Aria nodded and said, "Yeah. Which line are you going to join?"
Helen: "I think I'll go to Professor Iris. What about you? I expect you'll be joining Professor Thomas's line."
Aria: "Why will you specialise in precision? You've got a huge affinity, and your destructive power could be massive if you trained."
Helen: "That's just it. I don't want to. I'll anyway not join the army. So there's no point."
Aria seemed a little put off. It was clear that she considered it a waste of Helen's talent if she only specialised in precision. But Aria did not voice this. Instead, she said, "Are you going to be okay by yourself?"
Helen opened her mouth to speak, but a voice from behind Aria beat her to it.
Jacob was standing behind Aria. He said, "I'll help her."
Helen smiled, "See Aria. I'll be fine."
Aria murmured a consent to Helen before she turned around to face Jacob and said, "Thank you."
Jacob smiled and led Helen towards the line in front of Professor Iris.
Aria joined the headmaster's line. She could clearly see that this was the shortest one.
Professor Iris's line had more students, but Professor Moon's line was simply the longest.
"Pretty obvious. Precision is difficult. And people always want to run from hard-work." She thought as Professor Thomas cleared his throat.
He said, "Now, you'll all be fighting us one by one. Those students who are taking up more than one element, remember, we will only be fighting with water bending. Any questions?" He looked around at the three lines.
When nobody raised a question, Professor Thomas nodded and Professors Iris and Moon walked in separate directions, out of view.
Professor Thomas said, "Now I advice you all to give it your best and not hold back. Because I will certainly not be doing so."
He then told them all to move back before calling out the first person standing in the line.
Professor Thomas took out a small notebook and a pencil and twirled his fingers so that the book and the pencil were floating in the air a few feet away from him.
Professor Thomas smiled and signalled the student to take his stance. And then the two started. It was barely a few minutes of the student struggling to stand up before he was blown away by a particularly strong wave of water.
Before he fell, a bed of water formed and the student bounced of it before landing in a sitting position on the ground. Professor Thomas smiled as the student walked over to him. He said, "Very good Steve. You've gotten better. Now, you may hurry along to the recovery ward. I'm sure Miss Anhao is waiting there to see to your injuries."
While he was talking, Aria's gaze was fixed on his fingers and the notebook in the air. His fingers were not moving, but the pencil was moving on the notebook.
Aria was dumbfounded, "Professor Thomas is bending wind without even moving his fingers??? Is that even possible!?!?"
The students one by one fought with Professor Thomas. It took him a few minutes to beat the stronger ones, and a few seconds to beat the weaker ones.
But he would praise all of them after the fight.
The highest record had to be about twenty minutes after about two hours, and the line had lost one-fourth of the students.