Training Camp (2)

8:07 a.m.

Vivian and her classmates were at the gym for their Physical and Magic Art Training.

Kara who was carrying a sword and shield, rushed forward and thrust her sword.

Clang!

Vivian swatted her Kara's sword away from her hand with a sword.

Despite losing her main weapon, Kara stepped forward with her left leg and activated a skill.

[Power Shield].

Bam!

"Aaahhh!"

Thud.

Vivian punched Kara's shield and sent her flying a few feet away before landing on the floor.

Kara was still in the middle of getting up when she saw the tip of a sword's blade pointing at her face.

"End," Vivian said before moving the blade from her face and offering a hand.

Kara let out a wry smile and reached out for Vivian's hand.

When she got up, she checked her shield and saw that a section of its surface caved in from Vivian's punch.

"Next," said Vivian.

Kara went to the side and was replaced by Samantha who was carrying a spear.

"Just like with Sister Kara, I will only move once you move first," said Vivian.

Samantha activated [Power Leg], propelling her forward faster than usual and had the tip of her spear aimed at Vivian.

Vivian easily dodged her attack by stepping to the side.

Clang!

Samantha swung her to the side but Vivian blocked its metal rod with her sword and grabbed the spear with her left hand.

Whooosh!

"AAAHHH!"

Thud.

Vivian swung Samantha away from her spear and sent her flying dozens of feet away and landed close to 2 of their other classmates who were also sparring.

Samantha was in the middle of getting up when Vivian pointed the blade of her sword on her face.

"End."

Samantha let out a sigh before getting up and Vivian handed her spear to her.

Vooom!

Vivian went back to her spot.

"Next."

Uliah stepped in and she was carrying 2 swords.

"Sister Platoon Leader! I want you to attack first!"

"Okay."

Vooom!

Vivian moved so fast that the only thing Uliah could see was a blurry figure approaching her but still raised her arms above her head, forming an X symbol, and activated a skill.

[Dual Power Slash].

Whoosh!

Whoosh!

Uliah's skill missed as Vivian already jumped and landed behind her.

Pah!

"Aaahhh!"

Thud.

Vivian kicked her butt and sent her flying away before landing on the ground on her stomach.

Tap.

Vivian placed the tip of her sword's blade on Uliah's right shoulder.

"End."

Uliah rolled away to the side, got up and dashed forward to tackle Vivian to the ground.

Pah!

Thud.

Vivian kicked her on the face and sent her flying to the side.

That woman…

Very hardheaded…

And I can't allow her to hit me…

Excluding herself, Uliah was one of the strongest people in her class. 

Uliah was struggling to get up when Vivian appeared in front of her.

"End?"

"Not yet!"

Vooom!

Psssh!

Thud.

Vivian dashed forward and a green mist exploded, causing Uliah to fall down to the floor like a lump of flesh.

She let out a sigh internally.

I'm really wasting my time with this…

Given that Kara, Uliah and Samantha helped her smuggle meat jerky inside the Training Camp, she promised to spar with them.

No matter how many times I hit them with physical attacks, my Physical Arts aren't growing…

The gap is too high…

My only choice is to kill them…

Vooom!

Vivian returned to her original spot.

"Next."

This time it was Sally who stepped in.

Although Sally and Diane didn't help her smuggle food, they received some snacks from their parents via mail and gave some to Vivian. They also promised Vivian that next week they would smuggle food for her.

Well…

At least not only could I earn some food, but this also helps me learn the Class Magic [Blessing]…

***

11:23 a.m.

At the female dormitory.

Vivian and her female classmates were inside their dorm room. Their Physical and Magic Arts training ended at 11:00 a.m. and their next class will be at 1:00 p.m.

While the rest of her roommates were resting and chatting, Vivian was undressing.

"You're going to take a bath?" asked Uliah.

"Yes."

"And then you're going to take a bath again later tonight?"

"Yes."

"I can only imagine how much laundry you have to wash every week."

"I wash every day," Vivian said and smiled.

"Attention!" someone suddenly shouted at the door.

When everyone turned their attention to it, they saw Julia who was accompanied by a White Cloak Priestess wearing a white porcelain full-mask with a golden-sun symbol printed on the forehead. And underneath her cloak, she wore a simple white-colored armor with gold accents and she was carrying a sword on her waist.

Everyone inside the room saluted, including Vivian who wearing nothing but her bra and underwear.

"Sister High Lieutenant Julia!" said Vivian.

"Sister High Lieutenant Julia and Sister Inquisitor!" said the other women.

"At ease," said Julia.

Everyone relaxed.

Julia then turned to the Inquisitor.

The Inquisitor nodded at her and then turned to the recruits.

"I am Sister Inquisitor Mabel of the Inquisitory Division. Who is the Platoon Leader?"

"Me, Sister Inquisitor Mabel!" said Vivian.

Mabel went over to Vivian.

"And your name is?"

"Crusader Vivian, Sister Inquisitor Mabel!"

"Are these all of your classmates or are there others not here?"

