Chapter 16 - The Order

'Is that the Order?' Pan watched the miracle of architecture before him, wondering how these bridges were able to support their own weight and how the land of the districts held on for centuries without giving way and slowly falling into the ditch.

 Looking down at the side of the bridge he was now on, Pan was unable to see the bottom of the immense hole.

 "It's huge, everything is huge!" Said an apprentice excitedly.

 It took almost five minutes to get from start to end of the bridge.

 As they reached the end of the bridge and the beginning of the district he could see Leopold talking to a woman. After a few brief minutes of dialogue, he guided the caravan through the district until they reached a large, five-story U-shaped structure with a large arena in the center, where Pan could see a few youngsters of his age competing amicably.

 Leopold assigned a room on the first floor to each apprentice he brought. It looked like Pan's class had been the last to arrive and so it was called Class Fifty. That was the number of cities big enough to receive the selection.

 Before saying goodbye, Thorin made a point of gossiping to Pan that there were a total of ten such structures in the academic and research district, each responsible for five classes and their respective mundane servants. After all, if the gigantic Order were inhabited only by Crusaders, they would barely fill a district.

 'Wow, this is luxury.' Thought Pan as he entered his new house.

 The place was white with green accents, there was a large painting of an oak tree on the ceiling, and a bed almost as big as his old house in the center. There were also three doors on three different sides of the house. Pan supposed it must be the closet, the study, and the bathroom.

 "It's a pleasure to meet you, master Pan," announced an old man who was standing silently in the corner of the room and nearly causing Pan to have a heart attack. "I apologize for the late intrusion, my name is Edward," introduced what appeared to be the butler, noticing Pan's embarrassment.

 The man was old, wore a black suit with a white shirt underneath, he had a refined gray beard that reached the end of his neck and his hair was short, and despite his apparent age, his blue eyes possessed vitality and vivid intelligence.

 "Don't worry, I'm just not used to…" Pan was about to use the word servant, but felt uncomfortable pronouncing it.

 "Servant or butler will do, master Pan. It is an honor for me to be able to help in the development of future crusaders", said the butler bowing in respect to Pan.

 'This is embarrassing.' Thought Pan.

 "Only Edward is fine," Pan replied at last and Edward didn't object.

"I've prepared food for the master, i hope it's to your liking," Edward said.

 Only now did Pan notice that the butler was standing beside a wheeled table piled high with silver trays. As the butler removed the lids from the dishes and placed them on the table, Pan felt his stomach scream with joy, the smell alone told him that this would be the best meal he had ever had in his sixteen years of life.

 'A, the privileges of being a crusader.' Thought Pan salivating.

 "If I may," Edward said after Pan finished his meal, at which Pan nodded in agreement as he patted his stomach with his left hand.

 "The master should rest, the first day is quite… exhausting", said the butler and Pan believed.

 Benefits come with a price.  He thought.

 After showering in the most luxurious bathroom he'd ever seen or read about. Pan passed out the moment he laid his head on the bed.

 'What a peculiar apprentice.' Thought Edward.

 He, of course, noticed Pan's lack of an arm, but avoided the subject out of respect for his new master.  But he still found it noteworthy that someone so young already seemed to have overcome such a heavy loss. The butler doubted the wound was old, which can only mean his master lost his arm less than a month ago.

 'Truly peculiar.' Thought the butler one last time, before retiring to his own quarters.

 The next day, all the apprentices from class fifty were gathered in the arena that was in the center of the structure. The apprentices from class forty-five to forty-nine were also there to watch the show.

 "You will learn many things in the academic district, but you must always remember that the focus of a crusader is the battle against the fallen," said the instructor assigned to class fifty who to Pan's surprise was not Leopold, but a crusader veteran named Gerald.

 'It makes sense, teaching is about didactics and not about strength, it's not as if the Order had too many masters too.' Thought Pan.

 "That is why the first class is a practical struggle to determine the physical and conscious battle potential of each of you. I recommend that you take this exercise very seriously, because the best ones will receive the best rewards," said the instructor.

 After finishing explaining the rules of practical combat, Gerald had each apprentice in class fifty take a token and write their name on it before giving it back to him, who then placed them in a box and Pan was finally able to see Ava, she seemed to be stabilized now, which was a relief to him.

 "Number fourteen Aurora and number seventeen Matthew," announced the professor after taking the chips out of the box.

 Number fourteen was an ordinary young woman in her fifteen years, she used a wooden stick as a weapon, while number seventeen was the noble that Pan saw talking to the little brown one in the first days of travel.

 'An obvious result.' Thought Pan.

 "Aurora, white apprentice," greeted the young woman. But the noble didn't seem to have any intention of answering.

 And as anyone with eyes could expect, Matthew won overwhelmingly without even using a weapon.

 "Number twenty-eight Bjorn and number nine Jason."

 Number nine was a tall, muscular young man who appeared to come from a merchant family, he wore a large wooden sword.  Number twenty-eight was also large and appeared to be working at something heavy like a forge, his hands had protruding calluses and he was holding a wooden hammer.

 "Bjorn, white apprentice," said number twenty-eight.

 "Jason, red apprentice," answered the greeting number nine.

 When the instructor gave the signal, the young merchant threw himself at the heavy blacksmith with a sublime but heavy swing of his sword. The blacksmith acted fast and placed the hammer's head diagonally downwards and used the shaft to block the sword's edge, he then kicked the hammer's head hard at the moment the greatsword touched the shaft, the kick plus impact created a lever movement that made the hammer hit the young merchant's knee hard.  Seeing that he had affected the opponent's mobility, the young blacksmith dropped the hammer at once and approached in a crouching motion and lunged forward, before twisting his body and punching the young trader in the ribs who fell breathless into the floor.

 "Wow, this guy is good," declared someone in the crowd.

 "Did you see him using his opponent's strength to leverage his own hammer? How cool," came another voice and a few more with similar comments.

 'It was really impressive.' Thought Pan.

 Execution time, strength, speed, everything. Even he who didn't understand anything about battle knew that it had been very good.