Maxwell gathered everyone on the field and briefed them about their first real combat practice. Shou sat and held tight onto Kael's shoulder as usual.
"All of you here had a noble birth. But remember your roots! Your ancestors led armies and soldiers, expanded the land, protected the people, and made a place we humans call home despite the existence of magic beasts that threaten us!"
His stern gaze turned to each of the members in front of him, all bearing a family name.
"Each of you will be the future leaders, your status was not for you to jolly around, but a responsibility!"
"Now, all of you will fight. Show me what you learn over the years! To the stadium!"
Maxwell walked ahead, leading the group of students towards the colossal building with multiple floors. Most of the people there seemed nervous. But Kael looked nonchalant and confident as always. They were briefed last semester on what to expect. They would be facing real magic beasts from now on.
As they entered the stadium, Shou was stunned by the interior. It was more of a colosseum, with rows of seats, and a big open arena in the middle. Right in the edge, just a few feet away from them, there were steel cages trapping different magic beasts of lower classes. Soldiers in blue uniforms covered in steel armors were watching. The insignia on the chest piece of the soldiers was that of a sun symbol.
To their right, another group of students were also gathered. A middle aged lady wearing rimless glasses, her black hair tied into a ponytail stood in front of them, briefing the students there.
Kael's eyes instantly turned to those groups, his eyes searching for someone. And there he was.
Arthur…! Kael's eyes turned into a slit, eyeing him with contempt.
That peasant was like a gem among rough stones, his tall fit figure and sharp eyes and straight eyebrows stood among the crowd of commoners students with fairly average faces.
Alicia too turned to find him. Arthur just glanced at Kael like he was bored and didn't give it too much attention, then his red eyes turned to Alicia, a soft smile bloomed on his lips as he raised his hand as a greeting from afar.
Alicia chuckled slightly, a blush on her cheeks appeared as she raised her arm in acknowledgement. Kael felt like he had just eaten a pile of boar shit seeing the two so friendly right after they saw each other.
Shou look at Kael, then at that person with black hair and red eyes, then at Alicia.
Ahh... This is the tea...
Shou was eating melon at the sideline, his ears constantly turned like a radar picking up the gossip between the students mentioning Kael, Arthur, and Alicia like they were in some sort of love triangle and some competition.
Oh, no, it's not even a competition.
This Young Master of Ashborne was unfortunately embarrassing, chasing after Alicia since the first year without success. Shou hid his face in shame with his ears, afraid anyone knew he was Kael's familiar.
Just then, Arthur's eyes turned to the rabbit on Kael's shoulder. His eyes widened slightly, a small smile curved on his lips.
"That talking rabbit…" Arthur muttered in interest.
But in Kael's view, Arthur was clearly mocking him. What's with that gaze?! What was that smile? Was he cursing silently at him!?
"Damned peasant…!" Kael wanted to rush and choke him if he could.
Sir Maxwell didn't care about the drama and shouted to end this farce.
"Listen up! Each of you will fight. For today I will not assess you, but for second class onwards I will give marks!"
Maxwell pointed at the cages, briefing about each of the magic beasts.
"You all should have learned about different magic beasts in our lands in your previous years. These ones were relatively common, classified as D rank. These pigs were rock boars. Their skins and flesh are tough. And they can create an earth shell layer around their body."
Scaly like dark brown shells covered their skin, their body reaching 2 meters length, their tusk close to half a meter.
One of the students with bowl cut hair raised his thick glasses with his fingers. A small handbook appeared in his hands from who knows where.
"Based on Arca-taxon classification, they are named Sus geocarpa. They would roll on the ground, gathering soil and dirt to form armor. Mana is used to condense that soil into scale-like textures. Its weakness is around its face and the rear where they lack the scales. The limbs too have areas where it is not fully covered. The boars will gather mana on their feet before each charge, using their tusks as their main weapon. But their attack is straightforward. They can't make a sharp turn while they are charging. The flesh on their thighs and feet and external muscles were particularly high in earth elemental energy."
A particularly chubby girl with ponytails looked at the pig creature with hunger, her tongue flicked out, licking her lips.
"Their thighs are too tough to even chew because of that. However, the meat around their stomachs had a tender texture with great marbling. A common ingredient to make a steak. Mmh… and their meat had a unique nutty scent and flavor, akin to chestnuts and had a smell like soil after the rain. If it's grilled over oak-wood, served with Vel'Tharos Nocturne Reserve, it will be amazing…"
"..." Maxwell's lips twitched at the girl's words that had no relationship to this practical class. He continued to point at the wolves.
