The ten cavaliers and the two saints were following Haamiah to the arena, the only one of those who had been there was 21 in his secret training session. Asphela was electric that morning; she was extremely excited to use her armor, this would be the first real experience of the new Cavaliers in combat. They left the main building and saw right in front of it, the Imposing Arena. It was made of the same stones as the castle but looking like a roofed stadium, when they passed through the front gate they saw a giant box made of something that looked like glass surrounded by bleachers with twelve rows each. Haamiah kept walking until she reached the transparent structure, she waited for them to get close to her and then touched the glass, a big wooden door appeared close to them and 21 opened the door and entered the space. The other cavaliers looked confused to him, Haamiah signalized them to enter it too and so they did, when Haamiah got inside, the closed door disappeared.\\
—Hello, good morning. — She started with a smile on her face — Welcome to your first Combat Class. This is the training arena, it is where all of our classes will happen. This specific area we just entered is, what I call, a Safe Zone. Here you guys can train the most dangerous techniques as much as you want without worrying about the repercussions. Allow me to demonstrate. You, come here — She pointing to 41.\\
Asphela and 41 were side by side; they looked at each other and then back to Haamiah. 21 pushed 41 forward and he awkwardly walked close to her.\\
—Stand still, ok?\\
—Ok… What are you g…\\
Before he could finish his question, Haamiah grabbed the axe of her armor and, in a blink of an eye, hit him. With exception of 21, all of the cavaliers there got extremely scared, some of them screamed and Sotíel threw up when they saw 41's head rolling in the floor. With one strike, she severed his head, the rest of his body fell down and the blood started to flow from the hole that once were his neck. \\
—Calm down everyone — Haamiah said laughing — There is no need to worry, he is fine…\\
As she was saying she got close to the place where they entered the room. She lifted her hand and touched the glass. The door appeared again and 41 passed through it leaving the room, the body on the floor disappeared as soon as he took a step outside, he touched his head as if he was verifying if it really was there, he then turns around and stares at Haamiah's axe.\\
—What the hell…?\\
She laughs again and tells him to enter the room again.\\
—This is an enchanted arena, you cannot die in this place, when you enter it, a part of your mana is constantly drained, the arena use this mana to create a modifiable mini reality where we can fight without any holdbacks. — The whole place started to transform, bellow their feet a big lawn begin to raise, the roof was turned into a blue sky without a single cloud on it and the horizon could now be seen from inside the room. Haamiah stopped touching the glass, she grabbed her axe and walked away from the cavaliers a few meters — So now, for your first lesson, you will put on your armors and will try to kill me…\\
They stood still, in silence for a few seconds.\\
—What are you waiting for? Come… — Haamiah said holding the axe with two hands and preparing herself.\\
—What? — Amniela asked — That's it? Aren't you going to like… teach us how to… fight with the armors and stuff first?\\
—I am doing it, right now… C'mon, try me…\\
—But we don't know how to use our armors, in combat at least… — Adam continued.\\
—And you think I know? I only know how to use mine. I've never seen most part of the armors here, the ones who will discover how to use your armors are you. During classes, you will test your possibilities and gradually create your own fighting style. I'm just here to be your test dummy, so put your armors and let's begin — She said displaying a devilish smile.\\
The cavaliers put on their armor and waited.\\
—What should we do? — 41 whispered to 21.\\
—I don't know… Let's wait to see what the others will do.\\
—So how long will I have to wait? — Haamiah screamed to them.\\
41 looked to his other side and saw Asphela with her eyes closed, he was going to talk to her but when he opened his mouth her whole body suddenly turned to lightning and she instantly charged into Haamiah. A split second later, they heard a loud crash, dirt and grass was flying all around behind the golden soul, she turned back and saw Asphela laying down in a hole. Haamiah was not wearing her armor; when she saw the young cavalier charge at full speed towards her, she decided to simply avoid the attack instead of defend like she would normally do. Asphela does not know how to stop once she goes forward in lightning mode so she charged trying to hit the other cavalier, she did not have a plan if she missed. When Haamiah turned around to check Asphela, Adam and Thysíla attacked her, Thysíla with a sword in her hands tried to hit Haamiah's neck, which dodged lowering her head below the sword, Haamiah was going to attack back with her axe but before she could finish her movement Adam came on the side and punched her on the ribs. His punch was strong enough to send her about a meter away from the impact point, Haamiah quickly got up and charged on him, he tried to punch her again but she blocked his attack with one of her arms and punched him in the face with the other hand. Her punch sent him flying all the way behind the others. Some of the cavaliers were paralyzed watching the brawl between Haamiah and Thysíla while others trying to join in. Tius planned to attack her too, he ran to her trying to use uncoordinated punches, she calmly avoided every single one of them and kicked him in the belly throwing him on top of Thysíla. Haamiah kept the same creepy smile throughout all this time, she turned to the other saints who were just watching and said:\\
—How long will you guys wait in there?\\
