Tiffany was back at the exam site with another thirty-three students who passed the exam.
Professor Merrik was standing in front of them all with a happy smile. “This is good, we have a lot more enrolees than what I was expecting. Now you can finally join the academy as official students. Congratulations!”
As soon as they got the confirmation, the students cheered. They were all in a state of disarray, except for one person. He was the first to pass the exam and did it flawlessly. He was tall and seemed to be well trained. He had the body of a martial artist and a temperament often seen in the military, like a well tempered blade. He probably had a very strong skill.
Tiffany’s interest ended there. She only wanted to know if he was strong or not, not a single romantic interest. She only saw him as a fellow student.
Once the excitement had worn off, they were all ushered to their dormitories and given the day off to recover from the ordeal.
Luckily, there was enough space for everyone to have their own dorm. Everyone wanted to keep their skill a secret, it was always better to have an hidden ace.
After putting her clothes and other items in her room, Tiffany sat on her bed and called her parents.
“Mom, I made it, I am now officially enrolled in the academy”.
“This great! I am so proud of you. I want you to know that no matter what happen you can always come back home. Your father and I will always be there for you.” Her mom answered, chocking on her words. No matter how old a child is, he will always be a kid in his parents’ mind.
The conversation continued and her mom promised to tell her father that she was fine when he comes back from work.
She then texted Jennifer, telling her that she was accepted in Origin academy.
Not even ten seconds had gone by that her phone rang.
“Tiff! Did you really enroll in Origin academy? Are you crazy? Are you hurt? Are you okay?” Barrage of questions came pouring from Jennifer.
“Wow, calm down. Yes, I join Origin academy and yes I am okay. Why are you so freaked out?”
“Did you just go for the exam without knowing what it was?
“Did you think I didn’t look anywhere else? No other academy are accepting students with Rank G skills. I had no choice. Anyway, I am in, so let’s forget about it”.
“Why didn’t you call me for help?”
“Someone was being a stuck up bitch, remember?”
“Oh… Yeah sorry. But you know that Origin academy is famous for its brutality, Right?
“No I didn’t, don’t everyone have a test like this and this is why you need a good skill?”
If Tiffany could see the look of sympathy on Jennifer’s face, she would have packed her bags and made a run for it. It seems that Origin academy had a strange reputation.
“I got to go Tiff. Speak again later”.
Tiffany was left with more unanswered questions than prior to the phone call. Shrugging, she put them at the back of her mind and texted a particular sexy demon, not that she would ever admit it to the sexiness.
In his office, Baltimore stopped his speech and looked at his phone. The edge of his lips tugged upwards when he read the short message: “I passed!”. He then continued with his meeting as if nothing had happened leaving his executives flabbergasted and unable to relieve their curiosity.
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~
The next morning, Tiffany woke up early and went to the cafeteria for breakfast, she found a place to eat her food silently while observing her new surroundings.
Her favourite and the only gun she possessed was faithfully strapped to her legs. She had no idea how the new students would be welcomed.
Everyone was eating normally and there was no bullying of new comers. It was uneventful.
She then followed the crowd and went to sit in the stands next to a field. She could see about two to three hundreds students. This was not many compared to the other academies or universities which had ten times that number.
A tall man in the centre caught everyone’s attention has he started to speak. He was two meters tall and full of vitality. Only his grey hair and beard betrayed his age. “I am the dean of this academy. Right now it is not needed for you to know my name as you will probably die in your first year of your academic life. You can refer me to Dean or Sir”.
Compared to the thirty-four new students, the rest of the students were completely unfazed with this announcement. They had already survived their hellish freshman years.
The dean continued without an ounce of sympathy, “You now need to decide about your future development, if you are not as stupid as you look, you would already have an idea about the direction you want to develop. So the new students need to choose the group you want to be in. And remember it is final. You will stay in that group until graduation”.
“Alright, the groups are as follow: first you have close combat for physical skill (CCP). Second is close combat with magical skill (CCM), third group is ranged combat for physical skill (RCP), fourth ranged combat for magical skill (RCM) and lastly the group for healers or supports skill”.
All the students quickly stood up and went onto the field. Tiffany was by herself in the RCP group. Most of the students were either in the CCP, RCM or support groups.
“Good. At least you guys were smart enough to go where you needed to. Now you have the choice to be a coward and choose to focus on team hunting or be a greedy bastard and be a solo hunter”.
By now, everyone had gotten use to the gruff way the dean was speaking.
Only Tiffany and the tall military wannabe student chose solo hunting.
“Good, this concludes the entrance ceremony. Please follow the instructors in charge of your group. I hope to see you next year”.
Tiffany was waiting for her instructor when elder Finar appeared next to her like a ghost.
Solo hunters have a dedicated mentor. Their specific training would be tailored to enhance their strength. They would join the rest of the students for the general study but otherwise it was one on one training. This was the true purpose of Origin academy, to make powerful hunters who are able to be more deadly and more efficient than a whole team. However, very rarely would one graduate as a solo hunter as most of them died during their training.
Tiffany stumbled on that secret purely on the fact that she couldn’t trust others with her skill. She had grabbed the winning ticket without knowing it.
Elder Finar was very pleased with Tiffany, finally one student has chosen RCPafter many years. The last one was 27 years ago and he was just a show off, he died one month after the entrance ceremony. Hopefully the one in front of him would last longer.
“Hello elder Finar, I am Tiffany”. Volunteered Tiffany trying to hide her anxiousness. She remembered him being the crazy old man at the entrance of the academy but even professor Merrik was quite respectful of him.
”Right, right… you remember from the test. This is very good. You are also very polite …hum, yeah I guess you will do. Better not disappoint me like the last loser who was pretending to be thought but died only a little bit after we started his training”. Elder Finar was grinding his teeth remembering the bitter loss of entertainment.
Tiffany was getting more and more worried about her future in this crazy academy.
“Alright, follow me to my classroom and we will go over your original skill and what new skills we should get you to learn. Oh this will be fun”.
”Sorry but what do you mean by new skills? I thought that we only had one skill”. Questioned Tiffany.
“Do you not know about this? Great this is even better than I hoped for. I get to teach her everything. She better last long.” Laughed elder Finar. He then quickly walked off towards his personal classroom.
“Wait…” Shouted Tiffany while running after her crazy mentor.
After running for some time and finally catching up to the old ghost, Tiffany arrived at the classroom.
“Come in and we will begin right away”.
“Am I the only student?”
”It really looks like you know nothing. Yes you are the only student. To tell you briefly because it is annoying to explain, you are one of the student that this academy choose to concentrate on. The reason for this is: you chose to be a solo hunter. Therefore we are here to make you into a one man, sorry… one woman army so that you can roam wherever you want. This has been the tradition since seven hundred years when this academy was built”.
Still confused Tiffany could only nod dumbly.
Ignoring her feeling, elder Finar stopped his explanation and said: “Good, now let’s make a pledge”.
The pledge was straightforward and was simply that he will teach her to the best of his abilities and she will need learn. She was familiar with the pledge and so quickly got it done.
“Alright!” Exclaimed elder Finar. “Let’s get started”.