Military School of Peacius, Nation of Peacius, 27th Ledia 1325

The gruelling physical “warm-ups” continued daily every day and every few waking hours with the same sparring exercises for the rest of the day. But today things were slightly different. We had actual lessons that made this “school” seem like any normal one.

Walking in the hallway felt as if I was walking in the dorms. The floors were creaking with every step of mine. The pale-yellow plaster wall had brown spots on them. I have never seen such a dilapidated place of learning in my life. Yet I couldn’t care less anymore about the environment when my body was already at its limit from the spars and my mental health deteriorate with every spar.

As I walk down the hallway to my class, my mind constantly played back all the spars I’ve had the past few days. “What a great mind, huh.” My mana flames were still extremely lacklustre. The ring seems to be stuck to my finger now ever since it tightened during my first spar. It dug deep into my finger but not enough to stop blood from flowing.

Finally, the playbacks paused when I saw my classroom sign. “Company 1; Platoon 3”. Seeing the sign made me feel as if I landed myself in a prison. I just gave an exasperated sigh before sliding open the wooden door.

“Look who’s here!” shouted Fredrik the punchable stickman. “It’s Mister Small Blue Balls!”

“AHAHAHAHAHAH! MISTER SMALL BLUE BALLS! AHAHAHAHAHA!” the whole class burst out in incessant laughter.

I took it and just looked down at my feet in search of some comfort only to find none. I constantly tried to think to myself to get used to it but even so, I still feel pathetic. The feeling shrinks with the same thing happening daily. “I will show them someday. That I am not a laughing stock!”. With that comforting thought, I raised my head to find my seat but only came into eye contact with Venus who had the same look like the one that she gave me when she healed me.

She wasn’t laughing but I still felt bothered by her look. I didn’t need someone to feel sorry for me. I am the son of a nobleman and a member of the Ura Clan. I may be a disgrace but my status doesn’t change. Then I remembered what Henri said. “All of you are considered nothing here. Not even worth a speck of dirt that is on the ground.”. My mood soured further immediately.

I quickly found my seat and sat down to make myself feel at least physically relaxed.

The wooden door slid open and Henri stepped in with the small fashion sense. This time, he was wearing a yellow blazer and pants with a purple inner shirt.

“Good morning class. I hope the past few days were productive for you. If not, no worries. This lesson will be productive if you listen. I will not be marking attendance as I believe that you all have the discipline to come to class even if you all are equivalent to ants.”

I assume that the part about productivity of his greeting was directed at me as a few people turned to look at me with a smirk as he said that. I simply ignored them and wondered what the lesson going to be about.

“I am going to be honest with all of you. This is a military school, so it is going to be expected that once you all graduate, your job will have some relations to the military no matter how small or big. So, I will have to prepare all of you with all the general knowledge that a military-personnel should have. World events, basic communication skills and such.” said Henri in a surprisingly professional tone with his previous devilish exercises.

When he said “world events” I immediately perked up. “World events? The desertification is definitely a world event! Finally, I can get a clue about what happened!” I passionately thought to myself.

The lesson started and droned on with your average boring and basic introduction to the world. The empires, kingdoms and nations. Their borders, monarchs and culture. Henri talked about stories from different places occasionally to try to get the class’ attention back. Surprisingly, I was able to sit through the lesson attentively. But it was only possible because I had thought that Henri would say something about the desert. To my disappointment, he did not.

Towards the end of the end of the lesson, he asked the class if we had any question and of course I raised my hand and asked about the desert. And someone simply tried to enlighten me by writing it off as a result of pollution.

“All you, ants need to know about the desert is that it isn’t just about pollution. And the border between us, the Empire of Persidius and the Empire of Alantieus has been blurred out because there are no longer any landmarks that demarcate the border. I’ll talk about the consequences in the next lesson. Now, this is the end of the lesson. Consolidate whatever I taught and I will be testing you all in the next lesson tomorrow. Thank you, class.”

“Thank you, sir!” replied the class.

Even though he only talked a little bit about the desertification. I was satisfied to know that it isn't caused just by pollution.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I went onto the next lesson feeling ecstatic over the new knowledge that I gained. The next lesson was Magic Theories and Practical. A lesson that I may never possibly get anything useful from. I don’t have any magic prowess but either way, I still tried to listen in hopes that I can learn something to improve my current predicament. I even failed the assessment which is hard to fail by today’s standards! At that moment the door slid open again. This time, Virs entered the class.

“I thought you are the principal now?” questioned Fredrik.

“Being the principal doesn’t mean I can’t teach anymore, my son.”

Fredrik fell silent and looked down at his desk.

“Now, on to the lesson. And good morning, class!”

“Good morning, sir!” shouted the class in unison.

Virs proceeded to talk about the theories of Mana. I took down notes in order to find ways to help myself.

-It is common knowledge that mana is an omnipotent element that resides within our body right from birth.

