I woke up to the sound of my alarm blaring
‘shit I’m late for class’
I quickly rushed to put on normal clothes and find my things. I was really hating past me for signing current me up for a eight a.m. class.
‘Second day of school and I’m already late. great.’
After rushing to class I managed to make the second half of it. I don’t even know why I was in such a hurry to get to class because I sat there for five minutes before saying the chant in my head and falling asleep again. Strangely, when I woke up I felt like I knew the content of lecture as if I was a model student. I proceeded to sleep through the rest if my classes, it wasn’t until dinner at five that I met with Isaac again.
“Hey Isaac, I haven't seen you all day what’s up?”
“Not a whole lot just trying to get into the swing of school, I sometimes think you mortals have harder classwork than mages”
“Ha. I beg to differ. I actually have to try at this magic stuff, and I haven’t put effort into any kind of school work ever. Remember you can ask me for help if you need it”
“Thanks man, but you should be worried about yourself. We should be doing sparing in class today and I have a feeling that a certain platinum haired beauty is going to be gunning for you”
“I think you're overreacting; I didn't even do anything. There’s no way she would be so extreme”
“I think you underestimate the pettiness of the people here; they take everything personally.”
“I guess we’ll see”
After we finished eating and headed to our magic classes in the secret basement of the admissions building. We walked to the back room, inserted our mana, and moved through the hidden wall. I was so excited my first time here that I didn’t even take in the fanciness of the school. Every hallway we walked through was tall, and parts of the stone walls were made of a beautiful dimly glowing rock. We made it over to our classroom and took our seats next to each other in the back corner.
“It’s good to see everyone again, today we are going to do some light sparring to see where everyone is at. For now, using energy is not allowed, we are just testing your physical strengths and weaknesses. Let’s move to arena and pick our partners”
As a class we all got up and moved through the school until we arrived at a white shimmering doorway. Without missing a beat everyone went right on through, acting like it was just another doorway. I figured it was safe enough and went through, and what I saw on the other side was amazing. I was just in the basement of school in the middle of the city but now I only saw a field with some raised platforms.
“Here is where we will be doing all of our sparring, while you’re on the platform it will keep discharged energy contained. All the damage received while on the platform will be undone when exiting the platform, so feel free to go all out in there. Pick your partners”
I look over to Isaac but I see him walking over to the green haired kid from yesterday. The look on his face was blank but he almost seemed angry. I didn’t have much time to wonder what was going on between the two of them before I am very forcefully (and painfully) dragged away towards a platform. From my point of view. The only thing I can see are some long, elegant legs and some silver platinum hair.
‘Oh come on. please tell me she isn’t mad about yesterday, I didn't do much of anything. I just made a slightly better version of her dumb dagger’
I am thrown up the stairs and I unceremoniously fall on face on the platform. When I look up and instantly fall back to the ground and a sudden pain going through my face.
“Get up wimp”
I look up to see the person I was warned about. The beautiful pain in my ass.
“Fuckin. ow. what are you doing?”
“I’m showing you who you shouldn’t mess with”
She gives me a powerful kick to the stomach
“let me get up first, god. It’s not even a fight if you keep kicking me when I’m on the ground”
“Fine I’ll let you get up”
A take a second to let the pain subside and slowly stand up. The second I stand up I feel a pain in my legs and my face meets the ground.
“I'm sorry I thought you were gonna get up”
“you’re kind of a bitch, you know that”
The next 50 minutes of class consisted of me getting kicked, punched and being thrown around, my beat down finally came to an end.
“Alright class, we are going to end class today. Make sure to practice hard for the next sparring session in two days”
I crawl my broken body off the edge of the platform and instantly feel rejuvenated.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“That was fun. But if you wanted to spend more time with me there are easier ways”
“It seems like you haven’t learned your lesson. I hope you’re ready for the next sparring match, I went easy on you this time but next time you’ll know true pain”
She turned away and started walking towards the shimmering door.
