With everyone limited in stamina and magical power, there were constant breaks, which also became part of the game that was played between Karl and the mages. He would sit down to recover, but still swat at attacks if someone got lazy and an attack was particularly weak or slow moving.
In the eyes of the supervisor, the lone teacher assigned to watch over the dozen mages in this class, it was the best motivation that they had seen in months. None of these students were good at self motivating, and their abilities weren't strong enough to get them a personal instructor, even one at the low level that Sergeant Rita had reached.
To his trained gaze, the warrior with the Rending Claws was likely to overtake her in power by the end of his first semester, while she had taken three years to make it to the middle of Ascended Rank combat power.
Sergeant Rita was no genius when she had to learn magical powers, but she was a great martial artist, and from what he could see, a superb teacher. Not only had she motivated her own student, it was motivating his as well.
Karl and the others trained together until lunch, after which the mages would be moving to theoretical training to help them learn new spells, and Karl would be moving on to either close combat training or theory classes on how to care for a magical beast and research assignments on the chances of increasing its power more than its species would normally allow.
"Come with us for lunch. It looks like you awakened a pretty cool combat ability right from the start with the ranged claw attacks. Most warriors are boring until they're at least reaching the end of the Awakened Rank, and they can start to hit targets more than two metres away from them." One of the mages informed Karl.
She was a tall and buxom blonde, but with the growth spurt that he had undergone the last few days, she was only a little taller than he was now, and Karl had hopes that he would reach an acceptable height before he had enough classes with others that his reputation as a shorty would precede him. At the very least, everyone seemed to respect his abilities.
None of them seemed to notice that Karl covered an entire plate of raw meat in a drizzle of mana infused monster blood, or that it simply vanished into thin air, they were all more eager to discuss the ways that they had thought of to use their spells to get around his defences.
"I think that if we increase the speed and fire them as double balls instead of a single, we can get at least one through to the target." One of the mages was suggesting.
"Better if you send them a few metres apart, so that the other claws don't hit. Or better, at slightly different speeds, that will make it harder to guess when they will arrive." Another mage sighed. His specialty was ice, and he had a terrible time getting the ice shards to hit the target when they were so easily knocked off course.
"This is a different cafeteria than I'm used to, where are we?" Karl asked.
"Oh, this is the cafeteria in the mage district. There is another in the warrior training area as well, for students who were a long way from the dorm cafeteria at lunch. The foods at each are totally different because they are specialized for the different groups.
The warrior one has more nutrition-based options, designed to build muscle, while ours is more mana rich. The one at the dorm is a mix of everything, but mostly it's used by the students who study in their dorms all morning, the noncombat elites." The tall blonde explained.
"That's good to know. I have to train everything, but today, I definitely need the extra mana. I'm Karl, by the way."
"Molly." The blonde replied.
"Formerly known as Gertrude Dingwall." One of the boys teased.
"But now I'm Molly. It's on my ID card." The blonde replied in an annoyed tone.
"You don't have to put your real name on the sheet, you see. She asked if she could change it when she was on the train, and the guard said they'd call her anything she wrote there. Legend has it that some prankster a few years ago was known as Tater Salad for an entire year before he could get his card changed." One of the other mages informed Karl with a giggle.
Hawk sighed in contentment as he feasted on the upgraded lunch package, courtesy of the red sauce that the not so evil lady had left for him, and Karl sat and joked with the mages for an hour before Sergeant Rita came to inform him of his next training task.
"We will see you all tomorrow morning, but for the afternoon Karl has actual combat training to do. He might have a ranged attack magic, but the Academy has determined that he is still a warrior class."
The mages made praying motions, wishing Karl the best of luck on surviving warrior training as well as ranged casting practice in a single day, then slowly made their way to theory classes with a renewed motivation to learn new spells that would get past his defence.
Karl had been getting better all morning, but they all had thoughts on how to evade his defensive abilities.
As they walked out across the grounds, Rita smiled at Karl's concerned look.
"Relax, it won't be so bad. We're going to the first year unarmed combat classes. It's just basic martial arts, and most of them have very little skill. Your physique is miles beyond most of the other newbies, so you shouldn't have too many problems adapting.
Plus, I brought you one more resource that I scooped from the Mage Class instructor. It's a memory drop, a condensed focusing spell that makes it easier to memorize things. It's not powerful magic, but it's incredible for studying. The Mages get them as a reward when they do well on tests."