Chapter 51: Instructor

Chapter 51: Instructor The message stated that he was to report to the instructor in charge of their unit within an hour of receiving the message.

Deciding not to put it off till later, Kieran made his way to the specified location with the aid of the newly unlocked map in his watch. It had been a while since he needed to use that feature. Despite the break given to them, Kieran didn’t take the time to familiarize himself with the structures that were present in the area for second years.

With the aid of the map, he arrived at a deserted area that surprisingly wasn’t in the mountain, rather, it was located on a mountain top which could be considered rather high, when he looked over from the edge.

At the edge was a structure that was built onto the walls of the mountain. The structure looked like different from the others he had seen, it bore a resemblance to that of the mailing station, it looked as if it had been there before the camp discovered it and made some enhancements to it.

With steady steps he walked into the building which was for the most part, empty. Apart from the weapons racked at the sides and the padded floors, there was nothing. The place was arranged to give a Japanese style dojo feel to it.

At the center of the empty space sat a cross-legged figure who wore a straw hat, his head facing down, but despite this Kieran didn’t need to look twice to recognize him.

"I see you made it here! Take a sit!" The person said gesturing to the spot in front of him.

Kieran complied, taking the spot, while staying silent.

’Makes sense’ Kieran thought.

The person in front of him as responsible for their combat training inducing their first phase, it made sense that he would be in charge of their training for the combat unit.

"Alright, there’s nothing to say, you can leave!" he said after Kieran took the seat.

Kieran other the other hand sat still, waiting for an explanation to the instructor’s weird words. He asked him to take a seat before sending him away? What kind of joke was that??

"The purpose of this is basically for the instructor and recruit to get to know each other, since I would be monitoring your progress throughout this phase. But just don’t think we need that, do we?" The instructor asked.

Hearing this, Kieran stared at him strangely,

"What about the others?" He asked, referring to the people he was going to be paired with to form a team.

"I don’t know them!" The instructor replied.

"Not yet at least! This stage is where you really get your training, so the camp decided to break from the idea of general training to that to adopt a more specialized style." The instructor explained a little

"Still..." Kieran said, silently demanding for more.

"Sigh! This is why you all are divided and grouped into small teams. Each team gets an instructor that guides them through the entire phase, but until the phase actually starts, both the instructors and recruits are oblivious as to who meets who. I said this meeting was arranged for me to get to know you, I meant that. I didn’t know you would fall under my team. Since you’re the first, I also don’t know who your other team mates are." The instructor explained to him.

’I see’ Kieran thought, understanding what the man was trying to explain.

"Alright!"

He said, standing up to take his leave. This went in a way he didn’t expect at all. The fact that he fell under this kind of situation just after rejecting his offer made him suspicious of the words of the Instructor.

"My first lesson!"

The instructors voice rang out just when Kieran was about to step out of the building.

"I’ve seen your weapon of choice, and the technique you practice with it. The Gale girl made a smart decision giving you that method, but that’s just a basic technique. It would quickly become useless, I’m sure you must have noticed that too."

"You should get yourself a technique from the camp, I’ll lend you a bit of my authority, since the techniques related to that weapon are quite scarce, even the camp only possesses a few"

"Aright, that’s all this time. You’ll get a message when you’re needed. Apart from that, just practice as much as you can. Dismissed!" The instructor said, waving his hands.

Kieran turned to give a small bow of appreciation before leaving.

Just like he had made mention, the issue of the technique had been weighing on his mind for a whole now. After participating in the last mission, especially the last fight, he realized how limited his options were with such a basic technique like the one he used, it wasn’t even fashioned specifically for the scythe, which only made it worse. It was about time he changed to a better one, but Kieran had no idea where to start from.

The instructor had just lifted a weight off his mind, even lending him a bit of his authority, which by the books should be illegal. For that, Kieran was thankful to him.

Procrastination wasn’t something he favored, so he made his way to the archives of the camp, a place located 20 minutes away from where he currently was according to his watch.

The sheer size of the mountain chain still amazed Kieran and what was even more mind blowing was how the camp had managed to hollow out the mountain and place itself within without having the place cave in on its self.

He asked the head chef who claimed to have been present since the camp’s establishment and he told him that information about that was classified, but he did make mention that they didn’t completely hollow out the mountains, just about seventy percent. Still, that was a huge figure.

The technique archive was just like the postal department, except this one had a visible entrance. Placing his watch and scanning his biometrics on the stand before the door, his information was displayed and confirmed before the door was opened to him.

Stepping in he was once again met with something he didn’t expect. Instead of rows of shelves which contained the actual techniques or drives he could use to access them with his watch, what he was met with were rows upon rows of pods which bore similarity to the one he was in when he appeared on the planet.

At the top he saw a sign that read ’immersion pods’, but that still didn’t clear his confusion.

Taking the time to search up and read the information from his watch, Kieran finally understood their purpose.

The techniques and other precious information were stored in a virtual database of the camp and the only way to access them was through these immersion pods.

The library didn’t have these in its lower levels, probably because of the attack Leora had mentioned when they first met. The information was sure to have it physical print out stored somewhere secure in the camp though.

Stepping towards one, Kieran took a step inside and laid his back. The steps to use one were quite simple

After stepping in, all he had to do was place his hand in a particular spot before his consciousness was sucked out of his body.

The feeling was a rather weird and unpleasant one, he felt nauseous and fuzzy for a moment, but when he opened his eyes, what he saw was what he was expecting earlier. Rows upon rows of tall shelves with written books and scrolls in them.

The entire place was divided into sections based on the type of weapon or martial art the person was seeking, with the aid of his watch he navigated his way through the sections to arrive at one that had a floating sign that said ’Scythe techniques"

On his way here, he saw some people reading moving through the other sections which meant he wasn’t the only one in the pod in the hall he had thought to be empty.

Stepping into the section with scythe techniques, Kieran immediately noticed the difference from the other sections.

The number of shelves were obviously less than on the other sections and not all of them were filled. Despite this, the place still contained at least a hundred techniques.

Taking a random pick, Kieran saw that it was just a basic technique, he didn’t need that so he kept on checking through, look at their information that popped up the moment he picked one up

’I can’t keep doing this’ Kieran thought.

Unlike the other sections, this one lacked arrangement and the techniques were mixed up, he had seen a mid-level one among the basic techniques.

Using his watch, he decided to assign colors to Rachel technique based on its grade. Using red for the basic ones, green for the mid-level ones and yellow for the high classed ones.

This was possible because he was in a virtual space and with this his searching process was instantly made easier and he immediately understood why the instructor had said that they camp didn’t have much techniques on the scythe.