บท 13: First Exam
The group of five walked into the training room. They allocated themselves in the same position as their first attempt; Brie and Emma in the front, Violet in the middle, and Roman and Emile in the back.
The gate opened and the three girls took off. Emma boosted her speed and she rocketed down towards the darkness. A few feet away from the gate, Emma stopped her feet and slid towards the door only to push off the floor again and launch herself to the right.
Immediately after, the Arachnid burst from the hall and charged towards Emma, but suddenly its legs were slammed against the air and its momentum carried it over, crashing into the ground.
The Arachnid tried to push itself up from the ground, but it's long, coarse hair stuck to the ground. Emile and Roman slowly walked up to the immobilized Arachnid. Repeatedly, the Arachnid tore and ripped its skin off while trying to stand.
Emile pulled out a seed and a moment later he was holding a luscious purple flower with a light blue stem. He handed the flower to Roman and he crushed it between his hands with another flower and mushroom. A bright light escaped from between Romans fingers and then Roman opened his hands and a dark purple liquid dripped onto the Arachnids head.
The purple liquid produced smoke when it made contact with the Arachnids skin, over time the liquid dissolved through its skin and bones until its brain was nothing more than mush.
"Oh my goodness that is gross!" Emma said as she came over and looked into the hole.
"Smells bad too," Roman added.
The door opened and the group of five left to observe the other teams. Afterwards, the twenty-two sat in the open hall while the Colonel reviewed their progress.
"You continue to disappoint me—" the Colonel began his spiel. Although every group managed to slay the Arachnid, they all heavily relied on their offensive members. Every fight, apart from the group of four offensive members, played out similar to Warren's. As a result, half of the people practically did nothing but watch as their teammate struggled against their opponent.
The Colonel went on to use Emile's team as an example as each one of them played an active role in defeating the Arachnid. Emma distracted it. Brie tripped it. Violet stuck it. Emile produced an ingredient and Roman used that ingredient to kill the creature.
Even though most of them could defeat the creature one on one, the point of the exercise was to encourage teamwork and strategizing. To teach that with a good plan something that seemed insurmountable just a month ago can be as simple as five steps.
Whether or not he wanted to, Emile was getting used to the Fallen Kingdom. His days blurred together due to his non-stop training regime which took his mind off of his less than favorable position in the world.
But Emile persevered. He trained day in and day out and his gifts effect was constantly replenishing his torn muscle fibers and replenishing his exhausted body. He was growing at a rapid pace.
A new day began and Emile was waiting outside with three other recruits. Today was their specialized weapons examination. The four of them had chosen to utilize a bow at the start of their second week. Surprisingly, Emma had not selected the bow as her weapon of choice.
Maybe she's just being rebellious, but Emma decided to focus on a spear. With a spear she would be able to boost the speed of her thrusts and swings, but the main reason she chose the spear was to throw it like a javelin. And with her ability to increase the velocity multiple times over, she had dreams of being a human artillery cannon.
Meanwhile, Emile stood, flicking the string of his bow. His bow wasn't special. He carried the same base bow the three other recruits had with them. It was made of some slightly bendy material, Emile knew it wasn't wood, and it was painted over with a glossy black. The white string accented the black bow beautifully.
Emile had chosen the bow for his sake as a healer. He figured he would primarily be at the back of his group all the time which gave him ample opportunity to take advantage of the bow. He also dreamed of attaching a rope to one of his arrows and swinging into battle looking as heroic and majestic as possible. Of course these were merely fantasies of his, his current bow couldn't support his weight, but he assumed a magical world had magical bows too.
Finally, their bow instructor arrived. He was a gravely looking old man. He wore long beige robes and his entire body was wrapped in bandages except for his eyes. His dark, golden irises were as sharp as an Eagles. Emile knew he was old because he constantly walked with a hunched back and used his presumably extraordinary bow as a cane the majority of the time.
"Today we will hold a mini tournament–" Their instructor said between heavy breaths, "if we had a larger class this would obviously be more exciting but… well sometimes you just have to take what you can get I suppose, not that you four suck or anything! You don't suck. You guys are actually pretty good with the bow. I just meant that the amount of students I have right now, which is four, you four to be exact, represents the public opinion towards bows. Everybody always chooses the damn sword…." He continued to ramble on and on about the weakness of swordsmanship and the 'quite unparalleled advantages' one receives when mastering a bow.
Eventually, Emile was given his first opponent, Ray. Ray was an average cadet. Not outstanding nor useless. In fact, Emile had no idea what Ray's gift even was. He wasn't even sure if Ray had ever used it, and if he had, then Emile had not noticed it.
After being given his opponent, their instructor went over the rules of the tournament. The two recruits would be placed at opposite ends of a one mile long square within an abandoned zone of the kingdom. Within that one mile, they were able to traverse to the highest tower or to the lowest cavern. The objective of the tournament was to hit your opponent with a single arrow and the arrow had to stay stuck in the person. A scrape would not count as a victory. Additionally, they were prohibited from aiming for the head or heart.
The arrows they were provided for the tournament were not standard arrows, rather they had had a very thin arrowhead that would allow the arrows to be removed safely once the round was over.
The four recruits and their instructor took a carriage to the abandoned zone. As the distance kept increasing less and less people were on the roads until eventually the windows were boarded shut and the lanterns on the sides of the streets were shattered.
"Welp! Emile you better get to walking! It's going to be a mile that way and you'll see an explosion in the sky when it's time to begin."
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