She moved towards them with the axe in her hands and some of them got scared again, 41 ran into her screaming in the way, Haamiah laughed and starts to charge towards him, in the middle of the way she jumps in the air up to twenty meters and starts to swing down her axe. The fear in 41's eyes is visible from where she is. When she was halfway through the fall, a big fireball hit her and sent her flying far away, it was Exoutius under 21's command. They knew that she could make attacks like that from the Elemental classes, so when Adam attacked Haamiah, 21 turned to 41 and Exoutius and suggested that 41 distract her while they prepared a strong attack to fire at the Cavalier, when they succeeded, the others started to attack too. Prospounae dropped the Lion shield and ran in holding the Eagle one while Onami followed him. In the meantime, Thysíla and Tius got up and began to surround Haamiah in one side while Laylah and 41 were covering to other side. Haamiah got up a little dizzy, she looked around seeing the "trap" the students were trying to set up for her. Her focus was to eliminate Exoutius and 21 but they were far back and Prospounae was in the way. When she was thinking in a strategy to attack them a loud thunder sound came from behind her, Asphela woke up from the crash earlier, she once more turned her body into lightning and attacked the Cavalier, but this time Haamiah jumped to the right side and lifted her axe sideways with her left hand. Asphela ran into the edge of the axe and her whole body was cut in half. The newly divided body parts fell all over Prospounae, who felt incredibly disgusted, the others got scared at what just happened. Haamiah took advantage of the distraction, jumped and kicked Prospounae in the face, Onami immediately tried to attack her, her punches had no effect on the Cavalier who kicked her away. She looked ahead and another fireball was coming to her, Haamiah quickly grabbed the cavalier she landed on before and used him as shield to the blast, his upper body was destroyed. \\
—Stay behind me and keep shooting. — 21 said to Exoutius.\\
All the other cavaliers started to rush in with 41 and 21, except for Sotíel who was trying to help Adam with his wounds. The first one to attack Haamiah was Thysíla, she tried to perform the same attack from earlier but Haamiah held her sword with her right hand and slashed her with the axe. Behind her, 21 was trying a sneak attack, the Cavalier was going to avoid it but at the same time 41 came screaming and aiming a kick at her head. At this point Haamiah had to make a decision, she would not be able to avoid both attacks so she choose to defend herself against 41's kick and take 21's attack in the back. She quickly lifted her axe in front of her head where 41's foot was going to hit and concentrated her mana in her back for 21's punch. In this moment both saints changed their attacks, 21 jumped and got a knee to Haamiah's head while 41 lowered his foot and kicked the inside of her thigh. 21 was in her back and her axe blocked her field of vision so she did not see the changes. Both attack hit the nail on the head. She lost her balance and fell on the floor; they all started to look at each other.\\
—Should we kill her? — Exoutius asked.\\
—Probably, she killed the others…— 21 said.\\
Haamiah started to get up laughing maniacally.\\
—You guys really got me there.\\
The edge of her axe starts to melt until it turns into a shining lava point. The Cavalier attacks extremely fast and smash down 21 right beside 41, who had no reaction. Her eyes were shining red and her smile frightened him to the point where he got paralyzed. She was about to hit him the same way she did with 21 but Onami came in and pushed him away, she was smash instead. During Haamiah's swing, a portion of the lava dripping from the axe hit 41's eyes, burning them and leaving him blind. The other cavaliers also attacked Haamiah but one by one she countered each attacked and killed them all. The ones who were away from her she hunted and brought down too. When they were all dead, her eyes went back normal and her axe became solid again, she approached the "glass" and lifted her hand, the door appeared and all of the students passed through it, some of them still were a bit scared of her.\\
—Wow… That was an interesting first class, what did you guys think?\\
—That was fun… at least in the parts the I remember — Asphela said.\\
—I died… twice… That was amazing, but I have not felt anything…\\
—In this first class I turned off the pain mimics of the simulation. But I will leave them turned on for the next classes. So, this is how this class will work — All of the students listened curiously — Every week you will face me in combat in various situation, we will start with very straightforward cases where your only mission is kill me, just like today, and slowly we will go through several and more complex scenarios, against a big roster of different foes. If you do not succeed in a mission, you all will repeat it Until, it is complete, so next week you will fight against me again. And, I Hope, this time you'll kill me. Dismiss…
Later that day, some of the new cavaliers were in the Artifacts class while Asphela, Thysíla, Laylah and Amniela were in the cafeteria killing time. The only one of them attending classes in the Specialist Major Division was Amniela, who was going to the Communication and Tracking classes. Asphela was going to all of the classes in the Warrior Major Division, Thysíla was going to the Spells and Invocation classes in the mage tree and all of the others in the warrior one, while Layla was going to Spells, Alchemy, Potions and Control.\\
—I had no idea of what to do, so when everyone started to surround her I went with the flow… — Laylah was saying to them — I got super scared when she cut you in half.\\
—Yeah, that was super violent… — Amniela commented to Asphela.\\
