First official sparring session

Sophie was furious. THESE IDIOTS, THEY SIMPLY CHOSE SKILLS THAT LOOKED GOOD OR SOUNDED COOL. NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE NATURE OF THE SKILLS AT ALL. DIDN'T THEY SAY THAT THE BATCH THIS YEAR WAS GOOD? WHAT A HOGWASH. ESPECIALLY SARCONY. CHOOSING THE THREAD WEAVING ART, SERIOUSLY!? DOES SHE EVEN KNOW THAT IT IS A TRASHY SKILL? I'LL TEACH THEM A LESSON TOMORROW. I WILL.....

~~BOOM~~ A loud sound interrupted her monologue. It felt like thunder strike. Running to the site she felt as the origin of sound in her negligee, she gaped at the scene of wreckage. The big boulder that rested here was smashed into smithereens. WHO COULD DO SUCH A FEAT WITHOUT A SINGLE RIPPLE OF CHAKRA? I CAM IMAGINE A FEW NAMES BUT NONE OF THEM HAVE ANY OBLIGATION TO DO SO. SUCH ENORMOUS PHYSICAL STRENGTH WITHOUT CHAKRA FORTIFICATION, IT IS EXTREMELY INTERESTING! Sophie gave a devious smile and left while humming.

The next day, Sophie glared at the class whose faces clearly said they were clueless. Regulating her anger, she spoke, " Students, I give you a week to do your practices and say your prayers. After a week, you all have to participate, without fail, in a melee battle, me against all of you, in the open battle arena. It is a simple combat exercise to check your primary skills. All the best. " She casually dropped a bombshell and left right after snickering at their funny expressions.

After a week of nervous preparations,

Sophie glared at the students who stood in front of her without realizing what she had in mind when she challenged them to an open arena. Especially Sarcony, even after explaining her that the thread weaving art was a trash skill, she stood adamant in using it as the primary skill. She was mentally prepared to pummel her students and make them realize their stupidity. She got into a battle stance and stood ready to unleash her wrath on the clueless lambs.

She was a graduate from the academy and possessed primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary skills and was hailed as a prodigy of her times due to excellent compatibility of her skills with each other and her fighting style. She was a group control fighter, the nemesis of armies. Seeing the students grouping up to face her, she almost broke out in laughter.

She activated her primary skill, 'Shadow weaken'. An AOE (area of effect) skill that causes mass panic by showing illusions of rotting hands emerging from people's shadows to capture them. It was successful in creating chaos giving her time to pick the weak off, one by one. She succeded in knocking half of the students out, but the remainig ones were the toughest in her class. She glared at them while dissolving the primary skill. It wasn't of any use after all.

She activated her secondary skill, ' Prison of Dark Duke '. It creates a pseudo domain where she can control the power output, chakra content and density of the air while remaining partially affected by them whereas the opponents take the full brunt of it (basically taking 80 damage to deal 250 damage to multiple enemies at once). It can be dispelled if the person/s under imprisonment of the skill can attack the barrier with energy that exceeds that of the caster by a large degree.

As the barrier was transparent, only students who were sensitive to changes in the environment (such as mages, spirit seekers and Sarcony's group) were on guard, escaping the second round of elimination that put half of the remaining group out of action. Now, only 10 students, the most exceptional ones at that, were left standing in the battlefield.

" The game begins now " announced Sophie, while turning serious.

The leader who took the position of vanguard, ran towards her whilst weilding the heavy hammer and shield pair. His primary skill, ' The protector ' was a passive that gave a large boost to his defensive capability at the cost of reduced agility but him being the tanker wasn't a problem due to the second vanguard who took the role of hit and run offensive, Mo'er.

Her primary skill, ' The dance of fire ' was a passive that reduced the chakra consumption for all fire-sword based attacks and fire manipulation. Protecting the remaining students was the leader's duty while attacking the teacher was Mo'er's job (which suited her a lot).

