Kaos was still feeling a bit tired from the previous day of arena games, and it had given him some serious brain fog in the magic engineering class that morning. Vasai had waited by the entrance to the classroom and flagged down Gilt whenever he came in. While most days were dueling and drills, the addition of a few professors made Kaos think that they might be doing something else today.
"Listen up!" Dren'Dek called, "These are professors Ain'Sen, and Bal'Dek. Last week you all filled out information about your wishes, and using that, as well as your current combat capabilities that I have seen in this class, you are going to split into groups more tailored towards your current wish and combat level."
The man that Dren'Dek had gestured to as Ain'Sen stepped forwards. He was wearing a long white coat, and had wavy blonde hair that came down a little past his shoulders. He looked fairly young compared to the other teachers, but he had an air of confidence about him. Despite this, Kaos knew from his title that he wasn't a warrior and hoped he wouldn't be in his group.
"I know what you're thinking. Why is someone with a Sen title going to lead a group in the Dek class? The answer is rather simple, I don't know much about combat, but I know a lot about wishes, and how to make them stronger. A good portion of you have not discovered what your wish is, you will be in my group, and by the end of the day you will know what it is."
He looked back to Dren'Dek who nodded in thanks for the introduction.
"If you checked the box on the paper where you didn't know your wish, follow Ain'Sen." Dren'Dek began, "For everyone else, I will call your name and designate your group."
"Well that's me!" Nolly whispered a little nervously to the group.
"May you shoot lasers from your eyes, and slaughter your enemies!" Vasai saluted with a comically serious face.
Nolly gave a laugh that seemed to mostly be from nervousness, and nodded, walking away stiffly.
"Big day for her I guess?" Gilt chuckled.
"Yeah…" Kaos replied, squinting at the two remaining professors, "How do you think they'll split up the other two groups?"
"I mean as long as I get a Dek professor I'm fine." Gilt said, adjusting the longbow on his back.
After everyone had been assigned to their groups, Kaos and Vasai found themselves in Bal'Dek's group, while Gilt had been sent to Dren'Dek's group. About twenty out of the ninety or so students went with Dren'Dek, about thirty went with Ain'Sen, and the other forty or so were here in Bal'Dek's group with Kaos and Vasai.
"So…" Bal'Dek said, "I'm sure a lot of you are happy you didn't have to go with Ain'Sen, like this is a good group to be in just because I'm a Dek professor. But that isn't true."
Kaos looked around at the other students who had also become a lot less confident… all except for Vasai, that is, who was still listening intently, yet seemed to be unphased by the slightly threatening words of Bal'Dek.
"I'll get right to the point," the professor continued, "you are in this group because we are unsure that you have the potential to go much higher."
Kaos's heart sank a little. He knew that much himself, but to hear it so bluntly from a professor of the Dek class was an unpleasant experience. He felt Vasai kick him in the back of the leg, which got his attention, but didn't turn around for fear of the professor scolding him in front of everybody.
"Quit overthinking, and if the ceiling of your potential is too low, then figure out how to raise it." Vasai whispered to him.
They seemed like cheap words with how simple he made it sound, but Kaos appreciated the encouragement and nodded, still not looking away from the professor.
"Ain'Sen's group is for people who need to find or strengthen their wishes for combat." Bal'Dek continued loudly, "Dren'Dek's group is for the ones who already have strong combat wishes, and just need to learn technique. They are either already in the Dek class, or have the highest chance of getting into it out of all of you."
"This isn't a bad group to be in though…" Bal'Dek said a little more quietly while sweeping his eyes across the array of students, "It's just a bad group to stay in. If I deem you good enough, I'll send you to Dren'Dek's group, if I deem your wish weak, but combat worthy, I will send you to Ain'Sen's group. But just know that if you are in this group for the remaining two weeks that we will be having them, then it might be a good idea to give up on any ideas about joining the Dek class… much less staying in it."
Kaos felt a little better, after all, Vasai was here and he was by no means weak, he just must not have had a wish that was usable in combat. Then again, Kaos had just been assuming that Vasai didn't know what his wish was, but if that had been the case, then he would have gone to Ain'Sen's group, so now he was getting a little curious as to what it was.
This thought quickly vanished from his mind, as Bal'Dek began turning a crank on the wall that made a small dueling ring arise from the hexagonal tiles.
"You and you, get in the ring." Bal'Dek called, pointing at two students, "I'll call the match over, otherwise continue dueling."
The two students climbed the fence-height wall, and faced each other, preparing to fight. One had a spear, and the other had a longsword, but both of them looked a little out of shape. Kaos looked around, and noticed the familiar face of Bon who had previously taken things too far after losing to Vasai.
"Can't believe I'm in the same group as that guy." he mumbled to himself as the fight began.
"Stop!" Bal'Dek yelled, making both of the students jump a little, "Both of you get out, and stand over by that wall. You and you get in and fight now." he continued, pointing to two more students who seemed a little bewildered with the fight that only went for about thirty seconds.
Most of the fights went this way, but occasionally Bal'Dek would tell one student to stay in the ring and fight a few other students. It only happened twice, but if, after fighting a few students, he approved, he would immediately send them to Dren'Dek's group on the other side of the room. About five or six times though, he consulted the paper he was holding and sent the students to Ain'Sen's group.