"These are all my female classmates, Sister Inquisitor Mabel!"

"Sister Inquisitor will just do and stop shouting all the time," said Mabel.

"Yes, Sister Inquisitor." 

Mabel then turned to everyone.

"A week ago, in the morning of the day of Satur, a female Priest named Nesia from Class 4 disappeared. She has green hair, blue eyes, 5'6 in height, normal built, 18 years old, and is from the Orion Chapter Temple. And before she disappeared, she left a note that someone was stalking her. Anyone here who knows her and noticed anything strange with her?"

Vivian and her classmates looked at each other before returning their gaze to Mabel.

Mabel studied everyone's face and couldn't spot anything out of the ordinary.

"So no one is familiar with her?"

Everyone looked at each other once again before returning their gaze to Mabel.

"I don't think anyone is familiar with her, Sister Inquisitor," said Vivian.

"I see. In case any of you recall something, no matter how insignificant, as long as it is related to the missing Sister Nesia, head over to the Main Office building and report it."

"Yes, Sister Inquisitor!" Vivian and the rest replied.

Mabel turned to Julia.

"Sister High Lieutenant."

Julia nodded and looked at Vivian and the rest.

"Carry on."

She and Mabel turned and left the room.

After that, everyone immediately looked at each other.

"So the missing Priestess didn't run away after all and was possibly kidnapped?" asked Kara.

"Who knows," Sally said and shrugged.

"God of Light, I hope she's okay," prayed Samantha.

"Yeah, let's pray to the God of Light that she's indeed fine," said Vivian.

Everyone nodded and offered a small prayer.

That was an Inquisitor…?

It's my first time seeing one…

And I didn't expect her to be young…

Although Mabel was wearing a mask, anyone could tell that she was around the same age as Julia -- late 20s.

***

1:07 p.m.

Gars was standing in front of the class and discussing a topic.

The class no longer had 18 students, but 17.

Vivian wasn't exactly sure about the details because she really wasn't interested in the first place and had her own problems to deal with. All she knew was that Radford had to drop out but he wasn't stripped off of his Class as a Priest.

"One of the most important missions in our Holy Crusade is to eradicate demons and the demon-worshipers," said Gars.

"First let's talk about the demons.

"There are 3 kinds of demons: Lesser Demons, Demons and Greater Demons. And among them, there are True demons and False demons.

"In regards to True demons, these are the native demons from another world. And since they're from another world, they can't just enter our world without an active summoning ritual.

"And they consist of Greater Demons and Demons.

"Meanwhile, the False demons, these are what we would refer to as demon-worshipers or the natives in our world who were granted with Chaos or Lesser Chaos Affinity by the True demons.

"And they consist of Demons and Lesser Demons.

"Now let's go back to the 3 kinds of demons, regardless if they're True Demons or False demons.

"The first one is Greater Demon. They have the Greater Chaos Affinity and they can grant [Chaos Mastery]. This type of demon is rare. And even if there was an active summoning ritual that allowed them to step into a world, they aren't really that interested in entering our world and would rather order their underlings to do their own bidding.

"The second one is Demon. They have the Chaos Affinity and can grant [Lesser Chaos Mastery]. And if there's an active summoning ritual that allows them to step into their world, they would most likely.

"And the last one is Lesser Demon. They have the Lesser Chaos Affinity and can grant [Lesser Chaos Mastery]. Remember, there are no native Lesser Demons so these are technically the demon-worshipers.

"Now let's move on the the demon-worshipers.

"To put it simply, let's say that you're a human and you were a demon-worshiper. 

"If you have the [Lesser Chaos Mastery], you will be referred to as a Lesser Demon Human. Meanwhile, if you have the [Chaos Mastery], you will be referred to as a Demon Human.

"The same applies to demon-kins. Let's say you're a Larker. Then you would be a Lesser Demon Larker or a Demon Larker.

"Now, you must be wondering: Aren't demon-kins demons? They are the descendants of humans who sided with demons after all.

"That is true. It's also true that some of them can even be born with Lesser Chaos and Chaos.

"However, to put it simply, if True Demons are the natives of the Demon World. Then demon-kins are the natives of our world but have lost their humanity.

"Now let's move on to the Summoning Rituals.

"A Summoning Ritual requires sacrifices, specifically, a living being sacrifice. And depending on the sacrifice, the Ritual can have one or more than 2 Affinities and it will also have its Magic Force.

"For example, let's say the Summoning Ritual has a Dark Affinity and its Magic Force is Mithril-grade.

"With that, the Ritual will emit an invisible Wave of 40 meters. And since it's infused with the Dark Affinity and has a Magic Force of Mithril, anyone who has a Magic Force of Adamantite and below would be infected by the fear effect of the Dark Affinity.

"However, make no mistake. Just because you have you're 2 grades above the Wave's Magic Force, that doesn't mean you're already safe.

