CH6 (236), First Term Ended Just Like That

The exams that took place during the last week of the first term were pretty easy for me. I only had to take part in the exams of the regular classes, and I was pretty sure I could have aced them with my eyes closed.

I mean, I was so relaxed that I still met up with Mr. Burns for my weapon session on Palkiday. That was actually where I was at the moment.

"Alright, we can say that you have the basic movements and stances down, so it is time you try to use them against someone, in this case, me."

I threw him a look when he said that. The guy was throwing me straight into a boss fight after leaving the starting village. He chuckled after he saw my reaction.

"Don't worry, I won't be fighting back. You'll use everything you've learned so far and I'll just defend while pointing out any mistakes that you'll make. This will help you get rid of your mistakes and help your fluidity," he remarked and I had to nod.

A willing target with an autocorrect function was much better than getting the shit beaten out of me.

"I'll use different kinds of weapons against you during these guiding drills so that you learn how to face them. Once I feel that you're ready, I'll contact the Knight Academy and we can start making sparring as well as lesson appointments with them.

Later, if I feel that you've become good enough I'll bring you outside so that you can test your swordsmanship against wild Pokemon. We'll start with weaker ones and work our way up," He added, and I agreed with him.

It was better to do that under supervision, at least against those close to my strength, since Mr. Burns could prevent things from going wrong.

"What about my needle throwing?" I inquired since I've reached the point where I could hit the bullseye 10 out of 10 times at a 40-meter distance and 7 out of 10 times at a 70-meters distance.

At 100-meters I only managed to hit the bullseye 3 out of 10 times, but that was for the bullseye, I still managed to hit the target with all 10 needles.

"Once you've managed to hit the bullseye 10 out of 10 times at all three distances, then you'll start throwing at a moving target. I'll bring along a Magnemite that you'll have to hit.

You won't be able to hurt it thanks to its steel typing, so you don't need to worry about Magnemite's health. After you manage to hit Magnemite at all three distances, we'll work on hitting two or three within moments of each other.

If you manage to reach Tier 2 First-Class, we'll incorporate external aura manipulation into the mix. Actually, if that happens the external aura manipulation will be added to all aspects of your armed combat lessons"

"Sounds like a plan," I told him since what he said made sense and there was nothing for me to complain about.

"Good, now that we're done with the future talk, let's get to the practical lesson. I'll just use a long sword for today's session," he said before the sparring/guiding began.

I just want to say that I was too naive when I thought I had escaped the beating after he said he was just going to defend and point out the flaws. Well, that was what he did, but his understanding of pointing out flaws was to poke or hit them.

He seemed to embrace the motto "no pain, no gain" and it looked like he took it literally. You leave an opening while attacking, the opening gets poked. You leave an opening while standing at the ready, the opening gets hit. You leave an opening while switching between attacking swords, you get hit.

You leave an opening while recouping after an attack, you get hit. You're not fluid enough, you get hit. You hesitate while attacking, you get hit. You hesitate while retreating, you get hit. You hesitate while defending, you get hit.

If you hesitate while deciding which sword to attack with, you've guessed it, you get hit. Sigh, after getting hit so often I might have become a tad frustrated so ranting internally was better than whining out loud. I did not want to give off the impression of a whiny little b*tch after all.

Still, I had to admit that being hit as often as I was hit did sting quite a bit, and I was pretty sure I was going to get quite a few bruises, not because Mr. Burns used too much strength for his hits cause he didn't, but due to the sheer amount of hits I had received.

Obviously, quite a few of those landed around the same area, which made each successive hit more painful. Now, considering that I got hit roughly a hundred times during the 80 minutes that we kept up the guiding session, I felt entitled to complain at least inwardly.

Mr. Burns mentioned that I made some visible progress, so I did not suffer through the pain for no reason.

"Alright, I know that you might feel a bit frustrated due to the number of times you got hit, but believe it or not, you did a pretty good job. Making mistakes is normal, so don't feel bad about making mistakes.

You've already been correcting some of the mistakes you've made during our guiding session which is more than many would manage during their first session.

You'll see, a few more months of getting hit like this and you'll reduce the number of mistakes you make drastically," I could hear the mirth in his voice when he said that, but I also heard his honesty.

"That would be nice," I said while rubbing my left arm since that one stung the most.

"Well, that's it for today. We'll see each other after the vacation," he said before I left and since I had no further exams today I went home.

After the exams on Dialday, the first term of my second year was officially over. I called Weiss, Ace, and Rose to ask if they wanted to meet up during the vacation.

Obviously, the meetings were not on the same day, but we agreed to meet on Kyoday of the third week with Rose, while Weiss and Ace both agreed to meet up on Dialday of the fourth week.

