Sirus spent the entire drive from the airport to the school looking out the window, never having seen such beautiful scenery as he rarely left the city's relative safety in Georgia.
Each snow-covered tree dotted the mountains, the woodland creatures sipping from the lakes; it made such an enthralling scene. Seeing a little bunny hop through the fluffy snow was adorable. It was nice knowing that the only thing around that made tracks in the snow besides our car were animals like them. Like this was purer than what he had seen before. Georgia was a beautiful place, but it never snowed there, so being here was a new experience for Sirus.
The area surrounding the school was covered in pits of Miasma and filled with monsters, likely intentionally. Monsters could leave the Miasma but would lose strength when outside of the radius of the pit, but despite that, they still often left to kill humans as doing so increased the power of the pit. As the functional center of the pit's energy, the pit would move with the boss if they were moved. It was common for schools like Shoshone to hand over huge amounts of money to get bosses transported to their schools for practice.
The only issue with this strategy is that when left alone, Miasmatic energy would grow, and eventually, the rank of the pit would reach the peak, then rank up. Since the point of creation, Miasma pits form structures around themselves depending on the rank and type of monster pit it was, so the path to the school was littered with strange wooden forts, foggy mists, and mud hills. Upon all monsters being defeated, the Miasma would recede and condense into items like magical metals, alchemical ingredients, weapons, or armor.
After driving through the snow for a few hours, Sirus' car arrived at the behemoth of a school. Shoshone sat in stark contrast to its surroundings. It sat upon a raised platform atop a plateau in a large clearing of trees. There was no aesthetics in mind here; safety was clearly the number one priority, especially given the walls and towers at the edge of the school.
What Sirus saw inside was unlike anything he had seen before. People fought in boxing rings at speeds beyond the speed his eyes could track. Mages shot elemental blasts over the wall that could have incinerated him. The entire experience was a thrill to Sirus, whose experience with awakened beings was exclusive to a TV. Seeing so many such powerful people showing off their abilities was the coolest thing he had ever seen. He would have stayed to watch if he hadn't been dragged along to an orientation for the school.
"It seems you have signed up for basic classes. Physical fitness every day from 8 am to 10 am and 6 pm to 8 pm, meditation weekdays from 10:45 am to noon, Miasma and Monster theory weekdays from 1 pm to 3 pm, and sparring from 4 pm to 5:30p.m."
"Do I have that all correct?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Remember, performance in these classes does not affect your final grade; all that matters is how well you pass your final exam. Do you think these classes are enough for you to achieve that?"
"Yes, I do. I mean, why wouldn't they? I have classes from 8 am to 5:30 pm; I should be able to learn a huge amount with that amount of schooling."
"Very well. Then if you have questions on anything else, please sign those forms, signifying that you acknowledge that any injuries you may receive from sparring, monsters, or any other source are not the fault of the school. Additionally, if you do not pass the exam, it is not the fault of the school for a shortcoming in education."
"Alright, alright. I'll sign the stuff."
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"Thank you very much; your room is in Dorm A, room 219."
I walked to the dorm, easily finding my building as the letters were imprinted on the sides of buildings. Sirus was excited to be part of a dorm, a group. He had been very anti-social the past few months and was thrilled to be able to make friends.
"Hey man, how are ... Oh my god, are you ok?"
In the corner of the room was a small barrel with two feet and two hands sticking out of the top at strange angles. The feet were touching but pointing in opposite directions, and the hands were wrapped around each other one too many times. After I spoke up, the aforementioned hands grabbed the sides of the barrel and pushed down until a chest came out, then a neck and head.
"Sorry, man. Just stretching. I have an elastic body type skill, so I just sort of do that sometimes."
The creaking and snapping of bones permeated the air, being much louder than the popping of knuckles. Sirus found it enormously disconcerting, and his face showed it.
"Fine, I'll get out of the barrel if you feel strongly about it."
"No, no. I'll get used to it. We'll be living together for six months, might as well."
"Well, anyways, I'm Floki Erikson, E-rank, same as you, right?"
"Yeah, I'm Sirus Navarro, String Manipulation; nice to meet you."
The conversation ended quickly as Sirus wanted to return to watching the other awakeners practice, though doing so from his window.
'How am I supposed to compare to those people? I can't see their movements unless they hold onto each other. It would be strange to compare me to mages, but I will definitively be compared to those people. How will I make it, though?'
Sirus figured the best course was to muddle through, and the actions of the people training gave him enough encouragement to do some mana training within my room. Mana training was no different than meditation and involved feeling the flow of mana through "mana veins" throughout the body. It was easy training, especially compared to training perception, which involved using blockage devices to shut off all senses except one. By doing that, you could get much better at sensing walls through sound or identifying people or objects through smell, but it also caused a lot of crashing into things.
Sirus pulled out his wire, trying a new technique, wrapping wire over itself into a solid object, like a hammer. His hands were always empty when he fought, as he didn't need to use them to manipulate the wire. Sirus controlled the wire with my mind, so creating a weapon would be helpful to his fighting.
He was trying new ways to interweave the wires together to create weapons, as his current methods weren't practical. They would halfway unravel if mana wasn't constantly used to keep their shape. If they were precisely weaved together, they wouldn't unravel as easily, and he could preserve mana.
The other issue with his fighting style is that none of his attacks had penetration. Whipping was skin deep, and making a wire sword was impossible no matter how it was weaved. One could theoretically use a taut wire to cut like you would with a wire saw, but that wasn't practical in a fight. Additionally, wire strong enough not to break would be too thick to cut easily. He kept a second wire for cutting, but its poor tensile strength made it problematic to use for combat.
In any case, he had much to improve upon, especially in stats, and was ready to train and fight to get stronger.
Five months had bitterly and slowly passed. Sirus rated himself through the trainers at Shoshone, and he was in better shape than he had ever been in. His technique for the wire hammers had progressed well. It still needed mana to maintain its shape, but much less than before. He explored the idea of using the wire to create chainmail gauntlets or armor. Whenever he tried, the amour kept pinching him or used too much mana, so the idea was abandoned.
Sirus was considering new ways to implement that technique while standing at the starting line of a long-distance run.
"EVERYBODY. START RUNNING!"
The drill instructor, like any other, yelled frequently and even more frequently used vulgar language. Sirus's class of fifteen ran around the outside edge of the school to practice strength, speed, stamina, and technique. They jogged for five minutes, did short bursts using mana to reinforce their muscles, and sprinted for a minute before returning to jogging.
"TOGETHER, SLOWPOKES! RUN SO FAST YOU BREAK THE STICK SHOVED UP YOUR ASS. Y'all better get it together, or the whole company is going another hour!"