Leo and Marcus were unbothered. Since they had an entire week to figure out paying for tuition, they could take their time. Everyone else didn’t live as close to the academy as they did.
On top of that, there were a considerable number of people there who had come from places outside the city and didn’t have a place to stay, so they would need the dorms immediately.
So a majority of the students went along as a group to the Office of Finances. A small group remained that wanted to leisurely tour the academy.
Leo and Marcus quickly walked around the campus, trying to get a sense of where everything in the academy was. Till now, they didn’t even know what exactly they were going to learn at the academy.
All they knew was that the academy was going to help them become stronger, but not how. They were hoping they would find out as the days went past.
They walked around and found familiar sights. They found the place where they went through the first test. They saw that the steps were deserted and wanted to try them but decided not to since they didn’t know how to start the formation.
They explored the rest of the campus, looking at the various buildings. They found the mission hall. It was a huge building made out of marble like the rest of the buildings. Leo was starting to notice a theme – all the buildings were made out of marble.
The Mission Hall itself was a huge building that opened up into a hall that was similar to the main building that they had come out of. It could easily accommodate 500-600 students at once while giving them enough place to move around comfortably. If they didn’t worry about the space, then more than 4000 students would fit in the hall.
Leo and Marcus were able to enter the Mission Hall because there wasn’t a door separating the building from outside, but the entire hall was barren. There wasn’t anyone inside the hall and the walls were completely empty.
He was curious about how the missions would be displayed and how he would have to take them, but he guessed that it would be very similar to the process at the Mercenary Guild.
After visiting the Mission Hall, they found the Points Shop. Both of them were expecting something that was a lot smaller than the Mission Hall since they thought it mainly existed for the sake of selling challenges.
The building shattered all their expectations. It was a three-floor building, standing as tall as the Thousand Treasure Tower in Solhaven. Both of them wanted to enter it but saw that the entrance was closed. They sulked and moved on to the other buildings.
The places where they were supposed to have their classes were very interesting. Since they had more than 1000 students, it would take a great amount of resources and idiocy to make a building that catered to that.
Instead, the academy had a building that was a lecture hall that opened up into a training hall. The building was essentially split into two parts. The entrance would lead to the massive lecture hall that could seat 200 students at once.
The entrance to this building was open, so Leo and Marcus entered it. They noticed that they weren’t alone when they entered the lecture hall. There were two other pairs of students and a person who was there by herself.
Leo let out a chuckle when he saw the people in the lecture hall. Marcus leaned into him and asked, “What’s funny?”
Leo shook his head. “Nothing.”
“How are you, Lyra?” He asked her.
She looked to her back and saw Leo. She immediately stood up.
“I’m doing good. How about you, Leo?” She asked him while tucking her hair behind her ear with one hand.
“It’s going fine. How was the month of vacation?” He asked her.
“I just trained the entire time. What about you?” She asked him back.
He shrugged. “Same. So I see that you are also exploring the academy too. Do you want to join us?” He asked and pointed to Marcus.
She didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds before reluctantly nodding. “Yes, that sounds good.”
She stood up from her seat. The other people in the lecture hall were not paying too much attention to this interaction. They were getting ready to go to the second part of the building.
The lecture hall had a stage with a podium at one end of the room on the opposite end of the entrance. On both corners of that wall were hallways that lead beyond the lecture hall into the second part of the building – the training hall.
By the time Lyra got up from her seat, Marcus had caught up to them.
“So, are you also planning on seeing the training hall?” Leo asked Lyra.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Sounds good.”
Leo lead the way to the training hall. He chose to take the hallway on the left. They walked past the lecture hall into an open place that had a lot more windows. They were now in a vast space with multiple practice dummies.
There were around 200 dummies, which showed that the entire batch would most likely be divided into at least 5 groups to make sure everyone would have a dummy to practice on.
They went to one of the dummies to see how strong the material used to make them was. Marcus tapped it lightly and saw that it was made out of wood. He was immediately skeptical of the durability but decided to test it anyway.
He punched the dummy without using any aura. He punched one of the arms of the dummy, sending it rotating around itself, making the arm on the other side swing at Marcus. He immediately defended it with his elbow with an expression of surprise.
He didn’t know that punching the dummy would make it move. He hadn’t put enough effort into observing it properly. He decided to hit it harder, using aura this time. He didn’t use too much and hit it with another punch.
This time, the arm came swinging harder, but Marcus could still block it with his hand. He smiled and swung at the arm that he blocked, bringing the other hand to his unguarded right side.
He quickly moved his right hand, blocking the arm while sending it quickly to the other side, bringing the other arm to his left side. His smile kept widening as he increased the amount of aura he was using with each punch.
Eventually, he was punching the arms with all his strength, making them swing around with so much speed that it wasn’t visible to the naked eye. After two punches, the arms were so fast that he couldn’t block it in time.
When he was hit by the dummy, he took a few steps back in pain.
“That’s why you shouldn’t push yourself too much,” Leo said. He stopped the dummy from spinning around.
“Should we get going?” He asked Marcus and Lyra.