The Red Castle

In the morning Healing was the first class, Raphael was the teacher. Raphael is a Paladin of Specialist class, after his first year the only subject where he managed to pass was Medical Procedures and Healing. Even though his armor had affinity with assassination techniques, he never wanted to kill anyone. In the RDPE he was approved in Assassination but he asked to never complete an assassin mission throughout his career because, according to him, take lives was not something cavaliers were born to do, he wanted to save lives and not to take them, the only reason he was making that test was to become a Paladin. His wish was honored, no superior never appointed him to a mission where he needed to perform a murder. Even in war Raphael kept his beliefs and never gave a fatal blow to a foe, his primary focus was to protect and heal those near to him while avoiding enemies. By himself, he was able to save an entire legion of cavaliers. After the war, the only reason why he was not commander yet was his ranking, silver at the time, the General promised him that if he reached the Paladin status, he would give him command of a Castle, and so he did. Raphael had an exceptional talent for all of the healing arts but he was a denial in everything else.

The moment had finally arrived. After the Healing class, Forge was the next one. Raphael told the saints to go to the library and ask to someone for the portal but 41 had a better way to go there. He called everyone to go with him to the hole in the hut but no one seemed interested, excepted for 13 who said:\\

—I'll go… but only if 21 goes first.\\

—I won't.\\

—C'mon, please! Raphael said that it is just jump and you're there…\\

—He also said that they don't use that anymore. Why do you think is that? Probably someone died in that hole!\\

—Don't be so dramatic, no one died there.\\

—You do not know.\\

—Neither you.\\

—Fine then, if you jump and confirm to me that you are alive after it, I'll go. — He said to 41 that immediately agreed with the terms.\\

—I want to see it — Adam said to them.\\

—Me too — 14 slightly interested.\\

The five saints went to the hut, 41 opened the door and stood there looking down in the face of the abyss, all the other ones were behind him. \\

—Go, what are you waiting for? — 21 said smirking.\\

41 lifted his head, stared 21 deep in the eyes, closed his nose with one of his hands and jumped. Everyone got immediately scared, they got close to the hole and looked down to see him. 21 crouched and screamed to see if 41 responded. No responses. He got up and said:\\

—Well… that's it… He is dead. There is nothing we can do about it, unless, move on… — With his head upright, he started to walk away. 13 immediately held his arm.\\

—Don't you have a promise to keep?\\

—Nop, I do not…\\

—You will jump…\\

—No, I WILL NOT jump. I said that if he Survived I would jump. He is clearly dead. I'm not going to do it. — 21 said extremely scared.\\

—41 died for this… You need to jump to honor him — Adam said laughing.\\

—He is not dead is he? — 14 asked.\\

—No, he is not. The commander said that it is fine to jump, 21 is just being dramatic. — Adam said to 14.\\

13 started to drag 21 closer to the hole while he tried to escape, at that point she was physically stronger than him, 21 was not able to release himself from her grip. She placed him in front of the hole and told him to jump, when he looked down to the hole felt nauseated, the more he looked, deeper the hole seemed to him, he could not bring himself to jump. Suddenly he hears a voice from far:\\

—What are you doing here again?\\

They all look back, it was the commander passing by.\\

—We are just going to the forge. — 13 quickly said. — We have a class there now.\\

—You are going to the forge and decided to take this way… Tell me… was this 41's idea? Where is he?\\

—He might… have… already jumped… — Adam whispered. \\

Raphael sighed and said:\\

—Why I am not surprised… Are you all going to jump too?\\

—We were going to jump but this one here is scared to death. — 13 spoke pointing to 21.\\

—I am not scared. I am just thinking of how to do it properly.\\

—It is just jump, there is no secret — Raphael said to him.\\

—Yes… I know but I… I need to think about the landing, I don't know what's down there.\\

—There is water down there. — Raphael said while making intense I contact with him and taking steps closer.\\

—I don't know how to swim.\\

—That won't be a problem — He got closer.\\

—You can't confirm me that…\\

—Yes, I can… — He got closer.\\

—Please don't — 21 said almost crying.\\

Raphael touched his shoulder and calmly spoke:\\

—It is normal to have fears. Everyone has them. But what we, Sacred cavaliers, can never do, is to be dominated by our fears and let them prevent us from doing our duty.\\

—It is not my duty to jump here sir…\\

—Now… It is…\\

Raphael pushed him in the hole, turned to the other ones and asked:\\

—Who is next?\\

It was a great fall, when 21 was pushed he screamed for a couple of seconds until he was out of breath. After some time falling he could not see anything until he saw a small blue and orange light bellow him, as the light was getting bigger he was getting desperate again. He was falling with his belly turned down, when he tried to turn himself, his legs started to go up and his head down, when he realized he was already falling upside down. He tried to turn himself again but it was too late.