"Anyone caught in the Wave's range would be inflicted with a curse. And since the Wave is infused with the Dark Affinity, you will be inflicted with a curse where dark spots will start to appear on your skin. And once all of your skin gets covered by the dark spots, you will transform into a Larker demon-kin. 

"But don't worry, you won't turn into a Larker right away. Instead, the dark spots would take time to cover all of your skin. Just make sure to cast [Cleanse] on yourself because your entire skin gets covered by the dark spots.

"And lastly, of course, while the Summoning Ritual is still active, Demons -- and on very rare occasions, Greater Demons -- would come out of the Ritual to kill every living being here.

"Your job as Priests would be to kill the demons and also cast [Cleanse] on the people affected by the Wave's curse. And while you're doing that, the high-level experts would be in charge of dismantling the Summoning Ritual at the core.

"Now let's move on to the master-minion relationship of demons.

"Let's say I am a Greater Demon so I have [Greater Chaos Mastery] and I want to make Crusader Zean my minion. 

"If I were to do that, Crusader Zean would receive [Chaos Mastery] because I have [Greater Chaos Mastery]. And when he becomes my minion, we can sense each other and I can also partially control him because I am his master and he is my minion.

"And then if Crusader Zean decides to make Crusader Crew his minion, Crusader Crew would receive [Lesser Chaos Mastery]. And when that happens both Crusader Zean and Crusader Crew would be able to sense each other and Crusader Zean can also partially control Crusader Crew.

"Now you must be wondering: What about me? After all, I'm the master of Crusader Zean. Once Crusader Crew becomes a minion of Crusader Zean, as the master of Crusader Zean, we can sense each other and I too can partially control Crusader Crew.

"And then if Crusader Crew decides to share his [Lesser Chaos Mastery] to Crusader Sally and Crusader Diane, they would receive [Lesser Chaos Mastery] but they won't be his minion. Instead, Crusader Sally and Crusader Diane would become the minions of Crusader Zean and I.

"So if you encounter a demon, be sure to kill it and bring its corpse back to the Temple so that we can resurrect it and extract the information of the location of its fellow minions and its master.

"Now how to kill a demon?

"If you're a Bard, you can cast [Whistle] on them to prevent them from using [Chaos Transformation] or [Lesser Chaos Transformation] which allows them to heal any fatal wounds and at the cost of mana points.

"But if you're not a Bard, you just keep inflicting fatal wounds on them until they run out of mana and they're no longer able to cast [Chaos Transformation] or [Lesser Chaos Transformation].

"So does anyone have any questions?"

One of the Priests raised their hand.

"Crusader Zean."

"Brother High Lieutenant, what does a Demon-summoning ritual look like?"

Many people looked at him, especially Vivian.

Truth be told, many people don't know what a summoning ritual looked like because this was to prevent people from conducting their own summoning rituals. And if anyone tries to gather information about it, they would immediately catch the attention of authorities. In fact, during a Wave, only the high-level experts are allowed to go to the epicenter to dismantle the Summoning Ritual or Circle and also fight the demons that would come out of it.

"You will know when there's a summoning ritual of the Wave it emits and the demons that would come out of it. Any more questions?"

Vivian raised her hand and Gars nodded.

"Sister Platoon Leader Vivian."

"Brother High Lieutenant, how can we spot the difference between a Demon and a Greater Demon?"

"Not many things are known about Greater Demons because they're quite rare and they rarely directly interact with our world. On top of that, they are unimaginably powerful that if they decide to step into our world, the Summoning Ritual would quickly destabilize, making it easier for the experts to dismantle the Ritual or the Ritual would cease functioning by itself. And so far, throughout history, only a very small handful of people survived after receiving a single attack from a Greater Demon.

"But what we do know about them is that they are considered as something similar to a leader or royalty in their society, they have 8 arms, they are estimated to be 10 meters tall, and their Chaos enchant magic emits a dark-red hue.

"Compared that to the Demons, they have 6 arms, their normal height is 6 meters tall, and their [Chaos Enchant] spell emits a red hue.

"And then compare that to Lesser Demons, they have 4 arms, their normal height is 3 meters tall, and their [Lesser Chaos Enchant] emits a light red hue.

"Can a Greater Demon change into a human form or something else?" Vivian asked another question.

"As far as I know, there have been no records. There have also been no records of any demon-worshiper who became a Greater Demon human or whatever demon-kin species," replied Gars.

Vivian also wanted to ask if the color of their blood was blue but suppressed the urge and bit her tongue because she didn't want to attract any more unnecessary attention to her appearance.

"Thank you, Brother High Lieutenant!"

Gars nodded and then turned to the rest of the class.

"Anyone else has questions?"

No one raised their hand.

"Okay, I'll give you 30 minutes to study and then I'll give you a test."

Even though they already expected it, some still groaned.

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Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

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Please note that the chapters posted there are only drafts. So when those said Chapter Drafts will be published here, there will be some edits. They also involve a few secret outline notes/details that I won't publish here because they contain spoilers or dispel some of the mysteries. And at the moment, Chapter Drafts 247-252 are posted there.

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