12 Chapter 10: The clash begins!

An hour later Theo, Leonardo, Felix, and Zed joined others in line in front of the Astra.

They were sweated, and a bit tired, but their condition was much better than the conditions of half of the students that were covered in dust and sweat.

Astra had her bright smile on her lips as she continued looking at her students.

Just a glance was enough to see that many of her students needed to wash their faces, or they won't see their enemies well.

"Now, since you have finally finished with a warm-up, let's begin the 2nd part of our lesson," said Astra, taking several big buckets of water from her space ring, and placing them in front of the students, "There is no much water there, wash only your faces, and give others to do so too, other parts of your bodies covered with mud won't affect you during the sparring,"

A short time later, after everyone washed their faces, they were looking at Astra for an explanation about the sparring.

Astra continued to look at her students for a short period of time before nodding to herself and moving to the next part of the training field, giving a sign for others to follow after her.

Soon they were inside an arena with 20 free platforms ahead of them.

"Now, we will begin sparrings, each of you will enter into the platform according to the number on this sheet, and you will fight, winners will move to the platform on the right side while loser to the platform on the left side. With each new victory, you will get 1 point, it's applicable to losers too, but you will get 0,5 points for each victory. So, regardless of your current condition, show your skills and progress you made with your sword." said Astra, sending several sheets of paper to her students.

It didn't take long for Theo and his classmates to find their opponents and move to the platforms, so soon the sound of wood collision resounded across the training field.

Theo's 1st opponent got to be one of the fat students, though he showed that he learned what showed him, Astra, well, it didn't take Theo long to finish dealing with him and move further.

After the 1st battle, Theo, Leonardo, Zed, Kaleb Balkot, Lisa Lepiz, and others became winners and moved further while Felix and 4 physically strong boys met the other best students in the group and became losers. Zed, Leonardo, and Lisa Lepiz dealt with three other strong boys while the last one got careless and lost to one of the mediocre students. Felix got unlucky and fought against Kaleb Balkot, his opponent showed full supremacy of his family sword style in comparison to the style of the ordinary soldier's sword style.

So a glance was enough to see that rules were a bit crafty, and made even the strongest in the class meet each other, making half of them lose.

Anyway, the next battle rounds in which Theo participated were with mediocre classmates, so Theo easily got into the semi-final among the winners.

Unfortunately, Zed and Leonardo weren't that lucky, they lost before the supremacy of noble sword styles that could easily help Kaleb Balkot and Lisa Lepiz to send them out of the platform, making them lose.

So, only Theo, Kaleb Balkot, Lisa Lepiz, and one of the lucky students reached the semi-final.

Standing in front of the Kaleb Balkot that pierced him with his gaze, Theo raised his wooden sword, standing in the initial stance of his own sword style.

A moment later, Kaleb moved, and the clash finally began, he released a wave of attacks at his opponent, but Theo easily dodged and evaded them, blocking his attack.

Theo didn't hurry to finish the round, though he was superior in terms of strength and skills mastery, he saw how Kaleb fought against Zed, Felix, and other students, defeating them in a humiliating way, so he was planning to return the favor to the arrogant young noble so that he didn't consider himself as the center of the universe.

Blocking another one of Kaleb's attacks, Theo pushed Kaleb back with his counter-attack, creating a small distance between them.

"So, is it everything you have? Aren't you too weak to keep your arrogant expression and manners?" asked Theo with a smile on his lips.

Kaleb's mouth twitched, and veins appeared on his forehead, while his glance became icier and icier.

"If it's everything you've got, then your family sword styles are indeed wasted on the trash as our teacher said about certain students in our class," continued Theo with a smile on his lips.

Right now, he was feeling so nostalgic, under this long-forgotten feeling from his middle years when he as the youngest Union's general showed places for too arrogant nobles during his army duty. It has been many years since he last had fun with fellow nobles from his generation.

Just as Theo finished his speech, Kaleb initiated his attack, trying to catch Theo unguarded when he was relatively relaxed, but unfortunately for him, ended getting several fist punches into his face, sending him back on his initial position.

"You .... do you even understand what you are doing? Don't you see who I am?" asked Kaleb, holding his nose that was bleeding.

Theo just smiled at his words before standing and approaching his opponent.

Several more sword clashes and Kaleb was standing on his knees with unsightful expression on his face.

"So how does it feel to kneel in front of someone, don't you feel delighted that such a talented person taught you a lesson," asked Theo, using exactly the same words Kaleb used against the opponents that lost to him.

Kaleb's expression became darker with each passing moment as he was on his knees, he wanted to stand up, but Theo held him tightly, without giving him any chance to stand up. So he could only continue looking at the boy in front of him.

Theo launched several more fish punches at Kaleb across his body before taking and sending him out of the platform.

"I hope today's lesson will be enough, and you will learn how to restrict your own personality and character traits for your own good, your status won't be able to save you all the time. There would be a day when you would meet a person that would give a damn about you, and your family's status here in Freinos city," said Theo, looking bellow from the platform on the Kaleb Balkot.

Only now did Theo realized that he got carried away a bit too much into his nostalgic feeling, and didn't notice that many of the students were looking at him with different expressions on their faces, even Astra showed something similar to approval.

Some were angry because of Theo's actions while others like Zed and Felix who suffered under Kaleb's behavior felt gratified to Theo.

