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After almost a whole afternoon of vigorously moving my body and casting spells while doing so, I was so wiped out, that I spent most of Professor Sageira’s night class bobbing my head as I tried to stay awake. By the end of the lesson, I had a few white marks on my head from having Professor Sageira pelt me with small chunks of chalk when I actually fell asleep.

At the end of the class, my older classmates showed their worry for me by asking if I was fine and if I was keeping up with the rest of my school life. That was until I complained to them about my “Outdoor Exercise” and how I was being trained as a skirmisher.

After I said that, I could see the pity in their eyes, and patted me on my back while saying things like, “We believe in you” or “Such is the burden of the gifted… take care of yourself, young Ironcrest.”

When I asked them what they meant by that, they waved off the question and vacated the classroom. And instead of having my usual talk with Professor Sageira, she just threw a piece of chalk at me and asked me to go straight to bed.

And so I did.

The next day after the mandatory classes, we were once again gathered at the assembly grounds and taken to the Arena.

From there, we did some warm-up, and then Instructor Greyham instructed us to form lines of fighters, mages, and skirmishers.

After we were lined up, the instructors separated us into groups consisting of two mages, two fighters, and one skirmisher. But eventually, they ran out of skirmishers and made up for it with the leftover groups having either an extra mage or fighter on their team.

As expected, my team was made up of the balanced two fighters, two mages, and me, the skirmisher, and I did not know any of them. But from the looks they gave each other, the rest of my team was at least acquainted with each other, and from the looks of things, my two fighters were of common origins, while my mages were from noble mage houses.

When we did a round of introductions, for the mages, we had a guy and a girl, both from Viscount families, the boy’s name was Henry Carroway, and the girl was Arabella Pembroke. As for the fighters, there was Dave and Sam of Dunmire, on the count of both of them coming from the village of Dunmire.

As soon as all the teams were formed, Instructor Greyham shouted to the assembled teams, “Yesterday, you were taught of your roles in a fight, today, you are going to put what you have learned into practice.”

With a signal of his hand, the area mage staff and assistant instructor mages combined their power to raise partitioned walls in the oval Pit they used for fighting. When the dust in The Pit settled, The Pit was revealed to be partitioned into six equal parts.

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“Twelve teams will enter The Pit, two teams per partition. The teams will fight each other for five minutes, and whether win, lose, or draw, you will be cycled out, this will continue until I say otherwise. But for now, you all need to decide amongst yourselves who will be the leader within your team, you have five minutes to do so. Your time starts… Now!” Instructor Greyham said as he flipped an hourglass.

The moment the hourglass flipped, the two mages of my team said ““I will be the leader.”” practically at the same time. Then they glared at each other, then they started bickering, then started trading insults and boasting of the accomplishments of their family, like it makes them more worthy of becoming a leader.

While the two mages were bickering, I turned to the fighters and asked, “This happens often?”, to which they shrugged, and Sam said, “They are just doing what nobles do, squabble over the prestige of leading… no offense to your noble self of course, Lord Ironcrest.”

I just waved him off, “None of that Lord stuff with me, keep that for when we are in official situations.”

They looked at each other, and then Dave asked, “Why did you not suggest yourself as leader? I am pretty sure everyone knows you are the strongest in the team, you are the only one who was able to keep up with Instructor Greyham during training.”

Sure… keep up with Instructor Greyham… I am barely keeping up while sparring with him, and I am damned sure he is holding back. He may not have my technical skills, but that did not matter much, Instructor Greyham’s sword style may be rather basic compared to mine, but he has a lifetime of perfecting it and the real battle experience to back it up. Compared to me who spent his first life always covered in full plate armor and only getting hit by blunted weapons, it was obvious Instructor Greyham could whoop my ass seven ways to Sunday.

As for why I did not want to throw my hat in the ring for the leader position… well, I just did not want to butt heads with a bunch of kids who are jumped up on the power of their family’s name. As for my leadership skills, I had experience in leading a team of five for a tournament in my previous life but found that I was just about average, leadership wise, there were others among my friends that were better at commanding, and besides, I have never fought in tandem with ranged fighters like mages or archers before, that changes the whole dynamic of combat, and from my point of view, I think those in the back like, like mages, would have a better picture of the battlefield while front liners like me can just concentrate on fighting.

“I could, but I don’t want to get involved with that pissing match, besides, it's just an exercise, and we have never fought together before, I rather just go with the flow for now and see how it goes.” I answered while leaning back in my seat along with the boys and waited for the nobles’ dick-measuring contest to conclude… but I think that is the wrong metaphor to use, one of them does not have a dick to measure… but whatever… details, who needs them.

As the minutes pass, and the sand in the hourglass trickles down, they have yet to come to a decision, and I notice some of the noble kids, including the two from my own team are still arguing, so I decided to put a stop to it.

I got up, walked over to the bickering pair, and stuck my hands in their faces, “Stop! We do not have much time left.” I then fished out a coin from my pocket. “We will decide this with a coin toss, whoever wins the toss will be the leader first, and the other will be the leader for the second round, agreed?”

Their eyes met and they both nodded. I turned to Arabella Pembroke, “Ladies first, heads or tails?”

“Heads” Arabella replied, and I turned to Henry Carroway and said, “That makes you tails.” before tossing the coin in the air.