They wanted to finish the vacation on a good note since the week after that the second term began. I was curious what they would say about their first term at a Trainer School/Navy and Ranger Academy.

While they had mentioned bits and pieces during our calls it was different to talk about it face to face. That reminded me of poor Yu, we talked 3 times in the last 5 months.

Our first conversation was 4 months ago and he was the one who called me. He complained that his new classmates were pretty rude, at least according to his standards.

The new school he was attending was a trainer school since Orre had no Knight Academy. Poor Yu complained that the atmosphere in Orre was harsher and that he was missing Rota.

I genuinely advised him to search for at least one person he got along with and that he could befriend, if not among his classmates, then at least in his new neighborhood.

I was the one who made the second call 3 months ago. I wanted to see if he listened to my advice and how he was doing. Well, apparently he had no luck at school, but he met a girl that watched him practice with his spear full of fascination.

She seemed to be impressed by how good he was at using his spear, his words not mine, so she approached him, and they struck up a friendship following that conversation. I won't lie, I had to laugh at the double meaning of his sentences.

Our last talk was last month, and Yu was the one who called. He told me that he had finally fit in with his classmates and schoolmates as well and that they were finally behaving friendly.

Apparently, all it took according to him was to bash in the face of 2 or 3 of the rudest and most provocative among the bunch. After that, they stopped being rude, offered him their seats in the cafeteria or let him ahead in a line, and held the doors open for him.

I jokingly asked if he was going to school with a black tuxedo, an overcoat, and a Persian, but he didn't get the reference. Well, at least he had not started collecting protection money. Oh well, he seemed to have gotten some friends/underlings out of the whole ordeal, so "all's well that ends well" as they say.

Misty, as well as Aaron, were still abroad, at least for now, and my man Kinji was still in retreat in the Viridian Forest. I made sure to call him at least once a month, but more often than not talked to him every two or three weeks.

I didn't want him to be completely closed off from human contact as he had been during his previous retreat. He told me that the only humans he talked to during that time were the rare rangers he came across inside Viridian Forest or the nurses and doctors he met during his occasional checkups at the PokeCenter or the hospital.

Well, he told me some happy news during our talk last week. Kinji's first Pokemon had finally broken through to the platinum stage, his Volcarona to be specific. Hopefully, his Pinsir and Scyther would follow Volcarona's example soon.

That way he would qualify for the Champion-Class, or the Bug King-Rank according to the Bug Club hierarchy, even if it was just the lower rung of the group.

I knew that I was being nosy when I said it and that he wouldn't do something like that, but I still chose to remind him not to neglect his other Pokemon just to bring his big 3 to the platinum stage.

He just chuckled good-naturedly and told me that he was on top of that. His Charjabug had reached the (high) silver stage and evolved to Vikavolt, while his Wimpod had finally evolved to Golisopod after reaching the (mid) silver stage.

Those two had been his "newest" additions and weakest members, his next weakest member was his Butterfree and that one was trying to break through to the dark gold stage.

Yeah, I was proud of my friend, but I knew at what cost his success had come, and how much he had to train as well as suffer to reach that point. The fact that he was probably going to be one of the youngest bug-type specialists (and trainers) to reach the champion class when he finally did it, was something he deserved in my opinion.

Anyway, back to the point before I started to stray further and further off-topic. Now, that the meetings were organized I only had to wait for some time to see some of my friends in person.

I made it home pretty soon and saw my parents taking care of their Pokemon. When my gaze swept across Dratini I thought that it was time for him to go through the Utopia experience.

It had been more than a few months since he had joined my dad and he had reached the (high) iron stage just two days ago, so all my previously set conditions were fulfilled.

I greeted my parents while deciding to go through with it this night. The rest of the day was spent with my parents. Once night fell and everyone was fast asleep, I used my full ninja capabilities to sneak into Dratini's den on our property, which was between Agni/Arcanine and Azure/Kingdra's sleeping areas.

After releasing a self-made sleeping incense to ensure optimal deep sleep, I pulled him inside Utopia and let it do its thing before placing Dratini back on his bed.

'Species: Dratini

Gender: Male

Type: Dragon

Potential: Deep Blue

Stage: Iron-stage (high)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Shed Skin, Marvel Scale

Talents: None

Affinities: Dragon'

A quick check of his new status showed that his potential had improved to deep blue, most likely pretty close to light purple and that the rest had unfortunately remained the same.

Unlocking a talent or a gene would have been a pleasant surprise, even if it would have been suspicious if he suddenly showed some major change. Still, with this, all my parent's Pokemon had gone through the Utopia experience.

Anyway, after I was done, I quietly left the scene and returned to my bed to sleep.

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