There weren't many students who hadn't fought yet, which made Kaos worry a little that he would have to fight Vasai, but as the thought was crossing his mind, he was called into the ring, coincidentally, to fight Bon.
Bon had his usual scowl, war hammer, and didn't seem to have lost any weight. He nodded at Kaos, and glanced at Vasai momentarily, before taking a heavy swing at Kaos to begin the fight.
It seemed that Bon had definitely improved quite a bit, and was a lot less sloppy with his attacks, but he was clearly weaker than Kaos.
He dodged another attack, and as he did so, drew Mallyjax's crossbow, and instinctively pointed it at Bon's chest before both he and Bon realized how dangerous of a situation this was, and both turned their heads towards Bal'Dek.
"What? Scared somebody's gonna get hurt in a combat class?" he replied with a raised eyebrow.
Kaos still hesitated to pull the trigger on the crossbow, but after the slight prodding from the professor, Bon was not as hesitant and swung his hammer wildly towards Kaos's head who barely ducked the swing and fired his crossbow into Bon's large stomach.
Be it the heat of the moment, or Bon's considerable size, he didn't seem to notice that he got hit by the crossbow bolt, and kept swinging wildly with his hammer. The swings were so wide, Kaos was still able to dodge them with relative ease, and after a particularly large swing from Bon, he let two more arrows fly at him, one landing in his chest, and the other joining the first in his stomach.
Bon stopped and looked down at the three arrows protruding from him and turned deathly pale with shock.
"You killed me!" he yelled, falling onto the ground.
"Match over." Bal'Dek called in a slightly bored tone, "Now fix him."
"Oh… right!" Kaos replied, flicking his wrist at Bon, and watching the halo and wings appear above his head. The arrows slid back out of his body and the wounds closed up almost immediately. He realized that as long as the wounds weren't instantly fatal he shouldn't have hesitated to fire. As the other students realized what was happening, there were some murmurs and whispers that Kaos heard about having a strong wish.
"And a lot of good it does me." He grumbled to himself.
"You stay here." Bal'Dek called to Kaos, then turning and pointing at Bon, "You get out of the ring, and stand over by that wall."
After Bon had realized he was, in fact, alive, and the next student had gotten into the ring, Kaos realized that he had done something well enough that Bal'Dek had asked him to fight another round. Whatever it was that he did, he had passed Bal'Dek's first test. If he did well enough here, then maybe he could get into Dren'Dek's group immediately.
His opponent was a slender, and tall male with short hair, and a long spear. Kaos didn't like the amount of combined range his opponent had between his long arms and the spear, but the crossbow would help even that out if he could just dodge the first few thrusts.
"Begin!" Called Bal'Dek, causing Kaos to instinctively jump backwards and ready his fully reloaded crossbow. His opponent jumped forward at a diagonal, causing Kaos's shot to go just slightly wide. He closed the gap, and thrust his spear at Kaos's chest, but he had already readied his short sword to block the attack.
The match was even easier than the last, and it had ended with just two crossbow bolts to the chest.
"You go join Dren'Dek's group." Bal'Dek called to Kaos just as he finished healing his opponent.
Vasai gave him a smile and a thumbs-up as he triumphantly walked across the room to join the group that was the closest to joining the Dek class. Dren'Dek's group was also still doing duels to assess the skills of the students, it looked like the duels were lasting a lot longer, and all the students seemed to be far stronger than everybody from the previous group.
"First step to the big league huh?" came Vasai's voice from behind him.
"It hasn't even been five minutes and you already made it over here?" Kaos laughed.
"Yeah, I just fought one dude and he said I could come over here, so I guess I was just up against somebody weak." He replied with a shrug.
"We both know that's not how it works, but congrats anyway!" Kaos smiled.
Truthfully, he had felt a little special when he had been one of the only three out of the forty to make it out of the group, but after Vasai had so easily done the same, that feeling of being special went away and he was just slightly envious of Vasai's effortlessly natural combat skills.
After just a little longer, the three groups converged back to the center where Dren'Dek laid out the schedule for how long they would be doing these groups, as well as all the various other announcements about future classes before dismissing them.
Kaos, Vasai, and Gilt began walking towards the exit before Nolly caught up with them.
"Sooooo?" Vasai asked, excited to hear about her wish.
"I can reduce the friction between myself and the ground!" She answered excitedly, "So far I nearly broke my neck, and didn't particularly find a use for it, but it's something!"
"I bet that could be pretty good for mobility if you use it right!" Gilt chimed in, "Imagine being able to skate everywhere, you could probably get going really fast!"
"How about you guys? What were your groups like?" she asked
"Well we know we don't suck that bad." Kaos smirked at Vasai who laughed and nodded.
"I'll take that as it went pretty well." She laughed, not really getting the joke, "I'm going to the Dek class's first arena game, I'm going to go and see what I can learn, how about you all?"
"Yeah, I want to see just how strong the Dek class is compared to us, plus Sepra's fighting too." Kaos replied.
He wondered if she had grown stronger, and even more so, wondered if there were others who had even stronger wishes than her. He hadn't gotten to see how she did in the battle royale, but he was definitely interested to see how far she had come in this short time.