Ascension of the Draconians

After the break, everyone was sitting back in their seats. Some of the people who already finished had removed their gear and were sitting in more comfortable clothes. I decided to stay away from everyone else.

Araki had woken up at some point and seemed to be doing fine but still looked tired.

I could see Jack motion for me to join him and Araki but I shook my head, I didn't feel comfortable doing something like that right now.

Looking into the arena I could see it was fully repaired. Before it was rubble and gashed and burn marks all over the place but now it was back to how it was before. A barren patch of land with no grass or plants, just dirt.

I watched other applicants and their fights but my focus was on another thought. 

My score was 70 without the bonus. Compared to the other people who scored high and those who scored 50 it didn't add up to me.

'All I did was dodge the attacks, could I have shown talent or something? Was I because most people would have run away from the bear? I didn't run as I couldn't let them down, I was terrified! Was it because I could anticipate its attacks?' so many reasons passed through my head but I couldn't figure it out.

I couldn't understand why I was giving such a high score and continued to rack my brain but nothing did come to mind. 

As I was trapped in my own head around 20 applicants took the test 14 failed and the rest passed with 60s and one 20. The person with 20 cried and ran away.

One thing I did notice was that mages were very rare. Out of the 50 applicants only 8 of them seemed to be mages, including Zek and only 10 of the others seemed to be able to use magic. The rest, like me, are all ordinary.

After some time I noticed Jack waved to me to get my attention. When I turned to him he pointed to the arena.

 In the arena was the Orc person I saw earlier. 

"Up next, Orin Woodwork." the announcer said

I could hear murmurs from the students

"Why would the academy allow a Half-Orc here?"

"letting the low-born Commoners join the academy is bad enough, but now they are letting hybrids join, and an Orc at that!"

Hearing all this hatred was suffocating and brought back bad memories. It was comparable to my childhood but this seems to be directed to an entire race rather than a single person.

Hearing the word hybrid also added to my anger. That term was used to refer to people who have parents of 2 different races and are treated horribly by many people. My grandfather told me about them and I had experience as people mistook me for a hybrid as well.

"Calm down everyone! Just because one birth parent wasn't the same race doesn't mean that they are all bad or are you forgetting I am also a hybrid." a woman said.

Hearing a voice of reason in the crowd of negativity and hatred was reassuring.

I turned to her to get a good look.

She wasn't sitting there before and probably sat there after the break but hadn't said anything until now.

She stood at about 5'10, had long curly blond hair, blue eyes, light-coloured skin, a green dress with a plant-like design at the bottom and a purple flower tucked behind her ear.

She was pretty, but I couldn't see any signs of why she referred to herself as a hybrid.

"Lady terra! We meant no disrespect! I-it was just said in the heat of the moment!" they said in a panic.

An arrogant man with short blond hair stood angrily and said "You are all cowards!"

"With respect, Lady Terra, you're part elf, but that-" he pointed to Orin "is an Orc. Elves are considered one of the civilized races while Orcs are nothing but barbarians."

Terra stared at the man and said "That may be true for some Orcs but not all Mr. Orander. I figured that someone of your family's reputation would have a different view on Orcs."

"What do you mean my family's reputation?!" he said angrily while covering up his worry.

"Now please correct me if I am wrong but doesn't your father have a Half-Orc as his right-hand man and advisor? I wonder what they would think if they heard what you just said?" she said with a straight face.

The man, embarrassed and angry stared at her furiously but didn't say anything and sat back down.

I stifled down a laugh seeing his face and stayed silent.

"Now that we agree can we please watch the fights? I like that it shows that your prejudice against common-born people saying that they are weak has already been proven wrong. We have already seen 3 people of great talent that have scored higher than most of you on the same test and I suspect there will be a few more."

Hearing her praise us was an unexpected result and I wasn't sure how to take it but I was happy to see the infuriated faces of the noble students who could say she was wrong.

A few more grumbles were let out by them but no one said them out loud and we started to watch the fight.

While not being distracted by the nobles being humbled by Terra I could focus on Orin and what he looked like.

He is very tall standing at about 6'5 and very built, he has palish-green skin and 2 small tusks coming from his lower jaw, he has black hair he pushed back, a short beard growing in, bright yellow eyes and an amulet tied around his neck.

He wore leather armour around his torso, arms and legs but didn't wear a helmet. He held a Greatsword with strange markings carved into the blade.

I looked over at Jack and I saw him leaning over interested in this fight.

'Could Orin be one of the people with high potential?' I thought to myself and paid attention to the fight.

On the other side of the arena, the gate opened and 3 Giant Rats crawled out.

I had chased after rats before because of my father. While they aren't as fast they are more sporadic and random in their movements they are vicious when forced to. They go for the weak points and exposed areas.

The rats noticing Orin started to run towards him but were jumping back and forth between each other. When the first rat got within striking distance Orin let out a loud Roar swung his sword with surprising speed and cleaved the Rat in half.

Noticing their companion was dead the other rats started to run away but Orin didn't let them.

He stepped on one rat's tail and stabbed his sword into its back causing it to scream in pain while also pining it to the ground.

Orin turned to the other rat but surprisingly the final rat decided to attack and tried to bite his head.

Orin raised his arm and let the rat bite his armour. He then proceeded to punch it several times in the stomach trying to get it off.

The rat retaliated by swinging its claws at Orin trying to hit him but only nicked a strap on his chest plate. 

Seeing nothing was working Orin decided to unstrap his arm bracer the rat was biting and swung his arm around shaking the bracer and rat off and dazing it for a second.

With the rat no longer attached to him, he ran over and grabbed a large rock on the ground nearby ran back to the rat and smashed its head in.

This fight wasn't as exciting as the others but it definitely showed he was stronger than most other people. He won the fight in less than a minute while most others who fight like him would require around 3 or 4 minutes.

"Orin Woodwork. Passes with 68 points!" the announcer said

I stared at the scene in front of me and noticed it was a little gorey. Orin didn't seem bothered by it at all and seemed proud of his victory.

I turned to Jack to see his reaction but when I saw his face I saw an expression I wasn't expecting, fear and worry.

I turned back to Orin to see what could be the cause thinking it could just be because he wasn't bothered by the mess. Though some other applicants did cause some messy scenes already but he never reacted like this.

It was then that I noticed a red mark on his chest. I could only see a small part of it that was revealed thanks to the rat nicking his armour earlier.

"It can't be!" I heard Terra say to herself in surprise and worry.

I looked around but no one else seemed to notice the mark and those who did didn't know what it meant.

I decided to ask Jack later when we weren't in such a popular area.

Orin grabbed his sword, pulled it out from the now-dead rat and left the Arena.

As he left I noticed he realised his chestplate was messed up and quickly fixed it in a panic hiding the mark again.

'Does the mark mean something and he is trying to hide it?' I thought to myself