“So what do you think?” I asked Mason as we looked around our dorm room.
It was pretty nice, a small apartment style. Two bedrooms on opposite side of the living room area, a small kitchenette and a bathroom.
“I think we should just go with it. It’s just a pity we won’t be sharing any elemental classes, we will be fine though. This place is better protected than the palace most days, there is even a military base nearby. A more important question, now we are here, is have you thought about what weapon you want to use?” Mason rapidly answered, dismissing my worries.
Since I knew Mason didn’t want to talk about my fear of being targeted again, blaming himself for not being able to protect me, I decided to go with the topic change.
“I don’t know, especially since I have my claws once I used my beast combat form. Do I go with a long range weapon while also training hand-to-hand or do I go all in melee?” I asked.
I really hadn’t had time to really think about it. I knew I would need to decide on a weapon at some point, not only was it a part of this academy but I was now in a world where the environment truly fought back.
“Snake beastmasters are known for their speed, you could go for a dexterity style weapon.” Mason kept explaining.
“Dexterity style?” I didn’t know how weapons were classified.
“Strength-based being maces, clubs, axes, swords, shields et cetera. Hybrid strength and dexterity, swords like katanas or spears. Pure dexterity weapons are ranged weapons, like bows, throwing blades, or other swords like rapiers, scimitars, shortswords and finally you have knives. There are lots of different versions of each weapon but choosing the class of weapon is a good idea before you head to your first martial lesson.” Mason explained for me in a lecturing tone.
“Sounded like you were quoting someone there bud.” I teased.
Mason blushed, he clearly admired Captain Smith more than he liked to admit.
“Shut it! Go to bed and read the welcome pack. You need all the help you can get.” Mason answered and left the room to my laughter.
Still laughing I followed suit and headed to my room. I picked up the information pack that was still sitting in the middle of my bed and took it to the desk in the corner of my room. Inside was the standard generic information about where everything was, including a map, the academies goals etc and my schedule. There were also big chunks of the day left aside for studying and cultivation. My schedule was breakfast, morning lesson, study hall, lunch, afternoon lesson and then cultivation until dinner.
There were only six lessons on it across a five day week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday I had Martial Practice in the morning and Fire, Beast and Void respectively. Tuesday and Thursday were Mana Techniques in the morning and Electives in the afternoon. Apparently Essie had chosen my elective for me. Tuesday I had Mana Beast Hunting and Thursday was Advanced Weapon Training.
It seemed Essie was worried about my safety and wanted me to get as strong as possible, as fast as possible. I was pleased about the thought, but I was a little disappointed that I missed out on some of the interesting electives on the list. Alchemy/Chemistry: The changes history made sounded interesting, or even Magic Accessory Forging, I guess this means I wasn’t learning a craft.
I decided it was enough information for now and chose to go to bed. Clin woke up for a moment, moved off my neck for the first time since I was rescued and curled next to my head.
*
A banging on my door snapped me out of a dream, I was still groggy as I pulled myself out of bed.
Like a zombie I stumbled into the bathroom and had a shower, waking up properly by the time I made it back to my room.
I got dressed in one of the uniforms that were in my closet and looked in the mirror.
"Fuck I look like a bad anime protagonist," I uttered.
Clin retook his place around my neck and I started towards the door. I went to walk into the living room only to hear Mason yell,
"Don't forget your training uniform."
I turned around and grabbed the other uniform, throwing it in a shoulder bag that was at the bottom of the closet.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
I left the room and followed Mason downstairs in a cafeteria that was on the bottom level of the four level building.
I was eating bacon and eggs that tasted a bit odd to what I remembered but figured it was better not to ask, Mason was eating toast and a coffee, suddenly a figure dropped a plate onto the table and sat down with us.
An Asian teen with purple hair and eerie green eyes sat down with a big grin on his face.
"Hey guys, my name is Haruki Moto. So we didn't see you at the opening ceremony, a few of us were wondering why you were late?" He asked.
I found his candour amusing, I had been exposed to the staff and officials in the palace for too long since I got here.
Mason didn't even look at him, appearing to savour his coffee. Damn it Mason, now I have to come up with an excuse because you are throwing me under the bus.
I muttered,
"Traitor," under my breath looking at Mason, I swear I saw a small smile in response before I turned back to Haruki.
"We stayed in London for the celebration and we were delayed as we tried to leave. Haruki, who is "a few of you" anyway?" I asked trying to change the subject.
"You can call me Haru by the way, and my friends are over at that table," Haru answered pointing towards a table of four.
I looked over a saw a girl with green hair, a pair of twin boys with brown hair and another girl with purple hair who looked similar to Haru.
"We gotta get to training if we don't want to be late." Mason interrupted us.
I smiled at Haru while I grabbed my bag, Haru darted back to his own table and I followed Mason out of the building.
I followed him through the school, bypassing a few of the buildings, one even caused Clin to react, I assumed it was the Beast Affinity classroom. Once we got far enough away, Clin settled back down.
It wasn't long after that we arrived at the training field. I could see a class of higher years nearby, they were amazing, dueling against each other. They weren't even moving very quickly, clearly going at half speed or less.
