"Are you ready?" Corey asked, taking up a fighting stance.
"Yeah," Benjamin replied. He had lost every sparring match he had so far and was getting frustrated.
Corey lunged at Benjamin, swinging his hammer at him.
Benjamin raised his sword and blocked the attack. Benjamin used his sword to knock the hammer out of Corey's hands.
The hammer hit the floor with a loud thud. Benjamin tried to push forward, performing a horizontal slash.
However, Corey caught his wrist and forced him to drop his sword.
Corey pushed Benjamin back and called his hammer back to him as Benjamin made a dash for his sword.
Before Benjamin could reach his sword however, Corey slammed his hammer into Benjamin.
Benjamin was knocked into the air, landing on his back. "That's a wrap," Corey said, helping Benjamin up and handing him his sword.
"That hurt man," Benjamin said, massaging his chin.
Corey was a black male about the same height as Benjamin and had a good amount of muscle tone that was further complemented by his gym clothes.
He had a beard and thick hair, similar to an afro.
Benjamin was white, with long hair. His muscle definition was present, but lesser than Corey's.
They both looked over at their teacher, Coach Chrisante.
Coach Chrisante was white and heavily muscled, especially in his calves. He was taking notes on his laptop while shaking his head.
"At least you got more wins today than usual," Corey said, trying to boost his spirits. Even though what Corey said was true, it didn't do much to boost Benjamin's spirits. "I won 2 out of 12 matches," Benjamin said.
"I would've had to give you a 17% if I were grading that," Coach Chrisante said, "But I'll give you a 100 because you improved."
Coach Chrisante typed the grade into his gradebook. He closed his laptop and looked at Benjamin.
"Benjamin, you need to stop treating humans like low level monsters," he said, "Humans will use tactics and strategies to defeat you and so will high level monsters.
Think about that the next time you fight someone."
Benjamin nodded and walked over to the bleachers and sat down.
Benjamin was a paladin, a person with special abilities that stemmed from their soul.
About one third of the world population were paladins and their job was to defend humans from monsters and other humans.
Of course, paladins were ranked based on their abilities.
Benjamin's lackluster abilities placed him on the low end of this scale.
Besides being slightly faster, stronger, and more durable than the average human, Benjamin had the ability to use shadows to empower his attacks.
His use of the ability, however, wasn't proficient enough to boost his rank.
Benjamin only had a scale rank 1.9 and ranked 30th in his class.
This was extremely weak considering that with his ability he should rank at least 3.0 by now.
For comparison, his friend Corey ranked 2nd in their class and had a scale rank of 4.0. His ability was magnetism.
Benjamin looked at his reflection in the sword. It'd been like this ever since Benjamin was young.
His soul was so weak that the doctors thought he had come out as a regular human.
Once he had been proven to be a paladin, he experienced bullying because of his weakness.
At first, Benjamin hadn't really cared since most kids were weak at that age but as he grew up, the power difference started to become more noticeable.
It eventually got to a point where Benjamin was the only kid getting picked on because of his low rank.
I'm not even ranked the lowest, I'm close to the middle, Benjamin thought. Benjamin was still seething with anger and resent when the bell rang.
He threw his bag over his shoulders and walked out of the gym, paying no mind to Corey and the others.
He walked down the halls of the South Carolina Paladin Institute, weaving between the bustling kids and straight into Charles, one of his friends.
Charles was thinner and lighter than Corey but still had good muscle definition.
"How the hell did you get here before me?" Benjamin asked, rubbing his forehead. "I took the shorter way around," Charles replied.
"Of course you did," Benjamin said, sighing. "What's that supposed to mean?" Charles asked as Benjamin walked past him.
Benjamin found his dad waiting for him the moment he got outside. Benjamin's dad was big.
His muscle definition wasn't as present as Coach Chrisante's, but you could tell from a glance that he was strong.
He reached out to grab the car door handle, however, a sword flew in front of him, nearly chopping his hand off.
A few freshmen chased after it like kids chasing a ball. Benjamin pulled open the car door and got in.
"Hi dad," he said. "Hey Ben," his dad replied, "How was school?" "Fine," Benjamin replied.
Benjamin's dad looked over at him, raising an eyebrow.
"More bullying?" he asked. "Not really," Benjamin replied, "Just coming to terms with some things."
"Hmmm," his dad replied, "Well, I've got to stop by the blacksmith shop to smelt down some suits of armor.
It shouldn't take too long, but why don't you try to get some training in while we're there."
"Sure," Benjamin said, barely paying attention. Benjamin's dad parked the car.
They got out and walked into the building. The heat of the furnaces hit Benjamin in the face immediately.
He walked past several suits of rusty armor. Benjamin walked into the back room as his dad walked behind the counter to tend to the furnaces.
He threw his bag and sword down and looked at the shelves full of rusty armor and weapons. A few of the lights were out, shrouding some corners of the room in shadow. Kind of unnerving to train here, Benjamin thought.
He sat down in the middle of the room and closed his eyes. The sounds of the furnaces began to fade away as Benjamin began to focus on his soul.
Paladins had the ability to increase their control over their souls by meditating and concentrating their soul energy.
It allows paladins to increase their ability power, though this usually happens at an extremely slow rate. Benjamin opened his eyes to find himself in a black void.
This was where he usually ended up while meditating so it didn't bring any alarm to him. Let's get started, he thought.