“Knock, knock! Wake up John!” I said standing outside his room. The door opened slowly to a bleary eyed John who had just rolled out of bed. “Breakfast time my friend, we have about an hour to eat and make our way to the training ground if we don’t want to rush and be late like last time…” I said with a wince. He nodded and changed quickly and we headed downstairs to the cafeteria.

  It was a bit crowded, but not nearly like it had been yesterday after the assembly. Looking at the counter and what other kids had on their trays: eggs, bacon and oatmeal. “Nice!” I said to nobody in particular. This felt like a little piece of home since this is what we had most mornings back at my house in Bramble.

  John and I found open seats easily and ate quietly. He was still waking up and not the most talkative, so I ate my food and listened in on a conversation a few seats down.

  “We are gonna see which kids actually have potential here today. I hope I don’t get paired up with one of the more useless ones. Some of the non combat abilities are terrible, especially early on. Imagine getting one of those on your team?” a girl said to a boy next to her and they both burst into laughter.

  I rubbed my temples with my hands as I would probably be considered one of the ‘useless’ ones they were talking about. John wasn’t paying attention and even if he did, he doesn’t have to worry about being useless. He has an incredibly strong combat ability, even for a Warrior.

  “Oh John, by the way, I figured out how to get the clock to show up and sync in my Interface last night before I went to bed. I can show you right now if you want.” I said.

  “Actually, I overheard the kid next to me telling his friend about it with the slate, so I tried it after them and it worked. Pretty nifty, now I shouldn’t be late to anything! John said with a laugh.

  I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to be the one to teach it to John, but I was focusing on myself too much. “I can’t take it personally if other people learn things without me helping them. That is the whole reason we are here at the academy.” I thought and we headed to a slate outside the cafeteria to make sure we knew how to get to the training area on the map.

  We made it there with 15 minutes to spare. The area was much bigger than I expected. The academy was set up like a big “U” and the inside of that U was where the training area was. Along the left and right sides were different partitions: rings for practice battles, some had ranges with targets at the end and a few were just grass fields. They were all set up in an orderly way and were nice, but you could tell they were well used. Second and third year students were already doing various drills and training, but there was a long table set up near the main entrance to the outdoor training area. The four instructors from yesterday were sitting there and had slates. I walked up and asked Martin Gray, one of them that I actually remembered the name of and asked, “Excuse me, I know we are a little early, but do we need to check in or do anything right now?”

  He was looking at something on his slate before looking up and saying, “Yes, we are starting to check students in who are here to expedite the process a bit. It is going to be a long day of evaluations.” He said with a small sigh. “Don’t take that personally, I know it is an important day for you, but it is a tedious day for us. We have hundreds of students to evaluate today. If you would please give me your name and put your hand on the slate.

  “Jude Summers.” I said, placing my hand on the slate and injecting a bit of Mana into it.

  Thank you Jude, I recognize you I think… ah yes, you were one of the boys that came in late to the assembly, that’s right. Ha, I don’t think I’ve seen Angelina that annoyed in a while. She hates being interrupted right as she is getting started with a speech. Anyways, yes, you are all set. Just wait in this general area. There are bleachers on the left there if you’d like to sit while you wait.

  John checked in as well and we sat in the bleachers. As I looked up a little, I realized I missed a huge hanging obstacle course that was attached to the exterior of the academy building with different pathways that looked quite challenging. There were balance beams, rings, and poles you had to jump to. There was a net underneath, but if you fell, it was still almost 20 or so feet.

  “Do you think they’ll make us do that thing?” I said gesturing up to the hanging jungle gym.

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  “I hope so, it looks like a blast!” John said, already picturing himself doing it.

  A sharp whistle cut through all of the chit chat and all of the instructors were standing now in front of their table towards the bleachers. Some kids were sitting and others were standing.

  “Alright, welcome to the real start of your journey at the Acacia Academy.” Kathleen Hughes, the massive Warrior woman boomed in a loud voice, “It is going to be a long day, so bear with us. We will try to be as quick and thorough as we can be with it, but it is important we get an accurate idea of what you can do today to make sure we put you in the right classes and eventually with the right team.”

  I gave John a look with raised eyebrows, not sure what exactly to expect and Kathleen continued.

