Chapter 18 - Fair
Pan climbed onto the circular arena and limited himself to greeting his opponent with just a nod.
"A cripple? Tsk," was all Avalossa say.
When the teacher gave the signal, Pan immediately stole the time perspective from the trees that were planted just in front of the outer corridors and away from the arena. But by the time it took him to enter the state of clarity, Avalossa had already closed the distance between him and his sword's edge by half a meter.
'It would be better if there was grass on the ground.' Pan thought as he watched Avalossa swing her sword slowly towards him.
He had time to observe the aspects of her attack calmly. After spending a considerable amount of essence Pan undid the state of "absolute clarity" was a pretty pompous name but he couldn't think of anything better.
Soon Pan raised the wooden sword towards the hilt of the enemy and threw his body to the side, managing to dodge the blow and disarm the opponent at the same time.
Or so he hoped, but when his bastard sword slammed into Avalossa's hand, she didn't even retract her fingers and when he swerved to the side she just put more force into her swing and then tilted it, brutally hitting Pan's right shoulder.
He even tried to activate the state of absolute clarity once more, but it was too late. He was on the ground and the tip of the noble lady's sword was grazing his neck.
"Waste of resources," declared Avalossa and then left the arena.
'What a bitch, hm.' Thought Pan.
After the two had left, the instructor kept calling the apprentices in pairs until all fifty-six had fought a match, then he called again those he couldn't clearly assess.
"Well, well, I've seen what I needed to see, you're free for today, tomorrow will be your choice of specializations. So think about what you want to become," Gerald said, dismissing the apprentices to make his report.
'I'm bad at this.' Thought Pan as he headed for his quarters.
He thought that seeing everything slowly would be a unique advantage. But what's the point of seeing everything from a lethargic perspective if you don't have the strength or agility to do anything about it.
'If a tree were smart, is this how it would feel to be cut down by a lumberjack?' Thought Pan.
Of course he will get stronger with time, but those focused on speed and strength will too, although he won't fight them but the fallen ones... who were even more violent and unpredictable.
'What a headache.' Thought Pan.
"Hello master Pan, your meal is ready," said the brooding butler, almost making Pan startle again, almost.
"Thanks Edward," replied Pan, already salivating in advance. "Gerald, tell me what you know about specializations," Pan asked the butler.
"The specializations are many, ranging from theory of essence to engineering that is responsible for the knowledge that founded this city with the work of mundanes and crusaders together," pronounced the butler with a twinkle in his eye. "But the main ones are, close-range combat and its varieties, long-range combat and its varieties, and close and long-range healing, apart from the general knowledge class about the fallen and its variations that is mandatory, these are the classes most popular, crusaders are warriors after all," the butler finally finished.
"Thank you," replied Pan.
The next day, Pan was in a room on the first floor along with the other fifty-five apprentices, a large board with the specialties written on and some details about them were engraved on the white stone. Pan had been interested in three specialties, apothecary, ranged combat and their varieties, and essence forge.
"Attention," Gerald said. "You will be able to choose your specialties and start your classes in them in three days with the other classes, but first I need to deliver something to each of you. That yesterday's fight was to determine which of you has the most potential I already had said, as for the reward," Gerald communicated and gestured to some small silver spheres that were on top of a table. "This is called a grain of light and it helps a learner feel their essence and form a core. The better your placement yesterday, the better the quality of the grain of light given to you."
'There is segregation disguised as merit.' Thought Pan. Imagining that a noble who could afford to train all his youth with seasoned masters would always outperform bloodless mundanes on a first test of combat. 'If it were to be fair they would do this practical test after giving the least amount of training to all of us.'
But life is not fair. And soon the instructor started calling from worst performer to best performer and to no one's surprise, the overwhelming majority of the worst performers were commoners. Pan himself ranked forty-fourth.