Academy (1)

Max woke up from his sleep. He felt refreshed as the feeling of pain he remembered yesterday wasn't present anymore. A cold sensation could be felt protruding through his left arm as he became more aware of his surroundings and more aware of himself.

He remembered what happened last night and with a level of anxiousness in his heart he looked towards his left hand. He was afraid of how his future will be affected by this injury. He didn't want to get disheartened by this but he couldn't avoid it.

He began encouraging himself and after a while, he made up his mind. He began slowly moving his hand, afraid that he will feel the pain he did before. But to his much surprise, he didn't.

He began bending his arm and applying force, which got his arm feeling like it got pierced by multiple needles. He knew that it helped to quite a big extent but he would still need some years to fully heal and not make it draw him back unless using some more medium-quality medicine of course.

As he was examining the state of his arm he didn't notice his mom which slowly opened the door looking at her son.

"Max, how do you feel?" His mother asked, worry lingering in her gaze.

"I'm.. a lot better, thank you.." Max knew he took a lot from his family with that medicine, he can only be appreciative of it for now.

"Get ready, today you have to go to the academy. You can rest during physical hours, I already spoke with the instructors"

"..."

With those last words, his mother left the room. After leaving, Max began freshening up and also changing from his dirty clothes which he went hunting in yesterday.

He finished his daily routine and after doing so he went to the kitchen where he found his mother preparing breakfast. The wisps in the house were no more, natural light came flowing from outside filling the house with a warm atmosphere. As he ate he could see his mother's state being a lot better than last night. She was cheerful once again as they chatted. He got up from his seat after finishing eating and as he said his goodbyes to his mother she wished him good luck. This would be the last time he would see her for two weeks.

He walked slowly on the pathway to the center of the village where the academy resided in. He reached the academy gates and slowly got through the 'roadblock' that was the entrance of the academy.

The academy was surrounded by tall stone walls which made it look intimidating. The walls looked bland and steep, a normal person wouldn't be able to climb the steep walls and that is what the academy wanted. They kept the people outside out, and the students inside in.

The academy entrance was not that big, being able to at most get 3 people to pass through them at once. One could guess how annoying it would be for around one hundred children to try to go through it at the same time and it would be a pain every Monday morning to get into the academy.

After ten minutes of pushing around and being pushed around, Max finally reached the inside of the academy which he much disliked. It was the concept of it he didn't like of course, the teachers were still Masters who taught them for free, and what they were teaching was always what they needed. What he never liked was that unless a teacher requested or told a pupil to go outside the academy they wouldn't be able to go outside for two weeks, and if they were caught they would also be punished for not respecting the rules.

As he finally got inside the academy's perimeters he began looking around searching for the dorm he was assigned to.

The academy dorms were split amongst both gender and year. There were ten dorms inside the academy grounds, five for boys and five for girls respectively. The dorms would be split up between the children depending on what year they were in, you would be assigned from dorm one to dorm five depending on your 'rank', which you would go up every two years of training.

There were only five ranks because after you finished the second year of being a rank five student you would go and try to awaken your magic, which would either end up in a success or not. In both cases, you would leave this academy and join another one, more advanced than this one as even though you couldn't awaken your magic your body still became stronger. Tougher training would be required to train the pupils then, which most of the 'starting' academies didn't have resources to do.

Max, after spotting his dorm, began to slowly walk over to it. He wasn't looking around anymore but he could see in the distance familiar faces, ones that he knew for years and even more to come.

"Max!" A voice called to him, and after turning around Max identified the owner of the voice. It was Ken which was also in the same year as him, well.. everyone in his team was.

"How are you?" Max replied with a smile on his face after Ken got closer to him.

"How am I? I am good of course! I didn't break my arm you see?" Ken said pointing at his own arm and after swinging it a bit he pointed at Max's left hand.

"Haha.. you smart blockhead. I'm good, if I don't force my left hand I should be alright." Max said with both happiness and bitterness in his voice.

Ken had a strange look on his face. He didn't understand it but didn't want to delve into it, maybe Max didn't want to talk about it or something happened which he didn't want to disclose.

Max and Ken walked over to their dorm and went inside.

It was nothing special, it was actually underwhelming. The 'Fortress of Bunk Beds' as people called it, was just a path of 2 meters in width filled with bunk beds from side to side. The bunk beds themselves were separated by some space that could hold only a person.

There were eight other people inside already, they looked at Max and Ken that just came but soon got to their own problems, not caring that much about them.

Max looked around while Ken did the same, searching for a bunk bed that didn't have any of the beds taken. They looked around and Ken finally spotted one, and as Max saw him approaching it he also became able to see it. They each took one bed and they began storing their stuff inside the cabinets they had as a storage place.

"I just can't believe it.. how are you okay? Me and the other three thought of saving money to buy you some good medicine to help heal you, I know that you don't have the money to just go and buy some High-Tiered Medicine.. so explain?" Ken asked boldly after noticing the fact that Max was using both of his hands without much of a struggle.

Max chuckled and started recalling what happened yesterday after getting home.

"So you are more wealthy than we thought uh? Can you spare some money?" Ken joked. He knew that even Max didn't know how his family had such medicine, but he did want to crack a joke about it as always.

"I told you I don't know from where that medicine came from.." Max looked a bit annoyed.

Just as Max laid on his bed wanting to get a bit more rest before the academy hours started the loud sound of a gong was heard everywhere inside the academy perimeter.

'Ugh' Max got up from the bed he reunited with for two seconds.

"Let's go..." Max said, and Ken followed behind.

As they both left, girls could be seen going outside of the building on the right side. Amongst the girls were three familiar faces, Anna, Rya, and Ashley respectively. They were busy chit-chatting amongst each other.

Ashley felt two gazes on her so she began looking around for the owners of those gazes. Her eyes eventually landed on Max and Ken, and as Max saw that she finally spotted them he began waving at the girls with his left hand trying to give them the signal that he was alright.

The group reunited as they began approaching a specific part of the perimeter. This is where they will be spending most of the time that the two weeks of training offered.