Chapter 4: warrior basket pt.4

It was now fully nighttime, after a painstaking time where we did nothing but chit-chat a priest came out calling us all to come into the academy itself. We kept talking as we started trudging through the tall stone hallways of the academy, only being illuminated by pine torches to lead the way the priest was taking us.

“Fun fact: when I was in school I would get paid jade beads by the other kids so that I'll do their work for them” She said to me as we walked alongside one another, at this point we were so deep in each other’s conversations that we just dived into the most random topics we felt like mentioning.

“Oh that's so cool, how much did you earn?” I asked her, thinking about the possible things she could do with that skill.

“I think like 12 beads before I was even 15” She said, scratching the back of her hair, thinking of the numbers.

“Holy shit… Are you saving all of it?” I asked wide eyed.

“No… I-I lost it” She admitted as everyone's steps through the hall slowly echoed deeper and deepee. Even though it was the second time wearing the shoes they felt so restrictive. After a few land rods, the priests guided us to a very dimly lit circular amphitheatre shaped room in the middle of the hallway with no ceiling. The newcomers sat down and waited, as we waited I spotted Dark and Damien's locations.

And then the Chief Priest of the empire showed up and went to the center of the amphitheater.

Despite his old age he was jacked, the muscles with the wrinkles and tan of age made him look like a human snapping turtle. He wore the highest ranking priest Warrior Uniform, it was so vibrant in colour that despite the darkness it looked like Helen's Quetzal feathers under the sunlight.

“Welcome, first of all I want to say thank you to Zond and his angels Berg, Slang and Onderwereld that made this moment even possible in the first place! so I want to start with a short moment of prayer!” His words had a booming confidence. I only imagined heroes in fables had. He knelt on one knee and started a prayer of celebration and we joined in with humming along.

“Oh the divine and perfect Zond, may you bless us with endless warmth, may you keep your promises as you keep the bloodfish down with your might. May we unite as you once united this empire and may we worship you as Slang’s reptiles bask under your light!” He prayed and as he got to the end we stopped humming.

“And now, I want to thank every brave newcomer that decided to come.” he continued “You will now be part of the light, each one of you, like a star in our ground, will light against the evil that is the smoke and bring a new tomorrow! for Zond looks forward! to the future! unrelenting! and powerful!” Every word the Chief Priest said thundered with so much ambition that after he paused the room was deadly silent, left completely speechless.

“Some of you may have seen…” He said taking out his obsidian knife out of its sheath, probably the sharpest ritual knife in the entire empire. “Some of you may have Jade blooded parents” He put the knife against his shoulder. I could feel my heart beating with instinctual fear seeing the Chief Priest of an old age putting a sharp obsidian blade next to his neck getting closer and closer to his skin, pressing but just not yet. “But I can bet that none of you have seen the jade-blood of a head priest in action” It was so quick that i didn't even catch the moment he started bleeding, despite the dim lighting his blood had the colour of jade but glowed bright like a torch, the Jade blood poured and started to swirl around the priest midair and before I knew it the ceiling was suddenly beamed with sunlight deep in the night, lighting the room like it was the middle of a spring day. I wanted to clap but I realized it's not something to clap at, it's something to be caught in. “Would I be able to do that?” I thought in anticipation. As the light slowly dimmed to a beautiful softer glow the head priest continued his speech.

“I don't want there to be unrealistic standards” He said “Most people don't have jade blood, the chances are that only a third of you will have Jade potency… And at the end only fourth will be good enough that they become warrior priests... So please, don't ever feel guilt… if when your birthdays come this semester, you find out you've got normal or even silver blood” His tone had such a sympathy in it, it makes sense, he probably saw a lot of beginners fall into despair when they discovered they weren't “Special” I can't imagine the feeling of being insignificant.

“I hope that despite the odds, that everyone will have a meaningful semester. So, to give an amazing start, I want to begin the entrance ceremony, where from newcomers you will become beginners! from guests! to the performers on stage!” And so after he announced the ceremony began. Some high commanding priests, likely the Chief’s most loyal, began walking to every newcomer aided by an obsidian knife and cloth, each would have an obsidian knife stab their weaker arm’s shoulder to see how they reacted to bleeding. Whenever someone would faint, they were quickly taken care of and would later return back home as they weren’t made to be priests. Because I sat pretty high, I looked at the two boys I will see more often as they were on the much lower seats.

I saw Damien smiling confidently at the priest, mouthing something, probably striking a conversation. Though after the knife left his body he looked a bit sweaty and upset from the blood gushing off of him, his hand clenched into a fist and he gritted his teeth, suddenly he glanced at me with his pure golden eyes and I quickly looked away embarrassingly.

I saw Dark just looking with an empty gaze waiting for what he can't stop, he looked like he accepted the bleeding, it looked very aesthetically pleasing on him, even if his tired expression gave the feeling that he could pass out at any second.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Then it was Helen, she was really hesitant, but when the knife pierced her she took it like a champ. She looked pretty hurt though, a dew tears ran down her face.

And me? I asked if I could stab myself because I wanted to show how confident I was. It was against the ceremony so I made sure to smile sincerely as the knife left me and I covered the wound with my hand.

After the ceremony, we all went to the dining room and ate dinner as new beginners, a lot of fuck and turkey meat for our blood, it was delicious. I took like 8 duck legs that night, so good.

After dinner we got assigned to Dorms in the academy, me and Helen grouped with two girls named Lorelei and Evie.

