As they came upon the magic arena they noticed there was someone waiting outside. “Morning kiddos, I’m guessing you’re some of our new first years here for the Magic Combat class?” the woman said. “We are” Albert responded. “Well, then please follow me to the classroom” the woman said as she turned and headed through the doorway.
“And you are?” asked Alice as they watched the woman walk away from them and out of sight. Sam and his friends waited for a moment before the odd woman poked her head back around the corner. “Me…. He he he he” you’ll find out soon enough” she replied before disappearing behind the wall again. Cautiously Sam and his friends all entered through the doorway and followed after the woman. As they turned the corner they found that she had disappeared completely.
They all continued down the corridor before coming across a room with the sign classroom above it. Taking the initiative Sam stepped forward and knocked on the door. They waited for a few moments before the door opened revealing a tall man wearing a brown robe. “Good morning, welcome to Magic Combat. You’re the first ones here please take a seat wherever you’d like” the teacher who opened the door said.
Sam, Alice, Chloe, and Albert entered the classroom and sat down together in the middle of the classroom. Over the next five minutes the room filled with other students. Some of them were from their homeroom including Bryce, who sat right at the front and some of them were unfamiliar. Sam assumed that since there were two options, Magic combat and Equestrian then they decided to have all the first years together. If that was the case some of these classes would get quite full.
Once the last of the students had arrived the Professor walked out the front of the classroom and tapped on the board. The board immediately illuminated and writing was displayed. “Welcome all to Magical Combat. My name is Rupert Tinderfall and I will be your professor for this year. Now I’m going to start off explaining what you will be learning this year and also asking you all some simple questions to help gauge where you’re all at when it comes to using magic”. Sam was a bit worried about that last part. He didn’t know any magic and didn’t have any magic skills the only thing he could do was just enough mana manipulation to activate magic items.
“Since this is your first year we will be focusing mostly on learning magic related natural skills as well as how you can use them in combat. We will have a main focus on attack magic but will also cover support magic as well. We will only be learning basic magic skills this year as you will not need anything more in your first year at the academy. We will go other this more later but first it’s time for some questions to gauge where you’re all at in terms of magic skills. Now here is how it will go, I will ask a question, and I want you to raise your hand if your answer is yes or keep it lowered if the answer is no. Do you all understand?” Professor Tinderfall asked. After a brief pause everyone raised their hands. “Good, now let’s begin”.
“We’ll start off easy, raise your hand if you can manipulate your mana to activate magic devices” the Professor asked. Sam raised his hand and looked around the room. Everyone else had also raised their hands. “Okay, hands down. Now next raise your hand if you have the Mana Manipulation natural skill” the Professor asked. Sam kept his hand down and looked at the rest of the classroom. Only 3 students raised their hands one of them being Alice. “Okay, only 3 of you have the mana manipulation skill, it’s a good skill to have. While you can use magic without it, the skill will drastically improve magic performance. And by performance I mean activation time, power and mana consumption for all other magic skills which is why it is what we will be focused on first” Professor explained. “Now back to the questions. Raise your hands if you have a magic focused Blood Skill” the Professor asked the class. Sam once again kept his hand down and watched as nearly a third of the class raised their hands. Those that did included both Alice and Chloe.
“Alright, just under a third of the class, that’s about what it normally is every year for this magic combat class. Alright moving on, next raise your hand if you know any attack magic skills including the skill fragments of your blood skills” the Professor questioned. The number of hands that raised were only two, a boy and a girl sitting in the back. “Starting with you” the professor said pointing at the boy “What is the attack skill you possess?” the professor asked him. It took him a few moments to answer likely conflicted over whether to reveal it or not. “It’s a water jet skill; it lets me shoot a jet of water at a target” the boy said. “Alright that’s a good basic water attack spell and will be quite powerful once levelled up” the Professor explained.
“Okay, and you?” the professor asked the girl who had raised her hand. “Mine is Thorn shot” the girl answered a lot more confidently than the boy had. “Thorn shot, interesting a planet based magic attack skill. Those are rare to come across” the professor said. “Alright and the last question, do any of you have experience in combat” the professor asked. Sam wasn’t quite sure how to answer. He wasn’t sure whether the fight with the wolf or the bandit attack really counted. In the end Sam decided to raise his hand since he had fought one of the bandits during the bandit attack on the caravan. Sam also watched as a few others including Albert raised their hands.
