Max was woken up by the alarm coming from his phone signaling it was already 7 am, he begrudgingly stopped it and tried not to fall asleep immediately, unluckily, he managed to stay awake and get ready to go to school, his mom packed him a sandwich for lunch, which was quite unlike her but he took it anyway and ate it for breakfast while on the bus.
Once he got to school he went straight for the Principal's Office, this time he went in without knocking.
Inside the Office was... no one, it was empty, Max went back outside of the Office just in time to see the Principal walking over with another student that seemed to be Max's Age.
"Oh, I hope you weren't waiting too long for my arrival Max, here's the student that will guide you on your first day in the Short Range Combat Department, Gareth, this is Max, Max, this is Gareth!" The Principal looked at them both expectantly.
Max looked at Gareth with curiosity, he looked like a rather average Wind Elemental, the color of his eyes was turquoise and the wind that made up his hair seemed... darker, in some strange way, he also wore the uniform of the Short Range Combat Department and its recognizable coat of arms, a Warhammer and a Spear forming an X with a Sword in the middle.
"Nice to meet ya!" Gareth extended a hand that Max quickly shook as he responded "Same, I never thought I would actually end up in the Short Range Combat Department... I can't wait to see how it is!"
Gareth chuckled "Oh believe me... you've made the worst mistake of your life- Joking! Kinda... Let's get going so i can show you around!" Then he started walking away and Max quickly followed under the watchful eyes of the Principal.
"So uh... what do you guys normally do? Just train?" Max asked, suddenly nervous.
"Heavens, I wish... Prof Bronn has us doing exercises all the time, we haven't even touched a real weapon yet! Just wooden sticks..." Gareth grunted "It's literal hell, it's barely been a week and two have already dropped off..."
"Uh... that's concerning..." Max replied, suddenly sweating.
"Yeah, Prof Bronn even treats us like soldiers rather than students, hate that guy... it's not all bad though, when we're done with the exercise we go to Miss Pate's class, she teaches us all about Elemental Beasts, where to hit to hurt em', how to find a weak point, etcetera... oh, we also have Wilderness Survival classes with Prof Oberis, we learn stuff like first aid, how to purify water without a Water Elemental, and he's even going to teach us how to butcher Elemental Beasts! Though we're still on the theorical stuff with that one... what else... Oh right! You gotta choose an elective to do, it's pretty cool, you just choose something you like, show up, and boom, you don't even have to do the stuff, the teacher is just there to see we don't set things on fire or beat the crap out of eachother, honestly... props to the guy who came up with that, I would have already gone crazy if I didn't have my three hours of beauty sleep on art class."
Max nodded along when Gareth explained everything "That... actually sounds fun! Yeah, class with Professor Bronn will probably suck but everything else sounds pretty great." Max gave a genuine smile.
"Oh, and I forgot about the sweetest deal of all... Free lunch" When Gareth finished speaking it felt like a bombshell had gone off in Max's brain.
"FREE LUNCH?! How?!" He looked at Gareth, stupefied.
"Heck if I know, you can just grab wathever you want and it's yours! You better eat it though, if they see you wasting food say bye-bye to your free lunch privileges" Gareth chuckled.
"This place sounds better and better by the second." Max's eyes seemed to sparkle and his mouth watered as he thought about an all you can eat buffet.
"Hey! Save that for lunch, we're going to Prof Bronn's class now" Gareth grunted and pointed at a class room they we're getting closer to "Better get ready to sweat like you've never sweated in your life"
Max gulped "Is it really that bad?"
"No, it's worse" Gareth sighed and opened the door to the bigger than average classroom, causing everyone that had already sat down to look at them as they walked over to the teacher's desk.
Seeing them come in, Professor Bronn got up from his desk "Oh, so this is the new Cadet? Good riddance, I was about to explain why we're here rather than on the field, Please sit down."
Gareth went to sit down on his desk while Max went for the only other desk that was unoccupied, which was on the front row.
Professor Bronn moved over to being front and center of the barely used chalkboard, he was wearing a brown leather jacket and green camo pants, Max couldn't tell his element as he was wearing a beret and sunglasses "Now that all the cadets are here and almost all of you had some time to acclimatize to your new hours, me and the other Professors have decided that it's time to tell you about something we do every year for the new Cadets, as I'm sure you know by now, the first year is mostly based around finding your chosen weapon and going through basic combat training, with the final test being a combat exam against me to see how much you have grown, the second year on the other hand is based around deepening your understanding of your chosen weapon and basic team combat, with the final exam being a team fighting against an Elemental Beast, while the third and fourth are about putting to the test and sharpening everything you learned on the first two, Now you may be asking yourselves "what does this have to do with anything?", right? Well, the Short Range Combat Department has 10 slots to give to their most promising and talented first-year Cadets, the Cadets that manage to obtain and keep these slots throughout the second and first year will be given a weapon made with materials attuned to their element, thus getting a certain advantage when the final exam of the second year comes around, they will also get to keep these weapons, as they will be custom made for them.
