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As the days went by, and the timetable for the next month was posted in the classroom, I noticed that for three days straight, Advanced Spell Theory and Advanced Combat & Tactics classes overlapped and took the time slots of the other electives for those who were in those classes.

This activity was just labeled as “Outdoor Exercise”.

When I asked around what they meant by Outdoor Exercise, it usually meant that we were going outside of school grounds. And you know what that means?

It means this will be my first-ever School Field Trip! YAY!!

When the day came for said Outdoor Exercise, a few hundred students from both classes gathered at the assembly grounds. There we were met by Professor Thaddeus Northwind and Instructor Matthias Greyham, along with their assistants from both classes, and behind them was a fleet of carriages that looked to prioritize seating capacity instead of comfort.

When everyone was assembled and attendance was taken, Instructor Greyham’s voice boomed across the assembly grounds, “Good morning students, today is a rather special event. As I am sure all of you have noticed, the classes of Advanced Spell Theory and Advanced Combat & Tactics have gathered here, we have gathered with the objective of performing a joint exercise to show and practice how magic and martial fighters team up to combat challenges.”

Instructor Greyham then gestured to the side where an old, scarred, buff-looking old man was standing, “And a special thanks to the Capital’s Arena Master, Theo Ferrimen, for allowing us to use his arena during its downtime, and supplying the challenges.”

The last part of the sentence piqued my interest, what did he mean by “supplying the challenges”?

But before I could think of it much more, we were herded on the carriages, and out the academy’s gates with mounted royal guards leading the way.

From there, we traveled further into the capital than I had ever explored. Even with the royal guard clearing the way for us, It took almost an hour of twists and turns before turning onto a main road that revealed what looked like a five-story high colosseum look-alike.

But instead of the unwashed masses flocking to it to sate their blood thirst, there were people sweeping and cleaning up the surroundings while others dangled off scaffolding suspended from the top to clean the walls.

“Wow, must have been a rowdy crowd yesterday.” commented the carriage driver as we closed in on the arena.

Soon we entered the arena and were ushered up to the stands. Once the last of the carriages were offloaded and students seated, Instructor Greyham vaulted over the hand railing and down into what was dubbed “The Pit” where all the combatants fought.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

He then looked up to the students in the stands and once again his voice boomed out, “As I said before leaving the academy, you are here today to learn and experience joint combat, and this is a taste of what you will be doing today.”

He waves his hand to what I assume are arena staff, then turns to the assistant instructors, and then points out three martial and two magic assistant instructors who made their way down to the pit.

As for the arena staff, he signaled someone outside of the pit, and the portcullis near the arena staff opened. From the tunnel beyond the portcullis, other arena staff started dragging ten unconscious goblins out into The Pit, and surprisingly, for some reason, none of the goblins woke up from the rough treatment.

I guess I now know what Instructor Greyham meant by “supplying the challenges”.

After the goblins were in a pile, the arena staff looked at Instructor Greyham and received a nod. From there, other arena staff brought out a bunch of crude wooden clubs, chucked it in front of the piled-up goblins, and then, took some kind of powder from a pouch and blew it at the goblin pile before running into the tunnel as the portcullis closed behind them.

Shortly after the powder landed on the goblins, they started sniffing, and then the goblins snorted awake while blowing out their noses in agitation.

“Combatants ready!” Greyham shouted as the five assistant instructors got into their combat stance, but this shout also drew the attention of the goblins who were just getting their bearings.

“Defend yourselves!” Greyham shouted as he jumped up to the stands in a mighty bound.

When he was clear of the pit, the goblins scrambled for the clubs available to them and rushed the five assistant instructors.

These goblins seemed more feral than what I saw in the wild, I guess with all of us in the stands looking at them, and the goblins knowing they have nowhere to escape, they most likely feel like cornered rats, and we all know the sayings about cornered rats, they show their teeth.

As the goblins charged over to the assistant instructors, the two mages who positioned themselves in the back quickly cast a spell that we had learned a week prior to this field trip, it was the Augmentation spell.

Augmentation is a spell to imbue certain attributes or temporary buffs to equipment, some examples are hardening, sharpness, decreasing weight, or imbuing one of the six main elements.

Upon learning this spell, me and a few other students asked the professor if we wasted our time taking up Enchanting as an elective subject, but he assured us that it was not a waste of time.

Unlike enchanting, Augmentation only allows one buff or attribute to be cast on one piece of equipment at any one time, whereas Enchanting allows multiple effects on a single piece of equipment, and it does not use a decent chunk of mana to cast Augmentation. We were also warned to not imbue lightning unless it is for the caster’s own equipment due to lightning traveling through the weapons to shock the wielder.

Another downside of using this spell was that it accelerated the wear and tear of equipment that was not already enchanted, alloyed with a magical metal, or made of mana-conductive material.

At the end of the day, this spell is used to increase the odds of our survival and the odds of putting the opponents in the ground, you can replace or repair a sword, but you cannot repair death… unless you are a necromancer, but that is beside the point.

By the end of today, there is going to be a lot of practice equipment that needs repairing… I guess that is why there is a Blacksmithing course, it is pretty much free labor for us to practice repairing all this incoming damaged equipment.