At the end of the last match, Malek walks into the arena by himself. “FINALLY! Who wants to FIGHT!” Malek yells. Everyone has already fought and there wasn’t a partner for Malek. Malek marches over to Mr. Coltaje “So who am I gonna fight!” He says with an excited expression. “Uh-uh-uh, where is Mr. Armstrong?” Coltaje asks. “He’s outside somewhere, he suddenly got a weird face and told me to go in. But anyways who’s my opponent?!” He responds jumping up and down filled with excitement. “W-w-well YIP!” Coltaje gets startled by the sound of the bell ending the class, as the class started to leave. “No! Come back!” Malek calls out as the students rushed out as the school day was over. “I am sorry! Everyone is gone- Mr. Armstrong!” Coltaje calls out to Mr. Armstrong as he enters the arena and walks over to the small group. “Malek…” Malek jumps and runs over and hides behind Diric who stayed behind. Diric looking confused looks over at Mr. Armstrong. “COME HERE MY PRECIOUS STUDENT!” Mr. Armstrong yells out and begins to chase Malek around. “Uh-uh sir! Malek still hasn’t had the chance to spar.” Mr. Armstrong pauses and turns around. “Oh right, I’m a teacher. Officer Coltaje you fight Malek.” “M-m-me?!” Coltaje gets shell shocked. “Alright!” Malek jumps out of excitement and gets in position and so does Coltaje hesitantly. “I won’t use my flow ability, s-s-so come at me whenever.” “You know, the last person who told me that was forced to use it, are you sure?” Malek smirks. “You officers are always so cocky, let’s get it started!” Malek pushes himself off the ground running straight forward to Coltaje. Coltaje demeanor changes completely in battle, he puts up a block and blocks Malek’s fist. Not knowing the force Malek carried, Coltaje feet left the ground and skits on the ground before recovering. Now on one knee, Coltaje meets Malek’s smile with his own serial killer smile. Malek follows with a kick that is once again blocked but this time Coltaje didn’t fly, and Coltaje’s supporting leg and arms were inflamed with muscle. Malek jumps back and smirks. “Haha! See you had to use your flow! Now let’s have some fun!” The two go blow for blow for almost an hour now. Throughout the battle, once flow was involved, Malek has been on the backseat but over time he has quickly adapted to the battle and started to become even. “I heard you did well, Diric kid.” “Hm? Yeah it was pretty easy.” “But you did average yesterday, how did you win against Marcoon?” Mr. Armstrong asks. “I was allowed to use my flow technique, I’m not like that beast over there. Instead of fighting face first, I would do so with my ability back at home.” “Sector 3 right, you must have had a hard time, isn’t that where DreRock and his gang are stationed.” “Yes…. It is.” The two continued their conversation as the battle continued.

‘How is this kid getting better, and does he have an endless pool or what?! He doesn’t stop’ Coltaje says to himself. It has been over 2 hours of the fight between them until Mr. Armstrong ends it. “That’s enough! Mr. Coltaje is a busy man. The fight ends here.” Malek stops out of breath and kisses his tongues. “But it isn’t over yet! I haven’t gotten him on the floor yet!” Malek expresses before randomly collapsing to the ground. Diric goes over to Malek and sees him asleep. Suddenly the doors of the arena opens and Abdul and the doctor come in. “Malek! I told you to not fight you dumb kid!” He yells rushing over and kicks his stomach “WAKE UP YOU STUBORN BRAT!” Malek wakes up from the pain. “DON’T YOU DARE HURT MY PRECIOUS STUDENT YOU OLD DOC!” Mr. Armstrong yells. Diric confused by what is going on and falls back towards Abdul and Mr. Armstrong. “Precious student huh. That’s the second time I heard that today.” Captain Abdul says with a light chuckle. “Second?” Mr. Armstrong responds. “Yup.” Diric hugs himself creeped out all of the sudden. “That creepy professor” Diric says. “Professor Erick Andrews?” “Yup, he said the same thing about Diric. Ahaha! You should have seen his face, never seen him so happy before.” Mr. Armstrong looks at Diric and pats him on the back. “You made Professor Gloomy happy?! Haha! Now it makes sense why you won against Marcoon. Anyways why is the doctor with you, Captain Abdul.” “He was trying to find Malek since he hasn’t fully recovered yet.” “Recovered? He was injured?” “There was an incident at the cafeteria, and he was brutally beat up with the flow trapping cuffs, then thrown into the cell. He was blamed for the incident and the principle punished him with the her kiss of will for 24 straight hours.” Mr. Armstrong shaken by the story he has just heard and Diric looked completely disgusted. “Malek saved me… and took all the blame for himself.” Diric added. “Mr. Armstrong, this is how they treat Secters.” Abdul commented. Mr. Armstrong clenching his fist in anger thinks back to a few hours ago.

