Brigido, the neutral city

With the arrival of the teachers, after some brief orientations, we divided into groups of 10 and boarded the carriages bound for Brigido.

The carriage was large and comfortable, the trip would take 4 days, as the capitals of the kingdoms were geographically closer to the neutral city.

Inside the carriage were me, Arthur, Luan, Merida, Brayan and other sophomores.

After we settle down Arthur couldn't help but open his mouth to speak. "What is it like Brigido? Will we do well in the competition? How are the other students at the other Academy? I-"

"Calm down Arthur, control yourself" Merida warned, than she was sitting across from Arthur.

"How can I stay calm at a time like this?" He replied.

"It will still take 4 days to get here, save energy until then" She snapped before turning back to me and asking. "Will you participate in hand-to-hand combat too, Elora?"

"Yes, it will be good to get more experience and hone my skills" I nodded in confirmation.

The other four all looked at me at the same time with a stunned expression and I couldn't help but ask. "Something wrong?"

"Nothing, just the fact that you're not satisfied with literally 'crushing' all of us during combat classes and still looking to 'gain experience and hone your skills' at this rate, we'll soon suffer an instant death from partnering with you of battle" Luan said, exasperated by my statement.

I could only shrug my shoulders before speaking. "I was taught to know how to protect myself and always try to improve, it's a good way not to stagnate and always improve"

"I agree with Elora, we must always look to improve ourselves or we will be stagnant in our progress" Agreed Brayan at the other end.

I turned to him and our eyes met, those gray eyes filled with a veiled majesty and hard to see, it was a shame he couldn't hide it from me.

We smiled at each other and went back to talking to each other about other things.

* * *

After the 4 days of travel, we finally saw the outlines of Brigido.

It was a grand city and, like the capital, bustling. As we entered the stone gates we could see several tall buildings everywhere and merchants selling and trading goods on every corner.

There were houses of all colors, flowers everywhere and all kinds of people you could see around here.

After checking the gate we all headed to the hostel where we would spend the next few days.

Arriving there, we saw that it was a small complex with five buildings, one for each Kingdom, and a large shared meal plaza.

We disembarked from the carriages and were soon greeted by the Lord of the City, Brigido could be a neutral city but it was still necessary to have an authority of power to control it. "Welcome to Brigido, I, as the main representative of our city, thank you for the presence of our distinguished guests from Aran"