Once the applause ceased and everyone sat down again, Mercedes approached the microphone once again and said:

- Thank you, but there’s nothing to celebrate, I only gave you a little push, but it’s now up to you to give the first step and also to spread this message. And not only with your classmates, but your friends and families too. Let everyone know that we won’t stop until everyone is safe, even if it takes a thousand years, we will make it happen

This time, she stepped back once she finished talking as agent Meyer took her place, lifting a hand to ask for silence:

- Thank you Miss Wood for that inspiring speech, I’m sure you just planted a seed that will grow on each mind present here and will become the foundation for our future – he said looking at her with a genuine smile that showed a hint of pride – Now, it’s time for the main event of the day. Our second guest is the youngest trainee I’ve ever seen, which is the reason for his nickname. I don’t know much about him since it is my first day being his tutor so we’ll find out together what he’s made of. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our 18 year old trainee, Theo ‘The Rookie’ Wagner!

*Mental note: kill agent Meyer.

This time the murmuring was significantly louder. Not because of my academic achievements, nor because I was a hot girl, but because of my age. What agent Meyer said was true, I was probably the youngest trainee in a while, since everyone usually started their training after high school, and it took them around two years on average, so I expected that reaction.

I gave him a completely fake smile which he totally saw through and returned a mischievous one of his own. I then walked towards the podium, while he and Mercedes walked back to their respective places on the side. Once in position I examined the crowd in front of me a bit more in depth. There was a 50/50 ratio of men and women, which was a bit surprising since I had seen mostly male agents apart from agents Neumann and Violet. Out of all of them, 98% were wearing a navy blue uniform, pretty similar to the one we had as trainees, while the other 2% had the same uniform but in different colors, which I learned from Mercedes’ conversation earlier was because they were taking special classes, available only for a couple chosen students. For example, Victoria’s uniform (that pretentious prodigy girl) was of a deep purple color with some golden details.

Almost every student was looking at me, some pointing while talking to their friends, some with their eyes and mouth open in disbelief and some just waiting for me to say something.

I thought about what should I say, but nothing came to mind, and Mercedes’ speech blocked me even more because it had been actually good, and it had accomplished what Ito sensei had asked us to do. I was clueless about what to say or what to do and everyone was now watching me, expectant, so, taking the easy way out, I got close to the microphone and, trying to sound as secure as possible, said:

- Uhh… Hello everyone. As agent Meyer said, my name is Theo Wagner and I am training under his mentorship for this week just like Miss Wood. Now, I assume you’ll have some questions so let’s start with that and work our way from there. Please, raise your hands and say your name when I call you so I at least know who I’m talking to.

As I said that, almost every hand in the crowd shot up in the air. I expected them to be curious, but not to this degree. I didn’t know who to pick but I did know that probably 90% of the students wanted to ask the same question, so I looked at the public, searching for something distinguishable so the person would know I was picking them.

- Yes you, the guy with the half heart necklace

The guy was on the second or third row or people, which is why I was able to distinguish the shape of his necklace. He seemed a little embarrassed about me saying that out loud because, even if he wasn’t hiding it, he didn’t want to make a big fuss of it probably. There was some whispering mainly coming from the girls while the guy stood up, and looking at me with a reddish tone to his face he spoke:

- I’m Alex Crown, third semester student. I was wondering, and probably everyone else here, are you really 18 years old?

I knew they would be curious about it, but what was that question? Do they think I lied about my age? Is not like the White Police don’t check your ID and run a background check on every applicant to see if they are clean. Oh well, at least the first question will be easy to answer

- Yes, I in fact am 18. Next question?

Almost half of the hands previously raised stayed down this time, which confirmed that a lot of them didn’t believe what agent Meyer said about me. I looked around and saw that one of the students with different uniform was raising her hand, so I picked her this time

- You, the girl with different uniform on the second row

I hadn’t noticed because my view was being blocked by the various hand, but she was actually pretty cute. The girl stood up and I saw her beautiful green eyes behind a pair of glasses that made them look bigger and stand up even more. Her nose and mouth were both small which made her eyes highlight even more, making the perfect couple with her black long hair. She looked at me straight in the eyes, with made me a little nervous, and said with a soft voice:

- Yes hi, Sarah Romano, fourth semester student. Uh, what academy did you go to Mr. Theo? I don’t know much about other academies but here at Triforce I think they don’t allow anyone below 17, so did you go to one that didn’t have this rule?

Did she just call me Mr.? And why did it sound so cute? I wonder if she has a boyfriend… Wait, what was her question again? Oh yeah, my academy… Oh… This is gonna be fun

- I actually didn’t go to any academy.

This time, it wasn’t just murmur, but actual conversations extended all over the crowd, not minding the situation they were in. Even Sarah was dumb folded talking to another girl sitting directly in front of her while looking at me.

After almost an entire minute of noise and mixed conversations, there was a moment of silence which Sarah used to add another question to complement her previous one:

- But then who was your private tutor? They are usually expensive and also have some rules about age

Everyone shut up completely waiting for my answer. I looked at the entire crowd, meeting some of their gazes, then went back to Sarah and smiling at her with confidence I calmly replied:

- Well, Miss. Romano, the thing is that I didn’t hire a tutor either.

This time, they didn’t even try to hide their surprise. The crowd exploded in shouts, screams and laughs so loud that I had to cover my ears with my hands, and with the corner of my eye I caught Mercedes doing the exact same.