-Mana can be manipulated into different types of magic such as fire, air, water and more.

-Everyone will get to choose their permanent magic specialization. But different people have different mana capacity.

-Most people are only able to specialize in 2 types of magic due to the mana limits while 3 types and above areextremely rare.

Based on what he said. Up till now, I have only learned about raw mana manipulation but not elemental manipulation. “My god, I already failed in raw mana. How am I going to specialize?”

“AHAHAH. Mr Small Blue Balls will definitely fail this one!” shouted Fredrik as if he sensed my low self-esteem.

“Now, now Fredrik. He may have small ones but what you’re doing makes you seem like you have none.” defended Virs.

“OOOOO.” the class reacted.

He lowered his head further this time.

Even though Virs defended me, I did not feel any better as I know it is true. There was no hiding from the truth.

“Now, back to topic. Tomorrow, we will detect your mana capacity and then you can decide your specialization but you all can only specialize in one type as the first one will be used for physical enhancement that is necessary for ALL military personnel. With that, I end the class. Thank you.”

“Thank you, sir!”

I just realised that classes are quite brief in this school which really appeals to me! I hated lessons that drone on and on without the end in sight. It made me feel slightly better with that realisation in mind. Yet at the same time, I was sceptical about tomorrow.

***

Military School of Peacius, Nation of Peacius, 28th Ledia 1325

I could not sleep the whole night as I was worried about how embarrassed I would be when I am revealed that I don’t have enough mana for the physical enhancement speciality. My eyes were feeling extremely heavy and dry.

A minor headache set in as I walked towards the parade square where the testing will be taking place. There were queues of freshmen waiting to be tested with tables at the front of each queue with some sort of hand-held weird cuboid device that has a needle at its top and 3 teachers manning it.

The scene reminded me of the middle school assessment, some people had anxious look while some had confidence written on their faces.

“I am so going to have at least 3 specialities. That’s what my momma told me.”

“Ahh, shit. I can’t wait to know my own limits!”

“I nearly failed my middle school assessment. I think I may have only one speciality…”

I heard a lot of remarks about the testing, a few made me slightly comfortable as they are in the same boat as me while some just wrecked the boat. I then joined a queue feeling uneasy.

Before I knew it, I was already at the halfway point of the queue. I looked around me at the other queues and a “punchable” face greeted me.

“Hey, Teiga. Hey. I doubt you even have enough mana to endure this queue. AHAHAH!”

I simply ignored him again as per usual but he seems to have a lot of perseverance in this sort of things.

While queuing, I saw some people slouching with a look of disappointment if not despair on their faces. They simply trudged out of the parade square and back to the dorms. Some ran out instead of trudging. I could sense that they were trying to hide their embarrassment. I understood them. But most people had a satisfied look on their faces.

Slowly, I reached the front of the queue. At the opposite side of the table stood Henri with a grin and 2 other teachers that I don’t know. But my attention was only directed at the weird fashionista. I was so anxious that I did not look at his clothing today but looked only at the device and his face.

“Now, I will be pricking you on your forearm with this device. So just endure the sting,” he informed.

As he finished the sentence, the needle was already stabbing the same spot on my skin as if trying to dig for treasures. Maroon blood gradually started to ooze out of the small hole made by the needle. Somehow, I was able to smell the iron from my blood even though it was in such small amounts.

Within a few seconds of the blood appearing, the silver ring on my finger loosened a bit while the device started to vibrate more and more. The vibrations changed to uncontrollable shaking that caused it to fly out of Henri’s pale hands.

“Oh? What’s this reaction? Hmmm…” remarked the fashionista.

The other 2 teachers stood dumbfounded while I stood that awkwardly. Thinking that my lack of mana caused the device to malfunction. Cold sweat started to form on my forehead. My sleepiness aggravated the situation as my ability to think logically was greatly reduced.

“Why… Why do I have no mana…” I complained, hoping for some comfort even if its from Henri.

“Calm down, Teiga,” comforted him. “I have great news for you!”

“TEIGA IS A HUGE RESERVOIR OF MANA!” screamed Henri as if he was trying to warn the school of an impending apocalypse.

“WHAT! MR. SMALL BLUE BALLS IS A WHAT?!” shouted Fredrik in shock

“What… No. No. This is impossible. I was unable to even create a proper ball of flames.”

I scanned the parade square to see all the queues of students looking at me with different expressions. Some with disappointment, anger, envy and amazement. Then I saw Venus, with a gentle smile. I was confused as to how to think or feel after all the embarrassment and shame that I felt.

An immense headache struck the whole of my head immediately. My face fell numb. My brain started to have a very blurred flashback to the assessment. I could only remember fragments of the assessment but one fragment that stood out the most was a huge turquoise flame. I was not able to piece the fragments together.

Before long, the headache caused my vision to fade to darkness and I fell motionless to the ground…