Chapter 3 - Unusual Lesson

Authors Notes===========

My editor is, unfortunately, afk so I​'ll PR this myself. Comment any spelling or grammar mistkeas you see! Thanks! :)

Next chapter will be a special long one.

​p.s. leave me commmmeeeeeeents. I might not respond, but I read them all and they make me happy ;)

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Book 4 - Chapter 3

The figure with a ten carved into his masked stalked forward, slipping across the shattered ground to approach Caladan from the back. Darkness seemed to swarm and cover the figure as he marched forward, unseen, intent on attacking the figure before him.

The masked figure suddenly jumped, launching itself through the air to crash onto Caladan, daggers aimed towards Brood’s heart. However, just as the figure was about to reach Caladan, Caladan turned around, violently whipping his arms backward to smash into the figure. The masked man was sent flying, crashing down nearly forty meters away. Caladan turned to face the figure, a tyrannical Aura bursting forth.

The masked figure turned, unleashing his full aura. Waves of power flowed off of him as a Ruby, Sapphire, and Garnet Aura flowed around his body. He spoke,

“Who are you?” the masked figure said, the aura around him intensifying.

Caladan Brood stared at the figure for a moment,

“I am Caladan Brood.” The air faintly shook as he spoke. The masked figured shrugged, not recognizing the name.

“Who are you?” Caladan said softly, the tyrannical Aura around his body intensifying. He had yet to release anything resembling a Gem Aura, and was simply emanating raw power.

The masked figure spoke,

“I am Dieci, of Numbers. You’re not one of them, are you?” Dieci said, staring at the odd looking man before him. Dieci had originally thought that he was one of the targets they had been assigned. Otto had shared his assignment list after Dieci agreed to help him wrap up loose ends in order to return to base sooner. Dieci recalled the enormous battle that had broken out after Otto had killed the slaves of their enemy at the palace. He looked around the city ruins sadly, pitying the innocents that died. He sighed, wishing for his dream of a world at peace to one day come true.

Caladan Brood stood still, his mind flashing to the past as he focused on the enemy before him.

“Numbers?” He said, his voice becoming extremely gentle.

“You are a member of Numbers?”

Caladan Brood, King of Titans, Ruler of the Fallen, Emperor of the Undying, looked at Dieci.

And smiled.

Theldon Continent, The Under Cave, The Taron Academy

Dale groaned, mentally overwhelmed by what he thought was literally the most boring class in existence. His eyes trailed off to the side as the Instructor continued his boring lecture on the boring reasons that some boring people did some boring thing.

Dale was currently in his second class of the day, A History of Leaders. When he had heard what they would be talking about, Dale had been super excited, happy to read and learn about the great people in the world. However, when he actually came to class he found that it was boring history lessons and debates about semantics. He struggled to pay attention at first but quickly gave up.

It had been two weeks since Dale had enrolled in the Taron Academy. Dale had quickly found that the majority of lessons he took in the Leader’s School were boring. Dale was currently taking four separate classes: A History of Leaders, Leadership Ethics, Cultivation Arts & Practice, and Social Training. Of these four classes, three of them were in the Leader’s School and one of them, Cultivation Arts & Practice, was in the Fighter’s School.

Cultivation Art’s and Practice was the class Dale enjoyed the most. It was a four-hour lesson where the teachers would work with each student, helping them practice their Arts. Each class had 40 students and one Instructor, as well as a few Instructor aids, these being upperclassmen. Students would show the Instructor their Art, practicing with their classmates. The Instructors changed each week, shifting to a new Element specialization each week. In this way, Instructors of all of the 8 elements would teach the students, allowing one to ask advice from their respective element teacher. The first week had an Instructor with a focus on Fire Arts. This week had been an Instructor on Sky Arts. Dale was eager to see whom the next Instructor would be, and on which Element he would focus on.

While Dale had yet to meet an Instructor that taught Aura or Time, he had been able to gain a good deal of information on his incomplete technique, Dragon God’s Overwhelming Aura Art. He was also able to practice his Core cultivation often. Dale cultivated by refining energy in his body that he drew from his Core. In this manner, his energy would slowly become stronger, and he would eventually form the next level of Core, which for him was the Silver Core.

Dale found to his surprise that there was little to no information on his Fallen Time Knight’s Art. Dale had memorized the first three layers of the Art, but didn’t know what he would do when it came to move on past that. He figured he would worry about that at a later time, however, seeing as had yet to even completely master the first layer.

