"Kid, what's your name?" Julius questioned Theo. Theo was extremely nervous right now, for some reason, he couldn't help but feel scared, it felt as though the pressure of Julius's aura was crushing him down.
"I- I'm Theo." Theo managed to speak. "Last name?" Julius said, not wasting a second to spare. Theo however couldn't say his real last name Evergarden, and he didn't want to say "Dore" because that was just stupid.
"Don't have one." Said Theo. Julius paused for a moment before speaking. "Alrighty then." Julius said before continuing down the aisle. It felt was though a mountain of stress had come off of Theos shoulders, he let out a sigh of relief. After Julius went and looked at every single student, he went back up to the front of the class.
"Let's get started then!" Julius said before explaining the basics of blacksmithing as though nothing had just happened. Blacksmithing was the use of mana cores and beast materials to create armor and weapons that helped adventurers, Enhancers, and Conjurers alike.
Julius led the students to the back of the room where the forges were before giving an example.
He took out a glowing luminescent orb and a large bone from a beast. He placed them on the table and slammed his hand on the orb, causing it to exploded into a flurry of colors that went in every which direction. Julius put his hands in the air and the colors started to come back into his hand, he then pointed his hands towards the bone and the colors absorbed into the bone.
Slowly, the bone started to rise into the air as it amalgamated and changed its form all together. Eventually, it turned into a small bone sword that looked very basic. After this, Julius pulled out something of the sort of a kind of beast hide and pointed his hand at it as well.
The beast hide cut itself perfectly and aligned itself to the handle of the bone sword. This sword was the basic sword that was learned by every blacksmith, made of Juuil hide and Orc bones with a combination of an orc mana core.
The presentation looked amazing, everyone in class was slightly in awe. After creating the sword, Julius took it and walked back to the front of the room as everyone's eyes followed. He threw the sword into the ground fiercely as it pierced the concrete and create a small shockwave that blew the faces of everyone in the room slightly.
"By the end of 10 days, you will need to be able to create this sword, if you cannot, then you will be expelled from my class immediately!" Julius said in a calm yet strong tone. After saying this, he walked out of the class room with a casual staunter, leaving everyone starstruck.
They now had a goal of something that seemed to be impossible and something that real blacksmithing professionals knew. Theo was quite determined to complete this task, after seeing Julius's beautiful demonstration, Theo found the art of blacksmithing much more attractive.
If he wanted to become the strongest person free from all liabilities, he needed to perfect this piece of craftsmanship. Theo walked over to the back of the room to one of the tables next to the forges. Each table held an array of different materials differing from hides to bones to other body parts. In addition to these parts, each table also held smaller mana cores that emitted a miniscule amount of light, still, this was very impressive.
Normal mana academies wouldn't bother wasting any type of mana cores on students that will most likely fail to make anything. Theo picked up one of the orbs and put it on the table. He then crushed it with his palm and just like before, it exploded into a flurry of colors. He then put his hand out and tried to absorb the mana.
He imagined that he was performing a shock fist to try and absorb the mana. Surprisingly, the mana actually started to come to him, but after completely being absorbed, Theo no longer had any control of it.
Suddenly, a burst of refreshing energy synergised thorughout Theo. He felt refreshed and rejuvenated. Theo then realized that instead of controlling the mana and trying to move it into the materials, he had just absorbed the mana into himself.
Theo wasn't a conjurer, this meant that he could not perform blacksmithing. This was a big dilemma, he wanted to pass this class and learn blacksmithing. If he couldn't do blacksmithing, this meant that he also couldn't learn alchemy.
As Theo started to think, he got a message from the system.
<9>
That was all he was told by the system. It was an utterly confusing message but he didn't care to think about it because he had other things on his mind such as the fact that he may never be able to perform blacksmithing or alchemy ever in his life.
Even though this dilemma stood strong, Theo did not lose hope just yet. He still wanted to believe that there was a way in which he could somehow be able to perform the act of emitting mana. He needed to find a way to become a conjurer.
After this class was over, Theo had lunch class at the canteen. After he arrived there, he saw Leon already in his usual seat eating food. After a usual lunch, the two of them headed to their next class which was combat class.
Although he was discouraged, he still was quite motivated in his enhancer progress. The students grouped up in front of Greek. "A change of plans in this semester! Usually we don't do this until the first couple of weeks in combat class, but for some reason the school board has ordered this from all combat class teachers. They said it was due to a certain request." Greek started to yell out to everyone in the room so that they all could hear him, this was important.
Students started to get curious as to what was so important and what Greek was talking about. "After the first couple of weeks of schooling, we take you guys out to a very weak, starter-level dungeon. That is a course for adventuring and also for basic combat help." Greek paused and looked around the room. "However, because of the random demands of the school board, we will be taking you all to your first dungeon starting tomorrow! Because you guys are still little maggots with no experience or skill, there will be extra teachers that will be joining us on this adventure. Use today to get ready!" Greek finished.
Students were either happy, confused, or upset with no in-between. This was amazing to some, an adventure experience so early on, it sounded very fun. Others who thought more about it were worried about if they could even survive with the others, dungeons weren't places to be laughed at, it was a place where many easily lost their lives. Most of the students were simply confused as to who this person was that curved the decision of the entire school board.
This school board was a tribunal meeting between three of the most prominent academies known on the planet, for it to all completely waver towards someone's request was absolutely unheard of. After a little bit of chatter, everything went back to the usual combat class.
"Leon! How about a duel?" Said Theo, looking over in Leons direction. Leon simply smiled and entered one of the rings, soon followed by Theo. Theo wanted to test the difference in strength between the two and wanted to see how much Theo had improved.
As soon as Theo stepped into the ring and looked at Leon, Leon dashed towards him. He ran in an unorthodox pattern so his movement couldn't be tracked easily. Before he knew it, Leon was already only a couple of feet away from Theo.
Leon started pulling his sword out of its hilt, noticing this, Theo instinctively pulled out his rod from behind his ear and guarded the strike of the sword that almost hit him. At this moment, Theo realized that Leon wasn't going to be holding back at all, rather than a duel, this felt like it was going to be a battle to the death.
Theo pushed Leon back with his rod and then used streak step to get behind him in an instant, as he started to push his rod into Leon's back, Leon suddenly turn around, spinning his body and completely avoiding the attack.
Theo felt a strong force hit his jaw that knocked him back. Leon had hit Theo in the jaw with his palm. Theo was confused as to how Leon knew exactly where he was, but mostly he was confused as to how he managed to avoid that blow.
Getting himself back up, Theo decided to not use streak step in the same way again, he could only do it once more.