System Change

“I wasn’t expecting something so huge,” Derek said to the receptionist turned guide.

“It allows for multiple teams to perform at the same time,” the guide said. “Otherwise, these lessons would take all day, or maybe even longer.”

“I guess I can see that… depending on the class size,” Derek said. From what he’d learned, there wouldn’t be many students with epic rarity classes, but he certainly didn’t find it hard to believe that there could be a lot of students who met the ‘rare class at level 50, and under 16 years old’ requirements to enroll. It may have been very tough to reach for commoner children and children of the lower noble houses, but he felt that might not be the case for the higher tier noble houses.

Plus, with the number of people throughout the kingdom, even with the extremely low rate of rare classes, there would still be a lot of kids who reached it. After that, the academy and its enrollment requirements were well known throughout the kingdom, so it would make sense that if any villager or commoner had a child who reached such a requirement, they would be quick to try to enroll them into the academy.

He also didn’t know the graduation rate, or how long they were able to stay in the academy. So, it made sense that there could be classes with dozens, if not hundreds, of students.

“This allows the students to have their battles in the morning, then enjoy lunch before their afternoon classes,” the man said as he led Derek through the entrance to the arena. “It also allows for quite the massive audience when students have the occasional tournament or exams that are open to the public.”

“Oh? Tournaments?” Derek asked. “That sounds interesting.”

“Yes,” the man answered. “We hold the occasional tournaments for crafting and fighting. There are solo battles against other students, and team battles. Then there are team battles against monsters for the audience to observe. Those are where the support and healers really shine,” he explained. “Unfortunately, we were unable to hold one last year.”

“That sounds cool,” Derek said. He wondered about how other things were planned out, but he wasn’t there for that. It was something he could find out later.

“It is,” the man agreed. “Now, how would you like to do this?”

“Do what?” Derek asked the man.

“Watch, of course,” the man answered. “We have booths reserved for the royal family and their men—which you certainly qualify for—which allow you to watch from above. The king and Prince Edgar like to occasionally view the students’ practice without interrupting them. Those booths are private, and you can choose to make the glass transparent or not to protect your privacy. The default runes are set for one-way.”

A bunch of voyeurs, Derek thought with a chuckle, which got an odd look from the guide.

“Or, if you don’t wish to use a booth, you can make your way to the stands. It will be less private, but odds are, the students won’t see a someone sitting in the stands with how ‘huge’ the arena is. The choice is up to you.”

“I’d hate to disrupt them,” Derek said. “I guess you can just take me to one of the booths.”

“Very well.” The man nodded. “If you would follow me.”

The receptionist then took Derek through some areas underneath the stands, then up a set of stairs. After walking a little longer, they were met with a closed door with a symbol in the center.

“If you would, please place the king’s token on the rune.”

Derek reached over and removed the token from his right sleeve, then gently placed it in the center of the door, where the rune was. The rune soon lit up, then the door slid open. When Derek stepped inside, he was met with an even more extravagant booth than the one he and Alanah had used at the auction.

“Would you like me to show you how to use the runes, or do you already understand them?” the man asked.

Derek looked around the booth and found that most of the runes were the same ones that he’d either learned to use in the Adventurer’s Guild training rooms, or the same ones that were in Alanah’s booth at the auction. Happy with his familiarity with them, he said, “That’s fine. I know what most of them do, and don’t think I’ll need to use the other ones.”

“Great,” the man said. “Then, if you need nothing else of me…”

Derek took a step forward, closer to the man, and put his hand out. “You’ve been very helpful…” he waited for the man to say his name.

“Anthony,” he said. “Anthony Onis, of house Onis.”

“You’ve been very helpful, Anthony.” Derek took his hand and shook it.

“It was my pleasure, sir,” Anthony said. “And an honor to meet you.” He bowed again.

Derek rolled his eyes while the man’s head was bowed, but nodded to him when he raised it.

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“Then I will take my leave.” With that, the man turned around and left. Derek watched as he disappeared down a hall, then placed the token on the door again, causing it to close.

Onis, Derek thought as he found a place to sit in front of the glass, which was apparently one-way at the moment. That’s a noble family name that I haven’t heard of yet… then again… I don’t really know many of them. I could probably throw a rock in the academy and hit a noble student with a house that I’ve never heard of. As soon as he fell into the seat, he hopped up and pulled his own chair out of his storage bracelet while shaking his head. “I’m going to have to send Geoffrey out here to renovate this booth.

With his butt nicely cushioned, Derek leaned forward and looked out the booth’s window to see if he could catch a glimpse of Thomas. The class currently had three teams, all in different areas of the arena, fighting their own ‘boss’ monster. An adult stood next to each group, watching closely—making sure nothing went wrong during the battles. He was happy that it seemed that the academy was a safe place for the students. Maybe I was too hard on Thomas in that insect dungeon,he thought. Then, Nah, it taught him some valuable lessons. And who knows? The instructors may let some harm come to the students before they intervene.

