16 Souls Guild

I woke up early in the morning, hearing the birds chirp in the morning and the breeze coming from the window was relaxing.

<i>'A good start to the morning!'</i> I thought to myself excitedly.

I took a shower and dressed up in the clothes made for my adventure.

I woke up Ari and we both went downstairs. My mother was cooking breakfast and my father was outside for a morning stretch.

This scene was so familiar yet sad...I quickly shook away the feeling and went towards my mom.

"The breakfast is almost ready, Aug." My mom said, turning her head towards me from the stove.

"Okay, I'll just be outside with dad for a morning stretch." My mom nodded and I went out to the backyard.

"Morning son, came out for a small stretch?" My dad said without turning his head towards my direction.

"Yep." I nodded and started my daily routine of warm ups and stretching.

My routine goes like this:

Stretch my legs and upper body

30 push ups (since I'm still a kid I can't do as much)

50 jumping jacks

Planking for 3 minutes

20 lunges

10 inchworms to warm my whole body from head to toe (Not the bug kind)

As I finished my morning routine to keep my body healthy; my mom called us in for breakfast.

After breakfast I packed all my things I needed and grabbed my sword, heading out to the carriage.

"B- Browder is already leaving?" Eliza asked while sniffling, hugging my mom's legs.

"It's okay Eliza, I will come back soon and I'll make sure to bring home some snacks." I smiled.

"O- Okay…" Eliza whipped the tears falling down her face, her cheeks were a bit flushed and her eyes were still watery.

"It's time to go." Sophia said while stepping into the carriage.

I hugged Eliza and waved good-bye to my parents. We were heading to the adventures guild, the one that Uncle Andrew owned, Souls Guild.

Souls Guild is the biggest guild in the country, having over 700,000 people in it. This guild also held some of the most powerful guild members in the country, which includes my father and mother, maybe someday even me.

Me and Sophia both went inside the guild and she helped me register.

"Here is the form, please fill out everything." The receptionist said while handing me the paper.

The form has basic information such as first and last name, age, who's your guardian (in my case it's Sophia since she's coming with me), and other stuff like what's your specialty (magic, or hand-to-hand combat), are you an aviver or seer, e.t.c..

I filled in everything and for the magic or hand-to-hand combat I didn't know what to pick so I just circled both.

Sophia also had to hand out a form and we both handed it back to the receptionist, she looked through it and nodded her head.

The receptionist brought us to a room where we will be tested in our skills. We almost made it there when someone stopped us half way.

I looked up and saw a guy with black hair and milky white skin, he was about 1.8m (5.9ft), and has the Souls guild badge on his cloak.

"Sorry for intruding but I wanted to greet you both first. I am Silas, the co-founder of Souls Guild. It's nice to meet you both, especially you, August." He said shifting his eyes back and forth from me and Sophia.

"Nice to meet you too, I guess Uncle Andrew hasn't really told you much about me yet, but I'm August Peirce, son of both Dominic and Alice Peirce." I said bowing down.

"I'm Lieutenant General Sophia, but you can just call me Sophia." Sophia added in.

His eyes widened in shock, I guess it was the fact that Sophia was a high ranked officer, having an officer and especially a high ranked one in a guild is surprising.

He recovered himself and nodded, "You can go, I will be leading them myself." Silas said as he waved the receptionist off.

He guided us through the hallways and we entered the training room, the training room resembles more of an arena more than an actual training room.

It had seats encasing the battle ground with walls in front for protection. There are weapon racks on both sides of the arena where we can choose a weapon if we don't have one.

There were also several people sitting on either side of the seats, some were adults while others were kids my age.

<i>'I guess they let kids my age in as well.'</i> I thought to myself. I was wearing a mask to hide my identity, and a cloak with some protection runes on me. I had some healing stones in my pouch full of healing gems to recover and heal my wounds, my mom insisted on me bringing it just in case.

Ari was sitting on my head, looking at the surroundings. Me and Sophia both took our seats in the back and got ready for the test.

There are 2 tests, one fore magic combat and another for hand-to-hand combat. Depending on what you filled out on the form that you took in the beginning leads to which test you will take.

In my case, I circled both of it so I have to take 2 tests. But if I only circled one, I would only have to take one test.

The test began and the instructor started to call our names one by one to test our skills in either categories.

As the test kept going on I looked through the crowd of people sitting in the benches, there were some elves, humans, and dwarfs. Some looked like nobles while others looked like commoners.

"Xavier Jacomus, for a magic combat test, please step up to the arena." The instructor said gesturing at a boy, I'm guessing my age. He was at an average height, an elf with light brown almost blond hair. He was wearing a red and blue cloak, looking at his looks I feel like he's a noble and a spoiled one at that.

"Yes, sir." Xavier said, smirking.

He stepped down from the seats and walked towards the instructor.

"You will be battling Instructor Alisa for your test." He gestured to Alisa.

"Hello, I will be your instructor today, feel free to pour in all your strength, when one of use can't go on anymore we will stop." In. Alisa said walk towards the opposite side of Xavier.

Xavier grinned and nodded, they both got ready, wands on their hands and ready for battle.

"Boyle!" A huge fire tornado targeted straight at the instructor, 'I guess Xavier is a fire type magician.'

"Hydrius!" In. Alisa deflected the attack and cast another water spell attack at Xavier.

They are both seers so that means they can only cast spells from certain distances, if they get too close they cannot protect themselves.