‘Maybe I shouldn't have tried testing her’
I stand in place waiting for the bear that I poked to get a fair distance away, and Isaac walks up to me.
“Oh hey Isaac how was your fight?”
“It was alright, it looked like you had a lot of fun though”
“If by fun you mean an hour of getting my ass kicked then yeah, lots of fun”
“To be fair you kind of brought it on yourself”
“All I did was copy her a little, that shouldn’t warrant a total beat down”
“Like I said, everyone in our class is going to be petty like that. If you’re going to start fights you need to at least learn how to protect yourself”
“I’ll keep that in mind. By the way, what’s up with you and the green haired kid. You didn’t seem like a happy camper when you went over to fight him”
“It’s nothing. Our families have a bit of a feud, It’s none of your concern. Anyway let’s get going to our other classes”
After moving through the shimmering door we went to our separate classes. My magic classes were both exciting and a disappointment, the teacher started teaching us actual spells. The only thing, is that they are probably the most boring spells ever. In my fire magic class, I learned how to make a small flame on our fingertips and in my water magic class I learned how to make my hands slightly moist. So if anyone needs a candle to be lit or needs a table to wet down, I’m the guy to call.
There was nothing noteworthy in my history class but after my beat down earlier and the threat of another one. I was very motivated to learn as much as I could in my body refinement class (AKA fighting class).
When I entered the class I noticed how it looked very different from yesterday, the whole room had an Asian dojo feel to it. I noticed people sitting on the floor so I followed suit and waited until the instructor came.
The instructor a was a thin man but every ounce of him was pure muscle.
“Let’s go, my name is Mr. Maus. Today is when we really start having fun. Who here has had previous martial arts training”
A few hands went up
“Good, now pair up with someone who doesn't have their hand raised”
‘Oh come on are they trying to kill all the new guys, maybe I’ll get lucky and he won’t want to fight’
I think I spoke too soon because some kid who looked like a cross between the Rock and Arnold Schwarzenegger was heading my way.
“Word on the street is that you tried to make a fool out of aurora, maybe if I can get into her good graces if I rough you up”
“Dude come on, it was a simple misunderstanding. I just found out about all of this stuff yesterday”
“You think I’m a fool, I can feel the purity of mana from you. You must’ve thought you were hot stuff and thought you could show her up. I’ll show you why that was a bad idea”
Me and my new best friend found ourselves an open space and got ready to fight.
“Those of you who have had previous fighting experience are going to be on the offense and all you newbies, well. Your goal is to survive”
The very second the teacher stopped talking, gorilla boy unleashed a flurry of blows toward me. Without any time to prepare I took what felt like one hundred punches and got pushed back. His attacks sure hit hard but compared to lady from earlier it was like playing patty cake.
‘I can’t sit here and take hits all day’
I moved back into range and focused on dodging. At first I was slow but the more time went by, the faster I would get. At the start I was getting hit most of the time but after about a minute of his nonstop attacking, he couldn’t even touch me. I could see the original satisfaction on his face slowly melt to anger. After some time, I switched to blocking and redirecting his attacks. Again I would take some hits right away but after a minute or two I was untouchable.
‘Why is this guy so easy? Did he stop trying after the first few minutes or what’
The teacher let us fight it out for a couple more minutes before stopping the fights and telling us to switch roles. I was on the offensive now and once again, I couldn’t even touch him. He swatted, blocked and dodged everything I threw at him like he was playing with a child. Over the next few minutes I slowly grew accustomed to the way he defended and worked my way around it. Shortly he was taking the full force of my punches and there was little he could do about it.
Again the teacher stopped class, but this time he walked over to me.
“You have terrible form but have good moves. May I ask why you are fighting someone with previous training when you yourself are obviously not a newbie”
I looked at him with confusion “I am new, did you not see me getting beat to a pulp and easily handled in the beginning”
“From what I saw, you were giving your opponent hope before abruptly take it away. Today was about finding strengths and weaknesses, not to show who is better. So, for the remainder of the class I will be your opponent”
For the rest of class, I knew nothing but disappointment and pain. Every time I thought I saw an opening I would suddenly eat the floor. Every time I thought I got the hang his technique, he would switch it up and beat me down.
