25 A challenger?

All the children fell to the floor as they heard this.'Make a smiley face are you sure? Did you not mean make a holy divine flame sword with a smiley face insignia? No? A f*king smiley face?' As this thought went into their mind, with little thought they grabbed their hammers and started hitting. They banged the metal brick 1 hit at a time. bang bang bang. It did not take them long to find out that something was wrong. Don frowned silently as he saw this. Mo chuckled.

"Did you notice?" Don and the others looked at him as he grabbed a brick.

"This is known as fool's gold or pig's gold. Although it has the same look as gold, it takes a precise technique to mold it. It is better to find this out yourself. It will help you easily learn knew hammer techniques in the future." After he said this some kids decided to hit the brick with all their strength. The brick broke into pieces.

Mo shook his head and went up to the kid.

"well son, it looks like you have failed this project. I was going to give you all a week yet you took 20 minutes to fail. tsk tsk. fool's gold is very tricky. It is as immovable as a wall until a certain threshold. than it becomes as brittle as crackers. To be able to find the range in which it is acceptable to mold is your challenge." The boy who had just failed his first lesson in his dream occupation felt pained in his heart. Who knows if this trauma will affect his future. The rest of class, Don and the other students tried to find the perfect angle and strength. It was so difficult that one student fainted before the class even ended due to stress.

Don was looking at every bit of the brick, he had taken a part of the broken brick to study his material.

"Fool's gold..." He whispered in soft breaths. Even after class was over, he was completely absorbed in his work. Elijah, Maryline and the rest stared at Don as he stared at the brick.

They were all sitting in one of the many lounge areas in the east side of the academy. Since all of them were part of the top 10 this year, it was not hard for them to kick out all the extras. Drew and Maryline even wrote a sign saying

"Enter only if you can beat us up in a match." This scared off many angered students.

After a while, they decided to move on and talk about their days. Since most of their schedules were with others in the group, the rest of the crew would hear other sides of the story. Finally it was Maryline, Mark, Adam and Elijah's turn to talk. They had fire I and Offense training I together while. The four of them looked grim as they were talking about their teacher. Even Adam who came from a military background, information complimentary of Vivian found his teacher to be too domineering.

"As soon as we got into class, he threw fire balls at us. In Offense class we did not even get a lecture, he just gave us some PE clothes and told us to run around the school's fields until we collapsed or until the bell rang!" Elijah whined as he rubbed his sore knees.

" I don't understand why he was so harsh. I mean the moment he saw us, it was like he already hated us. Well I felt like Teacher Lisser did not find us to his liking as well but he was not making us run suicides..." Maryline said with an annoyed tone.

"Definitely ranks high on the list of terrible instructors." Mark shook his head as he remembered all the terrible teachers he had to deal with at home.

"My grandfather is a military general. I have never gone to one of his training sessions before but one time, I saw a new batch of soldiers leaving the training grounds after the first day. All their upbeat spirits and smiles had been ripped from their souls. They were like empty caskets ready for new information and training. Why do I feel like Teacher Brooke has the same aura as my grandfather?"

everybody "..."

Suddenly the air turned cold. Drew and the others looked at the 4 with pitying eyes as if they were saying their condolences to their friends before they taste real pain.

"I am sorry my friends, It seems like you picked the wrong Brooke. Our Brooke only shows kindness and understanding. Right Don?" Lars turned to Don only to see that he was still looking at the brick. Actually at this point he was having a staring contest with it. Lars was about to tap on Dons shoulder when suddenly Don got up and whamed the bending Lars in the face.

"I get it now! The reason why hitting it in this angle does not work is because of my strength not the angle! It is not that I am not putting enough strength but that I am putting too much. Fool's gold. Even a fool could do it. A thoughtless heart, a thoughtless mind! eh? What wrong Lars? Why are you on the ground?" Everyone looked in shock at Don who asked innocently after hurting the poor man. Luckily Lars was not the type to get angry over little things. He had trained his body well so he only felt a little embarrassed at the whole thing.  

"Oh it's nothing I just fell...." Lars said this quickly as he stood up and brushed his body.

"So Don, what were you yammering about?" After getting over the shock, Elijah tried change the subject for Lars sake. Don thought for a second before he remembered why he was so excited.

" Oh yes! The project this week was to make a smiley face in Forging class. I was going over all my knowledge about metal and then I suddenly remembered when I accidently dropped my hammer on the brick. I looked for the spot and saw that there was a dent in its place. The fall was quite small yet it did more damage than any swing I did on my own. It reminded me of water; You can go through it so easily but if you hit your hand flat on it, it acts like a wall and you feel pain. This is tension force acting on your force. That's when I remembered an odd metal known as water metal. It is a category of metal that acts in this way. You can mold it well using little force but it acts against you when you use a  large amount of force. " It is said that only fools would be able to mold these metals. For only they would think to hit it lightly instead of hard at the beginning."" Don chuckled as he remembered this quote.

As Stephanie was hearing this she could not help but shout.

"Wow!" She quickly closed her mouth after she realized she said that outloud. All the boys looked at her with surprise. This was the first time that they heard her talk. To say that she was quiet would be be an understatement.

After a while, the sun began to set and so they went back to their rooms. It was only the nest day when Don decided to finish his assignment. Although he could have Don it yesterday, the doors to the forging room was already closed and he did not want to disturb his roomates at night.

He went to the forging class very early in the morning and began to hammer away. Other than knowing the technique, everything else was very simple. Before long, He had made a round head with a smile on it. He smiled as he saw this. He put his creation in his bag and ran to his first class.

He barely made it in time. Luckily teacher lisser was not there and so he was able to relax. Just a few minutes later, Teacher Lisser came in and started his lesson. This time his lecture was 1 hour and 30 minutes long instead of 45. He did not answer any questions and did not even ask the students about their thoughts as he explained the evolution of magic in itself and some of the cultivations and famous techniques that have come from history.

In Null class, teacher Lisser was a little nicer and helped the students out as they tried to separate their mana from their elements. This was especially easy for Maryline who has great control of her Fire powers. Teacher Lisser even praised her for her control. Teacher Lisser was also surprised with Don's control. Since Don had not yet awakened his powers, He should have gotten tired quite easily and should have not been able to control null magic so easily but there he was doing the impossible.  

In Advance history, Lisser continued his conversation with the class about the importance of the dark age and how it changed the way the groups communicated with each other. It changed from physical fights to actual communication.  

At lunch time the group sat where they sat before but this time, they noticed a few people staring at them. It seemed like their sign may have upsetted a few people. In their table they had gotten a note.

"Being at the top is not constant. You will only get stronger after feeling the dirt at the bottom of the mountain." - A challenger. After the group read this, Maryline could not help but get pumped up. 'Finally some competition!' she thought this happily. Elijah, Drew and Mark on the other hand looked at each other for a second. They could tell right away that it was no angry first year who wrote it. It was probably a 2nd or even 3rd year who found it annoying seeing first years acting so cocky.

Elijah looked around and lo and behold, in the back of the cafeteria he saw a group of 2nd years looking at them with disdain. Suddenly a  first year came along and whispered something in the ear of a buff 2nd year. The buff man looked at Elijah straight in the eye and smiled at him. Elijah smiled back and even waved.

Although to other people this exchange may have looked innocent enough, in fact they were accepting the challenge.