The dorms were two sections in the Academy’s huge backyard separated by male and female. Simple small houses were lined all over. in each section it was separated by rank as even the high ranking priests in the academy slept in those dorms… Though their dorms were the best ones…

The Dorms had two bunk beds, obviously me and Helen took the same bed. We all piled the baskets in one corner of the room and honestly we were too exhausted to even care about ordering the place around. I simply rolled out my petlatl¹ and rested, taking a deep sigh and then an immediate stinging pain hurt my shoulder.

“Schhh… it still stings” I said to Helen as I looked over the slowly healing wound.

“It'll get better, I think they purposely stab between the muscles” She said and looked over some scrolls she brought.

“What scroll are you reading?”

“Ah” She looked away, thinking. Clearly learning from school experience, her normal reaction to that question was to deny she's a nerd “I…I'm in the middle of re-reading my astronomy guide”

“You like astronomy?” I asked excitedly. Helen lit up from the question, her frail hand fidgeting with the scroll “Yes! oh my Zond my parents are both astronomers!”

“Whia, can you teach me about the stars?” Despite my tough country look, I think I could've been just like the aristocrats if I didn't suck at reading.

“Ahhh.. I-I'll need a good point of view..” She said, after a long day she was unsure if she had the energy to try to look for a spot. But I felt even more energetic.

“No biggie! I'll go look for a good spot, just you wait~” I said confidently and bolted out of the dorm, the other roommates were a little shocked from the rush of energy.

Let's see, the dorms are in a bad position because some of the tall trees, the smoke from the small pedestal, the torches and the academy’s walls are blocking most of the stars… it seems inside the academy it's pretty dark though… I'll enter the academy. But as I approached.

“No roaming after nighttime.” The older priest guarding us exclaimed.

“What? Why?”

“We've had enough cases of newcomers thinking Zond's eyes can't see in darkness…” Noted for later use. “...and stealing”

“I guess that makes sense” I sighed, disappointment, and as I was about to walk back to my dorm with sad news… my mind started brewing something.

“The way the academy's outer stone walls… were rough, they're pretty easy to climb, way more than my house and I climb there drunk… and…” I thought and walked slowly, seeing if indeed the priest’s view would be blocked by the archway, positively so.

“So all i need to do is convince Helen to climb” My face formed a mischievous smile and I quickly rushed back to the dorm.

“Helen!”

“H-Huh?!” She said halfway through preparing to go to sleep.

“Put your uniform back on! we're going to climb”

“...why?” She asked, fear in her eyes.

“So we can stargaze, obviously”

“But… it's out first day” She muttered, looking down at her own petlatl.

“So? The god of tomorrow says we must bring tomorrow ourselves!” I announced and went to grab some rope from my basket.

“Why did you bring so much rope?” Lorelei asked with an annoying tone while overseeing the scene. Evie wanted to chime in.

“Maybe so she can kill he-”

“So you both can ask questions, now come on Helen” I quickly ran out of the Dorm again with Helen desperately trying to follow me. Making sure I take the route that passes through a lot of covers so it's harder for the Priest to see.

“Okay, now wait for me and I'll drop the rope, okay?”

“Okay but maybe you should think about it?”

“Ha? sorry? it's hard to hear you from up here” I already started climbing on a couple of big stones that were bulging out.

“Th-This is going to be a long semester…” Helen admitted, but i didn't care, I just kept climbing. It was especially easy to climb because the academy’s building had a pyramid-like structure, so every new floor was like a rest stop. After getting up the first floor I had to feel a bit, to know where the edges were so I didn't suddenly trip, I found a spot, tied the rope and tossed it. I looked down below, seeing her hesitate, it looked like I needed to encourage her.

“You can do it Helen” I called.

“What if I fall?” She asked, scared and trembling.

“Than it will hurt less than what fighting in the academy will feel like” It made her think “You went to this academy too, you knew the potential pain and still went for it”

“Y-Yeah you're right” She said and carefully gripped her frail hands on the rope, looking up, then down on her feet and started climbing, using the rope for support. She was pretty good at it and using the climb and drop rope method we successfully got to the top roof.

No torch, no trees, the stars were at full view. Like shiny pebbles on a black table the stars all shined and twinkled beautifully, eternal. We were both caught in the trance of the full undisrupted view until I broke from the spell. “Okay, it's a good time to start teaching me.”

Now it was deep at night, the girls in the section split into those that wanted to celebrate and get to know each other and those who wanted an early sleep. Me and Helen were both lying on the roof. “So again, this” I pointed at one of the stars “Is david?”

“The last star, yes, around 84 years ago”

“And this one is Gloria?”

“Around 300 or so years, they say it shines in purple whenever a great tragedy is prevented”

“Wow” I said and for a moment, continuing to stare up. “...What do you think It's like being a star”

“It's strange, warriors say they hear them in difficult battles… My mom said that they stay in the sky and circle the earth, seeing everything.”

“Huh, really?” I said, looking back up at Gloria. “So they also see people fucking?”

“Probably” Helen snickered.

“Amazing” I said, and thought for a moment as I stared into the beautiful night. “Must kinda suck just being there, doing nothing, it probably gets lonely.”

“I guess, but they get to bring us all light and live forever in Zond's service, I'd do it too if i had the chance.”

I thought about Helen’s words… and got up, yawning and stretching. “Well… that was fun, let's get back down and actually sleep.”

“Yeah”

[1. A type of bedroll]