He jumped down extremely excited, when he looked down the only thing going through his mind was "this is how it feels to fly". As 41 was getting close to the end of the fall he could see a little puddle of shinning blue water surrounded by some open lava ducts. He fell standing up in the water but did not felt any of the impact from falling. In front of him was a door to the forge, he opened and saw the rest of the class in some big tables sitting in pairs in the center of the forge. The Forge was giant, it had some big furnaces powered by lava waterfalls in the corners, and close to the door he just passed it was some big shelves and tables full of tools and equipment. Far in the other side of the Forge, he could see some big machines being operated by a few cavaliers. The cavalier teaching the class looked at him and then turned to the class and said.\\

—Is this one of them?\\

They confirmed with their heads.\\

—Please, take a sit. Where are the others? — He asked to 41.\\

—I think they are coming. — He said and sat next to the boy 12. \\

Right after he sat down, they heard a loud noise. 21 finished falling down. When they looked to the door, they see 21 with his face on the puddle, he quickly lift his head and starting touching his face looking scared. The cavalier looks at him with slightly anger.\\

—Is there someone else to arrive?\\

—Yes. — 21 said embarrassed.\\

—How many?\\

—Three more, sir…\\

He opened his eyes wide and screamed\\

—THREE MORE?? Why didn't you took the normal way like the others?\\

—It was not my idea… — He whispered.\\

—Sit down, I will start again one last time.\\

21 sat in the table behind 41 and 12. The cavalier was starting to talk when 41 interrupted him:\\

—Won't you wait for them?\\

—No I won't, I shouldn't even have started again, but you friend made a song so loud that I lost myself.\\

41 and 12 held the laughter while 21 was getting even more embarrassed.\\

—My name is Caliel. I am the Silver ranking Cavalier responsible for the Forge of this castle. I will be ministering all of your classes that involve this forge. That include… — 13 fall in the pit and enters the forge — all of the lessons in the Forge subject and some of the lessons in the Magical Artifacts and Dual Wielding subjects. If you guys need anything related to this Forge or forging in general just come here and talk to me. I am a very receptive and calm person with you come to talk with me — He said with a straight face. 41 lifted his hand and asked.\\

—Will we learn to make armors? — Adam entered the forge hearing what 41 said and laughing a little.\\

—Oh… you must be the one Raphael was complaining about a few days ago…\\

—He was complaining… About ME? — 41 was shocked\\

—Yes, I don't judge him anymore. You will learn how to make armors — 41 was exhibiting the biggest smile he could in his face — but only in the final classes. First, you will learn about the techniques we use here, then apply them to simple weapons and slowly will improve your skills until you are able to make armors — As Caliel was talking, the smile in 41's face slowly faded away. 14 finally joined the class.

During lunch, 41 was incredibly disappointed with the classes they had in the morning, none of them were what he expected. He was complaining to 21 and both 12 about it when 13 and 14 arrived in the table.\\

—What is the problem?\\

—The Forge class sucks…\\

—I'm not going to the forge classes anymore — 13 said placing food in her mouth, everyone looked at her.\\

—Really? It was only the first class… — 21 said intrigued.\\

—I have negative interest in all of that forging stuff. Staying hours in that hot and sultry place is not for me. Being honest, I don't know if I am going to attend any of the classes in the specialist tree, none of them seemed interesting to me.\\

—Ok… Now that may be going too far… — 21 said surprised — What if further ahead you discover that you want to make the RPDE in the subjects that you missed?\\

—Then I won't… — She simply said and continued eating.\\

That kind of attitude was unthinkable and irresponsible to 21, to complete his objectives he needed to watch all of the classes and dedicate himself to reach high proficiency in all of them. Those were almost the opposite of 13's plan, so far, the only classes she had interest were the ones of Warrior subdivision and elemental magic. Since that class, she is constantly trying to fully control the transformation of her hand, but so far, things have not changed much.

The classes in the afternoon were much simpler. The first one was Potions, which consisted of reading recipes from the books. The Alchemy classes were a little more dynamic, in the first classes they were going to have chemistry and physics lessons to properly understand the techniques and methods they were going to learn further ahead.

