When the doors to the glass dome opened the feeling of the cool breeze on my face brought my ego back down to earth. The glass dome was something you would expect to see out of a cartoon or a sci-fi movie about survival. The glass dome had hexagon shapes, some large and others small that made up its exterior. The inside was something even I didn't expect. It was almost like I'd arrived at a military boot camp, there were students lined up in single file lines awaiting orders and others arriving behind us. Standing in front of the long lines of students was one man with a gray beard and round belly, his skin was a pale color and his eyes shone with a fierce green light.
"Everyone line up and stretch while I go over today's lessons!" Our instructor shouted and unlike his appearance his voice was actually far lighter than one would image, especially with the nasty scar on his left cheek. Patrica led the way into one of the lines and was in front of the steward whom I was behind in the line.
"Spread out and stretch but make sure not to go far or else you won't understand today's lesson and as you know I never repeat myself twice." While everyone left to stretch I was soon approached by my instructor whose name I came to find out via a small green and yellow name tag was Victor Caddel. I had to say that I didn't feel much pressure from the man who appeared to be looming around the border of six feet but I would say he was actually five feet and ten inches.
"You're the fresh one, alright your name appears to be Marcel…" Instructor Caddel hesitated before letting out a pained sigh and saying my last name. "...King."
"I shouldn't be hard for you to learn the ropes so don't worry anyway it appears you'll be a headache just like that one brutish girl over there. Go stretch and keep your ears perked." He ordered and sent me on my way before confronting the students.
"Everyone today goes as follows, we will be doing another round of Escort, along with Tradiotor and Target. For Escort like usual l one member will contain a scroll that holds important or rather winning information for the attacking team. Whereas one person from the defending team must hold onto the scroll and reach the end of the forest and return and like always the attacking team has only thirty minutes to accomplish the goal or they fail. The one holding the scroll will also be forced to give up any rights of defending the scroll and would only be left with dodging and running away discarding their means of fighting back." Instructor Caddel explained before approaching me and handing me a small white scroll and pointing toward the forest as he stood in between the two single file lines and shouted begin.
"I guess you'll explain the rest later, right?" I spoke without thinking and obtained a strange look from my instructor before he ignored me entirely.
"They'll have a total of five minutes of a head start before I release you."
'Isn't it a little strange to give me the scroll when this is my first time taking part in the lesson?' I thought before shaking my head and rushing into the forest in order to meet up with Patrica and Steward.
'Could this be his way of telling me to prove myself?' I thought as a friend of Steward and Partica's helped form a diamond formation around me and many other teammates surrounded us while we moved to the other end of the forest.
Not a few seconds later and the other group of attackers were upon us! This level of speed was simply astonishing and the fact that I almost hadn't heard them before they approached us also appealed to me.
'Now, this time I'll have to be serious. Especially If I want to move up inside of this institution, which means I can't go easy on them, after all I still have areas I need to improve in as well!' I thought while running away with Steward and Partirca by my side.
Their friend had gone to help our group of defenders slow the momentum of the attackers. It was strange, just how had the group of attackers caught up so fast? After all, once the instructor was done explaining everything I swear I heard him say something about a five minute head start. Maybe they had discovered a faster route through the forest?
I guess there are plenty of variables, after all and I haven't known the instructor for long or been on the attacking team so I can't say for a hundred percent that they cheated. "Marcel watch out!" Steward alarmed me just before blocking a student who had suddenly appeared and had almost taken a swipe at the scroll.
"Marcel, now's the time to act, think less, do more." I spoke to myself in the first person and witnessed many students appearing right in front of my eyes from the path ahead of us. It was almost like they had already been positioned there.
"That's strange I thought that Instructor Cadeel gave us a head start?" Patrica directed her thoughts towards the group as she was pushing someone off my side. Luckily we weren't given weapons or the kid may have had a broken arm.
While she spoke I suddenly had an idea what would be the most effective way for me to maximize my training rather than bulldozing right through the group of people…transferring Ki towards my nervous system! So while facing what was soon to be a sea of students aiming for my scroll I transferred what I'd guessed to be around 0.50 points of Ki to my feet and then the same amount to my nervous system.
"AH!" With a shout Steward was pushed down onto the ground and out of the way. It was inevitable there was now a swarm of students and only two people who could engage them in combat. Once they breached our defenses I had gotten comfortable with moving and soon I dived into the sea of people.
While passing through the crowd my eyes felt as if everything was moving almost a bit slower than it was intended. This was only possible because both my mind and eyes were moving just a bit faster than their, assuming I was matching the average of their stats. And of course I was after all it wouldn't be a lesson with a little bit of a challenge.
I didn't need to fight back, I only needed to dodge and make my way to the end of the forest then return back. As time flowed I was beginning to grasp something, until boom I had it. By concentrating the Ki in my nervous system to the parts which I assume affect my eyes I could enhance their strength and observation abilities even further while lessening the advanced controls of certain portions of my nerves. It was almost like an exchange giving up the power up effect of something to double the output of another and trust me when I say this, it was worth it!
"Left Arm!" I tucked the scroll and dashed under.
"Right leg sweep!" I jumped in the air before rolling onto the ground and running.
"Left leg sweep .. nope a faint for a right arm swipe!" I said before twisting my body mid air.
Reading the moves of those before me was far easier now than it had ever been, even with my advanced stats. I felt like I was far away and all eyes were on me in astonishment after they had been read and outdone. Though even if the strength of the Ki I was using wasn't much my Ki Pool was so small that after around fifteen minutes I was out of Ki and oh man I was exhausted however I somehow managed to last until I made it to the end of the forest and halfway back before the scroll was stolen and some raised it into the air in triumph.
"Yes I did it, I stopped the boy who could see the future!" A boy with just a bit more muscle than Steward said with the scroll pointed to the sky.
Before a series of cheers could erupt like I thought they would, a larger boy crawling with more arm muscle than me smacked the boy in the back of his head and shouted.
"Peter you know that;s not what we decided to call him, it's the Ruler of Time!" Another kid shouted which made my exhausted body and face cringe at the name.
"Ack! Davion, why did you hit me? And why does the boy even need a name, a nameless genius is a dangerous one like dad always says." Peter replied before he and Davion began to argue.
Suddenly the one person who I definitely didn't want to see right now came walking up and said,"Yeah he'll be the Genius of the Unknown, Unknown Genius for short!" Patrica said while looking at me with a sly smile on her face.
All the while I just looked down at the ground in defeat as for today I had been crowned the Unknown Genius, a title that didn't even make sense to me.
'Why couldn't I be the God of Unpredictability or something… no that's bad too.'