Tyler was looking at the big forest made out of trees that were bigger than the longest building he had ever seen. The whole area existed out of two parts, the first part was the big green field of grass that connected to the village and the forest that didn’t look like it had an ending.

The forest made Tyler feel uncomfortable, it was too quiet, the only sound he heard was the students talking as they followed the teachers. Unlike the students the teachers had to stay focused on the task at hand, they were paid to keep the students save and failing would mean losing trust, and losing trust would mean losing clients which in turn meant no income. Making money is an important part of the job description when it comes to city workers, they needed to perform or it would mean serving as slaves for the rest of their sentence.

“Did you notice anything?” Said Martin looking at the road ahead, this was something Tyler had noticed about Martin, he would almost never look you in the eyes when he talked to you. He didn’t know if this was part of him being a loner or it was part of being a noble. “He isn’t really talkative you know, but if you ask me I would say that he has not achieved his goal,” said Tyler while observing his surroundings.

“Doesn’t matter, we can’t take a chance with only a couple of days left until we run out of money. Try to keep up and stay out of my way,” said Martin keeping his eyes on Solomon. Solomon was the principal now but he was still in charge of the hunts, most principals would hand the job down to the vice principal but Solomon liked it too much to do that. Martin just like Tyler had never been on a hunt before and didn’t know what to expect, the only thing that made sense to him was to pay attention to what Solomon was doing and not missing out on chances.

Tyler had a mocking smile on his face trying to ignore what Martin had said, he knew that he was by far the better fighter of the two. He had lost one fight but that was only because he wanted to try something new that was risky and it just didn’t pay off. Also, an archer was by far the better hunter against low-level monsters. Besides, half of the time he didn’t know if Martin was serious or that it was just part of his personality to be so competitive.

They walked for another hour before Solomon stopped and asked everyone to stay put and not touch anything. Nobody knew what to expect, it was just like the rest of the forest, just more trees. The whole forest was so boring that Tyler could see the disappointment on Martins' face.

“The teacher will cast a formation to blind your senses, do not panic and wait patiently for them to come back. Do not forget that even though you can’t see, feel or sense anything you can still move so if you panic and get lost or even worse kill yourself it’s not our responsibility,” Said Solomon while ordering the teacher to cast the formation.

The feeling of not having any of you senses made Tyler unfordable, it felt like.. it felt like nothing except himself existed. Fortunately for the students, the effect wore off quickly and they senses came back one by one.

Martin rubbed his eyes and looked up at Tyler who was staring in front of him with his mouth open. He had never seen Tyler so surprised, the building was so big it felt like the sun had set and night had come. The building was nothing special but it was the biggest building Martin had ever seen. It was made of white stone and was properly bigger than the whole village. The temple had the family crest of the three clans. The Trust clan had the crest of a young woman dressed in white at the center surrounded by a yellow outline. The Hooper clans crest was the most beautiful of them all, a green stone Martin couldn’t identify, but the crest that drew the most attention was that of the Hooper clan. The crest was a blue mask that looked like the mask of an ancient samurai on a shield and a broadsword. Martin had mixed feeling seeing his old clans crest, it had always been a source of proud but now he only felt pain and hatred.

“You are properly wondering why the secrecy?” Said Solomon with a smile on his face, he always enjoyed the look of surprise on the faces of the new hunters. The students, on the other hand, hated his speech, some of them had heard him tell the same story more than fifty times by now.

“The three clans build this place twenty session years ago when they lost one of the best newcomers we have ever seen, even until today. Some of you may recognize him as Rin trust, the man who had the ability to become the next clan lord or even the overlord. The other clans fearing his ability and worked together to kill him systematically so he could never develop, nobody knows where he is now and what has become of him. So the clans build this walls to protect the students, this is why it’s important not to show your ability to outsiders! Showing-off can cost you your life, freedom and worst of all sanity.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Most of the students didn’t really listen to Solomon and brushed it off, but Tyler knew he was teaching them something important, especially for someone like him who had an amazing ability but no power to back him up. Martin had the same usual cold expression on his face, but Tyler didn’t have to worry about him, if anyone understood what Solomon meant, it would be Martin.

The entrance was guarded by two men. They were no ordinary guard and were wearing blue color cloths which showed Tyler how important this place was.

This was the first time Tyler had seen a clan member without their fancy clothes, one of them was a swordfighter and was wearing a gold plated armor set with a great sword behind his back that was almost as big as most of the students. The other one was wearing leather clothes and had two daggers on his sides and was a lot shorter than the other. Tyler had to laugh when he saw them next to each other, they reminded him of David and Goliath.

Martin seeing the two didn’t react and ignored them as he entered the building, the clan and everyone in it was dead to him. Besides, he was there to train, not to build relations.

The moment they entered the building they saw three big statues of the first three clan lords with the Trust clan lord standing in the middle with a staff risen above his head.

“There are nine doors here, we advise to enter the room number that matches your current level, make groups of three and enter one at the time, the rest will be explained inside,” said Solomon as he walked to the seats in the middle of the room were all the instructors were resting and drinking wine.

“We need to find one more,” said Tyler looking around to find a suiting candidate, the most important thing was to find someone who wouldn’t clash with Martin.

“He said we advise, so we can just do it with the two of us. Don’t forget about what we talked about, don’t use any of your special skills, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were watching us,” said Martin while he walked towards the door. He and Tyler had reached level nine a long time ago and this training session was solely for gaining fighting experience, and if he made some money that wouldn’t be bad either.

“Wait!”

Tyler and Martin stopped and turned around seeing a young girl running towards them, Martin had seen her before, she was the girl that had visited their room before looking for George.

“I’m Liz, I worked together with George in the winery, can I join you guys?” She said trying to look harmless.

“Why us? I have heard about you, they say you are at least in the top ten of all the students, everyone here would want to have you in their group,” said Tyler not trusting her. He had seen her before when he went to visit George in the winery, she was too ambitious for his taste. She looked like the type that would do anything to get to the top, even if she had to step over bodies to do so.

“I like to hunt with everyone at least once, this way I can learn new fighting styles, and besides the chance of you guys reaching the key without three people is almost zero,” said Liz with a smile on her face that made her look completely innocent.

Tyler hated situations like this, what was this key she was talking about? But before he could react he was interrupted.

“Sure, you can join them, but don’t get their hopes up, the last time a group from the academy got a key was ten session years ago,” said Solomon taking a sip of the wine in his hand that had a strong aroma to it.

“let’s go then,” said Martin clearly excited to start training, the clan had always denied him to train here and he had resented them for it.

Tyler looked around confused and decided to just follow them inside. The plan had changed in an instant.

The door opened and they were standing in the middle of the jungle, Tyler could still see the roof of the building high above them and two side walls making the area about fifty meters wide.

Tyler recognized the voice, it was teacher Hanna who worked as an instructor. Just as he was thinking a small hole opened, and a box with three bracelets appeared.

The bracelet looked high tech, it had only a red batten on it for emergencies and a small lens next to it. When they all put it on the lens started to glow and a message appeared.

Objective Rewaard Reach the first checkpoint. 5 credits p.p Reach the second checkpoint. 10 credits p.p Reach the third checkpoint. 25 credits p.p Reach the last checkpoint. 50 credits p.p / Dungeon key