It has been a short two weeks since Max visited the spot where his powers awakened, in these two weeks he had been not only exercising in Prof Bronn's class, learning boat loads about Elemental Beasts in Professor Pate's class, but he also attended Professor Oberis' class for the first time, it had been... an experience.
Professor Oberis' was an old man and a Snow Elemental, He wore quite the old, "Experienced" on his own words, lab coat that was more a patchwork of different shades of white than proper clothing along with some nice black jeans, the Snow that made up his head had a baldspot somehow.
The first class Max attended was mostly about the edible plants one could find in the wild and how to distinguish between them, Professor Oberis had even taken the liberty to bring a couple boxes with many of the most common ones, yet he had snuck in a surprise for the class, but he himself didn't realize it.
Inside one of these boxes was a small colony of Fire Ants that had somehow managed to sneak in, they sent scouts out of the box first, but they we're quickly spotted, after that almost the whole colony came out and started trying to attack the students, Professor Oberis freaked out and went to call for help but stopped himself and walked back towards the boxes, calmly prepared a bug repellent while saying out loud the steps, like if anyone that could hear him wasn't busy trying to not get bit.
After finishing it he dissolved it with water and placed it in a spray bottle, after that he went around spraying students and ants alike, for the students that had gotten bit he prepared a salve from the different plants he already had in the boxes and applied it to the bites, he somehow managed to turn the whole thing into a learning experience on how to deal with ant Elemental Beasts.
After that everyone was let go early while Professor Oberis received an earful from the Principal.
•••••
Max shuddered as he remembered how the bite of the Fire Ants felt, it was like being constantly burned yet you couldn't do anything to stop it, and it wasn't a felling, the bites left actual burns rather than itchy skin.
Max was suddenly taken back to the present as he almost got wacked by a staff aimed at his chest, which he managed to evade by pure instinct.
"Wow, I didn't realize I was so bad at this you had the time to daydream while fighting" Said Vitria, with a slightly angry tone.
"Uh? Sorry... I was just remembering what happened with the Fire Ants like two weeks ago, the bites hurt like hell." Max responded apologetically.
"Oh, yeah, I only got bit once and it felt like my skin was melting..." Vitria shuddered as she remembered the incident. "Let's continue then, before Professor Bron sees us chatting." She continued attacking Max, who barely managed to deflect the blows.
Gareth was some meters away, training with the overconfident Lightning Elemental from before, they fought with swords rather than Staffs.
A week had gone by while doing this "assessment" after the daily exercises, which consisted of play fighting with the wooden stick of their choice, between a Staff, a Sword, or a Battle Axe, Max decided to try with the staff as it felt more natural than the rest.
Apparently, according to the different moves they used the most in this exercise Prof Bron would do his best to find the best weapon for them, Max didn't really buy it, but play fighting with staffs was fun, so he did it anyway.
When only an hour of class was left Prof Bronn blew his whistle and called for everyone to follow him.
Everyone entered a massive building that was half gym, with equipment and all, and half empty space.
"Here is where we are going to have our classes from now on, as you all see we're going to use specialized equipment now, don't be sad though, we will still have a daily run to keep the consistency, the other side of this room is for Combat Training rather than exercise, now if you may follow me please..."
Prof Bronn led the class to a door that was on the Combat Training side of the room, leading them to probably the coolest room in the whole school, The Armory, there hanging from the walls and placed neatly on racks were a multitude of Melee weapons, from just regular swords to halberds and even lances.
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The whole class could stand in the room and it didn't feel that crowded.
"Great, Now let's start with the important part, I'll say your name and a weapon, then you grab that weapon and leave the room, understood? Let's get this over with..."
Then the professor started naming out students and weapons quite quickly, the room was emptying out at a fast pace.
"Gareth Syrocco, Rapier!" Gareth was the first of the trio to leave the room.
"Vitria Luminix, Spear!" Then came Vitria not long after.
A few students after Vitria came Max.
"Ro-... Maximilian Avasius, Poleaxe!" Then Professor Bronn looked at Max, who was looking around nervously.
"Uh... What's a poleaxe...?" Max asked.
