The sun rose on the horizon, bringing with it the advent of yet another day.
Lucian awoke in the morning, still feeling a little groggy. Training was hard work, especially when he had to spend 16 hours each day on it. So much time spent training left only so little time for him to go about the rest of his day, and he couldn’t even get a full 8 hours sleep because of it. But it was something he had resolved himself to doing, and he wasn’t the type of person to falter under such minor pressure.
Clop! Clop!
However, something was different on this morning. Usually, Lucian would just awaken normally and quickly wash his face before assuming a meditative position on his bed. But this time, he was distracted by a sudden loud banging noise outside of his windows, despite the sun barely even shining it’s rays over the academy.
“Everybody up! All students are to gather at the assembly hall! I repeat…”
A loud voice began to accompany the banging outside his window, and Lucian couldn’t help but frown when he heard it.
‘What is going on?’ Lucian mused to himself, before getting out of bed and entering his bathroom — intent on washing his face and teeth despite the constant annoyance outside.
‘If I recall correctly there is nothing special planned for today, so what is with all this racket?’
He had been lying in bed a bit after his training last night, going over his plans and his changes in stats. It was only yesterday that he had first checked them after a week of constant, non-stop training. Yet he couldn’t even start this new week before something had to break the monotony.
All he wanted to do was train in peace until the Mage selection came, but the universe clearly had other plans for him. Lucian couldn’t help but click his tongue at how powerless he was to do anything about his situation.
Being controlled was something he loathed the most in life; unfortunately this world he found himself in was not one where one could be in control of their own fate. Being a weak student, still thought to not even be an Apprentice Knight, he could only go along with the system and follow the rules like a good child.
He stepped outside of his dorm after getting changed, and found his eyes wandering about, looking for the source of all that noise. When they did, they found one of the night watchmen, holding some sort of wooden clappers in each hand, swinging them together to create that incessant banging noise.
‘I’m lucky to have woken up early, saving myself from being awoken by this annoying sound.’
He followed the night watchman’s words without much haste though, finding the signs for the assembly hall and starting to make his way over. Considering he didn’t want to make too much of a fuss or rouse any suspicion around his recent actions, this was the best course of action. He quickly found that he was not the first student to start making his way over, as many of them had not even bothered to get changed out of their pyjamas before exiting their dorm and following the signs.
It only took Lucian a few seconds to notice they were just as clueless about this situation as he was. He wouldn’t have to wait long before he received an answer to his questions though, as the assembly hall was only a 2 minute walk from where his dorm was located.
He, along with the other students from his dorm, soon arrived at the entrance to the assembly hall. Lucian took a quick peek inside before he was allowed to enter, an noticed that there were only two people on the stage at the front. Only one of them he recognised as Professor Kaldor. The other was completely unknown to him, even including his inherited memories.
However, he knew that in situations like this the answer would usually come to him, so he simply waited in silence, not bothering to converse with the other students like most of them were already doing. He already had a reputation as a loner in this place thanks to his weak strength and the age gap between him and the others, so it was nothing out of the ordinary.
Lucian simply directed his gaze onto the stage, keeping his eyes trained on Professor Kaldor and the unknown man who stood next to him. Speaking of the unknown man, he was rather tall and very well built. He wore the same sort of armor Grand Knights wore, so that at least gave away one part of his identity to Lucian.
[Scanning… Scanning…]
[Unable to scan target’s body.]
He tried to inspect the man with his AI immediately upon realising he was most likely a Grand Knight, but met failure for the first time. Lucian wasn’t actually too surprised by this, as the AI clearly pinned the reason down to insufficient data. It had the same information and starting point Lucian had to rely on when he found himself in this place, so just like him, it had to start from scratch and relearn most things about this world.
Out of curiosity, he tried the same thing with Professor Kaldor.
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[Scanning… Scanning…]
[Unable to scan target’s body.]
‘As expected, he must be a Grand Knight too.’ Lucian thought to himself.
In time, he was sure his AI could not only scan Grand Knights with no problem, but also maybe even stronger targets, like Mages! But that was an issue for him to figure out in the future — right now he kept his gaze trained on the stage, putting on a bored front, as he waited for either one of the two men on stage to speak.
He didn’t need to make it clear that he wanted to know why he was summoned there so early in the morning, even going so far as disturbing his meditation time, but the other students in the room did that job for him.
They were much more rowdy and egotistical, some of them even demanding to be reasoned with immediately, not wanting to wait for the rest of the students to arrive. They were promptly ignored though. The best method of dealing with people like that was to simply ignore them. They were attention seekers, and a reaction was exactly what they wanted to get with all their attention seeking efforts. Denying them of that would eventually make them angry and give up.
