Chapter 28 - Obstacle course

Maeisha's group waited and watched as others ran the obstacle course. They were the last to go as they had decided to run as a group.

The group were even more confident in her theory because there were some areas where you needed the help of more than a few people to pass it. It showed that Maei had good foresight and was attentive to the orders she was given.

"You lot, you are next." Nessa called out.

"Yes sir." As one they moved to the starting line.

It looked that no one had been able to complete the course and several were even being taken to the medical room.

Maei looked at her group and told them "Remember speed isn't a factor but rather that we complete the course as group."

Nessa was surprised that Maei had been able to guess it right again. The purpose of this course was not to complete it or do it fast. It was to tackle it as a group. It would have been a surprise for them to complete the course as it was set to the highest difficulty and was a graduating course for level 6 students.

Sol did that so they would see how difficult the course was set and understand that it was impossible for them to complete it on their own, but not many understood.

Nessa ordered "GO!"

"Yes Sir!" They set out to tackle the curse as a group.

Although they have been together only for a short period of time, Maei made sure that everyone got to know each other after their training.

The course however was showing them their weaknesses as a group which they were still figuring out.

She was keeping an eye on how everyone was doing and only went to the next obstacle when everyone had completed the previous course.

Few minutes later they crawled out of the mud pit, but knew where they had gone wrong and next time they would not fall at the same place again.

Even then they had gotten much further than others, even Nessa was surprised to see her order everyone correctly and them obeying her unconditionally.

"We failed to finish." Mariana an air elf with wings tried to wade forward but was only getting dirtier.

"Its ok Mariana" Maei said as she helped her get on ground. "Next time we will remember not to do it that way and finish it. Remember the quote in our training ground on the first day."

She pulled everyone out and looked at their disheartened faces."Don't give up, there is no shame in falling down! true shame is not to stand up again!" and everyone nodded as they remembered.

"Falling is okay." As she encouraged them, "We are meant to fail because we are new students and still training. Not learning from today would be our mistake. Next time we will be more cautious of it because we have learned to expect the unexpected."

Nessa listened as Maei bolstered her group at the same time giving them an important lesson. She studied her for a moment because she was a natural leader and those were rare. In all her time she had only seen a handful. While they were others who could be trained to lead others, natural leaders were on a whole different level.

Nessa contacted Sol through her earpiece, "Sol am I meant to punish them after this? Maeisha is leading them correctly and they are following her without any questions. They are forming a good wing."

"No if we punish them for doing the right thing just because their classmates are idiots it will send them backwards and discourage them. Have them hit the showers and let Maei report to me." Sol ordered her.

Nessa watched as Maei took them all together as a group to the sprayers that would wash most of the mud from them.

"You failed to achieve the objective. Return to training ground one." She loudly ordered the rest of the class.

"Yes sir!" Maei's group answered even though they were still in the sprayers.

When they shut off the sprays Nessa met them outside.

"Sorry sir, we will go to training ground one immediately." Maei saluted.

"No you will return to your dorms, hit the showers, get in your fresh clothes and await further orders." Nessa corrected. "Have your leader report to Battle master in forty minutes."

"Yes sir!" they all answered confused by her orders....