Elias knocked on the door.

“Come in” Zacharias said through the door. Elias opened it, walked inside, and locked the door behind him.

“I believe I have had enough sir.”

“What are you quitting? Why now?”

“Yes sir. I simply cannot risk getting caught at this point in the game. It would be too risky for me to carry on.”

Elias took of the mask and clamp and offered them back to the commander.

“Keep them, they might come in handy if you ever wish to battle on equal grounds with the nobles again.” Elias thought about it and declined.

“It would be impossible for me to hide them at the current moment sir.”

“Ahh well they are here if you ever wish to claim them again. And no one else will be given a mask.

Think of it like special privileges. Besides you have already caused enough chaos for me.”

“Yes sir.” Elias said as he took off his helmet.

He looked outside the halls and saw no one.

Thankfully he wasn’t approached by anyone in the hallways while he put his helmet back in the weapons room.

He walked around to the arena spectators’ entrance. He decided to go up one of the stairways in the opposite direction of his match.

The stands were less crowded over here. He was able to sit by himself in the far up reaches of the arena by himself.

He needed an area to cool down and let the sweat stop dripping down to avoid detection.

Ten minutes were up when a loud voice of complaint erupted from the other side of the stadium.

Elias wondered if sitting in this section was a good idea.

By secluding himself he would be an obvious candidate if people were to come looking for him.

However his heavy breathing would have been a dead giveaway.

He finally managed to get his breathing under control as the rest of the students distributed throughout the rest of the arena.

So Elias sat down and watched the final matches of the test.

“The first year battle test is now over.

All students are dismissed for the rest of the day. Assignments for the following couple of days will be posted in your rooms.

In addition each first year student has been awarded battle credits for competing and defeating additional opponents. Dismissed.”

Elias got up from his seat. Battle credits?

He wondered what they were and laughed that he had more credit currency than most of the nobles in the whole school.

Unfortunately, he thought to himself, he could not go on an excessive spending spree or that might arouse suspicion.

Elias continued to walk down the halls towards barracks C.

Everybody was bustling with excitement and utter confusion. They all had one question on their minds.

Who was the masked first year student? Elias reached his hall and entered a stairway.

Judging by the large three on the wall he arrived on the correct floor. The third floor was much quieter.

Paint had been run all along the walls. Random names and objects littered the walls.

Beneath them held tally marks. Elias figured they were teams of sort marking their victories.

The only thing that remained unpainted was the doors. Elias continued down the hall until he found his room.

Room three seventeen was third to last in the hall. Twenty one rooms in the hall.

Since each hall was identical, and there were only three floors, Elias counted 126 members of barracks C.

He inspected his door once again. All it had was a small key slot to the right of the door.

Elias entered his key and heard a click noise. He pushed down on the handle and entered his room.

The room was ordinarily plain but contained all the necessities. Two beds were pushed up into the corners.

Besides the beds were two desks and two chairs. Elias pulled off his shoes and placed them next to his bed.

The door made a clicking noise. Elias stood up to greet his fellow roommate for the rest of the year.

The door opened and the person walked in.

“Ah looks like you got here first.” Said his roommate.

“Haha yeah. Sorry I accidentally choose a side of the room without you.”

“No worries it isn’t a big deal. My name is William. Most people just call me Will.”

“Names Elias nice to meet you Will.”

“So this must be the schedule.” Said Will glancing at all the papers on his desk.

“Yeah, pretty boring stuff for the rest of the day.” Elias walked over and slouched on the bed.

William placed his stuff on the ground and spun his chair around to sit down.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“What did you think about that masked student?” questioned Will

“That student either has a lot of guts or is completely crazy. Who in their right mind would willingly dare to challenge the nobles?”

“No kidding right? But all the nobles are in a frenzy.

Even the upper class men are searching for this masked student.

I just can’t believe he got away with it.”

“Yeah but it causes more troubles for us.

If anyone was likely to be the masked student it was one of us and we are going to get the punishment for it soon or a later.”

“You have a point. But still the whole academy is in complete chaos right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Small groups of us nobodies are thinking of following suit. I mean we could change this whole academy.

No longer would it be dominated by the nobles.”

“Sounds like a good idea in all but you would need more than small groups.

Even if they do start rising up against the nobles, there is no way we could protect ourselves.

The whole school would turn into a battle ground.

Students couldn’t even walk to class without fear of being beaten up by a large group of nobles around the corner.

Teachers would step in at some point and resolve the matter.

Most likely with their influences we would be getting the short end of the stick.”

“I guess you have a point. We should all just wear masks then and conceal our insignias like the one kid today.

No way they could punish us if they don’t know who we are.”

“Unfortunately they probably can.

They would simply have to make all our lives so miserable that it would be better to quit.

Eventually someone from our group would sell out the rest.”

“Hmm at least it was one hell of a show.” Elias glanced down at the schedule.

Suprisingly, the only thing that was planned for him was schedule with Commander Zacharias Tuxton tomorrow at eleven.

He wondered how this had gotten to him so quickly and who else knew.

Elias regrettably sighed and decided to open up the instruction guide and get to work.

“Welcome to the Imperial Army academy.

This guide was created to help incoming students learn and adapt to school life here.