  “We will start by calling your name and you will demonstrate your ability to us. We have a couple third year students here as helpers for the offensive, defensive and other utility skills you might have. Most of them are almost Level 20, so you won’t need to worry about hurting them. We will ask to see your ability and then we may ask questions about it. We will not publicly give you any feedback at this time, but will be compiling an initial evaluation to help us curate classes and eventually teams for you. After, you’ll complete the obstacle course above to give us an idea of your physical abilities with a mix of strength and fine motor skills that it will push you in. You should all be able to complete it and we will be recording the time it takes. Does that all make sense? Any questions?” before anyone had any opportunity to ask a question she said,

  “Great! Let’s get started. We will start alphabetically: William Atteberry! Come forward.”

  A boy with blonde hair and a small stature stepped up.

  “Class and Ability?”

  “I am a Mage and my ability is Fire Spear.” He said with confidence

  Kathleen Hughes and the others nodded to one of the third years who stepped up and said, “Activate your ability and attack this student.” She said, gesturing at the girl who had come to volunteer as the test dummy.

  William glanced at her and then at the instructors again before shaking his head and activating his ability.

  A 3 foot short spear of fire appeared in his hand and he asked, “So you really want me to just throw it at her? I don’t want to hurt her…”

  “Don’t flatter yourself boy, even to a third year, your ability will feel like a breeze of hot air. We do have healers nearby, but you will be using your abilities on one another in controlled ways like this to get feedback from your peers and to hone in on the limitations. Throw the spear!”

  With a little hesitation, William twisted his torso around and dropped his shoulder before whipping it around and releasing the fiery projectile at the unassuming girl standing in front of him.

  It impacted and flames licked around her torso before quickly dissipating into nothing. She stood there stoically, not even flinching and didn’t have a mark on her.

  “Step back about 15 feet and throw it again please.” Another one of the instructors asked and William did so. As it approached the girl again, it seemed to lose some of its intensity before striking her. The flames didn’t cover her like last time either.

  “Hmm.” I thought, “His ability must have a shorter range and it is more powerful the closer you are to a target.”

  “Step back another 10 feet please.” They asked and he did and threw another spear of fire and it fizzled out, disappearing before it made it to the girl.

  “Thank you, please head to the stairway that leads to the obstacle course above and there will be another instructor or third year student to help you with timing and any questions you may have.”

  “Once you complete the ability and physical portion of the evaluation, you’ll be free for the rest of the day. A full overview of your performance will be available to look at on an Academy slate after evaluations have been completed.”

  They called each student forward, going through the list of first years. There were some really impressive abilities. There were a few that stood out to me, one was a Warrior, Duncan Coleman who could shout and freeze an enemy in place for 2 seconds. “That is quite the utility ability…” I thought, “Combined with being a warrior, being able to stop a monster in their tracks for any period of time had to be extremely useful.”

  The other one was Lillie Fairmore, who apparently was the princess we heard about at lunch yesterday. She was a Mage with an ability called, Chains of Ice. It would bind an enemy, keeping them in place while damaging them and slowing them down with the ability. “That has to be close to a perfect ability, she could attack, defend and give her team utility with just one ability. And she was a princess?” I thought.

  “I wonder if the royal family gets better abilities…” I said to myself, but also loud enough that John could hear.

  “Probably not, but after seeing that, maybe? I just want to see if I can score a real hit on one of those third years when it is my turn.” John said, eager for his turn.

  They finally called, “John Hale!” and he stepped forward. There was a wooden barrel with practice weapons inside and John pulled out a sword.

  “Class and Ability?” They asked and he said, “I am a Warrior and my ability is Power Swing.”

  They gestured him forward and he activated his ability. His sword swung so quickly it seemed to blur before striking the third year boy in front of him that was playing test dummy for the evaluations. The sound of the strike was loud and the wooden sword had cracked and the “blade” of it flew off. There was a visible red welt where he struck the boy on the shoulder and the third year smirked and nodded.

  The instructors didn’t ask John to showcase his ability again and everyone around me was silent as he walked off to take on the obstacle course.

  “John is not going to be flying under the radar, that’s for sure. Nobody had done any damage to the third years until him.” I thought and smiled, proud that he was one of the strongest kids here and he was my friend.