First Class (2/2)

A big empty hall.

Leihen could hear his own heartbeat, which was a little faster after the last few events, and if he closed his eyes, even for a moment, he was sure he would go crazy.

The room had white walls and gray marble floors with what looked like interlocking veins, with a blue-green liquid running through them, which Leihen had some hunches about what it was.

'Did they use Magilic in the construction of a simple hall? Or does the salon also have another purpose?' He couldn't think of a compelling reason to use something so important in building the hall, and even if the creator himself told him the reason, he wouldn't understand.

But before he was one step away from frying his brain thinking, Minerva clapped her hands, which traveled across the great hall and echoed through him, making her little act of clapping hands sounds like explosions

"This is where our first and future combat lessons will be held, the great hall of suffering." She spoke in a low tone, but her words echoed, making them as loud as thunder.

"The hall was built by a joint work of forgers, alchemists and sorcerers in order to be impenetrable and to be able to be used in several different ways, one of them being the teaching."

"It's a sophisticated creation that only Director Nikola, General Rovankov, and Emperor Y'ian have the right to handle, but only if the other two parties agree to do so." When Minerva was about to talk about the incredible creation that was the Great Hall of Despair, a voice that sounded like a murmur, but thanks to the echo that the hall produced, it sounded like a scream could be heard.

"So the rumor that the three were friends is true." The voice said, and when those present turned in the direction that the gossip had been made, they saw that it had come out of Liica's mouth.

Although it may seem impossible, the hall seemed to have become even more silent, and at the same time, with an air of discomfort.

With the lack of shame one would expect from a beggar who would refuse a coin saying it is too small, she simply cleared her throat while keeping a serious look on her face. "Please proceed." She said, ignoring the looks they gave her.

'How shameless, maybe she is a descendant of a noble family?' Leihen thought, with that being the most plausible justification.

Minerva keep a while the look at Liica's figure before losing the will to continue talking about the incredible creation that is the salon.

"We will reluctantly change the topic of our conversation to one of less importance, which is your class." She said with the face of a widow who recently lost her husband.

"Before we start, I must say, for for the sake of the immense, don't get caught up in your pissed off concept of combat and avoid being embarssing yourself on my class, after all, you haven't even learned what you need to be yet."

As the class tried to understand the strange phrase that was spoken once in the vice principal's speech and now in combat class, minerva took a few steps away from the students as her blue magic left her body, forming a small podium.

"Now, I'm going to start the class with a simple question, and I better not notice any funny comments coming from you guys." Minerva said, with a serious look in her aqua blue eyes.

The room controlled their thoughts as much as possible, especially Leandro, who had already been subjected to the terror of being the target of the woman's sharp tongue.

"Tell me, how many ways are there to use mana?"

Leihen, without delay, raised his hand and spoke without waiting for Minerva's consent.

"There is no rough average of all forms of mana application and control, but its main uses are for combat, research, crafting, infusing, and transforming."

"All right, now, someone else, of these 5 ways, which ones do you think we'll be learning?" As you would expect from Minerva, she wasted no time giving praise and simply continued the class.

Leandro, wanting to make amends for his previous mistake, raised his hand and spoke with a bit of shyness hidden in his voice.

"Combat and transformation?" He spoke, trying his best not to show any signs of discomfort.

Minerva heaved a sigh upon hearing Leandro's words.

"Even though i told you guys not to get hung up on your petty concept of combat, but apparently i said words too complex for maggots like you to understand, i'm sorry, i should have realized this sooner." Minerva said with an apologetic tone that sounded genuine, but everyone knew it wasn't.

She then decided to change her way of teaching, and as if she were talking to two-year-olds, she continued her class.

"My little maggots, combat doesn't just involve hitting bad guys or dragons from hero stories, the act of combat also involves dealing with countless situations, so fights won't always be necessary." She said with a smile that any child who saw her smiling would make her their favorite aunt.

Minus the kids in front of her.

They felt humiliated at being treated like little children, barely controlling urges to call Minerva forty or other things that would make any normal woman cry.

"In my class, you will learn to fight everything, be it creatures, other races, challenges or unexpected situations." She said while keeping her smile.

Then, as if the smile were a delusion, it faded from Minerva's face as she spoke in a cold tone.

"So, of the five ways to use mana, which ones will we learn?"

Sweat dripped from Leandro's forehead, his mental stability about to collapse, but choosing to go down shooting, he responded with the last ounce of courage he had left in him.

"All of them." He said, with a clenched fist and every muscle in his body tensed.

Minerva was silent, simply looking at Leandro motionless, while he did his best not to succumb to the pressure that the woman in front of him exhaled.

A few moments passed, red blood was pouring from Leandro's clenched fists, he was shaking as if the gravity in the room had been increased, but Minerva just kept her cold gaze on him.

