Numerous kids entered through the large metallic hall gate, all of them were wearing the same black uniform. Silently listening to the speech.

Your follower has been increased by 3.

+1 Magic, +1 Sense, +1 Agility.

Your favourite has been increased by 1.

You have gained a new skill. Cloaking Lvl 1.

Confused he was. John's eyes suddenly wide opened when he heard the mysterious voice. If he remembered right, the last time he heard this mysterious voice was when he was little.

Though, ignoring the general speech would be considered as a rebellious act. Patiently John waited as the general finished his speech, dismissing the new Trainees to do another registration.

Walking to the outside, following the crowd like the river following its current, but in the midway John separated himself from the other Trainees, hiding away in the alley and opening his status screen.

Cloaking: Temporarily hide away from an enemy's vision. Become exposed when you hurt another creature. A creature with Sense higher than your Influence + skill level will be able to detect you. Duration: 15 seconds, Cost: 20 Energy.

"Huh." John muttered, indeed he was feeling happy to get another skill, whether it was good or not. "But what's wrong with the timing?"

"What timing?" Said Lilac, head sticking out from the street. "By the way what are you doing in here? We need to apply for the registration ASAP."

Grabbing John's arm without him being able to tell her anything.

"Ah, John. What program will you take?" Said Lilac, pulling John to the main building.

"Espionage or Extermination maybe. Anything is fine as long as it isn't Academic." John replied.

"You sure?! Then, how about taking Extermination with me?" Lilac asked with starry eyes, staring at the reddish black eyes of the red-haired young man, with low braided ponytail loosely hung around on his nape.

Tilted his head, John only looked at Lilac. "Aren't you going to take Knight?"

Clearing her throat, she replied. "-Ahem- Well, I've been hearing some rumour, it seems like a girl isn't that welcomed in the Knight, moreover, the payment for Extermination program is quite good."

Rather than an answer, more question stroke John's mind right now. When and where do you hear that rumour? and how can you already believe that rumour?!

But maybe the rumour was true, back in their town John rarely saw a knight woman, there were some but most likely it was only one or two in each town.

"Anyway, I'm going to take Extermination! Don't you dare to suddenly change your mind when you're at the registration." Said Lilac, turning around and pointing her pinky finger to John.

Stopping for a second, John looked at her, couldn't believe she still did that even though they were in the Academy right now. But with shrugged shoulder, John's finger was intertwined with hers.

But from John's back, a group of student bumped into him, not even stopping or said sorry as they nonchalantly walked past him.

Silently watched the high and mighty Trainees, bumping past everyone and didn't even bother to take a little detour. Clicking his tongue, "Nobles." John muttered in a displeased tone. And continued to follow the crowd, like an ant swarming on a candy.

Once they entered the main building, all Trainees were lining up to take their number, funny enough for John. Even though they said nobles couldn't use their influence in the academy but most of the noble kids managed to use their influence to cut in the line, some were bribing the receptionist, some already brought their number and some just blatantly threatening the not so lucky one.

"Number 1022. Please enter room number four." Said the autonomous machine, and it kept repeating the same sentence with a different number each time. As the number of Trainees reduced to less than a thousand, it was John's turn.

"Number 6438. Please enter room number seven."

Straightening his back, it was John's number. "Extermination, right?" John said, watching her nodding her head before he walked to the door.

The door shifted open at once. The steel walls surrounded the room, the ceiling was too high to make out with hot Orbz lamps shimmering down on him, and a simple table placed in the middle of the room.

On the chair, a tall, black-haired woman in a navy-blue suit with a white shirt silently sat. Her thick glasses perfectly placed on her very stern face and John first thought was hoping she wasn't a mentor on this Academy, at least not Extermination's mentor.

"Take a seat, 6438." She said.

Nodding, John dragged the steel chair and sat down on it. "Your ID and Status please." Said the woman, with the name tag written with Vahylde Skond rested on her chest.

As she wrote down John's ID and status. "So, John Lemon, before we begin, have you heard about our new regulation?" She asked.

John could only raise his eyebrow when he heard that. "What regulation?"

"It's just a little change." She said. "But just in case, let me explain it again. Before there are five training programs you can choose. Knight, Garrison, Extermination, Espionage, and Academic. Once you choose the program you will spend the next three year of your life training in the said program, at the first sixth month you're free to change your program anytime you want it, but after that, it will become permanent until you're graduate."

"With our new regulation, besides the need to choose one program, you'll need to choose another two minor program, for every semester you can choose a different minor program to take." She continued. "Another thing, there are two new programs that will apply from this year onward. It is Medical and Diplomatic program."

