‘Amazing, you are interacting with mana already! It’s kind of strange how you are doing it, though. Right now, you are merely “shaking” it, but you should try to move it smoothly instead. Also, please keep good company to my little sister.’

This was what was written on the piece of paper that the teacher, Kris Ware, passed on to Vince.

‘Phew… for a second, I thought he could have sensed my cultivation base. Well, at least now I know that he won’t notice my cultivation base, even if I interact with mana. That could have been a horrible blunder on my side.’

Vince then proceeded to write an answer.

‘I’ll try my best, sir.’

After reading the answer, the teacher walked away and started to write notes to other students as well.

‘He probably wrote instead of speaking to avoid interrupting the others.’

Focusing back onto the mana stone, Vince resumed doing what the teacher had failed to sense.

‘Let’s absorb this mana stone. Although its purity is not the best, it won’t be a problem at my current cultivation. I might not be able to breakthrough to the next stage, but it doesn’t mean I cannot get as close to it as I can. My body is also almost ready for the next breakthrough. By the time I have a suitable amount of mana stored, my body should be ready as well.’

A few minutes later, the previously faint hue coming from the stone disappeared, signalling the exhaustion of the mana inside of it. Usually, the mana stones would turn to dust immediately after the mana was exhausted, but it didn’t happen this time.

Vince had removed the mana inside of the stone with such surgical precision that the stone didn’t crumble. It will eventually crumble, but not immediately.

‘With this I’m done. I just have to pretend to be still trying.’

And thus, Vince went on to fake being concentrated on the mana stone he held. But, in reality, who knows what he was thinking about.

***

Just a few seats away, Estelle also focused on her mana stone. Since her family had temporarily sealed her cultivation, she wasn’t able to absorb the mana contained within like Vince did.

Therefore she did what everyone else was doing: practising their ability to sense mana and, those who could, their ability to control it instead. Being in the second group, she trained her ability to control mana.

The prince, right beside her, also practised. One could never stop to improve, after all.

It wasn’t long until light rays started shining through the prince’s fingers, which were holding the mana stone. Many in the room got distracted and began staring at the prince.

Estelle, too, opened her eyes and turned towards the prince.

After a few seconds of the room looking like a disco (with the prince’s hand being the disco ball), the lights emanated turned dimmer and dimmer.

‘What a show-off, this guy.’

Estelle couldn’t help but think it this way.

Opening his hand, the prince let many fragments fall to the floor. Having absorbed the mana within, the structure of the stone collapsed.

The size of the fragments was a great way to tell one’s ability. In this case, the pieces were considerably big, showing that some mana was still left within.

It was apparent the prince wasn’t that skilled. If one absorbed the mana contained within a stone uniformly, it would turn to dust. The prince’s had cracked into fragments instead.

‘Why is he looking at me with such a proud face? Not like he did anything amazing… When I trained at home, my stones usually broke into pieces as small as grains of sand…’

The teacher moved in front of the prince and examined the broken mana stone. He then nodded and made a thumbs up towards the prince.

‘Why is he acting as if the prince did well?’

Since Estelle wasn’t allowed to train with her siblings ever after she awakened that early, she had no real sense of what good meant.

The fact that the prince managed to break the mana stone into pieces and not just have it split in half was testimony to how good he was. And being just in the Early-Dawn Stage of the Awakening Realm, he still had a lot of room for improvement.

‘Whatever, I’ll just resume practising my control.’

Estelle didn’t produce any lights while practising. That was a good sign. When a mana stone shined, it meant mana was being dispersed. It was all wasted mana.

Though, usually, nobody thought a kid that shouldn’t even be in the Awakening Realm could control mana so well as not to produce any lights at all. So, most people thought that if a child didn’t make any lights while practising, he or she was failing.

Eventually, the lesson came to an end.

“That’s it for today, everybody! See you next week.”

***

The day after came fighting class. This one was specifically targeted to human versus human combat. There was also one targeted at human versus monster, but it was another day.

The name was pretty generic, but so was the class as well. It ranged from hand to hand combat to using various kinds of weapons. The course had a theoretical part and a practical part.

“Welcome everyone, I’m Braden Kilpatrick, and I’ll be your teacher for this class. Today we’ll do some theory in the first half; then we’ll practise in the second half.”

The teacher thus went over the fundamentals of combat between humans. Being just an introduction to the course, he went over everything they would learn during the year.

The most important points being:
Vital spots
Knocking someone unconscious
Hand to hand combat
The basics of most weapons

Starting from the second year, they would be able to choose which weapons to specialise in. Therefore no advanced techniques for any weapon were taught.

They then moved on to the second part of the lesson, which was the practical part.

