I was standing in my cell with a wooden sword in my hand, inspecting it. This wooden sword had special metal within that could change it's weight depending on how much magic one imbued it with.

Changing the weight of the sword to five kilograms, I got in a stance. This stance was the one they had been teaching us in the Neto Program. It was a very simple set of moves without much complexety on the footwork. Compared to other sword styles, this one was really basic, wich made sense since they were teaching a bunch of kids.

"I wonder what is taking them so long today?" I couldn't help but ask.

Normally at this hour the guards standing watch would gather everyone for breakfast, however there was no sign of anyone. Were they preparing something new? Or was there a special day were everyone stayed in their cells while the guards would do something else? A religious ceremony perhaps? I mean they are a religion.

"Agh! Forget it. Maybe I got the time wrong, it's not like I have a clock in this hole." I tought.

I continued to practice my swordmanship in the dark while I recalled one particular lesson about mana augmentation.

"In order to reinforce ones physical strenght I need to send mana to the desired area." I recalled "Mana capacity is diferent from magic power, magic power is the quantity of mana that leaves our mana core per second. While reinforcing the body one needs to not let the mana in our muscles be there for more than a second, replacing the mana there by the one who just left the core."

The cells disabled any type of mana circulation therefore, I couldn't practice the lesson I just recalled, but that didn't stop me from picturing the paths that the mana took in my body.

"Why must we release the mana that is already there? Wouldn't it better to just stockpile the mana in my body allowing me to achieve?" I tought.

I had asked the same question during the lesson, instead of answering the instructor chuckled and said "If you want to blow up, be my guest.", but I wasn't convinced, I knew I was up to something.

Suddenly I heard a mettalic sound resounding in the corridor of my cell.

"Finally, I'm starving." I confessed.

I waited the guard to open the cell door and hancuff me. Being in this hole for two months was enough for me to adapt to it, I basically skipped to the aceptance stage of grief.

The guard guided me and my colleagues along the corridor, however the direction to where we were going was not the cantina.

"Where are we going?" I tought.

After going down a few floors we reached what looked like an arena, the ground was made of sand and on the sideline there was even seats made of stone.

"To the seats, kids!" the guard ordered.

Me and rest of the kids did as ordered seated on the seats, looking down at the arena.

Kvasir arrived at the arena and stood in the middle of it, he looked carefully at the kids, his eyes stopped for a second in me.

"Hello there, brats. Today you guys will have different experience, today you will hunt your own breakfast!" he said.

The kids were a bit confused, 'hunt?', where were they supposed to hunt since they were trapped underground?

"Well let me clarify, today you are going to fight beasts and feed off their corpses."

The looked of confusion of the kids switched to one of terror. Altough they were being taught how to fight, no one really had experience fighting beasts.

I frowned, the tought of fighting was not my deepest concern but the lack of concern for their "future soldiers" was.

"If we all die who is gonna fight your war?" was my tought.

Seeing my gaze, Ksavir grinned, "John! Why don't you be our first volunteer."

"Well, as expected." I tought.

"While our friend John, prepares himself to fight, I'm gonna go into details about the beasts ranking system. You see, while our magical power depends on our runes and ranks, a beast's magical power depends on their species and rank, today we are gonna fight grey wolfs, their magical power at their lowest rank is of a single crest." he said before taking a deep breath. "The beast ranks are from weakest to strongest are, latent rank, awakened rank, absolute rank, sovereign rank, omega rank, beta rank, alpha rank and finnally Cursed Heart, pretty similar to human ranking, right?"

The kids nodded, while my mind went back to when my father told me to study the human ranking. "What are they doing now? Are they looking for me?" I couldn't help but let that tought invade my mind, I quickly dismissed it not wanting to get emmotional before the fight.

I took a sword, a real one, and equiped some light armor, as I did a few stretchs a couple of guards aproached a gate the other side where the grey wolfs were kept.

"At what rank are the wolfs?" I asked.

"Since this is the first time you are going to do this you are going to fight a beast with half your magic power, in other words you will be fighting an awakened one."

"I see."

The guards pulled a lever and jump to the seats area, Ksavir did the same and said "What are you waiting for?".

The wolf had dark grey fur and dark eyes, he slowly walked slowly into the arena, his nose immediately caught the scent of various humans, however they were all sitting on a place he couldn't reach so he looked towards the only reachable human, me. He growled his hunger of a week hitting him the hardest now that fresh flesh was presented in front him.

No matter how matture I was, I couldn't help but blurt out "Good doggy~".

The wolf walked slowly seemingly evaluating how strong I was.

Altough I knew that the magic power the grey wolf  has is only half of what I have, I couldn't help but worry, after all how can such a weak type of beast be considered a predator? There must be a reason, right?

The wolf understood that I was aprehensive about the confrontation and deemed me as weaker than him, therefore it decided to attack me.

The grey wolf slowly raised his paw before bring it down in a swipe, in that moment three moon shaped wind blades shot forward.

"Wind? Is that it's element?" I tought.

Reinforcing my body like they taught me, I dodged the attacks by side stepping to the space between the blades, a red aura silently hovering around me.

I prepared my sword and let my mana into the blade. The blade started heating up to the point of releasing smoke from the sword. The sword reached a point where it couldn't become hotter or it would melt.

I dashed forward and at same time created an explosion below my feet propelling me to the wolf.

The wolf was surprised that the kid he tought was weak was actually faster and stronger than himself. But there's nothing more dangerous that a cornered beast. Letting his instincts take over, the wolf created wind blades after wind blades.

"It's quite smart, it's aim is not me but the places I can go to, forcing me into going on a desired route, well that's a game two can play, after all is unfair that I'm here running while you are standing still."

With a circular movement of my hand, several fire ball were created and imediatelly shot forward in the direction of the wolf. As soon as the fireballs flew in it's direction the wolf started running and since the speed of the fireballs was almost as fast himself, it stopped creating wind blades against me, however it wasn't over yet.

While running from the fireballs the wolf didn't nottice that it was running straight towards me, already prepared I created a flaming whip and swinged it horizontally.

Seeing this the wolf jumped high over both the whip and myself, however once again I was ready, with the sword in my right hand I swing the sword against their torso slicing it in half.

The blood of the wolf fell on top of me living me in with a weird sensation, if it wasn't for the brutallity of Ksavir's classes I would probably puke right now.

The sound of clapping was heard, it was Ksavir.

"Well done, John. You did great, now go clean yourself and then seat up here." he said "So . . . who wants to go next?"