“I see, a few of you have experienced combat. You” the professor said pointing at Albert “What was your combat experience?” the professor asked him. Answering straight away Albert replied “Once my Blood skill manifested my father took me down into my family’s private dungeon and I fought a couple of goblins. It wasn’t much as it was just before I left for the academy” Albert explained. “I see, a controlled fight with the guide of an experienced fighter. And what about you?” The Professor said as he pointed at another boy sitting down the front of the room. “My experience is the same as Albert’s, my father also took me down to our private dungeon to fight some simple monsters, skeletons and zombies” the boy said. “Hmmm, I see. And what about you?” the professor said this time pointing at Sam.
Sam hesitated for a moment reliving the experience before he spoke “During my travels to the academy I was travelling with a merchant caravan which was attacked by a large number of bandits. I didn’t do much during the fight as I don’t really know how to, but a wounded bandit came at me and some of the other passengers, and I finished him off after he was wounded by one of the adventurers escorting the caravan. I was also trying to fend off a second bandit that was eventually killed by one of the adventurers hired to defend the caravan” Sam explained. “I see, so you experienced the chaos of a surprise attack. A very different experience to a well-planned dungeon dive with a party of prepared adventurer’s.” The professor said. “Well, that will do with the questions for now. Next I will go over what we will be focusing on this term” the Professor said.
“This term we will be covering both theory and practical work. This will start off with the basic magic concepts and the different magical elements and when best to use them. We will start off focusing on getting everyone the mana manipulation skill as well as some basic magic attack and support spells. Those with magic blood skills will also be given some time to work on those. Once we have gotten some magic skills I will teach you the best ways to use them in combat both solo as well as in a party where you might not be the dedicated magic user of the party. Some of this will cross over with the dungeon diving class as there are aspects that may be taught in both classes. Just remember that these will only be the basics and we won’t be covering anything more than that until at least the third term as the foundation is the most important aspect. If you’re not understanding the foundations and don’t have the basic skills mastered then you will never be able to progress past that. Now that’s enough rambling from me. For the rest of this lesson, we will be working on mana manipulation.” The Professor explained.
As the lesson progressed the Professor taught the class how to manipulate their mana into a visible form. He then showed them how to move the mana around to create various shapes keeping the mana flowing. Before he dismissed the class he gave a list of shapes for them to create that should get them the mana manipulation skill. For homework they were told to practice creating the shapes one after another without breaking the flow of mana until they received the skill and that if they had received the skill by the next lesson then they would move on to learning some attack magic which provided good motivation for the large majority of the class. As expected everyone was quite excited Sam included as learning magic was one of the main things he wanted to achieve while here at the academy.
Once Sam had finished the Magic Combat class he had to head over to the Combat Arena for the Weapons Combat class. Sam and Albert split off from Alice, Chloe and Bryce who had joined them for a chat at the end of class., before heading over to the combat arena for their weapons combat class. Alice, Chloe and Bryce had a Healing class which was also being held in the Magic Arena so they stayed behind while Sam and Albert went to the combat arena on the other side of the campus.
Once Albert and Sam made it to the combat arena they were ushered in by some teaching assistants and directed to leave their bags in lock boxes in the arena’s changing rooms before being directed out into the main Arena field. When they arrived they found a few other students already waiting as well as who Sam guessed was their weapons combat teacher. He was a tall muscular man wearing light scaled leather armour with the exception of his chest piece which was just a plain steel plate with some sort of crest in the middle of it.
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As Sam and Albert closed in they were greeted by the large man. “Good morning, my name is Professor Boris Jirkemf and I will be your weapons combat teacher this year” he said. “Good morning, I’m Samuel Holdridge” Sam replied. “I’m Albert Sallimar” Albert replied after him. “Nice to meet you twp. I see you haven’t brought any weapons with you. “Sorry, sir, I didn’t expect to need my sword for the first lesson” Sam replied. “Yeah, the same for me” Albert said. “That’s fine, we have plenty of spares as we’re going to be using more than a sword today but I will leave the explanation for when everyone else has arrived” Professor Jirkemf said.
