Most people who graduate from the Westholender College of Sword and Sorcery will go into the guard to protect the kingdom from the beasts. Fewer will go into the wilds in their own groups to eliminate the beasts before they can even reach the kingdom's walls. Some may open shops and use what they learned to sell goods or services. But only one path has called my name since I was a young boy. 

When I was nine, my parents traveled into the market and took me along for the trip. A flyer caught my eye while I was gazing upon a sword in a shop. "Sign up now for an opportunity to represent your fine kingdom in The Invitational of Untouchables!"

I ran to my mother and begged, "Mother! Please, can we attend the tryouts for the Invitational?" I was just a kid who saw a flashy poster, but when my mother finally agreed to take me to watch the tryouts, I was astonished. Sword fights, spells flying through the arena, could I do this with my life? Could I be the hero to win honor for my kingdom? Ever since that day, I knew what my purpose was. I was going to go to the best school available to me, and I was going to win that Invitational.

As I grew up, it became about more than honor and fame. I learned that whoever won received the title of "Protector of Solthorne." How one person could protect an entire planet boggled my mind. Not to mention, what does a planet even need protection from? I still don't fully understand it, but I want to be the one to protect my planet from whatever evil needs defeating.

"Mondor Black." My name, ringing out through the auditorium, brought me back to reality. I stand up and walk towards the middle of the stage. "Graduating at the top of this year's class, Mondor embodies everything a student should be. Driven, hardworking, and honorable, he will represent Westholender excellently in whatever he decides to do with his future." I fake a smile and shake the headmaster's hand. Let's get this over with, please. 

The ceremony ends minutes later, and I walk into the crowd. My parents and brothers are there ready to congratulate me, and I do everything I can to keep it short. "Mother, Father, thank you for everything. I know what you had to sacrifice to afford this school. I’ll make this worth it. All of it. I swear. Tetchki, Veros, I may be moving on to bigger things, but if I hear of either of you slacking, I'm coming back to knock some sense into you." They laugh, and I try to make my quick exit.

"Woah, son. You don't want to celebrate with your family? I can make your favorite dish." I should've known they wouldn't let me go easily.

"I'm sorry, Father, but I must get back to training if I want to stand a chance at making it to the Invitational."

"You're always training Mon, you can take a day to celebrate with your family. Your mother and I-"

"Oh, leave him be, hun. You know how important it is to him. Besides, it's not like this is the last time we'll ever see him." Thanks Mom.

I hug everyone and begin the walk to the training center. Tryouts are in 2 weeks. I need every bit of training I can get. I'm going to have some tough competition. Two of my classmates at least, plus the usual suspects. In total, about 40 people are going to be battling it out to represent Westholender. Some of these people have more than 20 years of experience on me, including the combatant who was selected for the last Invitational, Shigon Verium. He didn't win last time around, so he's going to be pushing even harder this time. He is a little older than average, but that doesn't seem to slow him down at all. 46 years old and still competing with the best of them.

I walk into the training center and see her. How the hell did she beat me here? I got out of the auditorium as quickly as I could!

"Hey Mondor!"

"Pira."

Pira Yorro. She was second in our class, but even I will admit she bests me physically. I've seen that girl do things that shouldn't be anatomically possible. She's definitely the dark horse of Westholender's tryouts. If you underestimate her, you'll be knocked out before the moderator can even get out of the way. She's always been friendly to me, but we have the same goal, so I tried not to get too close to her. She's pushy, though, so I guess you could say we're friends... or friendly at the least? I don't know.

"You want to train together? I could use the 'star student's' help preparing for the tryouts!" Is she toying with me?

"Sure, Pira. Let me warm up first."

I usually wouldn't train with Pira but I'm hoping that maybe I can pick some things up from her to be honest. We both went to the "College of Sword and Sorcery" but she's more sword and I'm more sorcery. 

"Okay, I'll wait."

I start stretching, and she just watches me. "You're gonna watch me warm up?" 

"What else am I going to do?"

"I don't know, practice your sword skills or something."

"Mondor. I've been practicing my 'sword skills' for eight years, and that's only counting the time we were in the college. I can only stab air so many times before even the air gets bored."

"Okay fine, but when your rustiness costs you entry into the Invitational, I'll be right there to say I told you so."

I finish my warm-up, and Pira tosses me a wooden sword. "I'll help you first as long as you teach me how to fly or something after."

"Do you even know how hard it is to conjure flight?" I chuckle at my own response.

Pira takes a swing at me with her wooden sword, and the "Introduction to Sword and Form" class proves useful as I block the swing.

"Cheap shots, huh?"

"No such thing as cheap shots in battle." She shrugs.

This time I take a swing and it's her turn to block.

We pick up the pace and begin dueling back and forth. The sound of wood against wood echoes through the training center, and Pira lands a good number of hits on me before I'm able to land even one hit on her. She makes this look easy. I’m just trying not to lose fingers. She twirls, ducks, and misdirects me enough that if we were actually battling, I'd probably be dead. Before finishing our sword sparring, she makes one last move to disarm me by way of an upward twist that knocks the sword clean out of my hands.

"Okay, you've got to teach me that, Pira."

In a teasing voice, she says, "Do you even know how hard it is to disarm?"

"Ha. Ha. Very funny. Seriously though. Teach me that and I'll teach you something with sorcery. Not flight, though, that really is quite difficult."

She spends the next 45 minutes teaching me how to disarm an opponent, making sure I perfect it. By the end, I've gotten pretty good at it, but I still don't have the body control to do the ducking and dodging, though. Probably never will, honestly. In return, I do as I promised.

"One spell. What do you want to learn?"

She thinks for a second. "Stone Skin."

"Hmm. Okay, so you know sorcerers like me are born with a natural affinity for magic, right? Fighters like you have the physical gifts instead. But just like I can swing a sword, you can still use magic, just not to the same extent. So with a spell like Stone Skin, while I can harden my whole body, you’d only manage a part of your body, because your well of magic is smaller. You’ve got to focus all that energy into one spot and hold the spell with sheer concentration. It’s not easy."

"All the while, I also try to focus on offense. I can see what you mean. Let me give it a go."

Pira spends the next several minutes asking me to swing my sword at her shoulder while she tries to activate Stone Skin. Three minutes go by, then all of a sudden, thunk. Her shoulder, hard as a rock. A split second later, it goes back to normal.

"I did it? I did it! Yes!"

"Great job, Pira." She just did that in a matter of minutes? Seriously? I knew she was a threat in the tryouts, but man... this is going to be hard.

"I can only hold it for less than a second so I'm going to have to time it exactly but, oh wow that's awesome! Thank you, Mondor!"

"Yeah, you're welcome. Listen, I should probably be heading home to get some rest. Long day of training again tomorrow."