[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/DEs5zeu.png[/img] [h2]Graduation[/h2][/center] - 11a - The split between the top students had been too obvious by now. On one side, some of the smartest and most organized students were sweating bullets, giving one last go at revising the themes of all the many lectures of Lektor, now engraved within the walls of Haven, or perfecting their mastery of basic architecture and mathematical formulas. On the other, the most talented were chatting, sparring, and in general not giving much of a damn about the upcoming test. A full human student gritted his teeth in anger as a duo of sparring harpies entered the floor on which he was and caused many of his stone runes to crumble to the floor. None of the non-martial art students were able to keep those who were in check, and some had taken the chance to lord over others... but not too much. The human remembered, a smirk in his face, the day Prideful Mane crossed one line too many. Sure, he was up there, a second-generation martial arts student, and already catching up with first gens like Hills and Fang, but when he decided to bring forth an idea of might is right... well, the goddess stepped in. [color=gold]"Hmm? The strongest rule and take from the weak? Funny words my kitty."[/color] the goddess said, a golden boot on the head of the lion chimera, his mane was once golden too, now it was dull, stained by mud, the broken lion gurgling an apology. [color=gold]"Hmm? Do I hear a change of heart? Oh, whatever could have made you change your mind on the stance of might makes right? Hmmmmmm?"[/color] she put some extra strength on her stomp. Mane then "Graduated", as Lektor said, though the human would describe it as "thrown towards the horizon by an angered goddess". He did not feel sorry, Lektor had made her rules clear, to fully lose a sense of righteousness and try to rule by raw tyranny was bound to get on her nerves, and to an extent, it did seem like she did not want tyrannical martial artists becoming the rule. The human smiled, feeling a bit more assured in his fate, he arranged his runes one last time and... the harpies came again, one kicking the other right on his table, pulverising the whole thing. The goddess had her lines, but super-powered idiots were surely not one of them. Nevertheless, it was time to go perform the last test of the urbanism class. - 11b - The night sky shone brightly above Haven, perhaps even brighter than before, starlight itself seemed charged with a special form of energy. Hills of Bountiful Harvest stretched, adjusting her uniform and steeling her body and mind. Today the nerds had done their little math test, which Hills did not care about one bit, but for those who were not slimes, like her, it was also the finals of the combat tournament. At first, the bunny chimera had thought herself fully hopeless, but multiple events had conspired in her favour. One, the strongest of them, Spring Blossom, had been disqualified, she was simply too strong at this point, in the first battle she had tried to be extremely gentle, and she almost killed the poor human who she was fighting. The technique to strengthen the body with Earth Mana while useful at first, had one key danger to it: What happened once something did have the strength to break that stone skin? Well, it shattered... Almost all veins in the arm of the human instantly turned into shrapnel after Blossom gently poked it, sprays of red all over the place followed, and the goddess had to step in. So Blossom was out, good, the other rising star was Mane, but uh, he had been "graduated", though Hills would describe it as "Termination" given the goddess brutally turned the lion into the first human to reach the moon given how hard he was thrown out. So that left out a few second gens, third gens and Golden Fanged Cat, who Hills assumed would be her final enemy. The rabbit put on her uniform and got ready to rumble, she did not have a particular reason to win outside of just wanting to prove herself, a paradoxical state of ambition common to a lot of the top martial artists, for some reason. The attention would be nice, so would the chance to enter the pages of history, though she was sure she would never get to usurp Blossom or Astarte as the top honchos. Above all, there were way too many greedy newcomers thinking they knew it all, and the chance to break those smirks and smiles was always nice. - 12 - Lektor, sitting with some retainers and Blossom, watched as the fights started. At the first round, as many as 10 battles happened simultaneously, and yet the goddess did not struggle to keep all of them within her view. As her path towards the Path took shape, she found herself focusing much more on what she called martial arts, more than just being an efficient way to promote health and teach mana manipulation, the goddess started to appreciate it for its ability to mix the mundane inherent needs of survival and conflict with the higher ideals bound to art. With time, it seemed as if the concept became entangled to her existence much like Earth was, and since then, her grasp on the topic had only increased, she could feel every movement of the students, every pull of muscle, every faint flow of mana. The first round went down without surprises, a simple culling designed not to waste any two major fighters against each other. Almost every fighter now had mastered the aurora and deeper earth infusion, colourful lights shining against the dark of the night, the colours changing from student to student. Unlike the pleasant dance of auroras, the shouting of technique names was something the goddess despised, she had no idea why it had caught on, but the students could not trade blows without either telling the ridiculous name of their kicks and punches or going on and on in long monologues about how their ability was unbeatable or how they had just outwitted their enemy. Nothing would embody this more than the first of the semifinal battles. Hills of Bountiful Harvests, the rabbit chimera, a