—When she looked at me, I thought that I was going to die just like you, but she killed Prospounae first.\\
—At least you did something. — Amniela — I froze up, couldn't do anything. \\
—Relax, it was only the first class… You will have your chance. — Asphela gently said to her.\\
—After you died, Exoutius blew up Prospounae. — Thysíla said to Asphela — You needed to see.\\
—And after you both die, 21 and 41 almost got Haamiah. They attacked together and took her down. They didn't killed her, but they got pretty close. — Laylah said —Maybe if you were alive and the three of you attacked at the same time, you would be able to kill her.\\
—True. That first attack of yours was super-fast. But you really needed to see the rest of the fight, at the end Haamiah was looking super scary.\\
They kept on talking until all of them start to hear some loud screams from far away.\\
—What's that?\\
—Is doesn't make… kill us all. Why don… them to our… enemy?\\
—What is going on there? — Asphela looked to the door.\\
A few moments later 41 and Adam entered the cafeteria screaming followed by 21 and Exoutius.\\
—How the hell are they going to tell the rats to do that?\\
—Trained rats.\\
—You can't train rats, they are not dogs. Their brains are too small.\\
—I'm sure that there is a magic to do that, we just saw a little ball that can destroy the entire castle and the part that you think it doesn't make sense are the trained rats?\\
Exoutius and 21 sat down in the table were the girls were while the other two went buy some food.\\
—What is going on there? What are they arguing about? — Asphela asked 21.\\
—They are discussing some advanced war tactics… — He answered rubbing his hands over his eyes and lying on the table.\\
—What?\\
—In the artifacts class today, we saw some bombs called Shiva's Grenades, they are like some big suicide bombs, when you put your mana into them they immediately explode in a giant area. The problem is that you can't throw them in the enemy because they explode too fast, so 41 suggested that we stick them in some rats, put the mana in the rats, and then send them running to the enemy. Him and Adam are arguing if that is possible ever since we left the class.\\
—They are not arguing. — 21 said with his hands on his ears — They are screaming. \\
The other two got close to the table eating chocolate bars while talking.\\
—It is impossible to have a realistic conversation with you. — Adam said showing frustration.\\
—Me?? You need to have more faith.\\
—Faith?? Show me one flying rat with genetic modified brain and then I'll believe you.\\
Everyone at the table stared at them.\\
—How did you guys got in that point? — Exoutius asked.\\
—I was trying to explain to him that you can't train rats because their brains are to small and then he said "Oh… but you can modify them genetically to be more intelligent" and then I said "Besides is really easy to outrun a rat" and he was like "not if they have wings". Have you ever seen a flying rat? It is Impossible to talk with him logically. I wish we could modify You to be more intelligent. — Adam said angrily to 41.\\
—I am not the problem here sir, your imagination is. It is too limited.\\
They kept arguing for a while, 21 lifted his head, turned to Asphela and asked:\\
—Hey, have you seen Prospounae?\\
—No, I think he is training now. Why?\\
—I need to talk with him, and with you too.\\
—About what?\\
—Combat classes. We need to find a way to defeat Haamiah in the next week.\\
—They told me that you almost got her.\\
—Well… kind of. We land some good hits but it was far from killing her.\\
—It is so weird for me how we are like talking about killing a teacher — Amniela commented.\\
—After the class today I went to the library to look at some books, see if I find some kind of strategy that we can use against her.\\
—Did you found it? — Thysíla asked him.\\
—Yes, I found one that looks simple but I think it will work if make some small adaptations.\\
—What is it?\\
—I'll explain later when is everyone together, I still haven't thought in all of the details. I still don't know what half of the people of our class can do. By the way… — He turns to Asphela — What was that today? How did you do that? It caught me totally of guard, it was really fast.\\
—Umm, remember the first elemental magic class, when we were trying to discover our element?\\
—Yes, your element is… lightning right?\\
—Yes, but when I try to manifest it, it don't work. During the class my hand was turning into lightning.\\
—I remember that, you haven't told us how to do it…\\
—I still don't know how to do it. The Archduke said that it wasn't a problem if I used it correctly, so in the last few weeks I've been training doing that, until a few days ago every time I tried to use it in the whole body, I would get shapeless and weird.\\
—It was kind of funny… — Thysíla commented.\\
—But when I tried with the armor, it was super fine. I could stand up and move normally. \\
—So you got excited and rushed in the class — He said laughing.\\
—Sorry about that, but I really needed to test it out.\\
—It's all right, I probably would've done the same. If you want to train like that, you can use the arena any time you want.\\
—Really?\\
—Yes, Haamiah told me a while ago. If there is no one in there you can use it, or set aside a time for you. That's what I've been doing.\\
—Since when? — Thysíla asked.\\
—About a week and a half now…\\
—What?? How did you knew that?\\
—Haamiah told me… — He talked low.\\
—And you haven't thought about telling that to us…?\\
Amniela laughed at the saint stammering, trying to find words to explain himself. Asphela smiled and then looked at 41 eating with his mouth open.\\
—Did they told you when the new armors will get here? — She asked to 21.\\
—Not yet, but I think it is not going to take long. Every time 41 goes through the commander he asks "Hey, what about the armors?", the commander is getting kind of angry at him.
