Chapter 21 — Sparring Match, Round Two

  “You shouldn’t have gone on the offense,” the female instructor lectured him, shaking her head as he walked back towards the demonstration stage. “Avoiding damage is the most important principle in fighting monsters, especially when you’re alone.”

  So she observed his fight. Now he felt even worse. “Sorry. I just got a bit mad,” he admitted.

  The other instructor, a muscular man with dreadlocks and a sleeveless gi approached. “Patience is a virtue, my son. Do not let your emotions cloud your judgement.” He gestured up towards his chest in an uplifting motion. “Breathe in like so,” he said, holding his breath at the top. “Then exhale.”

  “In, then out,” he repeated, his chest moving up and down in a relaxed motion.

  William decided to take the male instructor’s advice. He inhaled, repeating the instructor’s actions. In and out. He breathed in, then breathed out, again and again. Although his body relaxed, his headache grew worse. His emotions were a total mess lately. Even though he tried to pretend that he was calm, that he was better than all that, an all encompassing anxiety pressed down on him.

  That anxiety then mixed with the frustration of his helplessness, his weakness. And then there was the worst of them all. Loneliness.

  The only real friend he’d made at Trinity was Finn. Here he was, standing in a training facility with over a hundred Trinity students, and he didn’t really know any of them. He could blame plenty of things, like his background, or the fact that he was too busy with part-time work, but the fact of the matter did not change.

  He breathed in and out, then focused on coping with his feelings the only way he knew how to, since childhood—by just not thinking about it, and keeping busy with something else.

  “Are you two both part of a guild?” he asked the two instructors.

  The female instructor grinned, pulling up her sleeve to show an intricate tattoo of an eastern style tiger. “Proud vice-captain of the White Tiger guild!”

  “I am also a vice-captain of the White Tigers,” the male instructor replied proudly. “It’s a privilege for us to teach you young people.”

  William had heard of the White Tiger guild before. Although they weren’t on the same level as the big seven, like Jormungandr or Blue Mountain, they were still a respectable guild with a few high level members.

  Someone else was approaching him. It was Evelyn Moon, an affronted expression on her otherwise pretty face. The numeral V glistened on her black and gold uniform.

  “How was the hospital?” she asked Willliam with concern, before turning to the instructors.

  “Before that, are you sure that we should be—” she said to the instructors, pointing towards the sorting machine.

  The female instructor nodded. “It’s important for the rank fours to learn not to be too arrogant. In the field, arrogance leads to death.”

  “Didn’t you see what happened to William? He just came here from the hospital, then got beaten by a level four until he was bleeding everywhere!” she protested. “And you want to enter us into the sparring pool?”

  For some reason, a knot seemed to tighten in William’s chest. Evelyn watched his fight too? And she saw him get absolutely beaten in such an embarrassing way, too…

  The female instructor from White Tiger rolled her sleeve back down as she walked closer to Evelyn until their foreheads were almost touching.

  “Miss,” she said in a not-so-friendly tone. “The most important lesson that we must teach all of you—and I mean all of you—is that those things out there don’t care about fairness. They don’t play by the rules.”

  She poked Evelyn in the chest with a finger. “Do you know how many of my disciplines I’ve lost? How many high rankers I’ve seen torn in half? And you know why half of them died? Lack of attention. Thinking that they were too good.”

  Evelyn made a humph sound. “Fine.”

  She turned to William, looking concerned again as the instructor walked off. “Are you okay? I heard you and Finn were in a coma. What happened to you two?”

  “It’s a long story, with some uh…sensitive details. If you want to know, we’ll have to find a time to talk,” he said, before adding something else, feeling emotional. “Thank you for being concerned, Evelyn.”

  “Of course. I was worried, especially because you don’t have any family to take care of you,” she said. She was standing so close to him that he noticed a sweet coconut shampoo scent from her. “Keep me posted, okay?”

  William nodded, feeling taken care of in a way that he really wasn’t used to. He felt immensely grateful to Evelyn. “I will.”

  “I’ve been meaning to go to that new bubble cafe some time—don’t worry, I’ll pay,” she quickly added. The bubble cafe was currently the trendiest high end place in the city, and therefore expensive. Evelyn’s offer to pay was considerate but made him feel kind of pathetic.

  “You can tell me what happened when we’re at the cafe,” she said. “I heard that the police were involved. Please be careful.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “I will be,” he replied. “When do you want to meet there?”

  Evelyn sighed. “My schedule is crazy these days. I have raid parties, then missions, then some brand promotion events after that. I’m booked for nearly every day this week. The government postponed all university classes too, just so we can focus on this. Anyway, what's your schedule like?”

  She already got multiple raid party offers? Damn, rank fives were really in demand. The difference between a rank one like himself and a rank five was night and day.

  William struggled for a second, then quickly explained to her about the porter position that he’d have for the afternoon.

  Evelyn looked blankly at him. “What’s a porter?”

  William was shocked that she never even heard of a porter, but then again, she probably didn’t ever have to pay attention to a position like that.

  Before he could reply, they were interrupted by the male instructor blowing a whistle loudly while walking in between the arenas.

  “Round one is over. We’re going to announce your sparring partners for the next round.”

