A tall figure stood beside me

"You will eventually hear it, Dhaar."

No, the figure wasn't tall, was I laying on the ground..?

"All of us heard it at one point."

That voice… sweet and calm, familiar but very distant.

"Our inner calling."

Mel…?

I tried to get up, but I felt as if hard sand was locking my feet in place, with every movement a bit of the sand would get in between my fingers and stop even them in place.

So I tried calling out to Mel, but my mouth was full of sticky water that couldn't have been my spit. I felt the water boiling inside of my mouth as countless bubbles started to come out of every hole in my face.

My teeth felt harder than ever, grinding on each other while closing my mouth shut, acting as a barricade to not let the water out.

I started hearing Mel again. And then Rogier. And then Albert, and then every servant in the palace. They all talked at once and made me as confused as I was horrified.

But it didn't go on forever, the voices slowly became fewer, until they all stopped entirely. And just as I was grateful it stopped, more water started to fill my mouth, eventually breaching the barricade that was my teeth.

As the water completely took over my lips, it started to come out of my nose, and then my ears, until every pore in my face spewed out the boiling water in force. My body was filled with the sticky water to the point I felt it had become a part of me, and that's when the voices came back.

Countless figures shouted, laughed and cried. They all spoke in different languages, so the already chaotic melody of their voices became even more incomprehensible to me.

Although I could not understand their purpose or meaning, there was one thing I could hear in them clearly, their emotions.

After what felt like hours, all of them were reduced to a single one.

I heard a scream I could still not forget. Filled with horror and pain, it was one that came out of someone I hated, someone who only existed to annoy me. Even so, it was not a scream I enjoyed hearing, much less, even his scream annoyed me to the point I did anything I could to stop it.

Before I could suffer any more of a voice I thought I would never hear again, I managed to open my eyes.

I was in an unfamiliar room, looking at an unfamiliar ceiling.

A dream..? I quickly got up from bed.

It was 6:57 in a morning that hadn't started very well, and although I was still a bit groggy about not seeing the lights last night, I was quite excited about today.

*****

In the middle of a large dining hall, I was eating porridge. Again.

It wasn't the best for my enthusiasm. Maybe they had leftovers from yesterday?

There were only soldiers around me, weren't there supposed to be quite a few nobles here? Then again, the high living section was too quiet for 100 nobles to be there at once..

I decided to cut my breakfast short, and stood up.

The large training hall felt as empty as yesterday, with one difference, there were 9 people spaced out from one another, awkwardly sitting in random seats. Most were dressed with the uniforms the military prepared for us, but there was one who was dressed in fancy clothes.

None of it mattered to me at the moment though. Looking at those people filled me with renewed excitement, and I quickly found a seat for myself.

"Since it seems like the last person is here, why don't we introduce ourselves?"

A robust looking man started talking, trying to break the ice.

The guy still wearing his fancy clothes perked right up at that.

"Well it is about time. Allow me to go first, I come from the family-"

"What is the point of that? We have all been abandoned by our families already, there is no meaning to our names anymore."

A smug looking fellow interrupted the fancy one, making him quite upset.

"There is no basis for that! My family would never abandon me, I have just been sent here to train-!"

"Think about it for a second, as a child to nobility you have been sent to the secondary army to train? Why not be sent to the church then? Especially when a war is happening so close to us."

"They wanted to show me early practical training, so I would grow to become the backbone of the family-!!"

"Think about it rationally- sent to war, you will quickly die in a ditch, never seen or heard from again. Your whole life would simply become a stepping stone for your family's next in line."

Those words weren't addressed only to fancy, smug addressed every single noble here.

"What are we supposed to do then? Give in to them..?"

As a hopeless question came from a gloomy kid, looking not even in his 20's, an even wider smile creeped on to smug's face.

"Of course not! I, for one, believe we have been given a chance. If we forsake our family names, we can build not only our personal strength, but our reputation as well. Either making them regret their actions, or destroying them ourselves!"

"Can.. Can I really do something to my brother..?"

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"The only one who won't be able to do anything, is the guy still clinging to the family which threw him out."

"Why, you-!"

"Now, now, you don't have to talk about your families, just introduce yourselves."

Robust had to go in between, no robust is too long.. bust? Yeah, bust is good.

But now after smug talked, I started to think about something. Why was I sent here, and not to the church? My father is technically the pope after all, though I'm not sure if he thinks of me as his son.

I'm pretty sure Ezekiel trained here, and according to Mel he and Rogier trained in a military, but in which one? And what about the first prince who's name I don't even know?

Ok, this is making my head hurt, guess I'll ignore it for now - ask Sper some questions later? Yeah, good plan, me.

"Can you introduce yourself next?"

Ah, bust talked to me, did I miss the introductions?

"Umm, you can call me Dhaar.."

Bust threw me a knowing smile.

"Nice to meet you Dhaar, my name is Led."

Did he introduce himself twice? If the others' confused looks are any indication, he probably did.

After a few more minutes of the somewhat awkward silence, with only smug and gloomy talking a bit, Sper entered the training hall, holding a metal ball with a few runes on it. As he walked up the podium, the hall once again became completely silent.

"I would like to officially welcome you all to your home for the next year or so, the 3rd border base. I will be your instructor for your time here, Sper Dereave. You will start every day in this hall, learning general knowledge, doing physical and essence training or, for a few days at a time, going on practical combat exercises. Each session will be 6-8 hours long depending on its content. Any questions?"