Not only him. Caliel, the Cavalier responsible for the forge is also getting tired of 41. They fight with each other in every class, 41 has no talent in forge according to Caliel, he claims that "To create something new, you need to search for the inspiration, renew yourself and give all of your recently found self to it. The Cavalier needs to put his soul, his feelings, his wills, his dreams and all of his being in each hit of the hammer." 41 grabs the hammer and hits the metal in front of him with all of his strength. Caliel screams at him incomprehensible noises and take the hammer out of his hand, 41 screams back saying that he will not learn nothing with a teacher like him; every week 41 goes back in the forge class, apologizing, trying and, eventually, failing again.
In the other side of the cafeteria, some Silver and Bronze Cavaliers were talking and eating. By the door, Haamiah looks in, see them and enters it. She approach the table and sit with them, Skael is the first one to greet her.\\
—Wow, if it isn't her. The most famous Cavalier in the Castle — She smiled and waved like she was greeting her fans — What an honor to be graced with your presence.\\
—Well… Enjoy it while you can, it is not every day a peasant like you have this chance. \\
The other two cavaliers were looking confused to the exchange of words made by the two friends. \\
—What are you doing here? Isn't someone like you supposed to be working now? —She asked.\\
—Oh, I am on my brake; do you know what is it? The thing people that work as hard as me Has to take from time to time. \\
—I find this "brake" of yours, in the middle of the day, to be quite suspicious. Maybe because people like Me, that have a real job, don't have time for this sort of things.\\
—Well… If you don't have time for this kind of thing, could you bring light to my darkness and explain what are you doing here?\\
—I… could explain to you… If it was not part of this super-secret mission that only I and the Paladins know.\\
They laughed.\\
—Talking about Paladins… Have you met the Duks? \\
—Yes… I have…\\
—How was it? — One of the other two Cavaliers asked.\\
—Normal I guess. He is not… like weird… or cocky, just normal.\\
—This one passed through him in a corridor a few days ago and almost fainted. — He said pointing to the one on his side.\\
—I did not fainted! I just… I was showing respect to him.\\
—By laying down on the floor?\\
—I did not… — He turns to Haamiah — I did not laid down…\\
—It is all right. You can fanboy him a little. \\
—I wasn't fanboying…\\
—He is a legend. I bet he has many fans like you. — Skael said.\\
—I am not a…\\
—Dude, you have to be true with your feelings.\\
He screams in anger and all of the others start to laugh. Everyone in the cafeteria starts to stare at them, including the new cavaliers and the two saints. When Haamiah see them she waves her hand at them. They wave back.\\
—Look at the teacher Haamiah, makings friends with the saints. That is not usual of her.\\
—I'm always friendly with my students…\\
—That's not true — The cavalier in front of her said — Last year, it looked like you hated us. \\
—Did you had any classes with me?\\
—What is so especial about these saints that won you over like that? — Skael said.\\
—They are not saints anymore, they have armors now. Well… almost all of them. — She got up bought some cereal bar at one of the food machines and started to walk to the door — They are Cavaliers, just like you and me.\\
She left the cafeteria and the cavaliers continued to talk.\\
—It looks like she likes them.\\
—Yea… They're fucked. — Skael said eating again. — She is going to destroy them in the combat classes. It is already hard to fight against her but when she likes or feel comfortable around someone, she goes truly all out during training. I remember that when we became cavaliers there it was a teacher that she had a crush on, he never won a single fight against her. Nor did I.\\
—I heard some histories about her but when I actually met her I thought it was bullshit — Seraphim's fanboy said — Somebody told me that in the war, in one of the battlefronts, Vounai region… I think… the Roqui alliance was being devastated. The general went there himself with a legion of knights to help, but when they got there and looked over the mountains, they saw thousands of burned, crushed and deformed bodies. Haamiah was the only survivor standing there, holding her axe full of blood and pieces of meat. \\
—Is it true? — The other cavalier asked Skael.\\
—How do you think she got her tittle? — He explained — These saints are going to have many problems facing The Red Snow Devil. But, if she likes them… maybe they'll be fine. Who knows what these saints can do… Oh sorry… These New Cavaliers.