Mia and the rest of her class were taken to the training area, a sprawling space with various targets and dummies for practice, along with a designated area for sparring.
Mirai guided the class to the sparring area, where they found a group of students being led by a professor named Samuel. He was a somewhat older man, appearing to be at least fifty. His age showed on his face, but his body was in excellent shape. He wore a simple white shirt with brown leather pants and boots. His hair was white, and he had a manly, imposing presence, accentuated by a well-kept beard. Samuel's dark brown eyes scanned the students as he approached, and he stood at about 185 cm tall.
“Hello special class. As of now every student in this academy knows about the existence of your class and so they now have a chance to actually be part of it.” Samuel said in a very loud voice, full of vigor.
“Professor Samuel, you don't need to shout.” Mirai said, a little annoyed.
“Sorry, force of habit. Continuing. These students choose to challenge all of you for your places or at least show that they desert it and we didn't see it yesterday. So, who’s going first?” Samuel said in a more normal voice. Two students, a boy and a girl presented themselves.
“I challenge Mia!” The boy said, clearly ready for a fight. He had a sword and everything.
“Boy, you know that you can only challenge them in what they were chosen for, right?”
“What do you mean?” The girl asked.
“You can't challenge someone who was chosen because of her magic to a sword fight, the same way you can't choose someone for magic if they were chosen because of their written tests.”
The students nodded at the revelation.
The professor quickly explained what each student could be challenged at.
Mia was offensive magic, Shishen was healing magic. Moon, Mathias, Luminus and Kaki were non-magic fighting. Katia was in governance. Cassandra and Narissa were military affairs, with Narrisa being actual battle tactics and Cassandra logistics. Klaws was the odd one as his one was pure strength.
Mia and the others couldn't really say anything. This lesson was really just a test to see if they really deserved their spot.
Shishen specialized in Healing Magic, something that Mia didn't really know how to use, so nobody really wanted to compete with her as no one really had any idea on how. So she was in charge of healing any injuries from the lesson.
Katia, Cassandra and Narissa were both challenged by two students each.
For Katia and the ones who challenged her, some documents were given to them and they had to find the problems and give solutions to what they found on the documents.
Cassandra and Narissa were similar, but they received military reports of a battle. The ones challenging Cassandra had to propose a better supply line than her. As for Narissa and her group, they had to explain how to avoid a loss as it looked like the reports were about some sort of loss in a military campaign. There were other minor rules but Mia didn't really pay much attention to them as it wasn't relevant to her.
Nobody challenged Klaws. As for the other four, they were deciding who was going to fight first. Not that it mattered. It took less than a minute for them to trash each of their opponents. Moon clearly vented his frustrations on some of the poor challengers. They all used training weapons that couldn't really hurt someone that much but still caused a lot of pain. All of them besides Kaki used swords, Kaki used a spear.
Klaws and Mia observed the fights not too far from Mirai, who was looking over the ones going over documents, not really talking much with each other but once the fights finished, surprisingly, they both arrived at the same conclusion. These people learned how to fight, Mia and Klaws just figured themselves on how to kill.
“They are too nice to each other, you don't fight like that for real.” Mia said absentmindedly.
“I was thinking the same thing. I feel nothing from them.” Klaws said to Mia.
“Do you think they ever had to fight something that could and would actually kill them?”
“Probably not. I hunted for so long to feed myself so I think I know enough to say that they don't fight like their lives depend on it.” Klaws explained.
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“Too much chivalry.”
“They need to go for the kill more.” Klaws said, explaining that everyone fighting was not really going for the jugular, be it metaphorically or literally.
Mia understood how he felt. If Mia had to get into a fight, she would probably try to finish it as quickly and cleanly as possible, no matter what she had to do, especially in a fight to the death, something that these spars should emulate but aren't.
Once everyone who lost was taken out of the sparing area Moon approached Professor Samuel.
“Professor, as there are no more challenges, I would like to challenge another member of my class to a full spar.” Moon said.
“Who?” The professor asked.
“Mia.”
“The girl with the wolf?”
“Yes.”
“Not like there is anything to do for at least half an hour. Hey girl, he wants to fight you. Are you going to accept?” The professor asked Mia.