Speaking of students, Derek looked over each one that was currently in battle, but none of them looked like Thomas, especially the lone girl who was using a spear. Unless Thomas grew his hair out really long and changed his hair color to red.

I hope he hasn’t gone yet, Derek thought as his eyes moved from the groups of students that were fighting the beasts and down into the stands where the rest of the class was located. All he could see was the majority of the students’ backs—other than a few who were turned around gossiping. It was hard to make out which one was Thomas—if any of them actually were. For all he knew, Thomas and his group could be under the stands preparing for their turns.

He quickly dismissed all the students that were wearing robes as their battle attire as likely candidates to be his ward, then also those in heavy plate armor. After scanning the back of each person’s head, he found a handful of people in leathers with sandy blond hair that could be him. Without being able to see much more, Derek shrugged and focused on the fights happening in the arena.

The first beast to fall was a gorilla-type monster. A youth with twin daggers had danced his way behind it while the tank held its attention. Then, the assassin had cut vital tendons in its legs, basically hamstringing it, causing its legs to buck and it to fall forward. After that, the other damage dealer with a long sword rushed in and helped the dagger-wielder finish it off. While all this was happening, the healer was locked on to the team’s tank, and the support kept their buffs up at all times.

If Derek had to grade the battle on a scale of A to F, he’d give them a solid B+. The assassin could have coordinated better with the rest of the group, and it seemed like the longsword user was a bit too cautious when attacking—which led to it taking a little longer to fell the beast.

The next fight ended a couple minutes later with another longsword user driving the blade into the back of the head of a giant armored spider. After watching the fight, he actually gave that group a higher score than the previous. Yes, the first group was faster, but the second was dealing with a spider that seemed to have a very high defense and quick movement.

They coordinated very well, allowing the sword user to get a good chance to pierce an unarmored vital area of the beast. The archer was on point, too—releasing arrow after arrow into the spider’s many eyes, but not too many to take the attention of the spider off of the group’s tank. As for the healer and the support, they did fine healing the team and keeping the buffs up. The support did seem to be a bit more attentive than the other team’s support. He’d give them a solid A- for their battle.

The other group didn’t fare quite as well as the previous two. With the third group, Derek got to see how much damage the team had to take for the instructor to interfere. The answer: a lot. Unfortunately for the group, they were very uncoordinated and were fighting a giant wolf, which meant that it was even a bit quicker than the other two beasts. The way they fought made it seem like they weren’t even close to the previous team’s league.

The healer was dead set on healing their tank. The only problem with that strategy was that the tank wasn’t able to keep the aggro of the wolf because the archer was loosing her arrows as fast as she possibly could without stopping. The support and spear user both seemed to be irritated at the other three members of their squad, and were busy shouting at them.

Finally, the spear user decided to ignore the rest of her team and go in. Honestly, Derek couldn’t blame her—he wasn’t one for fighting in a group, and if his group was so uncoordinated, he would do the same thing. The difference was… Derek could do the same thing and fight it himself. As it turned out, the spear user couldn’t.

She got a few good licks in, and even drove her spear through the abdomen of the beast, which took some of the pressure from the tank and archer. However, she failed to remove the spear fast enough and the wolf’s maw found itself latched onto her torso. She cried out in agony, but, other than taking a few steps closer, the instructor didn’t take any action.

The wolf shook its head back and forth and soon, the girl went flying through the air. She landed roughly on the ground—her armor pierced through and blood slowly flowing out. The healer panicked and cast a heal on the spear user, but while he was distracted, the wolf pounced and swiped its claw across his back.

His healing skill landed on the spear user, helping with her wound, but unfortunately, the healer also found himself on his back with a snarling wolf looking down on him. When the wolf opened its maw and started to move toward the healer’s head, that’s when the instructor acted. He was there in an instant and had the wolf lifted up by the scruff of its neck. Derek even thought he could hear the beast whimpering before the instructor put it out of its misery. The wound through its stomach looked pretty bad, and Derek didn’t doubt that if left untreated, it would have bled out anyway.

Once the beast was stored in the instructor’s storage ring—which Derek noted that the other two groups had been able to keep the beast they had battled—he fed the healer a health potion, then collected the rest of the group. He seemed disappointed as he led the failed group back to the stands, talking to them the whole way. Derek could only give them an F+. The plus only being because the tank would have done quite well if the other damage dealers had paid more attention.

Derek pulled out some steaming hot coffee and continued watching the exams. He watched six more groups before he finally recognized one with one of the boys he’d picked out draw a spear from his storage ring. Everything had already been quite enjoyable for Derek. He thought about bringing Jacks to see it sometime—to be able to see what his son was up to during his time in the academy.

Finally, the boy with a spear turned his head, and Derek saw that it really was Thomas. He moved into position with his group, and they all readied themselves for what was coming next.