  The instructor began to call out names, quickly getting to Evelyn, who got matched with a rank three.

  “Catch up later, okay?” she said, before heading over to her opponent who looked to be incredibly nervous facing off against a rank five.

  The instructor listed off several more people before getting to him.

  “Next,” the instructor said. “William Blackwood, and…”

  “Luke Brightsteel.”

  William almost vomited blood hearing that second name. Gasps arose from the crowd. Everyone had been waiting to find out who the unlucky soul was that would draw the Brightsteel heir. Evelyn turned around with a completely shocked look on her face.

  All eyes were on William as he and Luke walked to the same arena. Luke looked like he was about to burst out laughing at the situation. The numeral VIII shone brightly on his chest.

  His head started to hurt again. What even was the purpose of this exercise? Just to get absolutely humiliated in the most asinine way possible?

  As Luke walked into the circle, he held up two fingers. “Two seconds. That’s how long this’ll take.”

  William reluctantly walked into the circle as well, as a crowd of spectators now formed around their circle. Evelyn constantly glanced over in concern, distracted from her own fight. A few students had even pulled out their phones and were recording the fight, although the female instructor batted down anyone who she saw raising a phone. Still, she couldn’t get all of them.

  Great. So now a video of him getting his ass beat by Luke Brightsteel was going to circulate on the internet. As if this day couldn’t get any worse.

  Luke casually stretched, extending his arm as a plume of body reinforcement aura extended from it. He had been fed so many elixirs that he must have nearly awakened before his time with the orb. He could possibly be the first rank eight awakener in history.

  Although, for some reason Luke didn’t seem as cocky as usual. William noticed that he almost seemed pensive.

  …As if that mattered.

  A mediator walked over. Apparently the bigger fights got mediators. “The fight will begin on one. Three…. Two… One!”

  Within the very first second, William already knew how badly outclassed he was. He simply could not dodge. Luke launched himself forward with such force that he left craters in the ground, and flames burst out of thin air around his punch as his fist closed in.

  Two abilities? Luke Brightsteel was a dual ability awakener, both fire and body reinforcement? That was a one in ten thousand phenomenon—what the fuck. William couldn’t even register anything else before the fist connected right in his stomach. Luke had struck him casually—he only used a fraction of the power he’d shown when fighting the bald man from Jormungandr.

  And yet William felt like he’d been struck by a truck. He could no longer breathe, and he heard an audible crack in his ribcage. Blood spurted out of his mouth as he collapsed to the ground, face first. The last thing he saw was Luke Brightsteel walking away casually, not even looking back. He wasn’t even worth regarding, apparently.

  “The fight is concluded. Winner, Luke Brightsteel!”

  Three healers rushed to William, all concentrating their magic on him. William felt his ribs reform and his lungs repaired, then sat back up with sweat dripping down his forehead. Even though he’d been healed, the pain still lingered.

  He could hear the female instructor lecturing the rest of the training class about the importance of knowing one’s place, and not attempting to fight an enemy beyond your league, a lesson that he and a few others had been the guinea pigs to demonstrate, but he barely listened. All he could do was breathe and try to suppress the pain.

  The spar was the last event of the training. After everyone else wrapped up, the session came to an end. Naver texted him that he secured a porter job with Horast for the afternoon, so he had something to look forward to. He stood by himself near the water cooler, drinking as much water as he could with the little white paper cups as he waited for his car to come. Evelyn already left, picked up in a fancy limousine by her navigator and an entourage of staff members.

  Luke left shortly after that, picked up by his family’s motorcade. A whole line of paparazzi waited for him outside the training area. The same happened with Jared Pain, and even the disheveled looking level five to a lesser degree.

  “Help me out with the demonstration again next time, alright?” the female instructor said before she and the other vice captain were received by the White Tiger guild.

  A constant parade of black cars came through the facility. Finally, William’s phone buzzed. His car was here. Quickly boarding, he looked out the window. To his side was a pack of survival gear that Naver Frost prepared for him.

  He had a long road ahead of himself to catch up to someone like Luke Brightsteel.

  Forty minutes later, he arrived in front of a gate beyond the outskirts of the city, where a slightly red faced middle aged man with an opened bottle of beer in his hand greeted him in a friendly, albeit slightly drunk way. “You’re William?”

  “That’s me. Thanks for taking me in,” he said politely, although he was starting to question what kind of friends Naver had. “Are you Horast?”

  “Damn right I am,” Horast said, spitting onto the grass. “And as you’ll come to find out, the most reliable tank in the Vander guild.”

  “Horast, you have to stop doing that,” an archer said while she practiced nocking an arrow. “You’ll gross out the kid before we even go.”

  William quickly took stock of the rest of the raid party. There were ten of them including himself, a tight knit group that mostly seemed to know each other, besides a few slot-in members who must have been recruited on a mercenary basis including a chubby rank two wearing a uniform like himself.

  And then there was the gate. Rectangular in shape like a door, glowing white, just like he’d seen in the videos.

  “We’re just waiting on one more of you kids before we go,” said Horast, right as another black car pulled in. “There he is.”

  A familiar snobby elite stepped out of the car. It was Evon Mudd.