It was a boy with a longsword fighting against a girl with a pair of pistols. She weaved through the boys swings, shooting at him at the same time. He was even capable of blocking and dodging her shots in the process.
I hadn't realised I had come to a complete stop until Mason nudged me forwards.
"You can be faster than her, maybe not as fluid but faster." Mason said.
"I find that hard to believe my friend." I answered dejectedly.
"That's Iris Irving. The last descendant of the Irving family, out of Europe. Family affinities are Air and Water but I heard she also has a third. You should know by now the elements affect our bodies. Agility, strength and dexterity can all be influenced." Mason started to explain.
"Oi, we gotta go or we will be late." Haruki yelled from a small building near us.
We walked into a locker room, got changed and hustled out to catch up to our classmates.
I leaned in to Mason as we left and asked.
"I still don't know whether I should pick a melee or ranged weapon? Would a melee weapon mess with my claws in my beast form?"
"There are weapons designed for beast forms, but you could do both if you don't want to be in the thick of things. Learn a ranged weapon here and work on your hand to hand in the advanced. If we worked as a team we would need a defender, I'm the damage dealer and you could be ranged and support, the last person we would need to make a full team is a healer." Mason answered, going on a bit of a tangent.
I couldn't help but ask,
"Is D&D still a thing? You basically just created a party for an RPG."
"No idea what you're talking about man. It's basically adventuring or hunting 101. You want a well rounded or very specialised team." Mason gave me an odd look as he answered.
Apparently once Earth, I mean Terra, became a fantasy world, no-one really cared about RPGs anymore.
I thought about how my friends tried to teach me how to play dungeon and dragons and how that knowledge could affect my new life. I was once again interrupted when everyone around me stopped.
I looked around and saw an obstacle course, running track and some free weights. An imposing man was standing in front of the free weights waiting for us, with a chiseled jaw, hair multiple shades of brown and light blue eyes he looked kinda scary. There was only one thing that surprised me, he was only about 4ft tall..
"Welcome to your first Martial Practice. I am Lieutenant Pierre Rio and will be your instructor. I currently trust none of you, even with practice weapons. You will need to earn the right to learn, prove you have to will and the drive to better yourself." He started.
He stopped when muttering came from some of the students around us.
"QUIET!" Pierre yelled out.
A snicker came from a tall boy near me with black hair. He half turned as he laughed and I guess girls would call him "hot" especially with his red eyes.
"Am I funny to you?!" Pierre asked the boy.
The boy looked at Pierre for a moment, appearing to feel some form of pressure I couldn't feel before sagging.
"No sir." He answered, stepping back and slightly behind the people next to him.
"Good to see you have some common sense Mr Ash. Now back to what I was saying, split into groups. Split into two groups, those who have gone through their first purification to my left and the rest to my right." Pierre ordered.
I followed Mason to the right, I leant in to ask as we walked.
"How strong do you think he is?"
"You will learn the levels of strength during our lessons. There is too much to explain quickly. Most people don't get the training I did, you will be bored in class if I tell you everything." Mason replied as we stopped.
I went to ask Mason another question but Pierre yelled out again.
“We are going to do a fitness test today. You better pass or you are training every lesson to pass. My assistants will be here in a moment.”
Almost as he finished talking a group of five people wearing cloaks with a small Rod of Asclepius on it, the snake coiled around the pole, teleported in front of us. I barely spared them a look after I saw the symbol, realising this was going to be harder and potentially more painful than I expected.
The healers split us up into groups of five, looking around I realised there were almost fifty people in our class. My group included Me, Mason, Haru who had been standing next to us and a pair of people I hadn’t seen before.
Before I even had the chance to study them properly or introduce myself, we were pushed into running. My plan was to keep up with Mason, he had trained with the Royal Guard so should be good enough to pass.
With the other groups spread around us, we were halfway around the field and I was still breathing fine, not even close to being winded. I was shocked, I had never been the fittest person, but without even knowing, my beast affinity and bond with Clin had changed my body completely. Mason was still running right next to me though, so I wasn’t that advanced.
“Speed up? Wanna see what my body can really do now?” I asked Mason.
“Show me what you got.” Mason answered with a laugh.
We both accelerated, leaving behind the two I hadn’t met yet, to our surprise Haru kept up. We started passing other groups who started before us, some of them breaking off to join our new group. We were getting close to finishing the lap and those in our new group started running recklessly, trying to win, as I didn’t want to stand out too much so I chose not to compete with them.
Mason pushed forwards and finished fourth, Haru was still next to me, like me, not looking like he tried as hard as he could have.
The ones that tried to win were all breathing hard but the rest of us didn’t take long to catch our breaths. It took another five minutes before the rest of the class finished, looking like they were going to die.
Pierre had a sneer on his face,
“Pathetic, I expected much better from you all. The other group at least has the excuse of their bodies, especially you three that have started cultivating your beast affinity, but you all passed….barely.” he growled.
Pierre then stomped away, towards where the other group was slowly coming in. A voice spoke behind us,
“Go to the obstacle course.”
I looked at the monstrosity that they called an obstacle course and knew I was going to be in pain soon.