"The wolves there are called dire wolves. They are mostly just big dogs. Their howl is loud enough it can break your eardrums."
The chubby girl shook her head. "Their meat isn't good."
"You there! Stop thinking about eating!" Maxwell scolded for a second before pointing to the other beasts.
Skeletal snakes; their bones seemed to grow as their own skin, with fleshly muscles barely visible underneath the translucent membranes around gaps of the skeletons. Black giant beetles; each of them looked like a normal beetle, but each of them was an arm length, the horns on their head imposing and capable of fatal strike once they opened their wings to assault.
Shou gasped seeing them. Any of them could eat him alive, he thought.
The students watching had their body tensing seeing those. Only Kael and a few others didn't have much change. Arthur in particular looked more relaxed than Kael himself.
"Ashborne! You will lead first. Take up any weapon." Maxwell called out and glanced at the large weapon stands on the side of the cages. Swords, maces, bows, and wands and staves to enhance magic.
Each of them did have their own magic artifacts being nobles and all but during real assessment they would not be allowed to use them due to unfair advantages.
"Yes Sir." Kael walked without haste nor too slow. He took up a longsword, weighing it in his hand and testing its feeling before taking it for use.
"Go down, White." Kael spoke to his pet, petted his head with his free hand and let him down. Shou hopped away to watch from the sideline. Alicia without warning nor consent already grabbed him and held him close to her chest.
You stinky girl-!
Shou struggled to get out. If he wasn't disgusted he would have bit her hand! Kael just smiled towards Alicia, inwardly happy that she liked his pet a lot.
The chubby student previously quietly crept up from the side. She leaned her nose close, taking a deep whiff…
"Wow… he smells of… almond milk, wild pear, and white mushroom." She took another whiff. "And fresh spring and grass… very different from normal rabbits." Her eyes looked at Shou with a flash of appetite in her eyes.
Shou felt a chill crawling from his feet up to his head. HELP!
"Beatrice, you are scaring him." Alicia turned her body away, holding onto the rabbit tighter as if protecting her own baby.
Arthur quietly walked towards Alicia, not caring about the different class nor the gazes of other people. Alicia noticed him coming and subtly adjusted her track suit and her hair.
While Shou was forced to handle the unwanted attention, the soldier attending to the cages opened one of them, letting a huge rock boar out. The purple magic stone in his hand glowed, causing the boar to squeal as if in pain and stopped retaliating. It obediently walked in front of the soldier constantly pushing it to walk.
"Get in position!" Maxwell shouted.
Kael stood ten meters away facing the boar. He held onto his sword, his eyes turned to Alicia who was watching among the crowd. But seeing Arthur chatting with her made his heart filled with more contempt.
And what was worse, he saw Arthur shake White's hand! Who gave him permission!?
"Ashborne, where are you looking! Get ready!" Sir Maxwell shouted again, the veins on his head bulged seeing his student so distracted by whatever.
"Yes Sir!" Kael gritted his teeth and turned his eyes back to the boar.
The soldier let go of his hand, the purple stone in his hand flashed with light causing the boar to squeal and immediately do a light charge towards Kael.
"Damn it." Kael wasn't going to play around in front of Alicia. He stabbed his sword into the ground, massive energy channeling down, the earth beneath split from where Kael stood and created a deep gash on the earth in front of him in a matter of a second!
The ground broke open beneath the boar's feet, causing it to stumble and fall. Kael brandished his sword, a flow of mana coating his sword visibly as he rushed and slashed out with Ashborne's swordsmanship technique.
Spurt! The sword pierced and cut right into the scale armor, offering no resistance. Blood gushed out of its neck as it squealed and struggled. But due to blood loss, it lost its last breath.
The crowd discussed, few clapped in excitement. Shou had his eyes shining seeing Kael so powerful and so handsome!
"Good. But next time don't show off! You are wasting your mana!" Sir Maxwell called out to his behaviour. Kael didn't seem to care and puffed his chest proudly.
Alicia seemed to have a normal expression, but she acknowledged Kael was indeed good. He was trained by Duke Rheon personally after all. Who didn't know what kind of family Ashbornes were.
