monster’s blood?”

“Power.” Maest’s mouth and eyes flattened and he no longer looked like a jovial old man.

“When you drink a monster’s blood, a few things can happen.”

“One, you will become physically stronger.”

“Two, you can gain some of the special abilities or attributes of the monster.”

“And three, the most important reason, it’ll allow you to sense where other nearby similar monsters are.”

Maest lifted the bottle again and brought it up in front of Arnest. “So let me ask you again, would you like to try some of this wine?”