Once everyone had arrived the class was asked to form a half circle around the professor. “Alright everyone listen up. Today we are going to be starting off with a test. I want to see what weapons you can use and how proficient you are with them, skill or not. Those who have a skill will advise me of it and its level for the weapon and I will assess them as required. Those who are more advanced than others will be separated from those with less experience. Now we shall start off with a sword, please line up in front of the mannequin behind me. Once you have done that I will order you to start the test. Now what I want you to do is to hit the mannequin with three blows with the training swords that have been prepared for you. Once you have hit the mannequin you will then go past it and have a quick spar with one of the teachers’ assistants. Once you have done that please move over to the right, return the training sword to the stand and wait for everyone else to finish their run. Once everyone has run through the test once we’ll move on. Does everyone understand?” the professor questioned. “Yes Sir” a collective acknowledgement came from the students. “Good, now get in position” the professor ordered.
Sam lined up with Albert and with a few others getting in front of him. He knew he wasn’t going to do well in this test as he didn’t know how to properly use a sword. Hopefully once they see how bad he is they will put him with a group of other similarly untrained people who can barely use a sword.
Albert was up next and he quickly ran from the front of the line once the professor gave him the go ahead. He picked up a sword from the stand as he ran by striking the mannequin with three rapid strikes. After he had ran past the dummy he ran at the teaching assistant and exchanged one, two and then three blows before he was suddenly tripped and landed hard on his back onto the floor. The teaching assistant offered Albert a hand and pulled him up off the floor. Once he was up he came back over to the sword stand and put his sword back before he went over to the right side of the arena and joined the others who had already finished their runs.
Sam was next up. He moved to the starting line and picked up a sword from the rack and waited for the professor’s call. “Go” the professor shouted. Sam unsure whether to follow in Albert’s lead and run for the mannequin or slowly approach it like some of the others did and caught in two minds ended up awkwardly jogging up to it. Once in range Sam made his three strikes. One to the left side of the torso, one to the right and then a downwards strike to the head the sword almost jolted out of his grip and losing his balance. Sam managed to regain his balance before jogging on to the teaching assistant. As he closed in on the teacher’s assistant he slowed right down slowly inching closer making sure he wasn’t getting himself within his opponents’ striking range.
A couple of seconds passed before Sam saw an opening appear and he thrust his sword forward. A split-second later Sam felt a jolt of pain in his hands as the teacher’s assistant knocked the sword out of his grip and placed the end of the blade by his neck. Sam knew he wasn’t good at using a sword but now he felt embarrassed. The teachers assistant remove the blade from his neck. Feeling a bit deflated Sam picked the sword up off the ground which had been tossed off to the side before joining Albert to the right of arena.
Thankfully Sam wasn’t the only one who couldn’t use a sword, and five or six others also had it knocked out of their hands by the teacher’s assistant. He was starting to feel a little less dejected about his abilities knowing he would soon be learning how to wield a sword properly and then he would gain the skill and it would come naturally to him. He also knew that he would improve simply by using the sword each day once he had been taught the basic movements and techniques. Sam was about to ask Albert about his swordsmanship as he clearly had a skill for it before the professor called out to the class.
“Alright listen up, we’re now going to be moving on to blunt weapons like clubs and maces. I want you to do the same as before. We will assess your abilities and then move on. Alright? Now lineup” the professor said. Sam once again joined the line. Unlike last time Albert didn’t seem to be familiar with how to use a mace or a club. He clearly used it like a sword which ended up not being very effective. Sam was, however, familiar with how to use a club based on what he had seen in Rimour when he and some of the other boys would sneak off campus to watch fights that would occasionally occur behind some of the bars in the rougher part of town.
With those thoughts in mind Sam moved in on the mannequin and hit it low where the knee would be. He then aimed for the ribs and finally the head. He then moved on and repeated his same movements against the teaching instructor. The instructor dodged all his attacks and close him down before knocking him onto the floor. While unable to connect with any of his hits he felt a bit better this time. He wasn’t quite sure why, but he just felt like he had done better this time.