Her classmates were prepared to help Leandro if the woman crossed the line, but it proved unnecessary.

When he was about to pass out and his colleagues a second away from jumping on Minerva, she simply averted her gaze, and spoke in a relaxed tone.

"You held up better than the students of past years, the least worst of them slept for 10 hours straight and got gray hair due to pressure."

When Minerva looked away from Leandro, he felt as if a stone had been removed from his body, he fell to the ground, his breath panting and every muscle in his body contracting, as if they were alive.

His classmates, especially Leihen, simply wanted to bail out Leandro, but they believed, even a little, that the woman in front of them wouldn't get very far in the test.

Their entire reaction during the test, of course, did not go unnoticed by Minerva.

'It's still not a bond a team would have, but considering they met today, it's not too bad.' She thought, with an unreadable face.

'Now, to conclude, I will play the last card.'

"Thanks to your companion's small feat, I will give the class a gift, or in better words, a choice." She said seriously, making everyone present feel like it wouldn't be a simple thing.

Leihen, inspired by the woman's tone, reasoned and analyzed the woman's words, and realized something.

"Why are we going to be rewarded if it was Leandro who endured it all?" He asked, in an innocent and curious tone and looked at the colleague who was lying on the ground, now with steady breathing, but no signs of being able to get up.

Upon hearing the questioning, Minerva let out a huff and replied. "Do you think I'm a demon who would make you guys just share the punishments? You thought wrong maggot, i am a generous demon, so the rewards one earns will also be given to those present in the room."

"Now, think about it and discuss before choosing. Of the five main ways to use mana, which ones do you want to learn first?"

They did not understand why such a simple thing was treated with such seriousness, but Minerva concluded her speech with the same serious tone.

"Keep in mind that the way you choose will be focused on the classes, of course, the other ways will also be taught, but it will be less focused than the one you choose, by the way, you are not the only students, you were simply the ones who showed up on time." She concluded, showing no signs of wanting to say anything else after that.

They finally realized the seriousness of the choice Minerva gave them, after all, that didn't include them alone, but also the rest of the students.

Knowing that the choice wouldn't just affect them, they also realized that they couldn't decide on their own, so they got together and started debating.

But when the circle was formed, they realized that something was missing, and began to look around the hall.

They didn't find anything, but as if they finally remembered something, they simultaneously looked down at the floor, where Leandro was.

He had a tearful face, full of sadness that they had forgotten him as he looked through the eyes of a puppy.

Embarrassed at having forgotten him, they searched for words to comfort their colleague, with Tian being the quickest.

"Dude, you did very well supporting the pressure of a level 6 being, I don't think I would have done the same." Tian said, a gentle, slightly strained smile on his face.

Aurora, seeing that it was her turn to do something, said in an energetic tone.

"Y-Yes, you did very well, we thought it was better to let you rest and take care of this difficult difficulty that teacher Minerva gave us by ourselves, after all, you can't even reproduce a sound." She said with a lack of shame a little inferior to Liica's.

Not wanting to admit that they forgot about him, they agreed with Aurora.

"Yeah, just rest and leave it to us.

"Yes, don't do all the work and let us do something." Leihen and Liica said, respectively.

With a face on the verge of tears, Leandro said in a trembling voice.

"But I can talk, I even called you many times, but no one heard me, I thought I was delirious because of the effort."

His classmates, obviously, continued the farse

"Seriously, why do you seem to want to keep working? You can't even speak, how are you going to debate with us?" Aurora once again showed her mixture of shamelessness and speed of thought.

Leandro was once again about to say something, but this time Leihen bent down and put a cloth from his pocket over his mouth.

"Seriously, don't push yourself, leave it to us and just relax, okay?" Leihen said with a playful tone, but with a serious tone on his face, showing that there was no chance for discussion.

Leandro simply gave in, thinking he was delusional.

Seeing that Leandro would no longer try to do something, they heaved a sigh of relief and praised each other in their minds.

Minerva, seeing the act, had a face of a person who had heard a bad, unfunny joke.

'On the bright side, this could be considered teamwork, I guess?' She gave up thinking and simply agreed with her own thinking.

Seeing Minerva's face, they thought she was unhappy with the delay and choose that it was time to stop the nonsense and start arguing about their choices.

Again starting with the conversation, Tian gave his first thought.

"I think that instead of choosing a way right away, we should eliminate the ones we don't want and that we don't think are worth focusing on."

Tian waited a while to see if anyone had anything to say, and seeing that no one was against his thinking, he continued.

"I think we should first eliminate the way of using mana for crafting and research, as this can be focused on other classes. But the problem is deciding if we want to learn how to Infuse, combat or transform mana, as our focus will be one of these three."

Liica also shared her thoughts with her colleagues.

"I think we should exclude the way to infuse mana as well, as we still have little mana and control over it, and I also think it would be better to focus on something that we could use in various situations rather than something as fixed as infuse mana." She said quickly with her eyes closed.