It was all so loud that I barely could understand anything that they were saying, but I managed to catch some isolated phrases like ‘Why is he lying like that?’ ‘No formal education of any type?’ ‘Who is this clown?’ ‘Yeah sure, and I’m a special agent’ ‘They let anyone in this days’

I was actually expecting this reaction. Not only was I one of the youngest trainees of all time, but also a self-taught one, so it was pretty obvious that they were at least going to question it. I just stood there, watching at the students go ape shit for a couple of minutes until Ito sensei approached the podium and gave me a gentle smile that said ‘can I?’ pointing to the microphone. I nodded in response and moved to the side a bit to let him talk

- Students please, quiet - He said it so softly that I thought they weren’t even going to hear it, but for my surprise, little by little the noise ceased until silence reigned once again on the arena – I know this seems odd, but instead of mocking and attack him, why don’t we ask him how he did it then? Because I don’t know about you, but I’d love to know how a person without formal education managed to achieve the level to surpass this year’s trials, which I remind you were especially strict

There was a moment of silence that Ito sensei and I took as an affirmative, so he went back to his position, leaving me on the spotlight once again.

- Ahem, thank you sensei. Now, since all of you are, just like sensei, wondering how I did it, I’ll tell you. I’ve been teaching myself how to use a sword for seven almost eight years now.

Out of nowhere some guy lifted his hand and without letting me react he spoke:

- So you want us to believe that a… - he did some mental math and continued – 10 years old managed to get his hands on a practice sword and by some miracle learned to use it?

- Uh… No? I want you to believe that an 11 years old found a plastic stick on his mother’s basement and swung it around for a couple of years until he got the hang of it and then, years later when he was able to get his hands on a real training sword, he learned how to use it.

This time it was Sarah, the girl from before, who followed up on the question.

- But how does a little boy begin to learn something like that?

- Well, I had access to a lot of information and a lot of free time, so while my mom was working I played with the stick trying to mimic the pictures I found on books and stuff like that. The first years where basically useless since I was a little kid and was easily distracted, but they actually helped me get used to the feeling of swinging and having the sword in my hand, and once I grew older I was able to actually do ‘training sessions’ repeating a series of moves and learning stances.

There was some more whispers but the answer seemed to have worked, because Sarah, who had stood up for her question, sat back down and didn’t say anything. I waited for the next question, which came a couple of seconds after from a guy that was on the last step, further away from me (I only know he was a guy for his deep voice)

- Why did you start training? I mean, a lot of people think about being a part of the White Police years before actually trying, but I don’t know a single person that wanted if from such a young age, much less someone who actually started so early.

- That’s a good question but it’s difficult for me to explain it. Let’s just say that my mom gave me a gift that for some reason planted a little seed on my head that later became an actual goal I wanted to achieve.

Almost instantly, another hand shot up and asked another question

- What about your parents? Were they cool with the idea of their little kid training to become a swordsman?

There were a lot of comments throughout the public on that question, mainly some saying that they would never let a little kid do something like that, and that their parents would’ve killed them if they wanted to do it.

- Well, unfortunately I never met my father since he died before I was even born, and for my mom, I did it behind her back while she was busy working.

- But, she should know by now, shouldn’t she? You can’t hide the fact that you are a trainee now

- Well, again, unfortunately, she died when I was 15. I was planning on telling her almost at the same time she got sick so I never had the chance. That’s when I stopped hiding and got an actual training sword.

There was an awkward silence after my response, and I realized it was because I had too casually said that I didn’t have parents, so I rushed to say something, trying to get the conversation back on track and leave behind the topic

- Let’s stop the questions for a moment since I want to talk about something my partner Miss Wood said on her speech. She talked about a goal that a lot of you might or should have in common, which is the goal of evolving and learn from past mistakes to someday create this sort of utopia. Even if I agree with her regarding that fact, because, to a greater or less extent, that should be a goal we all have in common, it shouldn’t necessarily be your main goal. Take me for example, I was only 10 years old when I decided I wanted to start training to someday be a part of the White Police, and I didn’t do it because I wanted to create a better World, since I was completely ignorant about all the information regarding crime and stuff, but because of some stupid childish attachment to an item given to me by my mom. Of course, later on this became more of a tangible thing until it completely manifested as an actual desire and goal.

I could see the puzzled expressions on the students, and turning my head backwards I found the same expression on Mercedes’ face, and a more intrigued one on agent Meyer’s face. Seeing that I needed to explain a bit more for them to get the idea, I thought for a second and continued:

- What I mean is that you can and should have more than one goal, and not only that, you should have checkpoints in between your goals to help you maintain your mental strong, because it is impossible for one person to have only one far goal that might take them years to accomplish, because in that case they will probably quit earlier than later. I’ll use myself for an example again. On the early stages of my journey, after a couple of months, I usually found myself thinking that I wasn’t going anywhere with my training and that it would be almost 10 years until I could really try to become an agent, and that thought was growing bigger and bigger on my brain, upsetting me until the point I almost dropped my training right there. But one day, I saw my mom was reading a book and out of curiosity I read the back cover which said the following:

‘You can’t write a book aiming for the end, you have to work chapter by chapter, page by page, sentence by sentence, because if you start by aiming for the end, you’ll never have a path in the middle to follow’

- And that made me realize, that I couldn’t just focus on the future I wanted to create, but I had to go step by step, one day at a time, one swing at a time. With that mindset, I started to advance little by little, making every progress I made a new checkpoint, a new goal, and after years of hard work, I managed to become a self-taught trainee at the age of 18 – I stopped there for a second and realized that a tear was starting to form in my eye because of the memory of my mother reading her book, so I cleared my throat and washed away that memory for a moment, then continued – What I want to say is that you should 100% have an end goal or at least a big achievement in mind, like lowering the crime rate and get it to zero, but you also can have smaller goals throughout the way, and take it easy, day by day, step by step, swing by swing, page by page.