"But before having food today, Sabertooth team leader, William, will explain a few things," Isshin informed them and blitzed away. The Sabertooth team leader—William— walked forward and started speaking.
"Good Morning Trainees. From now on I expect you to wake up at this exact time and arrive here to train." William immediately started explaining.
"First of all, you will choose a weapon which you will train on. But before that, you all must have questions about the stages commander Isshin explained about yesterday, right?" The sabertooth team leader looked at the crowd before him, questioning.
Seeing the heads nodding, he smiled and continued, "For now, you need to only know about two stages on the Path of Aura. Cohen will follow another path—the Path of Ability. As he is the only one with an ability here, I will not explain that Path."
William paused, letting the kids absorb information, "Before you get any ideas or become overconfident, Path of Ability or Abilities users for that matter are stronger than us— Path of Aura users. Now, on to the topic. The path of aura has two stages at first namely—Initiate stage and Circulation stage."
Again, William paused and asked, "Are you all with me?"
""Yes!""
"Good. Now, everyone in this world is technically in the initiate stage. The only difference is how much they have trained and how hard they push their body, which leads to Vital energy being refined through the body and being stored in a core called vital core in your heart." Everyone, even Cohen, was listening intensely.
"So all you have to do for now is to train, push your body to your limits, and try to sense your vital energy. Except for Ivar, he is already in the circulation stage. He will do something else that you lot don't need to know now." All eyes, filled with envy and anger, were on Ivar.
"Ah! I forgot to mention but how long time you need to go from the Initiate stage to Circulation also depends on your talent— mainly dependent on how much vital energy conductivity, absorption, and refinement potential your body has. Only one of you, excluding Cohen, has good talent. Others are Average or trash." William mockingly looked at the crowd, crushing most of the kid's hopes.
"There is a reason why everyone in this world isn't in the Circulation stage after all," William smirked.
"Let me tell the name of the person with good talent, it is Aira Gilmore." Aira herself was shocked at the fact but a little part of her was happy. This would make the revenge against Isshin easier.
"Now as for the names of average and below-average ones." William started crushing the hopes of almost half of the trainees.
***
As William finished reciting the names, he ordered the students to pick up a weapon.
"We have the weapons inside the hall, you may choose whatever you like."
The trainees started walking inside the hall and saw the wooden floor, now cleaned of the blood and vomit and the corpses. The weapons were laid on various weapon stands suitable for each weapon.
Ivar obviously walked towards the sword but he didn't expect to bump into a familiar face—Aira.
Aira coldly looked into Ivar's eyes and asked, her voice dry as a desert, "Ivar, I am only asking you because I liked you and still do a little. I don't think you are the kind of a person to be a spy, you even tried to protect me when Isshin attacked. So, How did you already join the demon sect before we even properly woke up? A rank 8 at that and you even are in the circulation stage?"
Ivar was surprised at the lack of the previous hatred in Aira's eyes. Did she think it through when she was sleeping? Honestly, Ivar's reasons for joining the demon sect were selfish. He joined it for himself and his own goals. But Aira didn't need to know that.
"You see Aira. After you were knocked out, Isshin knocked us out too after taunting us for a while. It turns out that as I had been training since I was very young for my goals, I had basically put half my foot into the circulation stage.
So, I woke up from unconsciousness early and Isshin forced me to walk those stairs up the mountain and advance to the circulation stage by surviving in increased gravity in each step of those steps. That's how I was accepted. Like you, I was forced too."
Aira narrowed her eyes, still looking at Ivar, and after a thoughtful pause continued, "I see. Sorry, I misunderstood the situation after seeing you walking proudly with my father's killer." She paused as her brows furrowed, anger radiating from her beautiful red eyes.
She spoke in a firm voice, "I don't know what goal you have. But let's not be enemies, all I want to do at this moment is take revenge. I don't know how long that will take. I won't ask for much but when the time comes and if I need your help, do you promise to help me?"
Aira extended her hand as Ivar took it for a handshake, "Sure. I will."
"Oh that note, What weapon are you going to choose?" Ivar let his curiosity get ahead of him and asked.
"Me?! I will choose to use a sword. You mightn't believe this but both my father and mother used to be mercenaries, although they stopped after my mother got ill. They did teach me a little swordsmanship!" Aira remembered the memories of her childhood, her mood now a lot better.
"What about you? What will you use?" Aira curiously asked as she tilted her head.
"I will use a sword too… And a bow if they allow. To be honest, I have been using different types of weapons so It is quite hard to choose. Although the sword is my go-to weapon." Ivar's talking stopped as he was interrupted by Aira who started joking, "Oh wow! Mr good at every weapon is having a hard time."
A drop of sweat dripped down Ivar's forehead as he hurriedly explained, "I am not bragging!... It's real."
Aira giggled slightly, patted Ivar's back, and smiled, "I know."