A flashback to Mr. Armstrong moments ago during the examination with Malek outside. “You broke every record, even my personal best when I graduated this academy. Can you do me a favor Malek?” “What is it, and please put your shirt back on you pervert!” Mr. Armstrong standing tall with his shirt off showcasing his extreme muscles and a couple of scars on his upper body. “Can you take off your uniform?” “YOU SERIOUSLY ARE A PERV! NO WAY!” Malek jumps back in a defensive position. “If you do, I’ll give you the best meal.” “That’s all you had to say!” Malek says with a large smile and takes off his shirt. Malek was extremely muscular and his body was covered with scars as if he is a veteran officer that’s been hundreds of battles. Mr. Armstrong shocked, he falls to his knees in disbelief. ‘He has more scars than me, how many battles has this boy gotten?! Is he really 16 years old?!’ “Kid, what is your dream?” “My dream? Well to have my mother live in the city and out of the 7^th sector.” Malek responds. “No, what is YOUR dream.” Malek pauses for a moment and smirks. As he tells him his dream, Mr. Armstrong couldn’t help but laugh. “I fully have faith that you’ll do it Malek. No matter where you go, you will have my full support even if you’re an enemy. You are… MY PRECIOUS STUDENT!”

With that the days start to continue. Malek falling asleep in almost every class except for Flow and combat training courses. Getting barely passing grade with the help of Diric strict studying tactics that aided Malek. The only course he never has trouble in is math due to his prior history with his mother being a mathematics teacher. Everyday night around 11:00pm, Malek and Diric train with Abdul in secret. How the training works is they fight each other with their weaknesses. Malek can only use his flow ability exterior from his body and Diric must fight without using his flow ability and work on his combat skills. Then they both take time to fight Abdul one on one with no restrictions. Abdul then asses their performance every night and tells them what to train for the next day. With this setup, Malek and Diric both grow exceptionally quick. Training what Abdul has given them after class and before the 11:00pm meeting, more and more people showed up after class to train themselves. Feeling unease seeing Malek and Diric train all night, they aspire to be more like them. Seeing how much they work gave others the motivation to work on themselves, yet no nobles show up. Malek and Diric didn’t mind others training as they focused on themselves. Malek seems to have trouble with the technique Abdul told him to work on so he goes and asks Diric who is turning his steel to coat over his hand to make into a blade.

“Yo Diric, I can’t seem to get this right.” “What is it? Making your concrete expand?” “Yeah, I can’t seem to control it well. It just doesn’t grow, I even fed it!” Malek says angered staring at the stone in his hand. “That doesn’t even make sense… WAIT MALEK TAKE OFF YOUR SHIRT!” Diric says running up to him. Malek hugs himself and covers his chest “No! Did you get the Mr. Armstrong disease!?! Stay away!” “What no, I want to see something.” “Fine.” Low and behold Malek’s shoulder was now made of concrete. “MY SHOULDER AHHHH- wait it doesn’t hurt.” Diric first shocked then yells “DON’T SCARE ME LIKE THAT! “Once he calmed down “Are you sure it doesn’t hurt?” He then touches the shoulder “Yeah it doesn’t hurt.” Diric then pinches Malek’s stomach and Malek jumps in pain “OW WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!” “So a beast really does feel pain. Huh wait, isn’t this concrete bigger than what you usually do.” “Huh oh wow it is. So I got stronger! Ahaha!” Malek smiles out of joy. “True, but why did your shoulder get bigger but not the stone. What are you doing when you are trying to do it?” “Hm? I flex my entire arm, why?” Diric facepalms “You idiot, you’re supposed to focus on the stone so your flow travels there and releases it into the stone.” Diric explains. “Oh, wait. So if I do this on my fist..” Malek then closes his eyes then focuses his flow to his fist. The concrete on his shoulder faded and concrete started to fill his fist. Unlike previously where just the surface of his skin transformed into concrete, the concrete coated then grew more on his fist, creating an even bigger fist. “I DID IT!” Malek then runs at the wall then leaps. In the air, he pulls back his concrete fist, with a great smile he punches the wall. A loud boom noise was sent throughout the entire academy. Around 15 people were training in that arena and they all paused turning around in complete shock.