big blabber mouth and a massive (in many meanings of the word, depending on where you looked) brat, with her rival being the Brass Bull of Midnight, a human actually, despite the name, who always loved to pretend himself to be an inventor of new techniques when most of what he did was just copy Spring Blossoms' bovine style. She could only imagine they would be shouting and talking their way through the entire battle, given how annoying either could be. Thankfully, the other battle was between two taciturn entities. Golden Fanged Cat, the other of the 4 first gen students able to participate in this battle (given Blossom was disqualified and Astarte had left), with his rival being the Heavenly Dog, a crow harpy man, ever scowling and with a dark purple aura to him. Lektor could understand Heavenly, he flew, but where the hell did he take dog from? Perhaps it was an attempt to offend her? She was a Rock Cat after all. She did not know, the man was on the weird side, looking quite malicious at times, but for some reason, Lektor did not feel worried. The blaring of a trumpet signalled the start of the battles. Hills was fast, always had been, the pink and blue of her aura flashed in a moment across the field and she delivered kick after kick against the Brass Bull, who could not, at any moment, match her speed. An amateur would take that as Hills having an advantage, but there was one issue: damage. Brass could just stand there, menacingly, and take the flurry of attacks, his muscle mass was massive, and the earth enchantment had made it into a wall of steel, for Hills to deliver a kick that could break it, she would have to put an absurd amount of force in each kick, and at that point, her legs would be in equal danger of shattering. She knew that, because she quickly stepped back, grunting. "Ha. That was a nice massage Hills, but unfortunately, your legs are better suited to draw looks than to draw blood." the Bull hummed a smug aura to him. Hill took a position, and the pink around her flared, "That was a great wall cosplay, Brass, but, remember what our teacher told us about structures that are too rigid?" she stepped onto the ground, a chime-like echo leaving, and immediately the human knew what was up, he jumped just in time, as the ground beneath him had been weakened. Lektor appreciated that Hills had managed to hide that she knew how to manipulate the earth until now, but why the hell had the idiot told her enemy about it before she delivered the strike? Kids these days... Now the pace had changed, Hills did have the means to take down Brass, but to do so she had to stay still, which the bull was never allowing in his arena, charging at her with renewed might. Lektor hummed, starting to understand what Hills' tactics were... But she was not the only one. "Bah, what cowardly tactics, you and that Heavenly Dog fella just know how to run." Brass told, but then smirked, readjusting his charges. "I see you trying to tire me out here, but those skips and hops of yours aren't quite free either, are they?" it was now time for him to reveal his earth-shaping skill, which of course was just copying Blossom, as he formed a quarterstaff from raw rock. This greatly increased his range, and although it did not increase the speed to the point he could hit Hills, it did force her to dodge, run and jump far more, soon the rabbit was panting and sweating. Cornered, Hills became more aggressive, soon she was once again jumping for flying kicks, skirmishing about Brass' flanks, which meant more energy being spent, but she had a bet, which proved itself true quite quickly. The Brass Bull had lowered his defences to conserve energy, not fully, but enough that the rabbit's strikes drew blood. A smug smile filled her face. Perhaps too smug. She was fully within his range, and although it was unlikely, he could strike her, the more chances she gave him, the more chances the rare event had to happen and given his size and strength, all it would take would be one strong blow to turn her into a bloody mess. It came sooner than Lektor expected, Hills had been greedy and tried to strike a muscle in the right arm to make the enemy drop his staff, but that made her linger about in his range for too long, with his left hand turned for a sloppy, but brutal enough, side strike, hitting the rabbit on the back, a strike directly at the spine at that, with enough force it made Hill's shape bend against his arm like a cloth. Lektor almost winced, that would be weeks without walking for the rabbit... Hills groaned in pain and rolled about on the ground; it was over... But then the goddess noticed she rolled a bit too much, and she had rolled with intent as well. Everyone, Lektor and Blossom included, was left in shock as Hills stood up, her limbs moving in a manner that was too soft. Then it clicked. "She... She suppressed her earth element!?" Lektor said incredulously. Blossom nodded wisely. "Seems so, it's the reverse path of the Earth Enhancement technique, she followed the road to the other side, instead of making her veins and organs earth-like, she made her earth element be infused with water, gaining a wet clay-like property on her form. Thus, taking no long-term damage from the strike." "Amazing." Lektor whistled. "Then... That would explain the sweating, it was the result of hoarding water mana. Wait... This is absurd, her stamina is almost unchanged from the start of the battle. She has been only using her earth enhancement on her legs, and not even all of the time." "And she has been using the fire mana in her aura to feed her body, I would say right now her skill of bodily control outmatches my own." the pink bovine chimaera noted. "Not one mote of mana flows through her body without a purpose." It was clear to the two of them that Brass Bull should give up now, he did not have the stamina to finish this combat victorious, but the fool kept pushing, each time weaker and slower, as hills danced around his strikes, then, finally, he was the one who lingered too much, Hills pressed