Sarcony, with her active primary skill, ' Thread weaving art ' created several trip wires all over the arena, tripping Sophie many times in mid attack, causing her to miss and get hit by Mo'er or the leader, who attacked occasionally. She also created several traps that resembled spider webs, restraining her movements for a while, allowing the vanguards to catch a breath.

She also pulled her friends to safety (by wrapping the threads around their waists) making several of Sophie's attacks hit air, terribly annoying her. Her timely assists saved Mo'er and the leader from several close shaves that would have eliminated them, breaking the collaboration. She also whipped Sophie from time to time leaving her with stinging gashes that enraged her further.

Sarcony's almost outlandish usage of the thread weaving art made Sophie as well as all the other students question their sanity. She was neither the tanker nor the offensive vanguard yet had the highest contribution among the 8 remaining students. Her timely assists coupled with effective trap laying cornered Sophie and let her control the flow of the battle completely.

Sophie grit her teeth and activated her tertiary skill, ' the saint in the shadows '. A passive that massively increases her strength, senses and reflexes. It allows her to partially cloak herself in her shadow and ambush people from their shadows, muffling her presence a little. She was a master in martial arts as well but her sloth won over her battle heatedness making her a teacher of theory instead. Now, she unleashed her true prowess as her anger won over her sloth.

She started to fight with various kinds of weapons and magics with her bare fists sending them flying away. INTERESTING, SO SHE WAS JUST LAZY UNTIL NOW. BE CAREFUL SARCONY, THE REAL BATTLE STARTS NOW. Cheeky warned Sarcony. Just as she said, the pressure on the students increased. Even with her assists, students started to get wounded. Sarcony felt it as a failure on her part and observed for an opportunity to strike, with only 4 students left, it was a chance.

She was carefully observing the flow of battle to learn from it as well. Sophie was serious now. She couldn't afford to lose to her students. She was considerate in the beginning as she didn't want to harm them but she underestimated their potential and the group control effectiveness of Sarcony's Thread weaving art.

Mo'er and the leader were engaged in a close range combat with Sophie who was using nimble movements to dodge and wound them. Grasping a chance, Sarcony came into close range and tried to attack. All of a sudden, due to an uncanny feeling, she threw Mo'er and the leader away and tried to distance herself but it was too late.

Sophie's quarternary skill, ' the never ending dream ' was a powerful skill, that threw people she targeted, into a world of dreams. Those thrown in have to complete the tasks they are assigned in order to exit the world. Else, they will be sent back to the start of the tasks to perform it again until they succeed. This was more like a skill for training than offense as the tasks to fulfill cannot be controlled by her. This was her second Quaternary skill she stumbled upon by chance and could only use it once every month.

She wanted to teach them, not kill, so she did not use her other quarternary skill, ' the death army ' that summons an undying army for an hour at the expense of all her Chakra. Sarcony, Mo'er and the leader were sent into the dream world. Sophie explained the other students about her skill and told them to rest. The skill has a time flow that makes it so that the trapped ones can have as many tries as they want yet don't stay more than 2 lunar units in the dream world.

I WANT TO KNOW WHAT KIND OF TASKS WOULD THE PROMISING TRIO GET. I AM SURPRISED THAT USING ALL MY CHAKRA COULD BARELY SEND THE THREE OF THEM TO THE DREAM WORLD. I GUESS THAT I SHOULD CHANGE MY PERSPECTIVE OF THE THREAD WEAVING ART. HOW IN THW WORLD CAN SHE MAKE THREADS STRONG ENOUGH TO PULL HER FRIENDS OR LASH LIKE A WHIP, I WAS PRETTY SURE THE THREADS WERE WEAK ENOUGH TO SNAP LIKE A TWIG. I SHOULD ASK HER AFTER SHE COMES OUT. Sophie thought to herself as she sat on the ground to wait for her clueless students to come back from the dream world after an hour.