Professor Bronn facepalmed and walked over to a specific rack in which a poleaxe rested, it had a hammer head the size of a small watermelon with a striking resemblance to the hammers used to tenderize meat, it's axe head had the length of Max forearm with a similar thickness and to finish it all off it had a spike on its tip that could pass through a person without much difficulty, it also had another similar but smaller spike at the bottom of the shaft, the whole weapon was easily two meters tall without the top spike.
To anyone else it would have been an intimidating weapon, for Max? It was love at first sight.
Yet instead of grabbing that poleaxe Professor Bronn picked up a significantly smaller one, about one and a half meters, that was approximately the same height as Max but he still felt sad that it wasn't the other one.
Professor Bronn walked over with the poleaxe in hand and passed it over to Max who excitedly grabbed it.
'Mistakes have been made.' Max thought as the weight of the poleaxe almost toppled him over. Thankfully he managed to steady himself and walk out of the room by holding the head of the poleaxe on his shoulder, his pained shoulder would make him pay later, but for now it worked.
Seeing Max fight against gravity and the weight of the poleaxe at the same time was a sight to behold, like a carefully balanced jenga tower that would fall to the slightest breeze.
Then Max suddenly realized something and with a thought the weight of the poleaxe turned lighter.
Max smiled and held the poleaxe with a single hand while walking over to Vitria and Gareth.
"Weren't you shaking like a twig that's about to snap right now? How did you do that?" Gareth asked while checking out the poleaxe Max got. "Damn, why did you get the cool weapon while I got this flimsy sword?!"
Max chuckled while Gareth cursed his luck "Well, I- uh..." and he thought for a few seconds.
"It's because of this." Max pulled the sleeves of the arm that was carrying the poleaxe to show them five yellow vein-like lines.
"Are you sure that's normal-?" Vitria asked in a worried tone.
"Nope, but atleast it's nothing harmful, they just make me stronger. I don't get tired from using them either." Max responded.
"Great, you get the cool weapon AND a cheat power... Wait, aren't you a Plant Elemental? How can you do that?" Gareth asked while inspecting the vein-like lines.
"I- Don't really know... it started happening just a few weeks before school started, I couldn't do things like this before." Max said as he covered up his arm with the sleeves again.
"Could- Could you guys not tell anyone please? I know it sounds dumb but... I want to figure this out by myself." Max asked them.
"Are you sure? It may be a new element or something! You could be all over the news- Oh... Wait... it's because of them right?" Gareth suddenly realized it.
Max nodded sadly "I saw the news of what they did to that guy who was supposedly a Plasma Elemental... I- I don't want to risk it..."
"I just can't understand why anyone would do something so vile... destroying the birth of a new Element, how can you call yourself an Elemental if you do that?" Vitria spat in disgust.
"Well, according to some stuff I saw on the internet, they infiltrated the higher ranks of the Government, which I can't really believe... but how could they have gotten his location then? Someone sold him out." Gareth spoke, not really believing his own words.
"That's the second reason, can I trust you guys with this...?" Max asked while pointing at the arm that was holding the Poleaxe.
"Yeah, don't worry about it Max, you're our friend and we don't sell our friends here" Gareth spoke as he pumped his chest.
"Yeah, i would have already sold this asshole of I could" Vitria chuckled while doing the same.
"Friends...?" Max looked at them in disbelief.
"Yeah, you're our friend! What, did you not have friends-" Gareth was cut off by Professor Bronn calling all the students towards him.
"Welp, let's continue this conversation later before Professor Bronn gets mad." Vitria said as she started walking over.
Gareth nodded at Max and walked over too.
Max sniffled for a bit and then regained his composure, then he walked over to Professor Bronn with newfound confidence.
"Now that all of you have your weapons where going to go with a trial period, if you feel this weapon isn't suited for you please talk to me after a few days of trying it out, I assure you that up until now I've never been wrong with my assessment, and I've been doing this since before all of you we're even alive." Professor Bronn chuckled and started instructing everyone on how to use their weapon without hurting themselves, doing the basic moves and fixing their stances, in just an hour almost everyone had already gained some familiarity with their weapon.