This weapon will be your companion for a very long time, even after you graduate college most likely, so it's going to be an immense help in your future, I'm sure you all understand how important this is...
That's why I'm telling you to give it your all, not only on combat, but also on learning with Professors Pate and Oberis, as we will be judging your performance in all of our classes, so you all lazy bums better not slack off in any of em'! because not only is wisdom the origin of power, I will also make sure you pay for it with sweat and tears!"
Only when Professor Bronn stopped talking did the whole class turn into an uproar of students talking and discussing between eachother, which stopped a few minutes later when the professor talked again.
"Now that we're done with the surprises... Let's go to the field and start the day proper, shall we?" Professor Bronn smiled while many students groaned "You've heard me, better give it your all or I won't even consider you for the slots!" With the groaning over the professor walked out of the classroom while the students followed, Max looked around the rapidly emptying classroom, confused.
"Wait- are we leaving our stuff here-?" Max whispered, mostly for himself, but a voice with a snarky tone coming from behind him responded.
"Yeah, what? do you think someone will risk getting expelled just to steal your shitty phone?"
Max turned around and came face to face with a seemingly overconfident Lightning Elemental.
"Uh... I don't know... it just seems weird, don't we have lockers?" Max asked.
"Yeah, but if you're gonna risk coming late just to leave your stuff in your locker be my guest, Prof Bronn will have your head on a pike in no time" The Lightning Elemental snickered and walked out of the classroom.
"That guys a prick" Max voiced out loud, quite annoyed.
"Don't have to tell me twice, on the first day of school he tried to hit on all the girls of our class but the bastard didn't even talk to me!" An annoyed voice sounded to the left of Max.
"Yeah, who wouldn't want to ask out our Crystal Giantess?" Gareth's voice oozed sarcasm as he suddenly appeared to the left of Max's vision.
Then who Max thought was a Glass Elemental appeared from his left side and looked at Gareth with anger, slamming her fists on Max's desk.
She was... weird, rather tall for their age and looked nothing like the many Glass Elementals Max had seen, her hair looked like actual half-molten glass, mirroring a rainbow of muted colors, her eyes we're a dull silver and she wore the same uniform of the Melee Combat Department Max now noticed he didn't have.
"Hey, I was just joking! Geez, talk about a difficult audience..." Gareth looked around and noticed they we're the last students on the classroom "Shoot- We better hurry before Prof Bronn starts the daily run, I won't be dragged down under because you fools wanted to have a chat!" Then he ran off and out of the classroom.
The supposed Glass Elemental wanted to retort but decided to screw it "Better hurry, you don't want to find out what Prof Bron does to the students that get to class late-" And with that she ran off, or atleast tried to before stopping "My name is Vitria by the way, nice to meet you-!" And then she was off, for real this time.
Max took a few seconds to process what happened and hastily took off, following Vitria.
•••••
"Please just kill me..." Max groaned while panting for breath on the ground.
"Huff... be glad it's over..." Gareth responded, laying on the ground too.
"C'mon, it wasn't that bad..." Vitria was doing stretches while the other two looked at her with hateful eyes.
"How can you be so energetic?! We went through 3 hours of hellish exercise, I flexed muscles I didn't even know I had!" Gareth retorted, but then went right back to panting.
"You're just out of shape, and that's what the exercises are for! You'll see how healthy you're going to get after a couple of months of this." Vitria chuckled and finished her stretches.
"Heavens, I think my stomach is going to cannibalize itself, please tell me it's almost time for lunch..." Max quivered while trying to move his aching body.
Vitria checked her phone "Yup, it's in like 5 minutes, let's get going before they grab all the good stuff, I swear we have piranhas rather than classmates..."
Max painfully got up and complained "That's the hard part done atleast... Heavens, this hurts so much..."
"You should have the orange tea they serve on the cafeteria, it's great for dealing with pained muscles!" Vitria gave him a tip while helping Gareth get up from the ground.
"Thanks... Let's get going then, I really want to try those chocolate-stuffed cookies again..." Gareth's mouth watered as he and Max slowly walked towards the school building, with Vitria keeping her pace slow to not leave them behind.
Once inside the cafeteria Max and Gareth stuffed their trays with a 5 course meal while Vitria got herself a plate of baked potatoes, grilled meats and 2 burgers.
"You're right, the cookies are literally to die for-" Max continued to shove food down his gullet, not much different from what Gareth was doing.
"Ugh, can you two atleast chew? It sounds like you're eating slop rather than actual food! And you're probably going to get an upset stomach later..." Vitria called them out so they started eating more slowly, yet still fast.
"Sorry, it's just so good..." Max responded as he finished his food "I don't think I've ever ate so much in a single sitting..."
"Talk for yourself, on the first day I skipped breakfast and ended up going for seconds after eating a tray just as full as this one!" Gareth boasted.
"Yeah, and almost puked while on Miss Pate's class! she had to ask me to take you to the nurse's office, I don't even understand why you're boasting about it..." Vitria retorted.
"Talking about Professor Pate, we should be on our way to her class..." Max checked his phone "Shit! It starts in two minutes!"