"The last bend, finally!" I spoke with relief
Up ahead was the Mage building which, looked just the way it was explained;
"After turning the last bend you'll notice a cluster of buildings at the edge of the forest, they each have different logos on them but the colors are all blue. That's the place, you literally cannot miss it" she'd said. Well she was right this time.
The blue everywhere did not fit in well with the forest, why were Energy forms even color coded?
I was running with all my focus. I even forgot the reason I was running and just got into it.
I guess being an athlete was one of my many dreams I had lost along the way, who even remembers all of them.
At some point it felt like something was about to him me and I instinctively tensed, but it just turned out to be a weird noise and a draft from behind.
"For a second there I thought I was going to suddenly get attacked, haha" no but seriously why did these classmates of mine suddenly decide to chase me?
I was right in front of the largest building's yard now. I didn't even see a thin thread in front of me until I ran past it.
Then from somewhere in the school some fireworks exploded dyeing the sky with blue sparklers briefly before dying out.
'Did that have something to do with me?' I thought while looking at the last blue light fade
"Congratulations"
"Who?" I shouted in shock.
A huge man with a hairy face like The Wolverine appeared besides me causing me to fall on my butt.
The second thing I noticed was his ripped bod. In a sleeveless black robe reaching his ankles his face combined with his huge muscles was giving off a very imposing vibe.
I noticed the arm because he was extending one of those ripped arms to me; it took a moment to realize that he was stretching his hand to give me a boost from the ground.
He was easily above my height, looking down on me like a mountain.
I held onto his arms and could feel the sheer power behind it. He pulled me upward in one fell swoop easily and watched while I picked up my uniform that I unintentionally dropped from the ground.
It took a second for my brain to reboot and realize that he just said congratulations, so he must not be bad. Next question is-
"I am Klein Okevi, head of the Mage Department. I teach third years" he's head of all the sub-classes? He doesn't look like it. He kinda has that strongman vibe.
Your fellow classmates call me Mr Klein." He said
Then as if he taught of something he added "Or Mr Beast, because I'm a beastman and I'm beast like."
'Beastman?' I gave him a once over again to confirm but I didn't notice anything different from a normal human, in fact, he was the most human-like person I'd ever seen since I got here.
Well, he's very hairy' I thought looking at the hairs on his arm that looked like a small forest, then I looked to the bush he was keeping on his face and head.
'He really looks like The Wolverine's bigger brother, oh, I forgot the wolverine actually had a bigger, stronger brother, Sabretooth!'
'Anyways, what about my classmates.' just as I thought of that the others arrived and he turned to face them.
'Let's see how you want to act in front of a teacher' I already thought smugly
They skipped past the green haired girl and a blonde boy who was she was dragging over here by the scruff of his shirt and got here, with them occasionally sneaking me glances of hatred or jealousy for some reason?
One of them angrily stepped forward to confront Mr Klein while throwing angry glances at me.
"Sir, the Challenge wasn't fair! He's a Trainee Mag-" he stopped
Mr Klein calmly moved forward with his imposing momentum.
"Every one of you NINNIES, get down and give me 10 pushups!" he barked madly at them. From where I stood It looked like he suddenly transformed into a monster. His eyes were dead serious, like a predator's and the muscles on his arms bulged causing him to expand in size to look even bigger than he already was.
The students, save the boy who was being dragged all got down and started doing military pushups in the midst of themselves, it was madness!
The girl even dropped the boy's upper body and rushed to do pushups leaving him to almost fall until Mr Klein released some blue energy from his outstretched hands and brought him next to me.
Firstly, I would like to say that I didn't know Mana was blue.
And secondly the way they were doing pushups was like they had NO muscles in their arms! They were supposed to be going up to down, but they were moving side to side!
And thirdly; Now that he was closer, I found that I recognized him instantly!
"You're Jason, right?" I asked not sure if I got the name right, but then suddenly the people who were on the ground doing 'wobbly' pushups broke out into laughter
"Hahaha! This sneaky snake's name is Jason? Lol"
"Joshua's here? Didn't he switch schools or something?"
"No, Zayn from Psychic brutalized him! How haven't you heard this?" another added, reprimanded his peer for his ignorance.
"Oh, yeah. The school platform was all about it for months? I guess we need to change the name of all those stickers to Jasoncrying.jpg or shipjasonandhospitalbed.jpg"
Laughter filled the atmosphere as the people on the floor couldn't stop themselves from laughing
"Isn't that your name?" I asked unsurely.
"It's Joshua!" he shouted while feeling aggrieved inside. These snakes! Who were they calling a snake? They clearly noticed him before and were just putting up a show!
If he didn't step up and correct this it might cause his plan to reestablish himself to backfire.
"Oh! Joshua Lancaster! I've heard many things about you" I said finally realizing where I'd seen him; in that poster video for brutality. I didn't say what type of things I'd heard about him or that he was played by his crush who was still laughing to this day.