Diric chuckles nervously “S-seriously?” he says with a smile as a drop of sweat falls from his cheek. “How can I even keep up?” He asks himself. The wall was completely blown open and from the rubble immerges Malek. Climbing through the rumble he stands on top of the pile with a large smile. “I LOST THE ROOOCK!!!!!!”  Malek shouts, confusing everyone. Out of anger to find it, Malek starts to throw the rubble out, throwing large pieces. One piece started to head towards a direction of another student, as she flinches and braces for impact, a sound of a blade coming out of its sheath is heard. The large rubble was then sliced in 4 quarters. It was Diric protecting the other student. Malek pauses for second to see Diric pull that stunt off. Even Diric was surprised at himself to be able to cut even solid objects. “DIRIC! THAT WAS SO SICK TEACH ME THAT!” Malek says running up to the two. “T-thank you.” The student says shyly. “No problem. And MALEK LOOK WHERE YOU’RE THROWING THINGS YOU DUMBASS! AND PUT YOUR SHIRT BACK ON!” “Sorry about that!” Malek says stopping in front of the girl and smiles scratching the back of his head. The girl jumps scared of the two boys. Malek tilted his head in confusion. “Huh, did I scare you?” Malek asks. “Of course you scared her! You are only in a tanktop, PUT THE UNIFORM BACK ON!” “NO! I CAN’T MOVE FREELY WITH IT ON!” Malek replies shouting back. Watching the two argue in front of her over a childish matter, the girl laughs. Malek and Diric look at her confused and both simultaneously say “HUH?! WHATS SO FUNNY!?” Eventually the entire arena started to laugh at both of them. “What’s going on?” Malek says with his hands on his hips. Eventually once everyone got their fair share of laughs they all gather around the group, but to their surprise, all students bowed towards them and apologized. “Malek, Diric. We are all sorry!” The girl in front spoke and the rest followed a shout of apologizing. Malek and Diric was taking back and looked at each other for a moment. “We are judged you all, thought you two were nothing. We don’t come from the noble families, so we were scared of them and went along with their bullying and discrimination. I know it was wrong, we all know we were wrong. But….please if you have it in your hearts to forgive us! We are so sorry!” The girl announces.

The arena for a moment went silent. Malek’s face slowly turned into a great smile. “Ahaha! We know.” Malek replies. “P-pardon?” she asks. “We never had anything against you guys. So no need to apologize.” Malek with a large smile erased all doubt or fear from the hearts of everyone present in that moment. Diric nodded agreeing with Malek. “That means we are all friends!” The girl smiled widely and the small group of 17 students all from different classes cheered in unison. “My name is Gabriella Longhorn, but my parents call me Gabi.” “I’m Diric Dragonick. And he is Malek uhh… Wait what even is your last name?” Malek who’s joking around and conversing with everyone turned around. “My last name? It’s Freeman, why?” The entire arena stunned by this shocking news. “Hm? Why is everyone so shocked?” Diric hesitantly laughed. “Ha, nice joke Malek, you got us.” “I’m not joking, oh- Abdul did say to keep that a secret. Forget what I just said.” Malek says laughing. Diric facepalming looked at everyone, and some way knew exactly what everyone was thinking. ‘Yeah, let’s keep this a secret.” With the new friend group, finally can fill an entire table at the cafeteria. That table was later named the Table of Rejects, yet those students called it their favorite place to be.

Everyday it is almost the same routine, go to school, train all evening and then test against Abdul, even on weekends, where the training with Abdul was much more intense. On Friday, the teachers gathered all in the arena for an assemble with the entire first year academy. There they announced the midterms, all of which have their own starting on Monday with mathematics, Tuesday is science. On Wednesday is a break, Thursday is for flow, and lastly on Friday is a grand battle. 1v1 battles in front of the entire first and second year students. As well as all the parents of the noble families.