Dale now knew that the Dragon God’s Overwhelming Aura Art was an extremely famous technique in this area of the Under Cave. According to his first week’s Instructor, the Principal himself was a practitioner of this Art, and had mastered it to its highest level. When Dale tried to find out more information on the Principal, he found that he couldn’t. The Principal was one of the more mysterious figures in the Taron Academy, and very little was known about him. The only commonly agreed on fact was that it was his presence that held back a great deal of the monsters from the surface world.

Dale suffered through the rest of the class, patiently waiting for the Instructor to finish talking. Roughly 30 minutes later Dale finally left, moving to one of the practice fields where he had his Cultivation Arts & Practice class, a light shining in his eyes.

Cultivation Arts & Practice was Dale’s favorite class, not only because he got to practice and spar, but also because of the fact that he got watch the other students practice their own unique techniques. Dale had some really amazing martial Arts, opening his eyes to the vast world that lay before him. He mentally prepared to redouble his efforts to succeed.

In Dale’s Cultivation Arts & Practice class, there were around 40 students. Of these, 25 of them were nobles. That left 10 of them that came from the family of wealthy merchants, and the last 4 were obviously from families that were not as well off. Dale quickly bonded with several of the non-wealthy boys, making fast friendships. However, partially because of this, many of the Nobles refused to talk to him. The merchant children, however, didn’t seem to care, and treated him fairly. Not all of the Nobles were biased, he noted, having spoken to a few that treated him equally. Just most.

Today the boys, and a few girls, all lined up on one of the large practice fields on campus. They were standing to the east of where Dale’s dorm stood, in a large rocky area. Several blocks of stone had been cut into the ground, shaping the area into a roughly rectangular field shape.

This area, known as Practice Field 4, was where Dale had been taking his class for the past two weeks. Every day had been very fun, many activities focused on sparring or cultivating. Dale felt like he hadn’t fought against any real opponents yet, seeing as sparring was carefully monitored and not allowed to get too dangerous. The Instructors were very strict about anything resembling bullying.

Dale stood next to his classmates, waiting patiently for the new Instructor to arrive. He wondered what element the new teacher would teach. His eyes wandered as he waited, observing the rest of the grounds.

Suddenly, a huge Aura blasted forward, slamming into the large group of students. Immediately, Iron, Steel, and Silver Aura’s popped up everywhere, covering the students as they attempted to resist the overwhelmingly powerful Aura.

All the students, however, didn’t stand a chance, many of them falling to the ground dazed as the Aura took control. Dale found that, to his chagrin, he too couldn’t resist the powerful Aura. Dale had started tapping into his Dragon Sea to help him deal with the Aura when the force covering him had tripled, smashing him down.

“Good afternoon students.” Called a familiar voice.

“I am Instructor Guile, your teacher for this week..”

Dale stared at him. Yep, he thought, it was definitely David Guile, the man that had given him the letter of recommendation for the leader’s school. He stared at him slightly resentfully. Dale was grateful to the man for getting him into the Taron Academy, but it had been an unpleasant surprise to find that he was stuck in the Leader’s school instead of the Fighter’s. There weren’t too many differences, except that he had many more classes. The Fighter’s school students were required to only take a single class, Cultivation Arts & Practice. Dale thought it was terribly unfair that he had to take 3 other classes too. Technically, he wasn’t required to take Cultivation Arts & Practice, seeing as he was in the Leader’s school, but it was a moot point considering that he needed the class to help him practice and become stronger. With nearly 8 hours a day in classes, Dale had barely any free time anymore and was constantly busy, doing homework or practicing.

Over the past two weeks, Dale had found that the only time he ever got free time to cultivate was either during Cultivation Arts & Practice class or when he slept. Thankfully, Dale could continue refining his Dragon Sea in his sleep, so he was continuing to strengthen that. He felt that he needed just a month or two before he finished forming his Dragon Sea and could move on to the next layer of his Dragon God’s Overwhelming Aura Art.

“Good afternoon, Instructor.” The bedraggled students replied. The Aura compressing around them lessened greatly, allowing them to stand. The students looked at the new instructor slightly fearfully.

Instructor Guile smiled.

“Today is my first day of instructing all of you! It’s also my first week of the semester teaching. I think we will have a little warm up.” The Instructor gestured at the students.

“Today’s lessons will be about limits. It will also allow me to gain a good understanding of each of y’alls level of power and element focus.”