First thing you need to learn about is what you need to have decided before you meet with your commander tomorrow.

This included classes you will be taking as well as what weapon you wish to become a master of.

There are four specific class categories for first year students.

These are weapon training, defensive training, field tactics, and group combat.

Weapon training classes are specific to your weapon mastery.

You will be automatically enrolled in this class to be separated amongst your barracks unit with other members of your specialization.

Mandatory defensive training is also mastery specific.

More than likely you will be enrolled in this class with the same group as your weapon training.

Field tactics courses are for those who wish to lead troops into battle.

It is not required for all students to take but is highly recommended.

The final and most enjoyable class is your group combat class.

You are required to form forty-two three man cells.

Your cell will practice, train, and compete against other cells from your barracks.

You may have noticed the graffiti on your walls.

These are previous year’s cells and their records.

Winning group combats will reward you with battle points you can spend in the shop. I

ndividual cell teams are chosen by you.

This means that you are responsible for forming a cell and reporting to your commander.

So the most important decision you will make tomorrow is your weapon specialization.

A full list of weapons can be found in the battle point store under weapons.

You will meet with your commander tomorrow to discuss your decision.

Keep in mind that your commander determines the final say in your weapon specialization.

He will also have reviewed your battle test records to confirm your selection.

Besides your weapon specialization, the only other decision you must have before your meeting is if you wish to take the field tactics course.

Now is a good time to select your specialization. Next we will talk about the battle points store.”

Elias closed the instruction guide and opened the battle points store.

He wondered if he had a lot from the entrance battles.

The menu divided all the items into the following categories: food, furniture, offensive items, defensive items, decorations, weapons, and armor.

He turned to the weapons list.

Weapons were further divided into the following subcategories: pole arms, long swords, short swords, hand and a half swords, two handed swords, hammers, axes, and miscellaneous.

Elias had already made up his mind about what he wanted to specialize as.

He chose to keep with the similar style he had today and looked at all the hand and a half swords, or more comonly known as bastard swords, that were available.

At the top was the normal straight one he used today in the tests.

But, as he looked further down, the design got more complex.

On the list were straight blades, longer blades, blades with no hilt, and even hook swords.

He was pretty sure a hook sword would be more complicated and near impossible to use in real combat.

So he looked through the list without hook swords. So far nothing stood out at him as his particular blade.

He wanted one sword to call his own. He continued looking through the list until he saw it.

The one sword he could call his own. It was a Wazakashi. It is a type of samurai sword similar to that of a katana.

But this Wazakashi was special. Its blade was curved. A menacing blade with a ‘S’ curve.

This was his sword. He selected it and checked the price. It was five thousand points.

He checked another Wazakashi price. Both were five thousand points. Every sword he checked was five thousand points.

“Hey Will how many battle points do you think you got from the test?”

“I'm hoping ten thousand,” he chuckled. “I won one victory and kneeled the second. Still debating if it was the right thing to do.”

“Don’t worry you did the right thing. I feel the same way but I’m the same as you.

One victory and forced to kneel the next. At least we will only see them in passing.

Everything else from here on out is with Barracks C."

“I know. I’m actually looking forward to getting rid of the nobles. What do you think about the group combats?”

“I think I need to get into a group and fast. Wanna go take a look at previous groups?”

“Sure. So any idea on the weapon you wanna specialize in.”

“I’m not sure. I was planning on being a traditional knight. Sword, shield, whole thing.

But, after today I feel like defense isn’t my thing. I blocked more attack with my sword than with my shield.”

“Ever thought about dual wielding?”

“Is that even possible here?”

“They might not have a specific weapon class for it but why not?

Besides we are going to need an offensive striker if we are going to be a cell squad.”

“Well funny thing is, I picked out two different long swords that match my style.

I guess I will have a long chat with the commander tomorrow.”

“Hahaha all we need now is a defensive man and we have our cell.”

They departed the room and examined the walls. They started at the dead end and walked all the way down to the stairs.

Blue panthers had twenty-seven wins and twenty-three losses. Silver lances had nineteen wins to thirty-one losses.

The walls continued down throughout the hallway. After a while of looking at the walls other students joined in running around to find the number one squad.

The walls looked more orderly than his original thought. They were divided into sections.

The name of each cell squad was posted on the wall in the middle. On top of each name was a drawing.

The cell mascot as it was so called. Below the names was each cell’s record.

Twenty of the marks were painted in black. The other twenty one were colored.

Upon further investigation they were not tally marks. They were other team names written vertically in the shape of tally marks.

Twenty-one marks had a single name on them. Four marks had double names on them.

The final four marks had a VS. before the team name. Elias turned towards Will.

“So, these are the different types of competition. The black marks are one on one group battles.

That is the first twenty marks. Next, are the two versus two battles.

Then you get into groups of three for a larger scale conflict.

Finally, battles take place in bracket formation to determine your ranking.

Sounds like this is going to be an exciting year.”

“I can’t wait to get started. It is getting late, lets head back to bed.” They both walked back to their room.

On their bed was sleepwear for them. They straightened out their uniforms and placed them on the desks.

Finally they slipped into sleep at the first night at the academy.