On my 19th birthday, it was the start of the third class for becoming an explorer, I was early to class and was looking over the text again, I had tired to ask about the classes but was getting no information for some reason.
Everything seemed to be very secretive, and I don't really understand why.
"Settle down, class will be starting in a moment." And old man said as he entered the room and was walking to the front desk.
"I will be your teacher of this class, my name is Karl and I am an ex-explorer. Today we will start on the very long list of things you need to look out for up top." He began in a kinda nonchalant tone, but I guess this was good to have an ex-explorer teaching us.
"Of course you have your books and I will be having quizes from time to time to make sure you are readying them, but there are some things that need to be said specifically about some of the more "Alive" things on the surface. To start, when you go up, you need to be prepared to lose your life if you aren't careful enough, and if you are ever in a group, Prey your team is able to assist you if you are in trouble, but never count on it. We try to train you as best as we can, but your responsibility is to stay alive and bring back resources for the stacks. Knowledge is always fine, but when you go out, you will be given a list of things that are being request, I must repeat so many time you drill it into your head, but the list isn't as important as you. You can have a second chance at getting things on the list, as long as your alive."
He seemed to try to be warning us to begin, before starting on the actual details of the things up there.
The book gave some details, but there were things I wanted to know, Like there is a worm, Warm blooded from what can be found, and it tunnels through ice as easy as a human swimming, or a cat, that looks no different from a normal house cat, but had 2 inch claw like blades on its legs, and while both are not really interesting in attacking humans, they have been known to do so when attacked, provoked or even just when the cat smelled the food the humans had made.
"The biggest of the challenges on the surface will be the storms, with the ambient magic in the air, the freezing storms can multiply in intensity. They are easy to track, so never get caught out in one, but if you do get caught out, just know that only 3 out of the 20 people that have been out in them in the past are still with us today, and two of them are missing at least one limb. But the next difficulty is what we refer to as "Shimmers" they are individuals that survived likely from when the world fell until now, they are difficulty beyond measure to fight, and only one has been reported killed every, and the body was studied to learn what we know now of them. The individual was frozen to a point but with the extra magic in their body, and the nature of the ice mana around them at the time, they stopped freezing but their body will be ripped with Ice Jutting out of it and they will have an affinity with Ice Magic. Their tell-tell name is from the fact that when they move, bits of the ice break and reform quickly, but comes off of them in a fine dust, and it shimmers in the light. If you see one, Slow them if you can, and retreat when at all possible."
This left the class almost silent for a moment before someone raised their hand and said "What of the abnormals that look to be normal but are completely resistant to the cold, how do they do that?"
Thinking of the cat from before, I wondered the same. "These animals are few and far between, but if you encounter them, I almost want to say leave them alone, but they are also one of the only ways to find meat on the surface and meat is often times on the list. So user discretion in this case."
With that, He went on to describe some more of the textbook, but explained that he would continue tomorrow since we had taken the class time already.
I hadn't realized but there is truly so much to remember, thankfully that is something I am good at, it doesn't hurt to have the full text scanned on my Pirk as well.
The main things I have learned is that, there are some materials that just can't be gotten under normal circumstances, like cloth.
It would freeze over and when it thawed, it would be almost useless as it would fall apart easily, which books did almost the exact thing and thus weren't well regarded as good sources of knowledge as you can hardly get anything from them.
I went on like this for nearly a month, when the teach announced the last test will be the next day. We are to enter the classroom, set at a desk and not speak a single word the entire time, or we will fail.
So the day came, and I entered the room and sat down, upon doing so I see the test starts in 5 minutes and there is almost no one present.
The layout of the stations told that people didn't want to be to close to each other, and with almost no one in the front row, I took station 6.
I have to say, this was most certainly the longest 5 minutes of my life, I was stressing about the test and it seemed every little sound put me more on edge.
A group of girls walks in the room while talking and they are instantly ushered out of the room as the had failed.
As the timer stopped, the teacher picked up the small clock, tapped a button twice, and sat it back down as he held up a hand showing three fingers, then two, and one. With that, he pressed the button to start the clock, starting the timer at 1 hour.
Surprisingly the test was on the full text, having to both describe the animals and dangers as well as match the pictures to the name.
I was struggling for a bit before having an idea and looking up at the board were it said rules.
There were just 3 rules, Don't speak or you fail, Don't try to copy from another person's test screen, and finish the test in 2 hours.
They are for sure making us think outside the box, The test is for 2 hours, but the timer is for 1, so if you didn't read the rules, you may rush, but there weren't any rules against using the textbook, but I looked around and saw no text books.
I looked at the teacher and gave him the biggest Smirk, and pulled the book up on my Pirk and raced through the test, It only took about 45 minutes, and I pressed submit.
As I pressed submit, the light on to the top of my station turned green, and I almost jumped up and cheer, seeing me almost do this, the teach just pointed at the rules.
So I sat back comfortably, and was going to relax.
But, this felt wrong, going over everything, I came up with an idea and went over to one of the other students that seemed to be having trouble.
I made sure to not look at their screen and stood behind their computer so I couldn't even if I was tempted.
I put my hand in front of their monitor and the student seemed to panic at this a little, but I held a finger to my lips and pointed to the rules.
She seemed to understand and stopped for a moment, and pulled up the first part of the textbook on my pirk before flipping the screen and laying my arm on the desk, and using my finger to show her how to scroll the text.
She seemed to think for a moment and gave me a big knowing grin, and got back to work with renewed vigor.
Every so often I felt her scroll a little more on the Pirk, but a little later, I heard a small noise, and noticed a girl looking at the ground so as to not look at the people screens and go over to her bag and retrieve her textbook, looks like she got lucky and brought it.
It was nearly 15 minutes left in the test when the girl I helped finished and the green light came on for her, so I couldn't help anyone else, but I looked like of the 10 people that had taken the test, about 5 at least had finished including me, with 2 people them having locked in their answers at the 1 hour mark, likely rushing and feeling embarrassed when they actually read the rules.
When the real timer for the test ended, it was a sharp bell sound "And this is the end of the test, you will see that the station has locked and you can no longer finish if you hadn't already, those of your who haven't, please leave." And the 5 people left with their head hung low.
"Those of you that are here had completed the test at least, but let us see who has passed."
he looked down at the computer he was at and quickly got the results, "Stations 2, 6, 11, 14, you have passed. Station 17, you have failed the test, please leave us."
"Those 4 of you that are left have used your mind, your resources, and the help of others to survive. You will have one final test to ensure you are fit to be an explorer. A field test.
At this we all cheered and the girl thanked me so much for helping her!
