Chapter 9

"I feel bad for Joel, but I am more concerned for you. Damien tell me the truth, have you reached the advanced level of mastery in swordsmanship?" Morty asked Damien as they too exited the classroom to head to the cafeteria.

"Morty, you should know better than anyone else that I am unwilling to tell a soul what level of mastery in any of the weapons we train in, that I obtain. What I can tell you, is that with three more months to train diligently, I should be able to solidify my spot within the top three of all the students in our year." Responded Damien as the two friends finally entered the cafeteria.

The cafeteria in the academy was able to fit over two thousand students within at a time. It would always be bustling with chatter and laughter as classes were dismissed for lunch and students continued to flood the room.

Although massive, the students would split themselves among specific areas of the cafeteria to sit with their close friends. There was a golden rule where each year's students would only be allowed to sit in a specific area unless they wanted to sit with younger students in a different year. This, however, was looked down upon and considered to be a strange decision to make politically.

The geniuses of the youngest year would be seated at the table closest to the area with the upperclassmen. The seating arrangements would be that the strongest of the weakest could be seated closest to the weakest of the older class. Therefore, those who were seated closest to the youngest generation would be considered extremely weak and equal in strength to those who excelled in their class.

Damien and his friends were seated in the middle area of their generation's space. Although Damien could be considered a dark horse in his generation, he still decided to sit with his friends, instead of proving his strength just for a better seat. Damien did not care about the politics of the school and just wanted to enjoy his time with his friends.

The field agent who took Damien in so many years ago explained to him that once he joined the tower officially, that his previous life would hold no meaning other than his memories. This was because joining the tower officially meant that Damien would walk a lonely path to gain more and more strength by taking on missions all by himself.

Unlike ordinary military units, the Church of Light made it so that specific towers would only be used to take on solo missions, while other towers were more lenient and allowed their field agents to join the army. The Church of Light chose to do this because if they allowed every member of every tower to join the military, not many would take a lonelier path and travel around by themselves.

By their nature, humans were extremely social. This meant that if given the choice, they would rather choose to be surrounded by others, instead of being by themselves. In some cases, humans who would seek power and strength would see loneliness as an opportunity for self-growth, but to them, such an instance would be temporary.

Due to his upbringing in a poverty-stricken city before coming to this academy to gain knowledge and become stronger, Damien understood that his path would be filled with loneliness. He did not care about anything but becoming as strong as he could through his private training and his experience in battle.

After sitting down at their table, Damien and Morty each grabbed a piece of meat and some sides as they chowed down their meals. In this cafeteria, the servers would fill each table with different types of food and allow the students to choose what they ate. There were no lines, and at least two servers would always be assigned a single table.

This treatment given to the students, was because they were training to become elite forces of the Church of Light. Even the weakest among every student within this room would eventually be capable of fighting off the forces of darkness single-handedly. With so much pressure on them from the start of taking this path, free and wholesome meals were given to them so they wouldn't break mentally as fast.

"So, Damien, are you going to continue training as you have been up to this point? Or are you going to approach training differently?" one of his friends at the table asked him out of curiosity. Everyone, even the upperclassmen knew that Damien was adopted by a high-level field agent of their tower. However, what only his friends knew, was that Damien trained harder than anyone else.

"My trainer laid out a solid training regimen for me to follow. It would be unwise for me to differentiate from it now that I have become stronger just by following her instructions." Damien replied after swallowing a big bite of his potatoes.