“All of you, please form a large circle.”

The students stood still for a moment before separating into a large circle. After a moment, a large circle easily 50 meters across had formed. Dale found himself standing between one of the Nobles and a merchant’s kid. The Noble ignored him while the merchant child gave him a polite nod.

Instructor Guile looked around the group smiling. He suddenly pointed at one of the Noble students standing just two spots away from Dale.

“You. Come here.”

The Noble student gulped nervously and walked to the center of the circle, a look of arrogance covering his face. Dale recognized the student. His name was Eyra Norell, from the City-State of Taaoi. He was a powerful cultivator, having reached the Silver Core level by the age of 16. Dale thought he was rather arrogant for only reaching that level, but didn’t feel he had the right to complain, seeing as he was only at the Steel level.

“Today, I will be sparring with each of you once. All you have to do is come at me with your full strength. Anyone that manages to scratch me will receive full marks in this course.” Instructor Guile said, looking around at the young cultivators.

Immediately all the students broke out talking.

“Full marks for just a scratch?!” said one Noble student.

“Can he even do that?!” yelled another.

“Wow!” exclaimed the merchant student next to Dale.

“Dude that’s awesome!” cried one of the poorer students.

Dale shook his head, surprised as well. Getting full marks in this course meant you would immediately qualify to advance to the next year’s level of students. At the Taron Academy, there were four different levels of students.

Being in the fourth and lowest level means you are known as one of the Outer Students, composed of all new students that entered the academy as well as students that did not pass the end of the semester practitioner exam. Dale and all of the new students here were currently Outer Students.

People in the third level are known as Inner Students. Usually composed of students in their second to fourth year at the Academy, many powerful cultivators never make it past this level.

Second level students are known as Core Students, and are usually in their fourth to eighth year of study at the Taron Academy. However, not all students make it to become Core Students. Many students reach a bottleneck and cannot pass the Core Student Exam, thus are unable to advance, stuck at the Inner Student level.

The final level of students are known as Graduate Students. These are students that have already graduated, but intead of leaving, choose to stay at the school and help teach, guard the border, and continue their studies and cultivation. Reaching this level requires one to pass the Graduation Exam before their eighth year of study. If a student has not graduated by the time they reach their eighth year, they are asked to leave the school. The number of graduates from the Taron Academy was less than 10% of the number of students that are accepted. One can imagine the difficulty.

To be able to become a Inner Student in the Fighter’s school, you had to receive full marks in your Cultivation Arts & Practice class. To be able to receive full marks just by making a small scratch, it was a dream for many new students. After all, the quicker you advanced, the higher level of practice and training you would receive, as well as respect and honor.

Dale, however, was a special case. He needed to receive near full marks in all of the classes he was taking before he could advance to become an Inner Student. He mentally sighed, annoyed at all the classwork he had to practice and learn. It felt supremely unnecessary to him. The only thing he ever found interesting was the stories of past battles and wars, and those didn’t come up often. He reflected for a moment, considering. Dale also enjoyed a few aspects of his other classes.

An enormous crash sounded out, snapping Dale back to reality. He looked up in shock, feeling the powerful aura emanating off of Instructor Guile. The powerful Silver Core student, Eyra, lay sprawled on the floor 10 meters away from him. He sat up, dazed, looking around.

Instructor Guile smiled at him and yelled,

“NEXT!”

All the students stared at the Instructor fearfully. The Instructor nodded towards the student that had been standing next to Eyra. This student was also a Noble and was the student standing directly to Dale’s left. The student walked forward bravely, a nervous look appearing on his face. A Steel Aura immediately covered the student, sheathing him in a light glow.

Eyra quickly hobbled off the circle’s area, standing where he had been originally. He kept shaking his head, trying to stand stably. The students around him all eyed him.

The Steel Aura covered student suddenly called down a flurry of wind, speeding himself up and launching himself forward to attack Instructor Guile. The air around the Instructor whipped around chaotically, disturbing the area. Just as the student was about to crash into the Instructor, the teacher seemed to disappear for a moment, a powerful Aura blasting forward and crashing down. The Steel Core Noble wobbled for a moment before slipping, the powerful wind he had been controlling dissipating. He crashed through the air, flying down hard on the ground around 15 meters away.

“Good, good!” Instructor Guile said cheerfully, smiling evilly at the downed student.

“NEXT!” The Instructor turned his gaze upon Dale.

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