It was the first day of training. A maid had come to wake the Marshals up exactly before dusk. It had really been a rough night for most of them since they had too much to drink at the feast the previous night. Somebody had even peed in the wrong place.
They were separated into two halls, the male and the female and were all given personal bed space. It was the least the king could do to apologize.
The Marshals were divided into five groups for their training. They were each placed under a knight whom was in charge of giving them the basics and evaluating them.
They dragged themselves reluctantly to the training ground. It was quite large and looked like it would be more than a hundred kilometres in just length. But what was more shocking were the amount of people already training.
The sound of swords clashing against each other, arrow-shooting practice, magic training and even horse riding.
Truly Xerosa was preparing for war.
The Marshals were divided into five team, twenty of them in a team. Xavier was randomly placed in team 4 which happened to be under the supervision of a rather short knight.
He had a crewcut and several scars on his face. He had just been knighted recently and was quite egostical.
The ranking system in Xerosa was quite simple. In the military faction, the lowest rank was the foot soldier/foot mage. Immediately above the foot soldier was the unit captain, leading between a range of a hundred to two hundred foot soldiers/foot mage, they answered to the squad leader who could either be a mage or a swordsman. The squad leader could have up to ten units under him, each unit led by a unit captain. Above the squad leader was an Esquire. They were also known as transit knights/transit warlocks, that means they were still knights-in-training/warlocks-in-training.
The knight/warlock rank was above the Esquire, and directly answered to the Knight/warlock captain. The knight captain was below the duke and the dukes took orders from the grand mage and knights.
In structure, it was like this;
Swordsmen: Foot soldier------- Unit captain-------- squad leader-------- Esquire-------- Knight---------- knight captain----------- Duke---------- grand knight.
Mage: Foot mage-------- Unit captain---------- squad leader---------- Esquire---------- Warlock--------- warlock captain---------- Duke-------- grand mage.
The short knight stopped after getting to a suitable spot on the training grounds.
"We should be fine here", he placed his hands on his waist as he stared around.
"My name is Pete, a knight of division six", he turned around to face the kids.
"Today, team 4, that is you, will be working on basic swordskill mastery", Pete pulled out his sword from its sheath.
It was a long silver sword. 2-3 cm in width, it looked like it had just been recently forged.
"There are three levels of sword mastery. Basic, intermediate and Advanced.", he said.
"The more you practice and fight battles, the more you climb these levels but I must tell you this isn't easy. For even the grand knight is just at the peak of intermediate."
Pete added then flicked his wrist just like Shandock, swords soon came out of thin air and fell to the ground.
They were no different from the one Shandock had given them. The Marshals each picked a sword, all except Xavier.
"Sir, the swords are not enough", Xavier frowned.
Pete glanced at him before saying coldly.
"Well, I was told that unlike your colleagues, you lacked a constitution."
Xavier frowned a bit but quickly adjusted his expression. He wasn't ready to get on anybody's bad side considering how extremely weak he was.
"So instead of training with us, why not make yourself useful and help in cleaning my equipment.", Pete flicked his wrist and a shield appeared in his hand. He tossed the shield which easily reached Xavier's waist, effortlessly.
Xavier caught it but was shaken by the weight and lost balance. He fell on his back causing his colleagues to laugh at him.
Cursing under his breath, he dragged the shield to a spot and started cleaning.
After cleaning for five minutes, a screen appeared.
"You've gained cleaning insight"
[Cleaning proficiency(0/10)]
Xavier rolled his eyes at the notification. He continued with cleaning the bronze shield which had some blood scald on it. Soon he was beginning to notice the difference in efficiency since he gained the cleaning skill. And in less than fifteen minutes, a notification appeared again.
"Cleaning proficiency has leveled up"
[Cleaning proficiency(1/10)]
The level up actually showed a significant difference in the cleaning. It was now faster and would soon finish cleaning the shield. By the time he finished, it had got to level 2.
Xavier stood up and with much effort dragged the shield to the Knight. Two Marshals were in a duel while others sat around them. The way they moved made Xavier wonder if they were still the weak school mates he knew.
One was a brown haired tall boy, he had a freckled face and a pointed nose. The other was a slim boy with very dark short hair. Xavier could recognize him since they used to be classmates.
What was his name again? Frodd or so.
The two moved graciously as they dueled against each other. Frodd jumped into the air, swinging his sword downwards on the brown haired boy who effortlessly parried. He instantly switched the sword to his left hand and tried to stab Frodd at his most vulnerable spot. On seeing this, Frodd kicked on the floor and pushed himself few meters backward.
Xavier's jaw dropped. They had only been trained for just an hour and his schoolmates were already sword masters. The system sure is broken.
"That's enough ", Pete said and followed with an applause.
"Pretty impressive boys. Both of you have high pontentials with the sword."
"You were able to not only gain the basic sword proficiency but were able to reach level 1.", he added.
Xavier's eyes widened. That was just level 1?!!
Pete faced the other Marshals.
"For those that were able to at least gain the basic sword proficiency. You will continue to practice until it reaches level 1 on your own. And for those that didn't get at all....", Pete paused for a while before continuing.
"You might be more magic inclined. Well, a Warlock will be taking over tomorrow.", he clicked his tongue.
"You are dismissed, we will try to create sword skills when next we meet..... oh and you can stay if you feel you can keep practicing ", he added.
Pete walked away from them, towards Xavier who still had a mixture of shock and amazement written all over his face.
He grabbed the shield from him and put it in his inventory. With that he left them.
Xavier decided to go search for Jace, his best friend should be somewhere around. It had actually hurt him that they were put in different teams.
Dodging sweaty bodies and magic spells, he forced his way through the training ground.
"Hey Xavier", a voice stopped him.
Xavier turned to see Guila. Her hair was tied into a ponytail, she had neatly tied the ends of her shirt too, exposing her abdomen. A sword hung in her left hand while her right hand fell on her waist.
"Guila. How is training?", Xavier asked
She twirls her sword in her hand before smirking
"I acquired basic sword proficiency and I'm now at level 2", she puffed her chest feeling really proud of herself. It truly was something to be proud of, increasing a proficiency took both talent and hard work and Guila obviously had both.
"That's not all... ", she smirked
She pulled her empty palm forward, a small thick red flame soon appeared on it. It moved freely on the surface of her palm like it had a mind of its own
"You gained magic too", Xavier gasped
"Yes I did but it's still at level zero. Moreover, it's just fire magic.. nothing special....You should see what your friend Jace learnt", she grinned.
Xavier furrowed his brows a bit before scanning around for Jace. He soon found him and what he saw next made his jaw drop.