He was also among the widely hated group of people called Space Mages. In a way, we were already like brothers…
The people were getting lost in their laughter but they forgot that they still had someone looking over them.
"Everybody who laughed! Do five more!" I heard that shout in front of Mr. Klein followed by a multitude of groans from over half of the class before they immediately got back to their horrible attempts at pushups.
"C'mon guys. Just imagine you're burying Joshua into quicksand with every pushup!" the green haired girl spoke already doing it with greater ferocity.
Shortly after the others followed suit. I turned to look at Joshua who looked like tears were about to start coming out of his eyes.
But their ferocity didn't last long, soon after they started collapsing in droves out of sheer exhaustion. The only ones that managed to complete the routine were a few who were at the forefront of the group.
"Okay, now that you guys have sufficiently warmed up I will address the elephant in the room" he started.
"Some of you were probably going to push for the cancellation of this Challenge, boycott it even. But I say… no." he said softly while looking them in the eye one by one.
"He won so he won"
'I won a Challenge?' suddenly it all clicked. The pushing and shoving, the finish line, and the fireworks."
'It was a race…' haha. Hahahaha you can't write this shit!'
Try as I might I couldn't help but make funny faces as I tried to suppress a laugh, ending up making weird faces
"Hey, is he laughing? He's laughing at us!"
"Yeah. What a crazy fellow" someone added
But they had no idea how funny it was! I was just jeje-ly on my own planning to taking a light walk through the forest when they suddenly came and chased me all the way to the finish line. They basically handed a competitor the thing they were after!
It felt like a proverb could be used in this situation!
Like don't shoot yourself in the foot or 'Never interrupt you enemy when he's making a mistake?
"Pfft-Hahahaha" I laughed to myself.
"I vote crazy fellow"
"Me too"
"He's definitely crazy"
Even Mr Klein had to stop his address and stare at me before I could stop.
"…Anyways, the reason why I set this race as the theme for the competition for Mages who haven't reached the Beginner rank was to teach because it has to do with what we'll be doing from now on.
I bet some of you think because he is new to Training, some of you might argue that since the Body Reforming hasn't started in its entirety he should have been disqualified, right?" he paused to let them think it over
"Wrong!" he continued knocking them out of their thoughts
"I gave you a test knowing that all of you were going to be put on the back foot, well, except Svensson over there" he pointed to the red haired dwarf that was tied up. 'Is that why he was tied up? Because he was competition?
"The Body Reform process only lasts for the early stages of your Energy Training. Your body is using the Mana it's absorbed to build up a type of body made just for Mana, which means less of other things, like your muscle strength and a slight intelligence drop. Once you make it to the Beginner stages your physical index is going to return back to its base form so it'll be like you never lost or gained anything. Is that you guys want? Nothing?
"Well what do we do then?"
"From today forward we'll be training your fitness!"
"We'll be doing a special set of exercises that focus on building your strength without getting in the way of your Mana Body's development so when your body returns to its based form you'll be able to contend even with normal Mutants on equal footing!"
"Sir, what of Pugilists" somebody asked, causing the eyes of the rest of them to shine a little.
"Are you a combat Mage like Svensson, too?" Mr Klein asked him
"No, sir" the young Mage replied honestly
"Then don't 'freaking' get yourself killed, you idiots!" he replied to all of them, killing any notions they all had of beating Pugilists in a battle of strength.
'Tsk, what a bunch of un-realists'
"So each and every one of you better shape up! In fact you should be grateful that you lost to someone with a higher Physical Index than you, this should serve as a wake up call to you people, because I expect you all to be able to beat freshmen in a physical duel by the time we're done here!" he spoke with conviction, as if he would force them to do it even if they were exhausted half to death!
That will be all the talk for today.
'Wow, so apparently here, juniors are stronger than their seniors?
Then he turned to me and just gave me a look… was I supposed to introduce myself.
"Hey, guys" I said half nervously the other half putting up a not nervous front and winning somewhat.
"My name is Eze-Emeka Nnamdi." I spoke in one breath before calming down.
But just call me Eze. I just came here yesterday from abroad and haven't even gotten to training yet, but I hope to quickly catch up with all of you. That is all." I felt nervous addressing everybody, but I think it went okay?
"Well Damn." Someone exclaimed 'What, what did I do wrong!'
"Yep, crazy"
'What did they mean? How was I crazy? Did they not like my birth name? I could use a nickname!
"Yeah, the fact that he can say that so openly means he might be overly optimistic, overly optimistic or overly unaware. Either ways, he's definitely a crazy fellow!"
It felt like we were just going round in circles.
"Eze, there's a thing called Energy affinity or E.A.R, never mind, we're graduating in 6 months and you're just starting. It looks like the only way out is for you to repeat a year" Mr Klein said sadly
'Repeat a year?' Hell no!