A few months had now passed since his initial days at the academy and one thing that Dharen could say confidently is that he was enjoying his time here, well that was until the first set of exams had begun to come around and everyone seemed far more hostile compared to normal.
Even Renna, the third person of the trio that he seemed to have found himself in, had begun to grow far more distant compared to how she normally had been, well at least he still had Jason who was normal enough.
Walking through the halls, to the outer fields, he would be lying if he had said that he did not feel nervous at all, but he was confident. Today, was dedicated to the exams for the physical classes, and he did not really have much worry of anything going wrong, from the start he had been better than the others of the class, and now he could confidently say that he had the skill to be the second best in the class, behind Renna who from the beginning had been the very best.
But knowing all he did now about where she had come from, that was not surprising at all now. The plateau was a dangerous place, although it was only for the Dragon-Kin. They were constantly fighting each other to gain control of the entire region. The children there, were trained on how to fight from when they were young kids, fighting was something everyone from there knew, it was bred into their very bones.
Comparing it to Earth, he could only recall a few past countries that displayed similar militaristic upbringings and chief among them was Sparta, but even the Spartans in there might not have started training their children that early in the ways of combat and war.
Walking into the training grounds, he had found a few people there already, Renna, Jason as well as Percey and his group of friends.
Everyone looked at him momentarily as he had walked in, before they all looked away and focused back onto their warm up routine. Weapons were swung, slashed and thrusted as they all were preparing themselves.
Seeing them all, and not waiting to look like they odd one out, Dharen went to get a weapon from the weapon rank and began to practise much like they all had.
He had gotten a double edged arming sword. It was smaller than what most people used, but it felt the best to himself. And he truly had practised with many weapons, from axes, to daggers, to a wide range of swords including that of a greatsword and yet the this arming sword, always had felt best to himself, not to mention that he could use it with a shield or a dagger if the need arose.
Looking around, he also decided to grab a dagger and he tucked it in, under the belt that he now wore, like all of the other students, who were spotless as normal. The military style training they were under had made everyone a little different and far more tidy than how they had been before they had all come here.
As time went on, more and more people arrived until the last person had arrived, who had been quickly followed by the instructors alongside what looked like some of older students, who all stood to the side smirking as if they had won the lottery.
"Students, today is your first mid-semester exam. It serves two purposes to ensure you have learnt something and it is so we can remove the wheat from the chaff, so to say. Those who do not clear our bottom line will be immediately expelled regardless of how well you did in the other exams."
This caused everyone to begin to mummer among themselves as worry began to set in, but a sudden glare from the instructor soon silenced everyone.
"Now you will all wait outside, and we will call you through a few at the time for their exam. Percey, Jason, Renna and Dharen you will all be first, so you can wait here." His voice truly did not leave any kind of room for argument as everyone else filed out of the room, leaving the four of them.
"Now these are your seniors, final year students. You will be fighting them, and remember no maiming or killing. Good luck and may your Gods bless you for the upcoming fight."
The instructors soon made their way to the side, as they all spread out, each one soon having a senior face to face with themselves.
For Dharen, he had a bulky man face him down, who had blue eyes, black hair and small scar on his cheek. "My name is Max, I hope you can make this at least worth my time Dharen."
Max, then stepped back grabbing his own weapon, a longsword and then turned to face Dharen down, waiting for the indication to start from the instructor.
"Begin!" The yell from the instructor seemed to cause four sonic booms to occur at the same time as the seniors all barreled to the opposing opponents.
All that Dharen could see was a flash of dust and silver flashing towards himself, it seemed to last forever in that moment and yet, slowly Dharen's body reacted to the attack raising the arming sword up so he could parry the attack.
The moment the two blades connected, Dharen could have sworn that it felt as if the ground was cracking below himself. But the feeling lasted for a mere moment, as Max who had just grunted in surprise launched himself into his follow up attack, at a speed no less quickly than what he had seen happen moments ago.
Yet, somehow Dharen bodies reacted and he managed to block the blow again. Dharen felt a little worried as he did not have much control of his own body right now, as it was more reacting to the blows from all of the training and practise that he had done.
This continued on, move after move, Dharen truly having lost count of how long it had been now, he did know though that his body was starting to go numb and his mind was slowly beginning to numb down to, everything was getting darker slowly, but for some reason this did not scare him at all as if it had happened before…
Then as Max finally stopped his attacks and started to say something, everything went silent fully.
The next thing he knew… "Dharen stop!" A scream shot through his mind, lifting the darkness from him, and he found himself on top of Max, his dagger at the throat of the now terrified looking man…
"What happened…."