John and I were still feeling surprised as we walked to get dinner. The cafeteria had meatballs and some sort of mashed potatoes or starchy vegetable, I am not completely sure what it was and I didn’t ask.

  “I can’t believe they had a real monster in the class…” I said as I took a bite, still incredulous.

  “I know right! How crazy was that? It looked pretty cute too, that little mushroom guy. Hard to believe that it would love to explode itself on you to implant you with spores, pretty gross actually… I would never think that would be the way it attacked.” John said.

  “Monsters from the Twisted Realms really are twisted, pun intended. I’m glad we have the monster class to talk through and learn some of these common ways they attack. It also sounded like that Malice Mushroom is from a rift that we might be visiting later this year. At least if we are going to be fighting monsters soon, we’ll have a decent idea of what they can do.” I said, actually feeling excited for the opportunity.

  Seeing a low level monster like that was surprising, but oddly comforting. We would have the time to learn all about them to prepare attacks and defenses for when that time came.

  “Jude, I hate to run out on ya, but I am meeting with a few classmates from my Warrior Abilities Class from earlier to test some things out. I hope you don’t mind…” John said sheepishly.

  “Of course, don’t let me keep you. I’ll probably head back to my room and practice a little myself, there are some things I wanted to try anyway.” I said with a smile.

  John smirked, stole my last bite of food and ran as I protested by playfully trying to stab him with my fork.

  Heading to my room, I was beginning to think of ways I could be more regimented in training my Barrier ability in my free time. Between arriving and just getting used to what life here looked like, I needed to take better advantage of my free time. Classes were actually shorter than they seemed. From the schedule, it looked like they would be an hour or two, but they were closer to an hour, leaving plenty of time in between classes to also practice. “Hopefully I could find a group of people to practice with like John…” I thought before running into a familiar face.

  Who else, but Sterling, the noble from this morning and my class was walking towards me in the hallway. I don’t know what came over me, but I decided to say the first thing that came to my mind.

  “Pretty fun class today with Instructor Lilla, huh?” I asked with a smile

  Looking aghast, Sterling answered, “You’re awfully bold to take a jab at your betters. That Lilla woman is just of common birth. While she made an example out of me, she is blind to how much stronger than her I’ll be in just a couple years. She is making an enemy out of me and my family. So you want to make an enemy out of me as well? What can you even do? You’re already a commoner, so probably nothing impressive.”

  I was totally caught off guard. This is not what I meant to do, I wasn’t trying to make fun of him, but I can see how he took it that way.

  “Hey, I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to poke fun at you, I just thought it really was an interesting class. My ability is called Barrier. It creates a barrier of Mana, as the name suggests.” I said, trying to defuse the situation.

  “I saw you smiling when she made a fool out of me, I did not forget. Let’s see how strong your barrier is compared to my fire.” He said with a sardonic expression.

  A blue fireball started spinning in his hand, just as it had in class. I put up my hands, palms out towards him to show I was not interested in any of this.

  “Sterling, I said I’m sorry, I swear I was not trying anything. I apologize.” I said, trying to defuse the situation.

  “Apologize to this.” He said as he threw the blue ball of fire in my direction. I instantly put up Barrier in front of me as strong as I could manage and it actually stopped the fire. I was surprised as I thought it would shatter like it did when John and I trained, but the fire did not disappear, but ate away at the barrier in a second and it was gone. Looking at my Mana, I was already down to half!

  “That used way more Mana than when I used it with John. It must have to do with the way Sterling’s fire works…” I thought.

  Before I could think of anything to say or do, another fireball was already spinning in his hand and being hurled towards me. I threw up another Barrier and it was the same thing, it took almost all of my Mana and I only had a sliver left in my pool.

  “Sterling stop! I have no more Mana, please!” I pleaded, feeling weak from having such a low level of Mana.

  “Pathetic. I will admit, I was surprised you could even stop my fire to begin with, but two times is all you had in you. I pity whatever team ends up with someone useless like you.” he said before throwing a third fireball.

  It hit me in my right arm and burned worse than anything I had ever felt. Looking at my health, I was already down to 60%.

  Sterling snapped his fingers and the flames stopped burning my arm. Looking down, the entire arm from my wrist to my shoulder was blackened with char from how badly he burned me. It was excruciating and I was crying and laying down in the fetal position, not remembering when I had laid down.

  “Hopefully, you have learned a valuable lesson today. You may have even gained some experience, count yourself lucky and don’t forget to know your place.” Sterling said with a snarl before walking past me where I lay.

  I don’t remember how long I was laying there, curled up in the hallway, but someone shouted my name and I felt an arm loop around my good one and hoist me up.