The same could not be said however for when they did the test again with a spear. Sam missed his initial stab on the mannequin and struggled to maneuver it around to hit the mannequin in the head. When moving on to spar the spear was immediately ripped out of his hands by the teacher’s assistant and he was clipped around the ear with the blunt end of the spear.
As Sam was sulking slightly the professor came back over to them all after the final student had finished his run. “Alright students, we’re now going to head over to the archery range and test your abilities with a bow. After that we will return here to the combat arena, and I will split you up into three groups. Does anyone have any questions?” the professor asked the class, but no one replied. “Alright let’s go” he ordered as he led the way over out of the arena and over to the archery range.
Sam was feeling a lot more optimistic about this one as he had two different archery skills. While mounted archery wouldn’t do him much good in this situation on his feet the archery skill will. Once they arrived at the archery range the Professor had them immediately line up down a single target lane. “Alright, you have 5 arrows. Get them as close as you can to the centre circle on the target” the Professor instructed as the first student stepped forward and picked the bow that was waiting for them.
Sam and Albert had been towards the back of the line and after a few minutes it was finally Sam’s turn to go. Albert had gone before him and done reasonably well however it felt to Sam as if he didn’t have any archery skills as his draw looked too inconsistent.
Sam picked up the training bow and gave the string a few tugs testing out the bows flex before nocking the first arrow. He moved up to the firing line and took his stance. Once he had felt out the distance to the target he drew the bow string back and released it in one quick fluid motion. The arrow flew towards the target landing just short in the dirt in front of the target. Sam nocked a second arrow and adjusted his aim before firing again. This time it hit the target just high of the centre circle. Sam made another minor adjustment to his aim and fired the next arrow. The arrow landed right next to the centre circle. With just two arrows left Sam drew and fired both in rapid succession the second leaving the bow string before the first had hit the target. The first arrow hit the target dead centre with the second one falling just short of it.
Sam was happy with his performance considering he hadn’t even touched a bow in the last four weeks and stood off to the side with the rest of the students who had finished. Once all the students had finished the archery test they all returned to the combat arena and awaited their results.
“Alright listen up, we have finished deciding the on the members of the three groups. It is clear some of you have multiple skills for the different weapons we tested today while othera clearly didn’t have any. Group one will be those who have two or more skills with the four weapons we tried today. Group two will be those who have an archery skill but no skills in melee combat and group three will be those who have no skills at all. Now please move into your groups when called. Group one will be with Alejandro, group two will be with me, and group three will be with Harold and Percy” he said.
“Albert Sallimar you will be in group one, August Ebheart you will be in group three, Lillie Coldstone you will be in group two, Samuel Holdridge you will be in group two” the professor announced. Sam felt relieved that he wasn’t in group three. He did have an archery skill and group two were specifically mentioned to be those who had archery skills. It left him wondering if that was a common occurrence where students would have archery skills but no melee skills. Either way he now knew what group he was in and quickly moved over to join Lillie next to the professor while he continued to call out the students’ names and the group that they were in. By the time they had finished group two had about five members, which was the smallest of the three groups with group one having nine members and group three having eleven members.
After the groups had been formed and before the class was dismissed for lunch the professor asked them to bring any weapons they may have with them to the next class. He explained that it was better to train with a familiar weapon than with the ones they could loan them. “Looks like you’re in group two” Albert said as he joined Sam heading back to the lockers where they had stored their bags earlier. “Yeah, and you’re in group one. You must have a few combat skills” Sam said. “Yeah I do, my father was quite the warrior and had me learn most of the combat skills before I came here, especially because my blood skill is combat focused” Albert explained. “I see, but clearly you don’t have one in archery” Sam said. Albert looked startled for a second “That obvious huh, I suppose I can’t be good at everything” he joked back at him.
The two collected their bags and made their way towards the dining hall. Sam wasn’t sure whether they would eat or wait for the next break but that was where they had told Alice and Chloe to meet them after class. Next up Sam had advanced equestrian and dungeon diving which he was really looking forward to. So far it had been a good day with a lot of learning. It seemed like it was only going to get better from here.