She waited a while to see if anyone would say anything, but there was only silence.

She then opened her eyes and saw that her classmates were looking at her face with their mouths slightly open.

"W-Why are you looking at me with those idiot faces? say something." She said with frustration and shame mixed in her voice, and the face with a slightly red tone.

"Arrem, we just found your thinking very accurate, did you have any tutors who taught you at your home?" Aurora said composedly, as if she hadn't been gawking a few seconds ago.

Realizing why they were the way they were, Liica flashed a proud smile on her face.

"Of course I had a tutor, what noble didn't have a tutor as a child?" She said with her nose in the air.

Leihen simply gave the girl a blank stare, and changed the topic.

"So I think we should learn to use mana to combat, as our mana pool would increase as a result, and our combat prowess would improve by leaps and bounds and no other class would let us fight." Leihen said, with a hand on his chin.

Seeing that they gave him the same look they gave Liica, he quickly explained.

"My mom taught me a little about mana, she's a mage." He said with a prankish smile, without any trace of being bothered, unlike Liica.

Aurora and Tian, ​​seeing that it was the best option, agreed with Leihen's thinking.

Liica didn't like how Leihen cut her high, but couldn't think of any way to refute him, reluctantly agreed with him.

Seeing that no one was going to say anything else, Leihen smiled and turned to Minerva's direction and spoke.

"Professor Minerva, we've decided that we want to learn how to use mana for combat, please teach us."

Leihen and Liica went down on one knee, with Aurora and Tian copying them after a few moments.

Minerva, seeing that they were down on one knee, raised an eyebrow and said.

"I would like to know why you are in this position."

With a mannerism he learned from his father, Leihen simply replied.

"The one who willingly shares knowledge is worthy of admiration." He said, having a gentle smile on his face.

With an indecipherable face, Minerva simply countered

"Knowledge has spawned several wars, but the lack of wisdom to deal with it has spawned even more. Do you think I'll give you something that could start wars for maggots like you?" She said with a cold tone, exhaling a little pressure towards them.

They gritted their teeth as the air around them grew heavier, barely hanging on to their knees on the ground and with a surge of adrenaline, Leihen said something that impressed even the imperturbable Minerva.

"Yes."

After those words, the pressure seemed to double around them, causing everyone except Leihen and Minerva to lie on the floor.

"Ha, looks like we have a cheeky one here." She said as she walked towards the boy who answered her.

Leihen felt the pressure build up each time Minerva took a step into the great hall, her footsteps being the only thing breaking the silence.

"Now smartass, tell me, why would I do that?" She said as she held him by the collar of his shirt, leading him towards her water blue eyes that looked like they belonged to a beast that had its lunch taken right in front of it.

It took a lot of effort for Leihen not to succumb to the woman's pressure, but unconsciously he looked straight into her eyes with his pair of purple eyes, which she swore she'd seen that color somewhere. After a time of intense facing challenge, Leihen spoke.

"So just teach us to be wise too."

Minerva has never heard such audacity, in all her years as a teacher, it's the first time she's been made to disbelieve in her ears.

"Ke..."

Leihen fell to the ground after Minerva released him and started laughing.

"Kekekekekekekekekekekekekeke."

Minerva's strange and awkward laugh lasted a little while, making the small group feel uncomfortable.

"I haven't had a good laugh in a long time, thanks cheeky maggot. I think as a reward for making me laugh, I'll grant your request." She had said as one hand was on her belly while the other wiped away a small tear.

Leihen was stunned to be treated as a joke, but was pleased to see that it brought good results.

Returning to her usual mood, Minerva returned to her podium and spoke.

"I think it's time we ended our class, but I can't do that without first giving you an assignment, can I?"

Everyone in the room had a bad feeling about what was to come.

"Your first homework is to cover your entire body with mana." She said with a smile that wasn't a smile, which left them confused.

'Why is she treating such a banal thing so seriously?' They thought the same, and none of them found an answer, but they knew it wasn't a simple thing, and it sure as hell wasn't a good thing.

"Alright, with that we finish our first combat class, see you in the next class." She said as her blue magic covered the students' bodies.

Unlike the first time, it seemed like Minerva was in a hurry, so they barely noticed that they were being covered with someone else's mana before they felt the same unpleasant sensation from the space transition.

'Couldn't she at least let us know?' They thought in unison as they threw up a little, but less than the first time.

This time, everyone recovered quickly, and realized that they were back in the auditorium they were in before.

They seemed relieved that the end of the class had arrived early and without delay, they left that room that only brought back bad memories.

But before taking the final step out of the room, Leihen paused for a moment and thought.

'I think we're forgetting something... It's probably our sanity.' He concluded as he closed the door without turning around, as if he wanted to forget what was inside.

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