Uni Academy

The competition among the village children was currently being held and the rules were that

if they got hit 3 times, they lose.

Justine was partaking in it due to his parents wanting him to go learn at the Third best academy in the kingdom as this was a rare opportunity.

Justine didn't want to go since it defeats the reason of him protecting his parents but he reasoned that it should be fine to leave them alone for 8 years since that is how long he will be staying at the academy, and because they are A rank adventurers after all.

The competition itself was'nt at all exciting to Justine since he had experienced better fights than this and this was literally child's play since they were also going to use wooden swords as to not hurt any of the children partaking.

As the competition began, Justine's first match was up against his neighbor, Justine easily won but in a way that would make it so that he didn't overpower his opponent, but more so in a way that showed a bit of struggle and won by skill.

He did this to all of his opponents during the competition to not arouse attention amongst the knights and mages, if he gets special treatment from the school, he will surely have less time to actually train by himself so he minimized his strength down to the children's level.

As the competition was coming to an end, there were 10 participants left with Justine also in it.

Among them, Justine had spotted a girl, this was rare as most girls would often choose a mage job instead since they can stay in the back whilst battling against an enemy instead of being at the front risking their lives to protect the ones from the backline, but here there was, a girl with long black hair who was choosing her profession as a swordsman at a young age, Justine respected that decision of hers and hoped that she can get into the academy.

When Justine was called up to the center of stage where the matches between the participants was being held, he was upset that his opponent was the girl who wanted to be a swordsman, although he quickly focused back into the match since what's done is done and he can't switch his opponent for someone else as that would be embarassing for the girl to think that she had been seen as weak by her opponent, and that would take a great impact on her desire to be a swordsman and that was not Justine's aim, so what he needed to do now was to fight this girl and douse the fire of her desire with more fuel to continue burning brighter.

"1..."

"2..."

"...3!"

" let the first match of the Finals begin! "

As the signal for the match to begin was said, the girl immediately rushed at Justine with her sword aimed at his chest.

Justine quickly moved to the side and dodged the girl's attack and counterattacked her with a thrust of his sword. The girl leaped out of the way of the sword and backed away a bit before regaining her footing and charging back at Justine again only this time she was slightly faster.

Justine saw the difference in her speed and immediately became serious a bit and wondered how she had become faster.

' Either she is exhausting more of her energy or something else. 'Justine pondered for a bit before going back into the fight with the girl.

The girl then thrusted her sword at Justine and when he dodged, she swung her sword into the direction Justine dodged at like the momentum in her thrust with the sword was only there for a split second, but Justine was able to block it and was only pushed back by it a little.

This move of hers has impressed the knights and even Justine was slightly impressed by it since the momentum in her arm when she thrusted her sword could not have been faked and ignoring momentum in ones action is a very hard thing to do that even master swordsman would find hard to do.

The girl then started to charge at Justine once again and attacked him with a flurry of attacks.

Justine was now in defense blocking all the attacks coming from the girl and trying to not get hit by a single one of those attacks, not because he wanted to, but he needed to since the requirement to defeat your opponent was to hit them 3 times.

Then as the flurry of attacks kept coming, he noticed that the girl was getting tired but her attacks didn't slow down. This led Justine to the conclusion that the girl just had a large pool of stamina and was the reason why she could dish out so many attacks while still being 10.

Eventually she got tired and her attacks stopped as she took a moment to breathe. Justine, who was under that barrage of attacks blocked all of it easily but acted as if he looked tired.

Justine didn't realize it, but after the exchange between them, he was getting a little bit excited.

As Justine was looking at his opponent who was having a hard time catching her breath, he readied himself for another exchange.

Justine's opponent eventually caught her breath and immediately once again charged at Justine, only this time Justine did not idly stand by and receive it, he also charged at his opponent, clashing with their swords.

Justine pulled out first and aimed to strike at the girl's waist but was blocked by the girl when it was about to hit her.

The girl then went for an upward slash against Justine but was blocked by Justine with ease.

They continued to exchange attacks with each other, each one being blocked by the othe in return for 5 more minutes until the knights eventually made the decision to let both kids win and accept them at Uni Academy sinve it would have been a waste of their talent if they were to stay in the village.

In the end Justine and his opponent won with them being accepted at the academy. Although Justine still won, he didn't expect this sort of outcome and took it with a bit of salt.

The competition went on as planned and in the end, there were 6 kids who got in the academy.

Justine wasn't really looking fotward to it, but was slightly motivated when he saw that his parents were overjoyed when he won. This was a feeling Justine had never experienced in a long time, reaching up to the expectations one truly cares for is a very satisfying feeling to the one who had accomplished it so he was slightly motivated to go to the academy when his parent's were expecting him to be stronger once he returns.

But another reason was that, the kids who were coming along with him were intriguing him a bit.

Specifically, three of them including the girl, showed a lot of potential with their swordsmanship so Justine was looking forward to their growth.

The next day, the kids were supossed to leave so their parents were packing up the things their children will need at the academy and were saying goodbye with tears on both the child and the parents. Justine's parents were'nt any diiferent as they were crying as they were saying goodbye to Justine, at first Justine was fine and wasn't getting emotional as the other kids with him leaving the village, but now, seeing his parents crying because of his departure was really starting to make him cry as he hugged his parents and said goodbye, Justine then went to pat Aster on the head as it was prohibited to bring along pets into the academy and said goodbye to him also before going inside the carriage where the knights and mages will be accompanying them into the capital and into Uni Academy.

Justine waved goodbye to his parents when they were leaving and sat back down on his seat at the carriage to sleep as there was a long distance between the village and the capital.

As Justine was woken up by the knights they were already at the entrance to the academy.

Justine looked at the academy that looked like a castle of a noble instead of an academy that had white color that seemed to glow due to the angle of the sunlight hitting the academy walls, and above the entrance of the academy was an insignia of a crown with wings on each side while a sword and a staff was forming an X on the back of the crown with wings, and below it was the name of the academy.

" Uni Academy. " Justine said while looking at the big sign.