Chapter 32: Six elders

I entered the dining hall with Gary by my side and the other students from our room behind us. When we entered the hall our eyes were starstruck by the sight in front of us. The hall was just as extravagant as the rest of the building. The dining hall was so big, it felt like it could seat the all of Avrion academy inside.

The dining hall had been split up into six different sections similar to how our dormitories were. Each section had a little flag with our school name on it. We went over to the flag that said Renny town. The area was even further split down. Similar to how our rooms were, each table allowed eight students to be seated. Each seat had our name on the back.

Our school Renny town were the first ones to enter the dining hall. We all followed the knight in front of us who led us to our seats. As we sat down everyone in the room was quiet. Nervous for the upcoming assessment, or perhaps holding in their excitement.

As we sat and waited patiently the other schools started to walk in. As they entered the room there eyes were focused at Renny town. Their focus seemed to shift to a few particular students. Those were the students with red hair. It was unusual to see people with red hair in the first place, yet here in one school, there were five students in our area with red hair.

"look over there."

"Can you believe it how could they allow such a thing."

"I'm glad they didn't come from our school, otherwise who knows what would happen to our school."

Ian who was sitting at our table looked away from their gazing eyes. I could see that this upset him greatly. I wanted to comfort Ian as a fellow redhead. The truth was Ian had dealt with a similar upbringing of my own. I decided to deal with the abuse in my own way. I also had caring parents. Whereas Ian didn't have any of that, and despite that, he seemed to be a big friendly giant who wouldn't hurt a fly.

I put my hand on Ian's back and said words of comfort.

"Don't worry if anyone messes with us I'll make them wish they were never born."

I thought my words would have brought joy to his face, instead, Ian looked more frightened.

"er, thanks Ray."

Gary looked towards me and just shook his head to the ground.

The dining hall had all the tables faced towards the front of the room, where a stage was set with six grand chairs. The chairs were trimmed with beautiful detail. To the left and right of the stage were too big wooden doors.

Out of the two doors came staff dressed in a white uniform. Pushing along metal tables full of food. The food was delivered to the table and we began eating. Apart from me and Gary most of the other students didn't have much of an appetite.

"How can you guys eat like that when we have the assessment coming up?" Slyvia asked.

"it's free food," Gary said with his mouth full.

We carried on eating and when we were finished the staff had put away all our dishes.

The students now sat down waiting patiently for what was to happen next. Suddenly the doors swang wide open and out came three knights. they were Wilfred, Barbadoes and Delbert, the three knights who had escorted me and Gary to Renny town.

As they came in chatter started amongst the students.

"It's the three Knight masters."

"I want to be as skilful as Delbert"

"I hope we get to see their skills first hand."

The three of them stood at the center of the stage, Wilfred stepped forward to give his speech.

"I welcome all the new students of Avrion Academy, today will be the day where you shall face the Squire assessment. The assessment has been used to determine a Squire's rankings since the beginning of Avrion academy. There will be a total of five assessments. The gem of strength, The hell of fire, The silent night, The eye of accuracy and the Will of truth. Each assessment will be monitored by a Master knight such as myself and the two standing next to me. Please do not be disheartened with the rank you obtain, for even a red sash Squire can one day be in the position we are in. We know you have the potential to be strong for the trial you faced at five in your village. I wish you all good luck in the assessment ahead."

After the end of Wilfred's speech, the room erupted into a massive roar of energy. Everyone was cheering at the thought of making their dream come true.

The Squire masters eventually got the room and the students to settle down. Once Wilfred had finished the speech he moved towards the door. Upon opening the door he bowed down to the people who entered. In came six elders each with a black night by their side. It was hard to tell their age due to the use of Ki, but their visual appearance was around sixty.

I sensed a strong presence coming from each of them, I activated my dragon eyes to get a closer look. A white aura could be seen shining of each one of them. The last time I saw something like this was when I was defeated by the witch as a dragon, just before I was reincarnated into a human.

For some reason their aura made my body shiver. The six elders sat in the grand chairs behind them. The elders didn't say anything and just sat there in chairs looking around at the students in front of them. Each elder had a Knight in black shining armour standing next to them. just like the ones who were stood outside the red door.

Delbert came to the front of the stage and introduced the elders. He explained that they were the current heads of Avrion Academy. How they had accomplished great deads to get to the place they were today. After the speech was over Squier masters came to each table. They began escorting us to the training grounds where the test was set to take place.