Clenching his hand around his sword's handle, Elan stared at his opponent. He wasn't looking at the man's eyes but at his body to try and predict his movements.

Taking a deep breath, he waited for him to attack. It didn't take too long as the bandit was panicking.

Compensating his lack of experience with aggressiveness, the bandit rushed at Elan while thrusting his spear.

As he saw it coming miles away, Elan easily dodged the spearhead and stabbed him in the torso. Having neutralized his enemy, he evaluated the situation of his teammates who fought all around him.

After a hard start, all of the Heroes could now be considered decent fighter able to fight against trained soldier, if not veteran for some.

Today was actually the first time he didn't need to rush and help someone. They had some difficulties at the start, some of them had never killed a living behind, and were afraid to cross the step. Elan understanding of human nature was : Humans are good by nature and most killer, first killed by necessity while fighting back against their empathy. He was, in some way pitying his comrades who had to kill while not in danger and would have to carry the full guilt of their actions.

He calmly walked away of the fighting zone. They weren't fighting in the wild and all of their opponents where convicted criminals. After starting with non-fighter opponents, they were now fighting real bandit with actual combat experience.

The fight were organized inside an area and the convicted were promised a lowered prison sentence if they managed to beat a Hero without killing or injuring him. For most of them, this was the only way out of prison before they died of old age inside the Empire's prison.

Elan reached the side bench and sat alongside Michael, their trainer.

"You are not helping them ?" Asked the knight.

Today's fights weren't individuals. It was a melee fight between large groups of peoples. They wouldn't always fight duels and Antony wanted them to experience the chaos of the melee.

"They don't need me." assured Elan with a confident smile.

Elan had heard that their main instructor had just lost his elder brother, but he wasn't usually attending all of their training sessions, he was only a supervisor, so their rhythm didn't slow down at all. The man that usually trained them was a young member of the 12th Templar division, Michael, a Rank 7 'Swordsman'.

The 2 man simply watched the rest of the fight. Some of the fighter on the Heroes side were standing out, like Riko, Elan's best friend. She was playing with 2 bandit at the same time, deflecting every attack coming her way before swiftly disposing of them by slashing at their throats.

After the fight was finished, while most of the beginners Heroes where sitting down and recuperating, she was approaching him with a satisfied smile.

Before he could speak, she interrupted him.

"I wasn't playing, i was training my defensive skills against multiples opponents."

Elan could only sighted. He wouldn't bother with it.

She turned toward Michael with a satisfied smile and asked :

"So do i still count as a Rank 4 ?"

Michael had given them a temporary indication of their Rank and Riko was jealous of Elan for being ranked a Rank above her.

Since there was various to get stronger in this world, they had long established a system supposed to indicate the strength of individuals.

They were 10 Ranks are each giving an approximation of the fighting power.

They was an unofficial Rank 0 for any sick people or child that couldn't fight.

Rank 1 was for the beginners soldiers or simple farmers with wooden spears.

Rank 2 was for simple guards or soldiers with basic equipment.

Rank 3 was around a veteran soldier having survived multiple campaign.

Rank 4 were Knights, usually equipped with better weapons and armors and having had a martial training since childhood.

Rank 5 was the door to superhuman abilities. To reach this level, you need to be able to sense mana, and to continue to climb up, you need to absorb it.

After the 5th Rank, it become even harder to evaluate people. There was multiple way to use mana and it is hard to compare people whose strength doesn't come from the same source. They each had their own advantages and weaknesses.

So Rank 5, 6 and 7 are usually according to your amount of mana : low, medium and high. You reach Rank 8 when your body is full and you can't increase your maximum amount of mana anymore.

Rank 9 is about understanding and using your mana correctly.

After it was the mysterious Rank 10.

"Yes, you are strong Riko, but if you can't sense mana, i can't qualify you has a Rank 5." Answered Michael.

"What is so great about Mana ... I thought it was only used by mages." she scoffed.

"No, Mages is a general term for external mana user, while Fighter is a general term for internal mana user. Each of those are separated in thousands of 'classes', like 'Swordsman' but those are just nicknamed given to a way to use your mana." said Michael while pointing at himself as he was a Swordman. He continued :

"In both case, you absorb the mana in your body, but internal user keep it inside themself to refine and strenghten their body, while external user are taking it out of themself and using it on their surrounding to create various effects like flames, ice, or wind.

They are some people who use both like Elan, but he has to learn both way of using his mana and it's a tremendous amount of work. That is why his path is so difficult."

"Is that why the Ranks so vague ?" asked a bald youngster named Henry that was joining them.

"Yes, for it to be universal, it need to include everyone, but everyone is different. If you want a simplified version, each Rank can fight 2 people of the Rank under themselves, the bandit you are fighting are Rank 2 or 3 at best, Riko can beat two Rank 3 and that is why she is classified as a Rank 4." Continued Michael.

"Doesn't the Empire have plenty of Rank 4 ? Why were we summoned if we can only amount to this much ?" asked Riko.

"Heroes have potential. on average, one out ten person can reach the next rank. So one out of ten Rank 1 can reach Rank 2, but only one out of a hundred Rank 1 can reach Rank 3.

In the end one out of ten thousand can reach Rank 5 like Elan, one out of a million can reach Rank 7 like me and one out of a hundred million can reach Rank 9 like Sir Nartes."

"And one out a billion for Rank 10 ?" interrupted the bald guy.

Michael laughed.

"No ... Rank 10 is different. We don't put a number on it. Several thousands of year can pass without a single Rank 10 while we often have more then a dozen of Rank 9 by generation. It is said that only the best out of the Rank 9 can even understand what Rank 10 represent. There isn't any precise number on Rank 9 reaching Rank 10, but it's less then 1 in ten thousand. So less then one in a trillion Rank 1 can reach Rank 10." said Michael with a sad smile.

"To come back on why do we summon Heroes. Well, almost every Heroes will reach Rank 8 if not killed early, and around half of them will reach Rank 9. We summon Heroes because of their potential. It is said that one out of a thousand Heroes can reach Rank 10, but it isn't confirmed or anything." He added with a smile. "So that's around 5% chance that one of you reach Rank 10. Better then my 0.0001% chance."

UndeFR

I wouldn't say it's a good chapter, just exposition. It's a bit late for an introduction to the power system, i should have done it earlier. :/