"Next, Beatrice!"
"Yes Sir!" The chubby girl with the double ponytail replied.
"Sir, can I bring back the meat after I slayed it." She asked first.
"What nonsense! These will be served in the canteen later! And you will fight that beetle!" He really wanted to slap this girl at this point and purposely had the beetle come out.
She seemed a little disappointed that her opponent wasn't food. She took a wand from the stand with a greenish gem embedded on the holder.
Getting in position, her lazy hand already ready with her wand glowing fainting.
"Go." Maxwell ordered. The soldier released the beetle from its cage, it rushed straight towards her, its wings buzzing and even the dust blew beneath it.
She waved her wand, a gust of powerful wind along with greyish lights appeared around her. The wind as if under her command, grinding and condensing into invincible blades. She pointed them towards her front, and the beetle was directly cut into different pieces. Bluish blood splattered on the ground.
Despite her glutton nature, she was definitely a powerful wind mage.
Shou gasped again, his heart silently praising. One by one, Sir Maxwell's class take their turn showing their prowess.
Then it was Alicia's turn. She took a whip as her weapon, a rare choice. But no one was surprised except Shou as they had seen her before. With her control, a surge of mana fluctuated, water elements streamed along the whip from her hand, intertwining them like a snake.
A skeleton snake was her opponent this round. It rushed towards Alicia, slithering left and right at fast speed.
But Alicia didn't lose her composure despite her nervousness. She launched her whip, a sound of snapping broke in the air as the elements seemed to gather at the tip of the whip, turning into a powerful force of pressure and slashed out. The combined force of the whip and the tremendous water pressure almost sliced the skeleton snake in half.
The snake was sent flying, blood dripped on the ground mixing with the water from the aftermath of Alicia's powerful attack.
"Amazing…" Kael's voice was so soft it almost made Shou puke. A part of him couldn't help but feel jealous.
I will be powerful too! More than her!
Shou clenched her paw tight. He can use water elements too. Why couldn't he do it?
The members of the noble class all show powerful strength and magical skills. Their talents coming from their bloodlines were apparent especially once the commoner class started to showcase their abilities.
Even the worst of the noble there with just a Baron title unleashed twice as powerful magic.
The flames of the plain looking guy from the commoner class were far from the ones in noble class. But even so, he still defeated the rock boar he faced even if it took a little more time.
The others from the commoner class were fairly the same, none could showcase power any close to those from noble lineages.
But there was one exception.
Arthur came forward, picking up a long sword like Kael. A burst of bright orange flames burst and coated his sword.
A direwolf rushed towards him and let out a deafening howl, but Arthur just smirked and swung his sword down!
The flames on his sword turned into a long projectile, like a phoenix it exploded right on the wolf face, blowing its head to pieces and sending the corpse flying a few meters away.
His classmates all clapped and cheered loudly, his performance made them feel proud as well as he was a commoner too like them.
"Damn it… he's stronger than last year…" Kael bit his lips.
"I can't lose to him again…" Kael felt bitterness spreading in his heart recalling last year's event. His contempt had more history than just Alicia, but also his disgrace in the past.
While the rest of the commoners students were taking turns. Maxwell went to Kael and looked at the rabbit with a stern expression.
"How long has he been trained?"
"Sir, he hasn't. It was only recently that I got him." Kael said with a little embarrassment.
"Bunny, don't think you can just watch!" Maxwell turned to a corner, his eyes saw something. He flashed like a shadow, his hand went straight into a small hole below close to the walls.
He took his hand out, and behold, a giant mouse, as big as the rabbit himself was squeaking and struggling.
"This will be your opponent!" Maxwell shoved the mouse close to Shou's face.
Shou had his jaw dropped open. W-What?!
The rat seemed to understand that at this moment that his life would be at stake. His eyes turned bloodshot as he glared at the rabbit.
Squeak, squeak squeak! (You rabbit! I have a family waiting for me! I cannot die here! I will fight you to the death!)
Hnnk, mrrr! (Mister, I mean no harm! We can settle this calmly!)
SQUEAK! (RAHHHH!) The rat bared its fang, not understanding Shou's rabbit tongue at all.
Shou was still trying to comprehend the situation, when Maxwell forcefully grabbed him and placed him at arms length away from the rat on the ground.
Shou trembled in fear as reality finally dawned on him.
***