The mock competition didn’t last long. His teacher extended his divine sense and reached out to Soverick’s mind with a mental construct for communication.
“Can you stand on one foot?” His new teacher asked.
“Yes,” Soverick answered. He felt a small joy at haven won the test of patience.
“Can you stand on one hand?”
“Yes”
“Can you stand on a single finger”
“Probably. Yes.” He never tried it before but he was sure he could do it after some rounds of failure. His teacher continued to ask his questions.
“Can you balance on your spear?”
“No.”
“Why can’t you?”
Soverick resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He answered. “It is because it is not a part of my body. I can not control it as easily as I can my body.”
But he held back the part that only a transcendent can have the control needed to stand on their tail at all. It is something impossible to achieve for those beneath without resorting to cheating.
The battles sage monkey smiled. “You are smart. Insightful and also patient. I am SQUARESKULL, and I am to be your teacher in the beginning arts of the spear, your chosen weapon. Is it not?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Good. I have received an evaluation of your performance in the preparatory stage and the techniques stage. Your performance is beyond extraordinary. It is an understatement to call you an unprecedented genius. I am sure you have pride in your talents. Do not let pride be your downfall.”
‘You don’t need to tell me all this nonsense. Just do your job and teach me about the spear.’ Soverick grumbled inwardly, but smiled at his teacher and said. “You don’t have to worry about that, teacher SQUARESKULL. I am an impeccable student above all else. Learning is my talent.”
“Is that so? Then I’ll tell you what to aim for. We will talk about the spear while your seniors are on their way. It is tradition to meet and greet the newcomer.”
“They don’t need to come.” Soverick interrupted.
SQUARESKULL’s brows furrowed. He asked. “Why not?”
“I don’t need neither do I want their presence here. I also will not drop whatever I am doing to come and visit a newcomer in the future. I don’t care about such things.”
SQUARESKULL stared at him as if to bore a hole into Soverick with his sight. Then he began to talk slowly. “I see. I understand your choice. You do not care about the frivolities of the world and only your strength matters. It is a good outlook, I’m sure. It is also probably why you don’t respect me or fear me. You didn’t call me Master. You used the word teacher. Do you not think I am worthy of such a title? Am I not worthy of being your Master?”
Soverick remained silent. What could he say? That SQUARESKULL was right or he was wrong? He was right, but Soverick won’t admit that. Lying would also be a disrespect to both of them, so he kept quiet and continued staring back at SQUARESKULL, totally unfazed.
“You have nothing to say?”
Soverick remained quiet.
SQUARESKULL nodded grimly. “I admire you, do you know that? Brave and uncompromising. You have the features of a true Spearman. But you have an innate arrogance about you. It is as if you look down on the entire world. I understand that your bloodline and the success you have enjoyed in your life have buoyed your confidence. How old are you now? Less than two years old and yet you have come this far. You have so much ahead of you. Arrogance is pride without sufficient strength to back it up. Here you stand before a transcendent and you remain proud. Do you have the strength to back up your pride? I am sure you will become a great battle sage, but do not let your arrogance cut off your future path short.”
Soverick wasn’t going to argue with this grown-up child that will be his teacher. He should be the one telling his teacher not to be arrogant in front of him, but he smiled and said, “You are right, teacher SQUARESKULL.”
SQUARESKULL sighed. “This is a waste of our time. Have it your way. I have informed your seniors that they need not come. But some of them remain on their way.”
Soverick shrugged. He had said his piece. He would do what he said and others can do whatever they want. He doesn’t care. He just wants to learn the spear.
“I can see your yearning for the spear and yet you do not hurry me. You have more self-control than I thought.”
SQUARESKULL stopped speaking and continued to watch soverick in silence. It was like he wanted to compete with Soverick in patience. Soverick continued to watch his teacher silently. They continued to wait until the door to the room opened and a battle sage monkey entered.
The newcomer glanced at soverick, he lifted an eyebrow in surprise but said nothing. He was carrying a spear which he placed on his lap as he sat down. Then he joined the duo in silence. More people entered for a total of five. They were now seven battle sage monkeys in the room sitting or standing in silence.
“Now that everyone is here, I’ll start the tradition. First will be the introduction.” SQUARESKULL spoke while staring intently at Soverick. It was more of a look of Challenge rather than a look of curiosity. As if he wanted to get a rise in Soverick’s emotions.
Soverick began to suspect that his new teacher was out to get him or maybe haze him. He wasn’t a child that could be riled up easily. He could and would maintain his cool no matter what this is. For now.
He barely listened to what the other five were saying but he noted down the most important things. Everything they said can be summarised into First Senior, SYNCLAIR, 44th year with a ranking of 231. Second Senior, SLEEP DEPRIVED DEMON, 38th year, ranking=364. Third Senior, NARGOTHROND, 34th year, ranking=527. Fourth Senior, NOBELLES, 29th year, ranking=607. Fifth Senior, JUST EVILNESS, 24th year, ranking=781.
He got the main points of their introduction which was their seniority, name, the amount of time they have spent in the academy, and their student ranking. They said more but only those were important enough for him to take note of. The five of them became silent after their introduction. Then the room plunged into silence for a while.
SQUARESKULL only started to talk ten minutes later. “We will move on since that is over. Next, I’ll talk about what you have to aim for in the academy and how to accomplish it with your martial pursuit.”
Then he went silent again. This time the period of silence extended for 20 minutes before SQUARESKULL broke it.
“As you might have guessed, there is a ranking system in the 3rd stage. There are about a thousand students in the third stage and they engage in a tournament of sorts to determine their ranking. There are four major rules that determine how the challenges are done. For the first rule, you can only challenge someone that’s within 50 positions from yours on the ranking. For the second, you can challenge as many people as you want but it is up to them to accept or not. For the third rule, you must accept at least a single challenge once a month. The fourth rule states that you cannot skip milestone fights.”
Another silence ensued for 5 minutes.
“Milestone fights are fights that must occur when you try to move from one tier to another. Each tier is composed of 100 ranks. There are 14 milestone fights in total. They are at the zilch, 10th, 20th, 50th, 100th, 200th, 300th, 400th, 500th, 600th, 700th, 800th, 900th 1000th positions. That means you must pass the milestone fights to move from the 401st position to the 399th one. The 400th position is where you stay if you pass the milestone fight. The milestone positions are the only position that can be held by more than one person. You fight against puppets with an increasing level of skill and power in the milestone fights.
Another silence for 10 minutes.
“There are only two ways to graduate from the academy. You must either complete 12 of the milestone fights or get a certification from your teacher. It is not a must to graduate. You can always choose to drop out and go home. But your graduation will guarantee you a spot in the Tertiary Level of the academy, the mana entity stage. The Zilch milestone fight is optional and it is set up with the power and the skill of the last person to beat it. So it has increased in difficulty over the years. Only the best of the best can beat it.”
Then SQUARESKULL took another one of the long breaks of silence that he takes during his talk.
If Soverick suspected that he was being messed with before, now he is very sure. Either SQUARESKULL was taking these periods of silence to relax his throat or he was pushing Soverick to get angry.
The first option is highly unlikely because there’s no way a transcendent will have a sore throat. Plus there’s no way anyone will have a sore throat if they were communicating with their divine sense. So his teacher, for one reason or the other, must be out to get him.