She said all this very fast.

Overwhelmed, John looked at her. "So... I just need to choose two other programs right?"

Vahylde nodded. "Yes, but not right now, for now just write your major program in here." Said Vahylde, handing over a piece of paper and pen to John.

Writing it down and handing it back to Vahylde. "I see, Extermination, right? then please follow me." She said.

Tilting his head, John stood and followed Vahylde from behind. Leaving the room through the back door, walking past the long corridor, opening the red door and now he was standing in an uncomfortably large room. The floor was polished concrete, the walls were silvery metal white and no furniture laying around.

Instead, there was a large door on the other side. And ten similar doors with the other Trainees stood in front of it. Eight out of the ten doors were opened. As John scanned the Trainees, three people brought a sword with the leather vest as their protection, two wore the same Uniform as him but covered by a fancy colourful robe and shiny staff. One was covered with a set of green metal, protecting his arms, elbows, shoulders, knees, feet, body, head and waist. The last one fully equipped with a complete heavy iron armour, an iron lance on the right hand and tower shield on the left, all coloured white.

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"So, what should we do?" John asked. But by the time he turned around Vahylde already gone, seemingly walking back to room number seven.

Squatting down, patiently waited for the next instruction. And as the last two doors opened at the same time, John could see a familiar face, Lilac, waving at him when she noticed John. From the other door, it was another Trainee, swinging his sword with a smug and confident look.

Walking to John's side. "Do you know what's going on?" Asked Lilac.

"No clue." John replied.

But a second after he finished his words, he could hear the cold mechanical sound. Looking at the direction of the sound, John now faithfully watched the large door as it was splitting apart.

From the inside, five autonomous golems with the upper body of a human and lower body and legs of a horse were coming out. All of them had different colour: Red, Blue, Green, Purple and Black.

"Welcome Trainee." Said the Red with its mechanical voice. "The start of your training will begin shortly, but before you take your training program, you will be having a small test. Your skill and ability will be evaluated throughout the test with only five Trainees will be able to enter their program of choice, as for the other will enter the course we already prepared for them."

John's eyebrows deeply burrowed. A test? right now? But he didn't prepare anything -- what on earth would he have to do? He hadn't expected something like this the moment he arrived. He looked around and saw that everyone else looked prepared. No one was talking much except Lilac Sweet, who was shaking his body and complaining the same thing as he thought. "What's this?! I never heard about something like this, hey John! Do you know this?!"

So, the one that doesn't pass will be forced to enter the prepared program huh. And she said it is only a small change.

Indeed, this was very different from what he heard from the patrolling knight. Though, the lemon had turned into a lemonade. He kept his eyes fixed on the door. Any second now, and the golem spoke. "Beginning the test in five..four..three..two..one. Commencing the Extermination Test, Challenge Rating: 1."

The golems launched themselves toward the new Trainee, making the V formation. But two on the back, the purple and black golem instantly obliterated. The purple was perfectly split in half, by the aura slash from the last boy and the black one was rained down by bullets, coming out from the green armoured Trainee.

Followed this incident their door opened, with the notification coming out from Telecasting Phonics. Telling them to enter the door and leave the test.

"Increasing the difficulty. Challenge Rating: 3." Red spoke. 

Alongside with his words, each golem took their weapon out. Double sword for the red, spear and shield for the blue and dual gun for the green. To make matter worse, not only they took their weapon out, there was a sudden outburst on their speed and power.

Completely unprepared, in a single charge two Trainees, one equipped with a sword and the other with her grey robe instantly knocked out. "For any Trainee that wanted to give up, drop your weapon and raise your hands." Red spoke.

Though, John's eyes were wide opened when he saw the ironclad armoured Trainee managed to block the Blue golem. Whistling in amazement, "Farsight." John spoke.

Farsight Lvl 1: Show in advance where the enemy will attack you. Cost: 30 Energy. Duration: 300 seconds.

With the hot feeling flowing to John's eyes, he could see red line directed at the ground. At first, the line had fade red colour but with each time passed it turned into brighter red. 

Grabbing Lilac and pulling her away from the red line, what came after them was the Red golem, charging on its way while swinging his sword. Though, John and Lilac managed to avoid it just in time.

With Lilac seeing John's eyes turned into brighter red, she nocked an arrow and silently nodded at John.

Standing still, closing her right eye, Lilac releasing her right-hand grip. Launching the arrow at Red's back.

-Clank-

The sound of metal met metal created, but the result was Red's thick armour repelled Lilac arrow. "Eagle's Eyes" Lilac Said.