Theo could only smile and release a tired sigh because he once again became the center of attention.

Anyway, there was a person that was long waiting for the winner on the platform where Theo and Kaleb fought, it was Lisa Lepiz that long ago finished dealing with her opponent.

Though she was also noble, Lisa had no interest in sparrings and humiliation of other students, so she tried to finish her battles as soon as possible, and even gave several pointers to her opponents to help them improve, so Theo had no bad feelings against her, and he decided to repay her for the things she did for Leonardo when she showed him his weak points during the battle, helping him realize it himself.

Soon, he and Lisa began fighting. Though she was much better than Kaleb in terms of sword mastery, she was still far away from Theo's skills and current advantage in terms of physical power.

So, 15 minutes later when an exhausted Lisa raised her conflicted glance at Theo, she just left the arena, admitting her defeat, so in such a way, Theo became the winner of the 1st sparring competitions among Astra's students.

Soon, Theo and others were standing in front of the Astra, listening to how much each student got for today's lesson.

"As a result, Theo, Lisa, Kaleb, Leonardo, Felix, Zed got the highest amount of the points for today's lessons, so they decreased their needed sum of points to pass my course, it was a rare chance for you all to use, so if you aren't satisfied with the number of points you got, it's your own fault, you had to work harder," said Astra, and looking at her students before, stopping her glance on several sad fat students.

"Though some things can't be changed fast, you need to make efforts in the spheres that you can affect, each of you could have improved their sword skills a bit further if they made more efforts," said Astra with a cue, stopping for several moments on 1 fat student.

Just as she finished her speech, a bell resounded across the academy, so Astra smiled, looking at her students.

"So, since the lesson is over, I will give just one assignment for you all - get stronger as much as possible, it will help you a lot on the next lesson," said Astra with a mysterious smile on her lips.

Just as Astra disappeared from the training field, Theo and others rushed in different directions. Some moved to wash, while others moved into different parts of the academy to not get late on the first lessons they chose for their minor.

Leonardo had to go to Blacksmithing, Zed to Enchanting, Felix to taming while Theo to Alchemy, so he said several words to his old friend and new ones before leaving the training field.

***

Entering inside the big room, Theo quickly noticed that it was crowded, and there weren't too many free seats, but fortunately for him, he was lucky and found a place in the center of the class. The students continued to arrive and arrive, and soon the whole class was full, and there were no empty seats available.

Waiting for the arrival of the teacher, Theo turned his head and noticed a simply-looking short-haired girl with a book in her hands, sitting to the right from him while a tall and wide boy was sleeping to the left from him.

Theo decided not to touch his roommate to the left and focused his glance on the girl to the right.

Looking at her, he noticed that she was reading a thick book called, the "Basics of Alchemy", looking very serious and concentrated in the process.

Theo had nothing to do, though he was already very old, right now he was in the body of the 12-years old boy, so he decided not to fight with his curiosity, but fall for it as would any 12-years old boy want to do. So a moment later, he was throwing his sneak glances at the content of the book, the girl was reading.

A movement next to her was enough for the girl to get distracted from her thoughts, and she raised her head, looking at the handsome boy, sitting next to her.

She looked at him for several seconds before deciding to return back to reading when Theo was no longer be able to hold himself.

"Well, sorry to interrupt you, I just got curious about the content of your book, and decide to throw a glance at it. This is my 1st time when I have ever seen the alchemy book, so I just couldn't hold myself. Sorry if I distracted you." said Theo, leaning back on his chair.

The girl looked at Theo 2nd time before smiling and giving a book to Theo.

"You may look, if it's your 1st time it should be very interesting for you, I myself was so curious about it that couldn't release the book for days when I got her." said the girl, giving a book to Theo.

Theo couldn't miss such chance so he began quickly looking through the book.

The more he looked the more different herbs and plants he saw, even several rare ores and animals were there with their pictures and short summary. However, the more he looked the more headache he got, there was too much information to memorize for the current him.

"Does it have only herbs and plants without any explanation on how to use alchemic flame or how to concoct pills?" asked Theo when he got a bit cooled after seeing so much new information.

"It's just one of the books about the basics of alchemy, there wouldn't be any information about things you've asked in the whole 10 books of basics of alchemy." said the girl, explaining to Theo.

"What, there 9 more books with similar content?" asked Theo while a sweat began forming on his forehead.

As if the girl wasn't shocked at his reaction, she sighed and began explaining.

"Yes, there are indeed 9 more books about the basics of alchemy, and the books I gave you are the easiest among them, other books are much more difficult. If you want to learn anything about the alchemy flame and other things, you will have to pass through them at first and take an exam to check your knowledge" said the girl with a calm expression on her face.

Though Theo was an Archmage in his previous life, his current mind was too far from his previous condition, and he couldn't memorize many advanced things from upper magic right now, even memorizing bits of useful things was already difficult, but now he had to learn even more information that he saw for the 1st time in his both lives. He needed to improve his mind and memory and do it as soon as possible.

So, Theo could only release a tired sigh, returning a book to his roommate.

"I am Theo, by the way, what about you?" asked Theo, looking at the girl.

The girl took the book and looked at Theo.

"Akara," said the girl right at the time when several teachers entered the room with a small company of elder students in a green uniform.