Chapter 11 - Life in the Dorms

Irisdescent.

Student dorms, Class 12-C.

04:00 AM.

The seasons of spring and summer prompted the sun to arrive much more early than in the cooler seasons of the year. With an appearance of the nearing star, days are prolonged noticeably and mornings filled with darkness are shortened; a female individual walked. 

Before a usual awaking hour the time when most people would open their eyes, when the morning dew is still white before being melted by the sun’s sunshine, Ms. Relka made way into the dormitory building like a thief in the night. 

Unlike a cunning thief keeping quiet before obtaining desired treasure, she nonchalantly waltzed in, with a box-like device in hand.

Not wasting any time, she advanced from the first floor to the flight stairs and before reaching the first rooms to the floor above, a thing wrapped about her body and appeared to change. Ms. Relka, split her Ethereal energy into 19 clones of herself.

Said clones did not share any conversation, only beginning to walk to corresponding rooms: The rooms occupied by the Knight candidates of Class 12-C.

Ms. Relka’s clones and herself as the original stood to each door. It was pretty evident that each student was fast asleep and dreamt of heading to the far ends of the world and did not expect a guest right before dawn broke.

Perhaps she made a mistake and set her clock with the wrong time. Even so, she could have stay in her abode until the time for training began that day. The real truth of the matter was she had not mistaken movement on her part and all things to this point were intended from the very beginning.

Ms. Relka put the device in hand, closer to her lips and took a deep breath. What came out could startle anyone, “Wake up, wake up! Get the hell up!” Suddenly, Mr. Relka and all her other clones opened the doors they previously stood near. 

To the students’ overall point of view, a voice too abundant of sound originating from a single person, came bashing threw like bad news. Then, a familiar sight opened the door. As expected, they were startled from the get-go with some retreating out the balcony in sheer terror.

***

“Wha… What’s happening?!”

He yelled out with a voice filled with fear.

***

‘My dream was starting to get interesting, too…’

Having being surprised before, she slammed her head onto the soft pillow, gritting her teeth with annoyance written all over her face.

***

“This is not! A sleepover! Get the hell up!”

The original entity, Ms. Relka shouted and drew all fury from the darkest depths of her bowels, making her existence known to all. Clearly ignoring her was just a waste of time.

To not incur her wrath, the students woke up in quick haste. They noted her voice being amplified by the device into a monstrous wail that shook the ground, quite literally vibrated the entire room almost like an earthquake.

***

In Cai’s room.

What the…!

Having woken up, even someone like her quite adapt at ignoring the loudest of sounds in the background to laze around in bed found it quite almost impossible. Even hearing her thoughts became unimaginable.

‘Frankly, I knew this place was going to be hell from how our first task was. I already regret this!’ Cai displayed an expressionless face, then dropped her head to plush pillow, abruptly.

***

Standing outside as a collection of startled and unhappy individuals, the students were in a sequence of slient annoyance and gazed forward, where Ms. Relka stood in anticipation for the day’s training.

“Mixo, wake up.” Nyiko nudged her best friend.

In front of the massive building, we stood there while clad in strange attire that was supposed to help regulate body, sweat, or something like that… I actually lost interest in what was said, like, two minutes ago.

“This is torture quite literally. Waking up someone affects their brain. Also, how are we supposed to cope while we can’t even rest properly? Developing bodies…” One of the students in front proceeded to talk to Ms. Relka about the rude awakening. Frankly I didn’t have the courage to do so. But if that helped in making us not getting assaulted this early in the morning, we cheered her on. Spiritually, that is.

Well with Ms. Relka’s attitude, I was pretty adamant that it would not work.

“You have a lot of information to declare, huh? Normal schools start at nine in the morning, but this is an elite academy, not high school. Also you are all young adults, not teenagers, there’s not that much growing that’s going to happen. Shut up and get ready, or be prepared to face my wrath. That’s it.”

‘She said that with a straight face.’

***

Later on, we started hellish physical training, cheered on by Ms. Relka. Honestly, I wasn’t certain if us having experience such hell is a source of entertainment for Ms. Relka or she perhaps was cheering us on. 

2-Hour Endurance Training. (4 Sets)  

***

Extreme Trunk Training. (2-hour x 4 Sets)

***

Weight Training. 

***

Sprinting. (200 Laps) 

Despite the fact that this kind of training is probably inhumane, we still pushed forward thanks to the somewhat encouraging words from Ms. Relka.

“There’s nothing encouraging about what she said! If this doesn’t kill us before fighting the Abyss, I’ll gladly idolize her for my entire life,” Mixo promptly said, resting her body abruptly while Cai looked at the other tired bodies on the ground having flailed about after the exercises.

Cai was the sole person standing, “Maybe I’m just too strong.” Cai said that before sipping from the water bottle.

***

The very next day.

As the first lessons at Irisdescent commenced once more in full force, sporting their new uniforms with shiny and glittering red, Class 12-C was seated in position, while paying attention to another female instructor standing near Ms. Relka in another of technology advanced rooms apart from their classroom.                                                  

“Fire, Ash, Blaze, Scorch, Explosion. These are the types of the Arts, we as Sykoh use, but does anyone know how these Arts are born?” The newly-appeared instructor asks, shifting her gaze towards those students and expected an answer.

“It’s born through our Ethereal energy.” Rhandzu, a studious girl in front raised her hand, but ultimately answered before the instructor could acknowledge her.

“Yes, that is correct, but that is not all…” 

In physics, the basics of creating fire are through merely rubbing the surfaces of 2 objects against each other for a period of time at a fast pace in order to get a spark from the collision. Factors like the objects being used can affect the succession of this task, as the materials that they are made up of differ and aren’t the same for all physical objects. But the overall theory of particles moving faster is the same for all kinds of heat in Destroyer Arts.

Temperature is the average kinetic energy of the particles in the atmosphere, therefore, the faster the particles in the air move the hotter it becomes. 

“Fire from a Sykoh is created by the Ethereal energy within the body clashing on a molecular level. And, since it’s an internal force born from the body and eternally carved in the body, the fire produced will not harm its creator.” 

Merely creating flames on one’s own hand would be an easy task as long as the proper activation technique is followed, but launching it a far distance would be another hard task to follow because as the further away the targeted distance is located, the further the fire projectile will be fired and the less Ethereal energy the projectile has at the end point. 

But it was a simple matter of training and understanding to achieve such a task.  

On the instructor’s hand, appeared a sprouted red flame which was utterly summoned from Ethereal energy having been assimilated into the atmosphere. They all caught witness.

“This is fire, as you all know. But the name for this Destroyer Art is “Flame Art,” instead of Fire Art, why you may wonder? The reason why is due to a mere misunderstanding by the past Knights, and frankly after being known as the “Flame” for a long time, the name just stuck to everyone’s mind, and so it was never changed.”

‘Something as dumb as that happened?’ It was as if their minds were in unison, thinking that.

“Flame Art: Fireball” is an example of one of the few techniques even a civilian can learn and master, even though it will take them a longer a period of time. 

The instructor continued, exerting a steady presence, “All Sykoh are born with Ethereal energy, but the difference in the amount of Ethereal energy from different individuals will often vary. So, how can someone with small amount of Ethereal energy become stronger?”

Cai, too, with a slight movement, raises her hand, to answer the question at hand.

“Ethereal energy is an innate ability. In terms of two individuals, one will have a more subsequent amount of Ethereal energy than the other, but the gap won’t easily be closed if the other trains their body…”