As a long winded and packed first words came at them, the nobles were a bit dumbfounded, and after a few seconds of silence, gloomy raised his voice.

"What will we be doing at the practical exercises..?"

After smug's little speech a few minutes ago, gloomy seemed curious, as most of the other people were, save for smug himself. Sper didn't look particularly keen on answering it though, his only response a cold stare. As gloomy shrunk back, the others' faces darkened.

"If there are no more questions, we shall begin. As for today, we will start by recording what essence type each of you have."

Sper lowered one of his arms, using his essence to raise a cabinet from the ground inside the podium. As the cabinet opened, a few sheets of paper together with a pen, flew towards him.

There are cabinets under the floor? Am I the only one surprised by it too? And how did he even do that.. I don't think yellow essence can make things float…

"Answer when I'm calling your name, we'll start with Art."

"It's me, sir.."

Gloomy quickly answered and the metal ball Sper held flew to his hands.

"Direct your essence to the primary rune like you would with any other relic."

After a few seconds of gloomy holding it, the ball shined red.

"Healing essence, be careful with using it too often, as it robs the one you're treating of his essence in exchange for its effects."

After Sper wrote something, he called the next person, and then the next, until everyone knew each other's essence type.

It was interesting to see how differently they acted towards one another after knowing what could be the most minute, or the most defining trait of a person.

Finding out that fancy had blue essence, the nobles obviously directed hate towards him. They seemed to respect smug, who had green essence, and looked favorably upon gloomy and bust, having red and orange, while also dismissing them a bit.

The weirdest reaction by far though, was the way bust looked at me after finding out I had orange essence.

He directed towards me a smiling stare that was full of weariness and disgust, and knowing I had the same power as him, it was as if he had told me face to face to never associate with him.

I thought that being able to read each other would make us great friends, but he doesn't seem to think the same. Still, quite rude of him.

"Tomorrow I'll have a personal training regimen for each of you, but for today, let's see for how long you can maintain your essence out of your body. Stand in the middle."

After the sheets in his hand flew into the cabinet, Sper did not only lower the cabinet to the ground, he lowered the whole podium to be on level with us, before signaling us to stand there.

When we were in a somewhat disorganized line, he looked satisfied enough.

"Every person in the world has yellow essence, and although it works to different lengths and is used in different ways by different essence types, it generally does the same thing, conjures projections. To start, I want you to try extending a spike out of your arm. Conjure it for as long as you can, if it disappears, immediately conjure the next."

Eh..? That's it? Like me, everyone seemed to think it was too easy, and already started.

It took me a few seconds, but after searching into myself, I tried projecting the essence I had found into a spike. And although I succeeded, it was a bit unsatisfactory to me.

The spike I conjured was a very small one, about the size of a finger, and it wasn't quite sharp enough to be called a spike either..

I looked at what the others projected, and saw most of them managed to create better looking ones than me, with fancy's being particularly well defined, making him even more arrogant.

The only one doing about the same as me was bust, who didn't seem at all surprised with the result.

Was it natural for orange essence to be so weak? I guess my power doesn't have a lot to do with conjuring in general..

Like that, we continued conjuring the spikes, most of us thinking it would be a breeze. It wasn't until the half hour mark that some had their projections disappear.

It came to them as a surprise, but they quickly conjured the next one. And after a few minutes, more projections disappeared.

After an hour, everyone had theirs disappear at least once. After two hours, it became torture.

I felt a thousand ants crawl in my body, searching for any scrap of essence I had so they could use it as fuel. At some point I started hearing the screams I heard in my dream last night.

Every waking moment felt painful, but I didn't stop, because I could feel something happening in my body.

It was as if parts of my soul started burning, turning to fuel before being taken by the ants. Despite the screams, it was quite fun.

"You can stop now."

At some point, four hours had passed. The moment I heard Sper's words, my body collapsed to the ground. I felt my whole body screeching, and I wasn't the only one. The only ones who didn't fall were smug, fancy, and a scrawny looking person, who I believe had brown essence.

"Although every person is born with a set amount of yellow essence, it is often mixed up with their other essence, this exercise is used to separate the two, while also getting you used to yellow essence. For the next few weeks, it will be how you start your mornings."

'Hahaha, seeing this every morning sounds very nice..'

I heard a familiar voice, and looked around in a hurry.

Nobody noticed, not even Sper.

"In front of a military commander? Are you suicidal, Par?"

I whispered with my softest voice.

'Don't worry about it. Me being in the base without anyone noticing me, should already tell you a lot about how amazing I am.'

"But, if you continue talking to me here, won't they notice eventually..?"

'Enough with your worrying, how was it? Your first essence exercise?'

He tried to annoy me, but it was honestly not that bad, it feels like I discovered a good way to pass the time. If there was one annoying thing though, it was the pain I felt after. It was like my body was failing me.

"Let's move on to physical exercise now. You'll start with a few stretches, and then run until the afternoon."

"Run? Where?"

Everyone one was quite dumbfounded, and someone had a question slip out of him.

The floor around us opened as a response, and everything in the room was pushed under the floor, including the metal ball that was left alone.

'Hahahahaha…'

I felt even more exhausted, knowing the day was not close to over yet.