Eagle's Eyes: Increases dexterity and sense by 5 per skill level. Also turned user vision into eagle's vision. Cost: 25 Energy. Duration: 90 seconds.

Same as John, Lilac was one of the lucky people that managed to have Favourite. Following her words, her sclera turned yellow and her light brown pupil widened and changed its colour to black.

In her vision right now, she could even see the smallest bolt on the Red's armour, carefully she scanned for the small gap where her arrow could pierce through, with John faithfully watching her surrounding, avoiding any kind of attacks directed to them.

But as they focused on Red. Green already knocked out another Trainee, while the ironclad and Blue had a stalemate on their battle.

Tilted his head. John wondered about the purpose of this test. It wasn't like they would get kicked out of the Academy or they needed to pay some money if they didn't pass. 

It isn't worth it, right? John thought, imagining the cost of maintenance of the golems and the expense Academy needed to spend to heal the injured person. Then why are they doing this test?

"Oops, careful." Said John, pulling Lilac away as he noticed another red line coming out from Red.

With another flurry of blades directing at them but it hit nothing except the air. "Thanks..." Said Lilac, wiping her sweat out of her forehead. "Still, that golem really move too fast."

Nodded, John agreed with her. "And what's up with their armour, there's no gap and it's like super duper hard grrrr." She continued. "And Eagle's Eyes almost finished either."

"Yeah. It's not fair." John personal thought, the way he saw it, this test really biased. Without a proper weapon or Orbz, forgot about defeated them, they couldn't even make a dent on their armour.

Then something happened that made him realize something. They never say we need to defeat them right? but if it is an evaluation, what do they evaluate?

Rubbing his chin, with another scream of pain on the background and clanking sound of the golem. "I give up." Said the last Trainee, dropping her staff down and raising her hand.

Green stopped pointing its gun at her. Turning around, between the John and Lilac or the Ironclad, John could see the dark red line directed to them. 

Grabbing Lilac by her collar, John pulled her out of the red line. A second later, rain of rubber bullet hammering down on their last spot. Passing through the air and hitting on Red. 

"Ah, I see." John muttered, letting Lilac's collar go. "Lilac! Take down the blue one first. Just think of it as an animal." Said John. "And give me three arrows." 

Without her permission John already took three arrows out of her quiver and pushed her to Blue direction, helping the ironclad Trainee. "Geez, be gentle." She protested, but still followed John's direction.

Nocking an arrow and aiming it at Blue. Lilac could only gasp when she saw part of Blue's armour already chipped down, exposing its wire and exoskeleton away. "A Gap!!" She said, releasing her hand and launching it at the small cracks.

This time her arrow managed to stab on the golem's body, more precisely on its shoulder part. Jammed its movement and letting the ironclad's spear stabbed the golem's body.

While the ironclad was holding the golem down, making sure it couldn't get away. Lilac, didn't want to miss this opportunity followed John's direction and shooting the crack on another shoulder part, then legs, and neck.

Meanwhile, John was throwing one arrow at Green, keeping its attention at him while he kept distracting Red. Making sure Red couldn't charge at Lilac and ironclad.

Thanks to Foresight, it was an easy task to avoid their attacks if both of Red and Green were inside of John's line of sight. But, the problem right now wasn't avoiding.

If he wasn't wrong, he didn't need to defeat those golems, at least not with his own firepower. John avoided each attack with agile and slowly but sure moving closer to Red. As Red directing its pair of swords to John, he did a halfway run slide, followed by grabbing Red's waist and kicking the ground to jump at Red's back.

Throwing another arrow, this time Green was shooting at both of John and Red. The rest of it was a matter of strength and luck. Whether or not Red's body would provide enough cover to protect John or he would get thrown out from the impact.

Raining them down with the bullet, stabbing his knife and arrow at the dented part. Patiently clung down to the golem and this time, John won the bet. 

Red stopped moving and slowly crouched down on its knee. Followed by this, three doors were opened. 

With a deep sigh, at least what John thought was true. Even though the Green's golem was standing still, undamaged and unscathed, it lowered its guns and stopped moving. "The test is over, please leave through your designated door." Said Green.

Followed the instruction, John entered the door, walked past through the same corridor, but this time, Vahylde was waiting, with a steel suitcase next on her side.

"Congratulations on passing the test." She said, handing John the suitcase. "Please open it only after you enter the dormitory." She continued, taking John out of the corridor throughout another door.

And with this another notification coming to him.

Your follower has been increased by 1.

+1 Dexterity.