  “Jude! What happened to you? Your arm…” John said, trailing off, his eyes wide with horror.

  “It was that noble I told you about, the one who doesn’t do laundry I told you about, Sterling.” I said, grimacing still at the pain.

  In the hour or so that I laid on the ground, my health and Mana had been restoring themselves naturally, and with it, my arm.

  Looking at my arm, it was now bright pink, but still very painful. All of the black char had flaked off and was grossly spread around the floor.

  I had gained almost 6% in experience from this, making me a little happy, but I was also upset that I benefited from being a training dummy and someone that Sterling took out his anger on. As my health increased, my arm repaired itself, even faster than I had imagined. “Not the way I anticipated seeing how injuries repaired themselves with the health pool.” I thought and looked back to John.

  “What do I even do about something like this, didn’t they say using your abilities outside of training was serious?” I asked John, still gritting my teeth from the pain.

  “We have to go to Instructor Gray, the dormitory overseer and report this.” John said in an even tone and we walked down the hall and around the corner to where the overseer’s room was.

  Knocking on the door, we waited for a response and eventually, the door opened to the face of Martin Gray.

  “How may I help you boys on this fine evening?” He said, with a yawn, which he covered with his hand.

  “I was attacked sir, right here in the dormitories.” I said

  He immediately straightened his posture and had a serious look in his eye.

  “That is a serious thing indeed, who attacked you?”

  “It was Sterling White. I said something that he took the wrong way and he started throwing fireballs at me… I was able to resist for a bit, but then when I was out of Mana, he threw another, letting it burn me and then he just walked away.” I said, tears almost forming in my eyes again.

  The Dorm Overseer’s eyes softened and he gestured for us to come into the room. Walking inside, there was a living room type area with a couch and a low table with a cushioned arm chair across from the couch. There were beautiful oil paintings covering most of the wall space depicting mostly landscapes. One had a picture of a harbor with several sailboats that caught my eye. Instructor Gray had gone further into his room towards a little kitchen area he had and returned shortly with three mugs. He put one in front of John and I.

  “One of my favorite teas for when I am feeling a bit down. It has a lovely citrus flavor that always brightens my day.” He said, gesturing towards the mugs. John and I each took a sip and it really was delightful. It did make me feel a tad bit better.

  “I’m sorry to hear about what happened. There wasn’t anyone else who happened to see what happened, was there?” he asked.

  “No, it was just Sterling and I, why do you ask?” I said.

  “Well, when there are no other witnesses and one of the parties involved is a noble, it makes things… difficult.” He said with a pained expression, “what happened to you was awful, but there is not much that can be done towards a noble, even here at the academy and even though it broke the rules.” He said, his mouth making a flat line.

  “Instructor Gray, than what can I do?” I said helplessly.

  “Please, just call me Gray. There unfortunately isn’t anything else you can do. If there was a witness that could confirm your testimony, that would be different, but since it is your word versus his, there is nothing I can do. I can see your arm is even already healed.” he said.

  Looking down, the pink flesh was already almost back to the same color as the rest of my skin, my health pool almost back at full.

  “Because there is no lasting damage and there is no testimony, there is nothing to be done at this point. I would recommend avoiding interacting with them and continuing to try and get stronger. I know that is not the answer you want or expected, but if you want to go through and report this, you can, just know that it will bring even more trouble upon you from not just Sterling White’s family, but the other nobles here. Most of their families are quite influential here in Acacia. That doesn’t mean they are above the law, but unless you have a crystal clear case with witnesses, any accusation will have someone retaliating against you.”

  I didn’t know what to say, I thought I would have justice as I was clearly harmed and innocent in all of this, but because I was a commoner and didn’t have a witness, I just had to silently pretend like it didn’t happen.

  I gripped my fists tight and they both turned white in my hand.

  “Finish your tea lad and stay as long as you need. I know this was not what you wanted to hear, but I don’t want things to go badly for you, so please listen. Do not pursue this further.”

  I stayed for about ten more minutes and after finishing the tea, I did feel a bit better. John walked me back to my room and told me to get him if I needed anything.

  Laying on my bed, I vowed to do whatever I could to get stronger. Even though I felt angry about what Sterling did, I tried to put it out of my mind and use it as fuel to motivate my own training. As painful and humiliating as that was, I learned more about my Barrier and gained a chunk of experience.

  The saying Dad gave me before we headed to the academy popped back into my mind, “Think the best, prepare for the worst.”

  “I’ll do my best to think the best, but right now, I need to be more prepared for the worst.” I thought as I popped a Barrier out and started training for the rest of the night.