One part of Mia actually wanted to fight him and stop him from trying to pick fighters with her but upon reflection she saw that it wasn't really going to do any good.
“Professor, I never really learned how to spar. It would be unfair of me for him to fight this like a sparring match while I am fighting for real. Besides, I don't know how to use weapons if I had to actually spar.”
“I don't care. Come at me at full power, magic and all. I will show you that I am the strongest here.” Moon shouted.
“I am pretty sure I would kill you if I did that.”
“Stop giving excuses and give an answer!” Moon shouted.
“Professor, is all of this really allowed?” Mia asked.
“Yes. You are in the special class after all” He answered.
In defeat Mia accepted his challenge and moved to the sparing area along with Onyx.
“What is your dog doing?” Moon asked.
“You said that I should fight at full power. He is part of it.” Moon could just nod in acceptance.
The professor quickly checked to see if everyone was ready and gave the signal for the fight to start. All the students who were defeated before along with the ones that gave up in being better than her at magic were now looking at Mia with high expectations.
Moon activated some sort of spell and dashed at incredible speeds toward Mia and Onyx. Under normal circumstances he would manage to take Mia unprepared but Mia was ready, he just couldn't see it. Once he was about 1 meter away from Mia he crashed face first into a wind wall. Mia then created water tentacles and held Moon up for a moment.
“Moon, right? Why are picking fights with me? Did I do something bad to you?” Mia asked the now held Moon.
“You need to fight the strong to become strong and you are the strongest one I can fight right now. Once I defeat you I will be the strongest and almost no one will be able to command me!” He angrily responded.
“Is there anything I can do for you to stop this?” Mia asked, somewhat sad.
“As long as my fighting spirit and dignity remains I will continue to challenge the strong.” He said, scoffing at Mia's question.
Hearing that Mia could help but sigh. She had a few ideas in mind on how to finish this fight, some funny, some downright evil. She had to go for the nuclear option. Mia didn't really know about Moon's past but he came from somewhere where might makes right and that affected him somewhat negatively. Mia knew of people like that from her old life and there were only two solutions for this problem. Show overwhelming force that they become submissive or break them down so they can see that strength isn't everything, if they manage to put themselves together. Mia didn't really want a submissive subordinate so it would have to be the second option.
Mia gives Moon a warm hug and says to him that this is all because she cares. She then commands Onyx to hold Moon in his mouth and run as much as he can and as fast as he can around the area they are right now. Onyx happily follows the instructions.
For the next 25-30 minutes Onyx ran around the training area. Moon for the first minute managed to fling insults at Mia and Onyx but after that he was mostly trying to hold himself together. Onyx wasn't hurting him but it didn't take long for him to understand that he was being utterly humiliated. If Mia was the owner of the wolf, she was clearly stronger than it, so the fact that he couldn't do anything to free himself really showed his situation.
By the end of the lesson Mia called Onyx back. The professor finally declared Mia the winner and Moon went back to class in silence after asking Mirai something.
In the end nobody managed to snatch a place in the special class or show anything to be accepted as an extra student there.
Mirai quickly guided the class back to their classroom once the lesson time was over. She also used a spell to clean everyone. Mia could do something similar but Mirai's spell just dealt with visible stuff. Mia could clean all of herself but it would take a small amount of training to deal with clothes since she couldn't really feel them.
As the special class went back to their classroom, whispers of what happened in the training area began to spread like wildfire around the academy, taking a life of its own. The facts became more and more distorted by the game of telephone that before the next lesson was over, what happened and what people thought happened were two different things.
The special class was now a special unit military unit being trained to be readily deployed. Katia would get you permission to enter anywhere. Cassandra would get you what you need for the mission. Narissa would draw perfect plans for the mission. Moon, Mathias, Luminus and Kaki were one-man armies. Shishen would keep everyone alive and finally there was Klaws and Onyx who were guard dogs put in the class to keep Mia in check. Mia was depicted as some sort of deadly creature in the form of a little girl that would toy with anyone's life if left unchecked as she showed by commanding her guard dog to use Moon as a toy.
Be it by the will of the universe or just how things evolved around Mia, it would take a while until the class understood how the rest of the academy saw them.