Practical Hours

The sun rose over the horizon once more, signaling a new day and that one complete week has passed since Max first arrived at the academy.

'You can now stop meditating Max' the voice of Matt resounded inside Max's mind.

He opened his eyes, adjusting to the light that poured into his room. Max got up from the bed and did some light stretches, getting back in shape. The meditation position isn't the most comfortable one to stay in for tens of hours each day, your muscles would feel sore after a while and today marked the seventh day for Max so it was understandable.

'Your affinity for the element has become a lot better but not only that, your concentration is a lot higher than before.' Matt praised Max as he had been showing significant improvement over the past week.

'I have a long way to go still' He replied with confidence as he went towards the bathroom.

He opened the door and that is where he saw Mark using the sink to sober himself up.

"Good morning Mark" Max greeted him, they have been getting accustomed to each other over the past week and have been getting along pretty well. Their friendship improved fast because of the fact that they stayed together most of the time.

"Hm?" Mark was a bit surprised by Max's voice but soon replied to him "Morning Max"

Max went towards the other sink that the bathroom contained and began his morning routine. After a while both Mark and Max were finished and ready to go, they grouped up after getting their gear on and left the dorms.

"This week we are going to have the practical hours right?" Mark asked Max to reassure himself.

"Yea, I don't know what practical stuff are we going to do, after all, we still haven't learned any abilities yet" Max dispelled Mark's doubt.

Hearing Max, Mark puffed his chest forward, cutting Max's path. The latter stopped looking curious at Mark, 'He has to show something right?'.

"That is what you think! I've learned an earth ability last week and have been training." Mark was still puffing his chest, feeling accomplished.

"Really? Do you mind showing me?" Max asked, he was curious to see what could Mark do with this learned ability of his.

"Well... I still have to train for it to be efficient but yea" Mark agreed and as he searched around the ground he found a fist-sized rock. "Look at this!" He spoke and with the flick of the hand the fist-sized rock began moving towards Mark with a decent speed.

"Defend with the shield!" Mark shouted and then threw the rock towards Max but Matt, out of reflex, reacted instantly, appearing in front of Max and easily shielding him from the rock.

"You should warn me even before starting if you do stuff like that!" Max already knew that Mark was kind of the brain-dead person sometimes, although he was quite capable other times.

"Sorry! But wow! You also learned an ability? Great for you!" Mark congratulated Max, he wasn't aware of Matt as Max never told him about it.

"Haha..." Max awkwardly laughed at Mark, Matt was a hidden weapon as not a lot of individuals can find a special weapon such as him, and it is even harder to contract one. Not a lot of people even had the knowledge of such weapons existing but still, Max didn't want to reveal the power of Matt now, there were just three more weeks until the competition, after that he won't be as secretive with Mark anymore.

"You also have a great ability, you are just able to hurl rocks right now but think in the future. If you train hard enough you may even move mountains!" This was the attempt of Max trying to make Mark forget about what just happened or just stop him from asking questions. Which surprisingly worked.

"Yea! Thanks but I don't know if I could reach that point." Mark was realistic, there was just a slim chance for him to even approach such height even if he trained diligently all of his life.

Max and Mark chattered while going towards their classroom. They knew that they would have to wait for the new teacher inside their classroom before being guided to one of the training grounds outside the academy.

They reached the classroom and shortly after the teacher came in, he was a muscly man with defined body characteristics. He guided all of the twenty students outside the academy. The place was a big parameter of two hundred meters in which students would train their abilities in an as orderly as possible way.

Max and the other students were currently lined up while their new teacher was reading some papers. His brows were knitted together while browsing on the few papers he had.

After a few minutes, the paper in his hands burst into flames that didn't really affect him. The fire subsided and with a few moves of his hand the remaining parts of the paper were blown away by the winds. The man crossed his hands together and began speaking.

"My name is Alexander and as you just witnessed I am a Fire Mage. I won't get into too much detail because there is no need to do so for now, I suggest that you will be highly attentive during this week as it will help you greatly during the competition that will come soon enough. For now let's start." The man, Alexander, briefly introduced himself to the class before lecturing them a little.

"There are two types of magicians around the world. The ones that think that only the magical power of a magician is important, and the ones that know that there are other factors one has to keep in mind while fighting another fellow magician... or even non-awakened individuals. I think I should mention that even though some people don't have awakened elements it doesn't mean that you should think they are weak. Because there is another factor that plays in, which any person can get powerful from nonetheless!" The man paused, taking a small break then continuing.

"And that factor is the Mastering of their Breathing Technique"