Professor Lauren looks at me with disdain as I hand him the application for our newly formed team. His eyes staring daggers between me and Larien, his thoughts very much easy to read through his expression that he doesn't even bother to hide in the least.
"You have four members?" He asks, very obviously stifling a sigh.
"Yes. Each members name has been written down on the application," I respond with a phony smile.
He breathes out, while stretching his neck before accepting the piece of paper I hand to him. "The leader exams will be held in two days. If you pass, your team will be one among a few to be elected to represent our school at the competition. Do your best."
You say that, but I can tell you don't mean it at all. If anything, you would like me to crash and burn. And just for that, every other contestant will be eating my dust.
"I'd say we're as good as in already," Eleric speaks, as we walk back to the classrooms. "If you're half as good as I suspect you are, then we might as well start training."
"I agree," Darius adds.
"What exactly does this 'leader exam' entail anyway?" I ask, now curious as to what makes a student qualify to be a team leader for this competition.
"Well," Larien starts. "It basically just tests your knowledge in spell casting, and healing magic."
"I see,"
I sometimes forget this competition is a contest for weaklings. Spell casting and healing magic? That's the criteria? In Kingdom Crawlers, during big events, the criteria for choosing party leaders was knowledge in strategy, game play, dps, and stats. Spell casting and healing magic was already a given. If you didn't already know that then there was no point in even attempting to become a party leader. But this isn't a game, this is real life. A match over here isn't a simple loss of loot and debuffs, it's death. So I guess they would need to know that stuff.
"You said death was a possibility in these things right?"
"Hm? Yes. Multiple students often get fatally or permanently injured though none have died to my knowledge," Larien answers.
There must be stronger students I haven't met yet, because it's hard to imagine someone can actually die from those little baby spells these kids are casting here.
"Speaking of that," Larien continues with his train of thought. "How about we familiarize ourselves with the rules after classes are over? It would also be a good chance to familiarize ourselves with each other."
"That sounds like a good idea. I'm in!" Darius exclaims, agreeing with Larien.
"Yeah sure, why not," Eleric muses.
They each turn to me next, awaiting my answer.
I honestly have better things to do, than play around with some teenage kids today, but I still know next to nothing about this competition. It would make sense to know exactly what I'm to be dominating so I can start preparing.
"Okay," I finally respond.
After hours of classes and experimental exercises, the lessons are finally over for the day. Usually I would have gone back to Aeolia to check on things, and order some subordinates around, plus I have more things on my plate now, but since I already promised to meet up with my new teammates, I should start heading to our decided meeting place; an empty magic enchanted practice classroom on the fourth floor, mostly only available to Desdan class nobles.
If any of the other teams find out that I've been permitted to enter, I can already imagine the amount of silly arguments that would spring up from this, but I'm sure Larien has already prepared for anything that may arise.
"Okay," Larien starts, once I close the door behind me. "I think we should first understand our roles in the team for the competition."
"Hmm?"
"Well, we all know Alice is the leader of the team, so naturally all our strategies will mostly revolve around him," He continues. "So we should identify what the rest of us would be doing specifically in the meanwhile."
"I see," I say, getting what he's trying to say. "It wouldn't be very efficient if everyone remained all-rounded. It would be much better for the team to be split into individual proficiency."
Just like in a party. By nature, since this is a competition between multiple magic schools, there isn't much room for individual proficiency. The only two clear distinctions in skills and ability is between magic theory students, and magic knight students. This has probably made the students come to the stereotypical conclusion that magic knights are only good for offense, and magic theory students only good for support and some level of recovery magic.
In a way, this does have some truth in it, but they refuse to see there are several other attack patterns that can be used between the two. With a little common sense and imagination, the entire competition could probably be won in one sweep. Which is were our team is headed.
The level of the students as well as their magical rank is quite abysmally low, which is why they can't see past boring stereotypes and weak clichés, only thinking about switching between plain offense and even plainer defense. In this competition, for the first time in Halrio, and maybe all of Elrev, I will introduce these ignorant country bumpkins to a whole new class of mage. The type of mage that focuses solely on offensive magic, physical enhancement and a steady balance of enhanced defense. The battle mage class.
In simpler terms, if a magic knight is a knight that uses attack and healing magic, then a battle mage is a mage who uses high level attack magic, and body enhancement magic to be capable of combat. Should my plan for this competition succeed, I might as well take the crown from the head of the king, because this country will be as good as mine.
"Then we should start training," I add, gaining their attention.
"Indeed," Larien agrees. "I've already started scheduling times on the practice fields so we can begin practical trai..."
"No not that," I interrupt, cutting Larien off from finishing his sentence, since I already know what he's going to say. "I'm pretty sure every other student, both in Bland and Desdan class are lining up in front of those fields waiting for a turn to train there. That's so lukewarm."
The three stop to stare at me weirdly, their expressions clearly telling me they do not understand what I mean.
"Huh?" Darius starts, voicing his confusion out first. "What do you mean?"
"It makes sense that everyone wants to train there," Eleric adds in, stating it in a matter of fact way. "It's a state of the art, enchanted, fully equipped training room available to both magic theory and magic knight students, in either Desdan or Bland class. Plus it's enchanted with recovery magic making it possible to train endlessly without having to worry about your stamina. Who wouldn't want to train there?"
I sigh before continuing, understanding where they're coming from. "I'm sure the field room is amazing and everything but it's not going to help you much. Too much spoon feeding, it's practically helping you to swallow."
It's like constantly playing an RPG with combat assist on. It's lazy, boring, lukewarm, and isn't going to help you in a PVP against an experienced or stronger player. Even in a PVE, against a super overpowered boss monster, combat assist will only prove detrimental to your gameplay.
It's the same principle with this spoon-feeding state of the art training field. One, it'll probably leave their stamina pretty much unchanged, which doesn't do anything to improve the one major weakness of the mage class. Two, they're not getting any real combat experience, and if they chose to train between themselves it'll be even worse. Lame sauce spares won't help them improve. Three, they're magic sense is abysmal and will remain abysmal if they choose to train with a spoon feeding field.
"We'll be training the adventurer's way," I state.
"Adventurer's way?" They repeat in question.
"We'll be hunting monsters in the Ingal forest."