“Stop fighting. Tomorrow will be a more structured lesson; I hope everyone understands where they need to improve”
‘Thank the lord’
As I was starting to move my tired body I heard the teacher speak again
“mason is it; I need to have a word with you”
‘Just when I thought I was free too’
When all the students left I walked over to my teacher.
“how do you know my name”
“I make it my duty to know all students from A-1. More importantly how did you beat Mike so easily. I know that you haven’t been formally trained in any martial arts, that much is obvious from you lack of technique. Even if you had been formally trained you shouldn’t have beaten him. So how did you”
“Honestly I took the beating and eventually got used to when are where he was going to attack”
Mr. Maus put his hand on his chin “interesting, very interesting. I’ve decided that I’ll personally train you then, at least until you disappoint me. So starting now, after this class we will have private lessons”
“Thanks but you don’t have to do this. I don’t really plan on getting into too many fights”
“You must be new. Fighting is a constant thing here and if you don’t know how then you die a dog’s death once you’re out in the worlds”
“Fine, fine, I get it.”
“I’ll even give you a choice of techniques. Would that make you happy”
‘Sleeping at home would make me happy’
“Yeah that sounds great when do we start training?”
Instead of words Mr. Maus figured a fist would be a better response
“Um ow, was that really necessary? And what’s with everyone here loving sneak attacks sneak attacks”
“First lesson, always keep your guard up. For today we are going to go over a proper form for you, follow me”
We then walked through the school until we arrived at his office, I say office but it was more of a private fighting arena with a desk and a side room. He led me to the back room and all I saw were a bunch of flash drives with different numbers next to them.
“Here is my personal stash of fighting techniques, none of them are very special but it’s a good place to start. I will give you a choice of three different fist techniques, the first one focuses on attack, the second focuses on defense, and the third is an all-around with no real benefit or fault. Which one do you choose”
Each of the techniques have different aspects that make them beneficial. Being able to drive straight through an enemy seems hardcore, but if it is at the cost of bodily harm, it doesn’t seem worth it. Using the all-around technique doesn’t sound that bad, but excelling at one thing sounds better. Sometimes it’s better return home a coward than die a hero.
“Um, the defense one please. If I can avoid pain, I’d like to do that”
“Thought you might do that, I’m more of a brute force kind of guy but to each their own. Anyway here take this and plug it into that computer over there”
I took the flash drive and plugged it into the computer and for a second nothing happened. But as I stared at the screen I started falling into a daze, it felt like I was getting pulled into the screen and before I knew it there was a man in front of me. The man himself wasn’t interesting but the actions he was doing were. He was going through what looked like different fighting forms, I figured the only way to learn the forms was to mimic them with him. Then a shadow person showed up and started attacking the man. I was mesmerized by his movements as the shadow man assaulted the man with an onslaught of punches and kicks, but the man was left unscathed. The man was dodging, blocking, redirecting, and countering every attack that was coming at him. Even after two more shadows showed up, the man was unstoppable. I did my best at shadow boxing along with him trying to figure out all the proper movements, and after what seemed like a few hours the illusion started to disappear and I was drooling in front of a computer screen.
I looked around and only saw my teacher, Mr. Maus staring at me
“What was that and how long have I been out”
“Only a minute. It’s a program that everyone in the hidden world uses to teach one another techniques. How ‘d you like it, the first time is always kind of weird”
“I thought you taught each other with scrolls and actual practice”
“All the scrolls were converted over to flash drives, it is a lot faster and more convenient. You can still find scrolls in vaults and old ruins but that's about it. And the flash drive just gives you a baseline for the techniques. The practice starts now”
It was an hour and a half of fighting before I was finally released from my extended training session. Apparently I was supposed to come back every day at this time and train, which really cuts into my personal time but whatever. I got back to my room and rested my battered body on my bed before chanting to myself and drifting away into sleep.