Both of them stayed at the same spot deflecting each spell their opponent cast.

"Smoldirs!" A dozen fireballs appeared next to Xavier, he smirked and flicked his wand forward, the fireballs all shot forwards towards In. Alisa.

She smiled and for a second I can see some excitement in her eyes, "Illume!" A giant light forcefield covered her to deflect his fireballs. <i>'So she can use both water and light…so these instructors are not just ordinary ones. Uncle Andrew did well to pick them.' </i>I thought, smiling.

After a few more minutes passed, Xavier was heaving, he must have used a lot of mana for those spells. If I'm guessing right, he must have been in his late red stages.

"Good job, but you were too confident which led to you using too much mana for your spells, thinking that it would be easy to defeat your opponent. In a real battlefield your opponent will most likely not use all their power, testing your limits." In. Alisa said looking at the other instructor.

The other instructor nodded and jotted down some notes.

"Alright! The next person and final person is Sol! Sol, please step into the arena, if you don't have a weapon please take on from the rack." The instructor said.

I changed my own name since I didn't want to expose my Identity for my own reasons.

"I have my own weapon, thank you." I said, stepping out from the seats.

"It says that you can do both hand-to-hand combat and magic, it's pretty rare to see people like you. I will be fighting you so please be prepared." The instructor said.

Then I saw someone stepping from the doors, it was my father. What was he doing here?

Both of the instructors looked over towards the noise, I could see my father and uncle Andrew. My father was in his own military uniform decorated with badges and medals. Uncle Andrew was in his usual suit and his hair tied back in a man bun.

"General and GuildMaster Andrew! What are you doing here? Aren't there more important things to do then be here?" The Instructor said, a bit surprised and shocked.

"Why can't I be here for my own son?" My father said, pointing to me.

<i>'Ah shit, I don't want my identity exposed.'</i> Both of the instructors looked at me and back at my dad.

"EHHH!" Both of the instructors said in unison.

"Sol is your son?" The instructor asked, shocked by this finding.

My father looked at me with a questioning expression, I shook my head indicating that I had my own reasons.

"Yes, I've come here to fight my son, I wanted to test him." He said grinning.

I sighed, I didn't want people to think of me as an important person nor a person to be afraid of.

"I will be judging since Dominic wanted to drag me along." Uncle Andrew said jokingly.

"Alright then, please everyone step back or you'll regret it later." My dad chuckled.

Uncle Andrew sighed and went back a few feet. Everyone looked confused, mostly because they had to step back. Was it that bad and intense that they had to step back?

"Then let's begin." My dad said pulling out his Spadroon, it was very sharp and shiny. The sword's body was straight unlike mines, which was a bit curved like any other katanas.

I pulled out my sword, as soon as I unleashed it, the sword shined into a brilliant color of cyan.

When both of us pulled our sword out the air became more dense and dangerous. It felt like the air around us sunk to the ground.

Everyone gasped, some people looked like if they wanted to pass out others looked terrified.

Both me and my father grinned at each other; my father leaped forward and our swords clashed releasing a huge <b>CLING</b> sound.

I stumbled back from the force between us. Putting more mana into my body and using my earth magic to give me more force.

Using the power in my legs I pushed forward and used the momentum to clash my sword against my fathers.

Every swing of my sword I swung my father deflected. After a few minutes of swinging our swords I got tired of it, I used my earth magic causing huge earth spikes to form around me.

Once again pushing forward I put mana into my sword this time and blue flames formed on my sword.

At my command the spikes flew forward and I used a bit of my beast will causing me to teleport myself behind my father and I swung my sword near my father's thoat.

He was caught by surprise and raised his hands.

"You got me this time, son." My dad chuckled, turning around patting my shoulders.

Everyone else looked at me with disbelief.

<i>'Uh oh, I think I went a bit overboard.'</i>

<i>'You think it's a bit'</i> Ari spit at me, sighing.

"Okay, I would say that was pretty impressive." Uncle Andrew said smiling at me.

"A bit?! That was crazy!" The instructor said.

"Hahaha, that's my son!" My father said proudly.

"I will be giving all of you your ranks." The instructor said.

He started to give people their ranks…

"Luke, A rank. Xavier B rank. And last but not least, August, AA rank." The instructor finished off.

"Wait, how did I get AA rank?" I was a bit surprised by this, did I overdo it a bit too much?

"Your sword and magic skills are amazing, we would've put you in AAA rank but the General and GuildMaster agreed that it was too much for a kid right now. Was this rank too little for you?" The instructor said.

"No, no, It's plenty. I only thought of going to rank B or A. This is really a lot for me to take in." I said, I was really surprised. Never in my life have I been more shocked.

"Alright then, if you agree then this is it." Uncle Andrew said.

"Wait! How am I in B rank?!" Xavier said, clearly angry and annoyed.

"Well, how do I say this...You could have gotten into A rank if you were more conscious and less confident. Being confident isn't always good, because one day you or some of your teammates can be heavily injured or die because of your mistakes. You also only focused on offensive spells and not defensive which led to a lot of beginner adventurers' death." In. Alisa explained.

"Tsk." Xavier clicked his tongue and walked away.

"Now, we will assign your party members for now since you are all beginners, even if you are in a high rank you aren't experienced yet and we don't want people getting hurt nor die." The instructor said.

They explained more and said that we will be given a small mission tomorrow and also told us that we need to get ready for tomorrow.

We all headed back into our respected places and got ready for our beginning of our adventure tomorrow.