her back against the ground and her two feet against his gut, unleashing a reverse "bunny skip" and fully extending her long legs with the full power of her earth and fire mana to boot. The human, lacking the mana and stamina to keep himself heavy enough to stand his ground, was thrown upward into the air and fell off the stage, of the building too, Lektor having to go full rescue mode. - 13a - Golden Fanged Cat had jobbed to a harpy man... winged man? The Celestial Dog he was called, and Hills had to admit, he had made his name, even though to her his fighting style was still just 'fly in, kick a bit, fly out'. Some would call him a coward, but the bunny chimera believed being smart was more valuable than being brave. In fact, she was the exact same as him in most ways, they both liked to hit and run in Parthian tactics, and they both were lightweight speed-focused fighters. So their final battle had been a bit of a... disaster, to say the least. In the heat of it, it was amazing, Hills was bunny hoping, doing spins and slides all over the place, and the crow harpy man was diving all over the place, doing even a low glide that swiped at her feet by surprise. As they both tired each other out he revealed a technique that imbued earth mana into his feathers and threw them at Hills like a rain of black daggers. At that point, Hills felt like she would lose. But then she prepared her ultimate technique, she remembered Big Smoke, his shadow steps, and focused all of the wind and fire into a combined mirage and speed boost technique, the crow harpy hit an afterimage and in moments met a rain of strong kicks by the rabbit chimera. It was supposed to be a cool fight but when she looked around, very few people remained. It had taken four hours for it to end, and people had gotten bored of seeing two fighters running away from each other. To make matters worse, Hills had a certain perception of Celestial Dog, his scowl and dark aurora made him look evil, he had scowled all the time, even as he had beaten Golden Fang, lots of times instead of answering someone he would just mumble to himself, and in group gatherings he liked to stand ominously away. Clearly a villain, so Hills had not held back on talking about the power of friendship, and how he had lost because he didn't have friends like Big Smoke and her Phantom Wings to train and inspire her. And then the dude started to tear up. People rushed to his side and reassured him he had friends, and then Hills got called a bitch, who would go around bullying a dude just because he was extremely shy. That was the great change to her status from winning the bloody tournament, and only the goddess and Blossom seemed to respect her absurd mastery over the inner mana flow of her body. -13b- The weeks after the final test of maths and architecture had been focused on blacksmithing, the goddess had kept Lorelei's forge, and expanded it a bit too, spreading the basics of metalwork, mining, and of prospecting to her students. The latter was also accompanied by general classes on how to prepare the land for farming. Instead of bothering to teach farming herself, she simply picked humans who already knew how to farm outside of Haven and transplanted them to the Mesa. With that, and the martial arts tournaments finished, Lektor felt like it was finally time to finish this chapter. On the day of the results, the students woke up to find Haven once again filled with colours and treats, it was a graduation party after all. The great majority of students had beige and green uniforms, with different accessories and sashes to represent different positions. Some were awarded the armour and weapons produced in the forging classes. A great map of the Mesa was created at the centre, and students had to pick in which cardinal direction they would go. Well, most students. For the upper 20%, this was merely a goodbye to most humans and a good number of chimeras as well. They would be the ones focusing outside of the mesa, the keepers of strongholds meant to define the land and keep it safe. And although each clique was being awarded a stronghold already... the goddess had not really finished them, at all, she had this absurd habit of awarding titles for property she did not own or that had yet to exist. As the party died down, the first waves of student was sent out, one in each direction, once enough time had passed, another wave was sent out on the diagonal of the cardinal points, the objective was to avoid crowding regions with too many people for very little food. Finally, a whole group of stragglers was given plenty of supplies and then sent out to populate the Mesa, this was also the group with most weapons and soldiers, a tactic Lektor used to make sure the first ones to leave would not be able to use banditry to overtake an entire wave of students. By the end of it, Haven was thoroughly emptied, even the martial artists, who had grown so aloof towards the civilians, felt a sense of melancholy. Not Lektor though, the sphinx goddess was happily snoring and having a well-deserved lazy day, no worries about teaching any hairless primate how to survive. [hider=might summary] Intitial 5MP 5AP -3 MP: Grab the Martial Arts aspect -1 MP: Teach humans the basics of urban planning/architecture -1 AP (Earth): Teach Humans how to work metals -1 AP (Earth): Teach humans how to survey the soil -1 AP (Martial Arts): Blessing- Wind Step Technique, which permits one to move quickly with leaps, sidesteps and sliding, and by using mana, creating an illusory afterimage as they dodge. Remaining: 1MP 2AP[/hider] [hider=summary] Lektor's Lektures end with a test on the topics of architecture and maths, the teaching of metal working and land surveying, and on the side, a martial arts tournament. Hills is the champion, but the final battle was a flop that very few people cared about, so her prestige doesn't go up with people out of her clique. Finally, there is a graduation party and humans are sent in waves to truly populate the mesa and nearby regions.[/hider]