23 Monday after the first dive (part 1)

The next day I went to school as I did on all Mondays. before the first lesson, I could see Stan and Thomas but Hank was nowhere to be seen.

When the teacher came in he told us, " Hank will be missing for some days he is recuperating in the hospital for the next days."

the whole class started to mumble.

The teacher waited for a bit and then continued, " he encountered a dungeon killer, luckily he survived. now the upper echelon wants us to teach you to combat against overwhelming opponents. I don't think it will do you much but I still am compelled to teach you. So today's classes are canceled for this. So we meet up with the other classes on the combat field in 10 minutes get ready."

the class was split into those that were happy about this change and those that weren't. I was one of the happy ones.

When I got to the changing room Thomas came to me and said, " I'm sorry."

I was confused why he apologized to me, as I looked at him he continued, " I think I will never be prepared for the dungeon. I think I'm not cut out to be a diver. Yesterday I got myself three ranks 1 skills. my new skills will let me be a baker."

I smiled at him and told him, " Hey that's great, did you want to become backer before?"

He looked at me perplexed and asked, " aren't you angry? we always talked about becoming a team and exploring a dungeon together."

"I have no reason to be angry. we are friends and if you think you will not make it far in the dungeon it would be foolish of me to not respect it." I said and tried to sound as wise as possible. His expression changes into a bright smile and he said, "Thank you, you don't know how worried I was about it. You're a great friend." Stan who was close by came over and said, " I think I will do the same as you Thomas, diving isn't for me I will sometimes go in and train a bit but I won't become a professional diver." after stan my other classmates on after the other told what they want to become, some didn't even have the skills they would need for it so they tried to get money through diving to get some high choice crystals to realize their dreams. At that moment I was glad that dad got me a high choice crystal as my first one, I could have become anything I wanted, but some of the guys were so far away from their dreams that it was almost impossible.

We took extremely long to get changed. when we boys reached the combat field everyone started at us. the one to comment was mister Zealand, " took you guys long enough. okay, now that everyone is here I will explain the exercise. it is a bit complex so listen carefully, your students will try to reach the other side of the field while we teacher attack you, we won't hold back." the cries of protest we're loud at this we had multiple ex divers for the combat training those alone could wipe the floor with us, it was just unfair for them to not hold back and then there was mister Zealand he was once a famous diver, I think he alone could beat all of us within seconds.

Mister Zealand waited for a bit for everyone to calm down." the healers are ready to treat any serious injuries, we teacher will still use training weapons just like you. We will repeat this exercise multiple time, to make it more interesting I decided to give the student that survies the most rounds a skill crystal of rank 3," said mister Zealand and surprised everyone even the teacher. Then a dark smile surfaced on his face and he said in a low voice, " If any one even manages to reach the other end." I could feel pressure coming from him and the fear that everyone felt from this.

like this no one would reach the end. so I shouted over the hole crowd at mister Zealand, " What if multiple people manage to reach the end and all of them tie for the first place." with this simple sentence I could feel the pressure reduce a bit. "Then I will give out multiple smaller ones depending on the number of people. We will see. the start is the red zone and then you will need to reach the green zone to finish.". the students protested at this. both of those zones were around 2

0,5 km away from each other. they were the ones the furthers away from each other. Mister Zealand smiled and said, " then get ready the first round will start shortly, come on get moving." we all moved and got training equipment and went into the red zone. we all prepared. the signal was sounded and mister Zealand appeared right before me and smiled at me, I quickly raised my shield and badly manage to block the thrust of one of his knifes the second one hit one of the students to my right. the student flew about 10 meters. I did only fly three meters backwards and could catch myself. I looked up and saw that Mister Zealand send students flying left and right removing them from this exercise. Mister Zealand knew I managed to block his attack but didn't pursue me. I started to move to first leave the red zone. the other teachers had also started to decrease the number of students, I just managed to leave the red zone when my math teacher reached me he had no weapon and just swung his fist at me, I evaded the first and second punch but I couldn't distance myself from him. the teacher raised an eyebrow and then continued to swing at me, while I continued to evade and block all of his artacks I saw how more of the teachers attacked the others. another teacher closed in and swung his hammer at me. I dropped down and the hammer hit my math teacher, knocking him out. I quickly tried to get to my feet but the teachers already swung his hammer at me and hit me before I could get up with this I was out of the exercise.