Chapter 43

The Knight Hierarchy

  The way Mateo, the professor of Aura theory introduced himself, reminded Hans of his math tutor back in his mansion, stern and stuck up. Both were adamant about not having any rebellious students.

He was in his early thirties and looked like a man who did not have much experience in teaching but Hans was about to find out an excellent example of not judging a book by the cover.

The professor started his class,

First, let me tell you why this lecture is beneficial to you. For an aspiring knight, it's a no-brainer that using an efficient method of creating aura is useful, but for mages, you get to glance into the inner workings of a knight, you can exploit them or aid them in battles.

So without further do, let's get the introductory section over with,

He looked at the students who were paying full attention to him and started speaking with a stern expression,

What is an aura? To answer this we need to know about mana, right? Mana is the basic building block of our world and aura is a secondary form of this mana. For knights, the mana absorbed through their body, especially skin, muscles and bones gets converted into a by-product called, Aura.

He paused a bit to see if his student were focusing or not then but found the attention satisfactory and continued,

This secondary form gets stored in the body and released at the will of the person. Aura cannot be used to conjure things like the mages do but it can affect nature and surrounding mana more aggressively than mages. This is an elementary thing you need to know about the aura. We will continue to advance in this as we go deeper in our next classes but it is good enough for today's introduction.

He was tired of discussing the upcoming topic every year, but the compulsion and some of the students not being aware of it, made him speak. He sighed and started,

You people must have known that there are a total hundred grades in aura training, right? There is no hard evidence of a grade above 99 but there are many unanswered questions, but first-years do not need to dwell on theoretical topics like that, only focus on what can be achieved.

So the existing power structure for knights is like this,

Grade 0 - 10 (apprentice) in which you learn to generate aura and have the ability to conduct it in anything. This is the basic requirement to be in A-class.

Grade 10 - 20 (initiates) in which you will select a first skill suitable for you from our vast collections. The library already divides the skills year wise so you won't have trouble learning it but if you can't then you do not belong here. So choose the skill that the professors recommend you, and don't be greedy if you cant increase your mastery by the year, then you won't pass the grade 20 mark and fail the year.

Grade 20 - 30 (novice), similarly to initiates, you will be allowed to learn the second skill when you cross the 20 decadal grade.

Grade 30 - 40 (senior knight) - Third skill

Grade 40 - 50 (high knights) - Fourth skill

Grade 50 - 60 (warriors) - Fifth skill

Grade 60 - 70 (Veterans) - Sixth skill, I belong to this category. Every race learns different things when they reach this point, some humans learn the power of their bloodline while elves make contracts with spirits and dwarves inherit the blessings from their ancestors.

Grade 70 - 80 (grand masters) - Seventh skill, this will be your strongest attack skill till now, it will be quite fun to learn and from this point, you become a real powerhouse.

Grade 80 - 90 (Dominion knights) - Domain skill, you have to create this on your own

Grade 90 + (warlords) - from this point onwards you will become an existence of mass destruction, we have less than 100 warlords in the world, so you can understand how rare it is to reach there. But doing this much hard work has its own rewards, you won't be restricted to learning a single skill per decadal grade.

Mateo released a long breath and asked his students,

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So is there anyone who has learned the skill yet?

  No one answered, everyone knew that Concordia has the best skills, so whoever taught these young children did not teach them skills but only trained them in the aura. Mateo expected this and he added,

To get credits in my class, a knight has to reach at least grade twenty, which means you have to master the first skill completely to pass in my class. And for mages, you just have to be less arrogant.

The mage discipline students were looking at him baffled, then Mateo smirked and said with a stoic expression,

I was just saying, it is an additional requirement to the main one that is you have to beat a grade 20 initiates, promoted at that time.

Listen closely, whoever fails my class will be sent back to the boonies where you came from, so pay attention not only to learning but your behaviour too, since I can’t be tolerating fools. That's it for today.

  The tense class got relieved after the strict professor ended the lecture, and the class started buzzing with the noise of chatters. Hans turned his head to Chris who was hitting on the girl sitting beside him, he asked him,

Hey, do you really not know any aura skills?

Hans my friend, the threshold to pass the admission was to have a grade of 10. I don't want to be an overachiever.

So do you wanna learn something specific?

Yeah, there is a skill that I am eyeing.

Which one,

You will see,

What's with the suspense?

Chris didn't say anything after that so Hans diverted the topic of conversation,

How many warlords are there?

Less than a hundred, officially.

Then which rank your father belongs to?

Hans, that is a touchy topic.

Hans was frustrated because Chris was behaving so secretive so he shouted annoyingly,

Oh just spill it, will you?

He is under 20.

This time too, Chris didn't give a definite reply but a warlord below rank twenty is some achievement, so Hans poked him again,

Then what's his grade?

Chris was not fond of people talking about his father so he was getting annoyed. Delimira caught him getting irritated, so she replied instead of him,

He is in grade 92, shorty. Now shut up.

Hans didn't mind Chris’s change in emotions and quickly added,

So why is he ranked below Rudolf?

Chris sighed and replied to his inconsiderate friend,

Grade only shows how much aura a person has, it's not a metric for measuring strength. In his younger days, Sir Rudolf, despite having four grades lower than King Norwin, stood in a stalemate battle with him.

Chris found Hans’s words disrespectful towards his idol, so he chided him more,

Hans sir Rudolf is made his home in rank nine, he is neither climbing up nor falling down. That's why there are no rank changes these years. So you better pronounce his name with respect.

  Hans thought the rank change probably stopped because Rudolf was nowhere to be found in these years and before he could put these words into his mouth, Delimira added,

Yeah, our deans are pretty scary, sir Rudolf is one thing but with Lady Sierra, Concordia is at its strongest right now. Mage tower and association must be so envious of this place, enough for me to get curious to see their arrogant faces crumbling.

  according to Vanessa, there was no ranking among mages so Hans was curious how the mages distinguish who is the strongest. He didn't want to make more conversation with Delimira but instead of Chris she was more actively replying to him. So he just plainly said to her,

Who is the strongest mage right now?

She responded to him with a snarky face,

Who knows, mages don't usually bark about their strength like knights.

  Her remark attracted everyone’s attention which made Hans slit even more under the desk. She was blatantly mocking every knight present in the class but oddly enough, no one said anything to her. She added to her words,

But there is the strongest spell holder and that is our dean. A spell that can't be blocked or avoided, you have no choice but to die if it is fired on you, it doesn't matter how strong you are either.

  Hans had heard several things about his Gramps but Sierra was still a mystery. He didn't want to let this chance go to know more, so he asked her,

Why is she called Iron Lady?

And why should I keep answering you?

  Delimira showed her attitude, Hans felt lucky that he at least got answers to some things from her before she turned back to her usual condescending mood. He felt he will not get any more answers from her so he turned back to Chris but before he could ask him, Chris replied to his unanswered question,

I don't know, Hans. You will eventually find it.

Hans shook his head denying that he was not going to ask about that and asked what was on his mind,

How much do you know about Parv?

***