Everyone had to find a sparring partner that he’d keep for the next semester. Thus, soon the training hall they were in was full of people beating up each other to find someone at their level to take as a partner.

And so did Estelle. But no one could touch a hair on her, much less fight her as an equal.

But she wasn’t in a rush. Being the first rank, many people challenged her to see how far they were from her level. The stronger ones went there instead, hoping to be at a sufficient level to be with her.

Kids their age were pretty much brainwashed over how important connections were. So, everyone thought this was a great chance.

Yet, no one could take her on. Most fights were over, not even ten moves in. The most significant factor was the difference in strength.

Not that her technique was lacking, but there was no need for it. When you threw a single punch, and your opponent had to take five steps back, there wasn’t a chance for him to do anything.

‘Nobody can keep up with my physique. Probably only that ungrateful servant and the annoying prince can keep up. But I don’t want to be with either of them! Well, at least one of them won’t even try. He probably feels like he’s too good for anybody here. Aah, how infuriating.’

Eventually, the prince came. Unluckily for him, she wasn’t in a great mood after what she had just thought of.

“Estelle! I see you have trouble finding someone at your level. I still haven’t found a partner either! Let’s try and see if we can spar together!”

“Just come at me.”

‘Let’s beat this guy up black and blue. I want to see what he’ll do afterwards.’

The two thus began fighting.

“I won’t hold back then!”

The prince said so, unleashing his cultivation.

A little crowd had formed around them, clearly wanting to witness how events would unfold.

Rick Flossen thus charged at her with all he had.

‘You are attacking wide open. You reminded me of myself a few months ago. Relying on strength alone. Then I was taught a good lesson…’

Seeing her old self in him, she got even more fired up. It was her chance to test how much she had improved ever since that duel.

The prince immediately threw a flying kick, clearly trying to go for a contest in power.

‘During the physical test, I saw how far he can go with his body. Not being able to use my cultivation, I’m not his match. I shouldn’t be too far behind, though.’

She thus sidestepped, letting the prince continue his leap.

Being now in range for fighting with their fists, they both readied up.

Starting off, the prince threw a right straight.

As the punch came, Estelle crouched a little. She then counter-attacked by throwing a straight towards the prince’s stomach.

The prince was forced to parry, but he soon realised the punch didn’t carry that much power.

Estelle, still crouched, extended her leg and, rotating on one foot, threw a sidekick on the prince’s legs. Caught unguarded, he faltered and fell to the ground.

Standing back up, Estelle walked to the prince’s side, ready to take action if he tried standing back up.

Stubborn as he was, he, of course, tried standing back up. But as he was in the process, a kick came his way, making him roll.

This time he was lying facing down.

“You have lost. Just give up already. Even though you might have a better physique than me, your technique is terrible.”

But the prince didn’t let himself be discouraged. He seemed more fired up instead.

“You are right. This time I lost. I shall acknowledge you as my rival! I’ll eventually grow strong enough to beat you!”

‘You keep on repeating that; I wonder if you’ll manage to for real.’

The lesson came to an end after a while. Nobody could last more than five moves against Estelle. She was the only one left alone at the end of the lesson.

The teacher thus intervened.

“Don’t worry about finding a partner. Nobody here is even close to your level, from what I could see. I’ll be your sparring partner personally until we find someone. At worst, I’ll ask someone from the second year to come spar.”

“Sure.”

Turning her head, Estelle spotted Vince.

‘He’s again with that red-haired girl. Hmpf. I doubt it will be of any use for him sparring with her. You’ll see how much I’ll improve! Next time we’ll have a duel, I’ll win so one-sidedly you’ll cry.’

A season of unrequited rivalries thus started. But who will emerge victoriously? Only time could tell. The following placement exam was in six months, and anything could happen in the meantime.

***

“Hello and welcome to the introduction of this course! This course will cover human versus monster fights! We’ll start by saying everything we will be going over in the next year. In the second half, you’ll be given time to create parties. As many of you already know, fighting monsters is usually done in groups. Those groups are called parties. Thus, you will all create parties that will last for the next semester. The roles won’t be that well defined, as none of you has yet specialised in a single role, but don’t worry! Every semester parties will be formed all over again for this very reason. For now, you should just worry about finding people who won’t hold you back. Don’t worry about the composition too much.”

And thus, the teacher went on to explain the basics and how parties should be formed.

At first, it would be fine for the party to be solely comprised of front line warriors, but parties should try to fill every role over time.

Every party also had a leader. It was important to have a good leader
—one who had a great awareness of all of his comrades at any time and could make the right calls.

‘Let’s go! I’ll make my own party. I already have one or two people in mind.’

Estelle decided to be a party leader. And thus, the search for party members starts!