Class Struggle (1)

Old Man Eric was leading them out of the village but on the way to the gates he spotted a problem already. Once in a while Eric would look back to check on them, see if they were straying from the path he was leading, or at least it that is what everyone thought.

He was in fact checking to see if any of the children were trying to team up or at least talk with the others which, not surprising for him, no one tried to.

Max was grouped up with Ken, Anna, Ashley and Rya, in their normal advancing formation, while the same could be said about any of the other groups.

It might be true that they might split up to fight harder monsters or beasts with people they have more synergy with but it didn't mean that when they would be fighting as a whole team they would only fight alongside their separated groups, disregarding the others.

In his years of experience Eric knew how the span of teammates were, and if you were getting accustomed to the same people over a long period of time the next time something will happen and you will be separated from that team, joining other people will be disastrous as your compatibility with others will be near zero. It will either end in only your demise or the whole team getting destroyed. Of course, the only exception being people that knew how to adapt to fight along with other people faster.

They reached the gates and after talking with the guards for a little Eric addressed to them:

"Alright, let's get a move on, while we are going towards the dungeon I am going to assign your positions and roles in those positions. If any of you dare to slack off or head into battle alone I will personally come and kill you before you have the chance to end your life yourself." He looked at all of them with a cold look in his eyes.

They froze as Eric released a wave of magic suppression, testing them out for some reason and after a while stopped.

"Try to team-play as much as possible, we have some odd weapon choices that I am sure more than half of you never thought that you will be fighting alongside people wielding these kinds of weapons. The most important thing is to be flexible and mindful of your own team, after you get used to how your team fights then your attack fluidity will become better, making it harder to find holes in your defenses and attacks." As he said that they had already gone past the gates and were walking towards the outer edges of the forest.

Everyone was silent, waiting for Eric to speak. Even though they didn't want to team up with other people in their class, they knew that what Eric said was the truth, meant for their own good.

Eric proved himself time and time again in this six-year-old journey with them, and when he said something seriously, then it's true. He was a kind old man, but a monster at the same time, who knows how you could get this old man angry and get him to slap you to your last breath.

As they walked a bit more, someone looked up to Eric, his eyes filled with intense fear.

"Di-Did you j-just say.." Jericho stuttered "dungeon?!?!" Eric turned around and nodded while saying.

"Well I told you guys I am getting you out there to get some good experience, also, this is a Low-Tiered Dungeon so you don't have to worry, if something happens for the worse, I'll give my life to protect all of you, as it was my incompetence that got you in this."

Eric determinately said. He wanted to test these kid's strength. Each exceeded his expectations.. 'Maybe this is how each generation we become stronger' he thought, but not truly believing his words.

He was going to give his all training these kids. He got to see them grow up, and he wants them to continue to grow, one day surpass him maybe.

"Alright guys! Gather around me!" Eric said after stopping in his tracks. "I will start sharing the battle formation, I recommend you guys get it from the get-go, and I also don't want anyone complaining. Did I make myself clear?" All of the class nodded, Eric was the only one who could afford to raise his voice inside the forest. Who knew what beasts might be hiding around.

"First, I'll be in the middle, it will be easier to monitor everyone this way. Anna, Charlie, Ashley and Alice, you guys will be surrounding me, Anna will be behind me, Ashley on the front. Charlie, Alice you get on my left and right respectively..." Eric continued assigning positions and soon they were all into a rectangle formation, the length of formation being bigger than the width of it.

"When I call for formation you get into your positions as soon as you can, and to make it as fun as possible, I won't tell you any of the advantages of the formation. This will be one of the things that will get you a reward after finishing this round of training." Eric said, wanting to make them think more about the ways they could use the formation, and also raise their morale.

Children groaned but they couldn't voice out their complaints, they knew they would be just asking for a beating if they did.

The group stopped advancing and started getting accustomed to the formation Eric developed for them. It was hard to get the hang of it at first, but after some time of exercising they could at least attack without disrupting each other.

The sun went down and the moon and stars dominated the sky. "Let's set up camp!" Eric, after instructing them for quite a number of hours, was exhausted as well.

Not as much physically than mentally, it took some time to break their mindset of only relying on the teammates they had before, and were realizing that now they had new teammates, that they had to move and think accordingly.

Everyone got their tent up and even though the formation training was just over, everyone grouped up as before, setting up their tents in individual groups, namely the groups they were hunting in before today.