Lucian found that a large number of people from his previous life were like this, so he used this method quite often. He wasn’t too surprised to find that the same method was just as effective in this world too.
‘Humans are the same no matter the world.’
Very soon, the assembly hall was filled with students, and some guards closed the doors behind them, closing them all in and not giving any of them the chance to slack off and try to sneak back to their dorm.
Many students were still causing a ruckus, while others already had their curiosity piqued at this point and were staring at the stage intently just like Lucian was. Whatever their reason for coming here, it had to be interesting since they were dragged out of bed so early in the morning for it.
“I see that you are all here now, good.” Professor Kaldor began speaking, causing the entire assembly hall to quieten down, even the rowdy students had stopped speaking at this point. Professor Kaldor was one of the more intimidating teachers that nobody wanted to offend, thanks to how mysterious he was.
“I’m sure most of you are wondering why you were brought here so early in the morning, so let me not drag this on and just allow my friend here to introduce himself.” Professor Kaldor gestured to the man to his side, who stood still and remained silent up until then.
With Professor Kaldor’s approval, he walked to the centre and began his speech.
“None of you will know me, as I am a teacher from the main academy. You may simply refer to me as Teacher Rowland for the sake of formalities. I’ve been brought here by Professor Kaldor for one simple reason. To test you all.” The new man, known simply as Teacher Rowland, had a booming voice that spread all across the assembly hall, and then some.
His voice matched his burly demeanour, but Lucian was more interested in what he had to say.
‘Came here to test us you say…’
“Here to test us? How exactly?”
“Why did he have to bring us all here so early in the morning to tell us this! Couldn’t he have just called us here at lunchtime or something like that!”
“A test… On what, I wonder?”
The other students quickly began to whisper and chatter among themselves, with their minds quickly drifting from the introduction Rowland had just given. Half of them had already forgotten his name, and were entirely focused on the fact that they were going to be tested. Most of them wore worried looks on their faces, as something like this always meant that there would both be winners, and losers.
The sounds of the student’s worries and discussion reached the ears of both men on stage, and pretty soon Teacher Rowland’s gaze turned cold, and he shouted, “QUIET! All of you will keep your mouths shut and listen only!”
He was a Grand Knight, with a very muscular body and a deep voice. The moment his shout rang out, it reverberated throughout the assembly hall a few times, even causing a few students to feel back in shock.
Silence quickly enveloped the assembly hall though.
‘What an effective silencing method.’ Lucian silently chuckled to himself as he watched this circus performance.
“This test will be focused on finding those who are worthy of receiving the Preparatory Academy’s tutelage. If you cannot even match up to the standards of the Preparatory Academy, then you have no place in the Official Academy! Those who fail will be expelled. No second chances will be given.” Rowland spoke while he darted his uncaring gaze around the hall.
“Your strength, agility and vitality will be tested to see what level you are at! To those who do not meet the requirements, you can only work harder to make it in next time!” After he finished warning them, Rowland gave out some more information, and began calling names one by one.
He spoke until a total of 20 names were called, and they were all asked to go up on stage and stand in a line, remaining silent the whole time. Some of them had nervous looks on their faces, while others looked absolutely calm, and some even had prideful expressions.
They all differed from each other, but what they all shared in common was the fact that they were apart of the first batch to be tested.
“You, go ahead and send your strongest attack my way.” Teacher Rowland didn’t care what order the students were in, and just spoke to the first in line. The first student chosen was a young girl, probably around 14 years of age, and she had a nervous look on her face.
She looked at Rowland’s face in confusion after hearing his command. She looked around, gazing at Professor Kaldor and the other students on stage, before turning her gaze back to Rowland.
“You want me to A-attack you, sir?” She asked cautiously, wondering if she had heard wrong. Her mine was probably running through all kinds of scenarios, thinking ‘What kind of test is this?’, ‘Did he really ask me that?’ and a bunch of other jumbled thoughts.
“You have 5 seconds before I class you as an automatic fail.” However Teacher Rowland couldn’t care less how nervous the young girl was, as he held an apathetic expression and waited began to gesture towards the second student in line to come over.
“W-wait!” With the threat of failure handing over her shoulders, the young girl regained some courage and ushered all the strength in her body to send a punch right at Rowland’s abdomen. With the height difference between the two of them, this was as high as she could reach…
Thud!
Her punch hit him square in the stomach, but his face didn’t change whatsoever. In fact, it was the young girl’s face who twisted in pain after hitting him. To her, it felt like she had just punched a boulder…
“1.08 Strength. 1.11 Agility. That’s a fail, there's no need for me to even check your vitality.” Rowland said, not even sparing the girl a glance.