For the first two weeks, all of the classes were only in their early stages; the biggest part of the saints were attending all of the classes. Except for, 13 who was not going to any of the classes in the Specialist Division, the boy 11 who was only attending to the Healing, Energy Detection, Energy Control, Potions and Communication classes and 22 who was going only to the Mage Division classes. 41 was disappointed, all the classes he thought were going to be fun were not as he imagined. Starting with Forge, he expected to learn about armors and have the chance to make his own with the characteristics he wanted; so far, they only learned about the materials used to forge weapons and armors and the equipment they will use it. In the Magical Artifacts class he expected to study ancient cursed treasures but instead, he learned that when you place a certain amount of your energy in an especial type of copper or silver object, you can use that object to carry spells, traps and other types of magic. And, by far, the biggest of his disappointments, the Dual wielding class. In his head, the teacher, Seraphim, would show them fighting techniques with two swords. He was not entirely wrong. He was teaching them the fundamentals so that the saint in his individual training could develop this type of technique, but in the classes his focus was to teach them how to handle two different types of equipment at once in a direct combat against enemies. More specifically, a shield and another object, it could be a weapon, or an artifact, even another hurt cavalier. This class focuses in war situations where the cavaliers need to carry all kinds of things through the battlefield without getting severely hurt while being attacked by a big quantity of enemies. They learn how to properly use shields to block enemy attacks, make coherent decisions that will benefit those around them and counter attack efficiently if necessary. None of that was in 41's interest, he did not care about defense, traps or maintenance, charging straight forward was more of his style. In the same way some classes disappointed him, some others were a big surprise like the Energy Detection and the Communication classes. In the Energy Detection class, they are learning how to use their mana to track and identify other cavaliers; there are several ways to do so. 41 is training a type of echolocation based technique where he sends pulses of his energy to a certain area around him, when this energy reaches an object, it reflects and goes back to him. So far he still do not know how to differentiate the objects he detects, to him, a cavalier and a tree are essentially the same thing, but he very excited with the possibilities this can bring to him. The boy 11 had an extreme facility for this class, his mana naturally affected his eyes on the awakening allowing him to detect more wavelengths than the others, he was able to see new colors and see the mana that people exuded. Raphael explained that some cavaliers have the same ability as he has and they even named the new colors, he searched in the castle library and found an encyclopedia with all of the information already discovered about all the colors that the cavaliers were once able to see. When he was reading his book, he noticed that some of his classmates had very distinct colors of mana, but the boy 21 and the girl 12 had a similar one, according to him, chora was the name of the tone. He could also see through the intensity of the color in the cavalier the quantity of mana he had in him. He was surprise when looked to 13 and 41 after learning this ability, 41's mana color had a soft tone of indicolite, while 13's was a dark and shining viridian.\\

In the Communication class, they are learning ways to send messages to each other using mana pulsations. 41 likes this class because he and Adam keep telling jokes to each other in different codes during training and the teacher allows it, since it also develops their ability.

After a four-week time, the classes started to demand more time and commitment from their students. The amount of things to learn in each class was bigger; the techniques that the teachers passed on to them were more difficult and specific. Slowly the saints started to frequent only the classes they liked or the ones they were going well on it, except for 21, who was forcing himself to go in all of the classes, and 41, who was not having problems in the majority of his class. The only classes he was not doing well were Forge, Body Enhancement, Energy Control and Elemental Magic. 41's mana control was hideous, what hindered him on the first three classes. On Control, when he tried to separate a small amount of his energy above his hand and show it to the professor, he would put a very large amount of it and ended up exploding it on his face. In Enhancement a similar thing happened, when he tried to focus his energy in one part of the body, sometimes he would miss the part he wanted or the amount of energy on that part and ended up hurting himself or someone else. For you to forge an object that will be used by a cavalier you need to apply a specific quantity of your own mana to the equipment you are using. This way you make the object stronger, with more personality and details that can help the user. Whenever 41 tries to forge anything, he just smash the hammer on it with all of his mana, Caliel always screams and argue with him. His problem with the Elemental class is a little different. In order to be approved in the Elemental Magic test in the RDPE, the student must know how to use at least one magic from each element, he can focus in training his natural element to be his strongest but, he also need to know how to use the others. There are three students currently going to the Elemental Magic classes, 21, 41 and 22. 41 is the only one that was not able to use any of the other elements yet, his powers with ice are growing quite strong but the others have not showed up yet. This made him extremely upset, the only class where he really wanted to stand out, is one of the few he cannot. This continued for the first third of the season, until the time to choose an armor arrived.