Chapter 6

As all of the groups of students who had at least one member who was battle hungry began, Cole and Ren stood in place trying to read one another. "If you aren't going to make the first move, then I will start us off then." Ren said after his eyes changed from shyness to focus. This surprised Cole, but as Ren charged at him with his own set of daggers, Cole put his daggers into place as he stood in a defensive stance to intercept Ren.

Since the daggers were slightly smaller than even a short sword and barely bigger than a basic combat knife, this meant that if either one wanted to win, they would have to get up close and personal to each other. Cole was full of openings, but so was Ren which made for an interesting match between the two.

Instead of using his daggers to intercept Ren's, Cole instead chose to completely dodge them entirely before setting up his own counter attack. The battle raged on for nearly five minutes with not a single hit landing on either of them. However, Cole made a misstep due to Ren faking him out on his right side, which caused Ren to have enough momentum to land the first and last hit of the match since the hit forced Cole to step outside of the small ring.

Taking a short thirty second breather, Cole looked over in Leo's direction and saw that he was also being pushed back but still trying to hang on as well. Thomas used his overwhelming physical prowess to dominate Leo which was something it seemed that Leo was used to being the one doing in a one on one spar. Due to this difference, Cole felt that Leo would be forced to develop better techniques and would end up benefiting greatly even if in the short term, Leo might become emotionally fragile.

The next match between Cole and Ren went on for an entire ten minutes now that they got used to sparring against each other. "How is he doing this?" Cole thought to himself as he realized that Ren's footwork was becoming faster, yet much more subtle by sound almost as if his feet were not even placed on the ground while moving.

Sitting on a large boulder high enough to watch all of the matches at once, Ms. Williams seemed very pleased while looking at Ren. Compared to the other students in the class, Ren was the first to have developed his own technique during combat. There were two types of experts in this world, those who developed during combat and those who developed outside of combat. Out of those who were able to develop themselves further and swiftly during combat stuck out the most and would have a higher chance at becoming very formidable figures.

What was slightly surprising to her, was the fact that Cole who had yet to develop his own new footwork technique was able to adapt on the spot in order to keep up with Ren as they continued their match. Ren's entrance exam marks could be considered fairly average, but it seemed that his potential was at the top of the class. This would not be enough for him to receive special treatment, but Ms. Williams would have to include this in her monthly reports.

As the hour was almost finished, almost every pair of students were sweating and sitting down in order to brace themselves and recover their energy. It was unfortunate, but they were only twelve years old and were only beginning their real combat training which meant that this would be expected. Ms. Williams calculated that in less than three months every student present would be able to survive the entire hour.

Before she could tell the students that they would finish early so that they could rest enough to drag themselves to lunch in one piece, the room began to darken. This shocked the students present, but without wasting another moment Ms. Williams shouted very clear orders. "Everyone remain where you are!"

While the training grounds were shared by every student regardless of the year or rank, some of the upperclassmen were able to spar with demons that were donated to the academy by the military. These demons usually had seals on their bodies to prevent them from unleashing their full power, but on occasion a student would be outclassed and the demon would use that time to release the seal while aiming to kill as many humans nearby as possible for revenge on it being used as a practice dummy.

As a warrior of the fifth rank, Ms. Williams had the ability to defeat and even kill upwards of a fourth rank demon. However, this was if the demon did not have any special abilities, otherwise even she could be killed by a third rank demon or even a rank two demon. In this case, the demon was able to create a darkness based domain around itself and its surroundings which meant that if she was not careful, all of the students present including her would lose their lives here and now!

As luck had it, Ms. Williams actually had an artifact that made this sudden life and death scene easier to deal with as she withdrew an orb and tossed it in the middle of the area where all of the students were standing in defensive formations. As the orb hit the ground, a large ray of light bursted from the inside of it, causing the demon who was about to kill the first batch of students to roar in anger.

The demon had four arms and a long neck. Covered in blood soaked skin, it was obvious that whoever battled it earlier, was most likely dead or at the very least at death's door. Ms. Williams crouched down as she used her muscular legs to push herself towards the demon, trying to slash at it with her sword before it could recover its sight and continue its killing spree.