Chapter 8: The PCA (2)
The first week passed uneventfully. With the school being so massive and holding so many students, the students had an entire week to get used to the school and create a functional sleeping schedule.
However, at dawn on the first day of the second week, Shivan's class had combat training with four other classes, being A to E.
Shivan arrived pretty early and sat on a wooden bench in his combat uniform. He stared down at the grass waiting for everyone else.
The other students poured in and talked to each other to pass the time. Eventually, the teachers arrived, signalling the beginning of the lesson.
The first task the teachers asked everyone to do was to create a team of 4 students.
The groups would last the entire year and would only change if major issues within the group occurred or the abilities were not compatible.
This would simulate elite soldiers' squads and how they would be used to target specific high-ranking aberrants or aberrant nests.
Since most graduates of PCA would be of elite rank and above, they would be mostly sent off on specialised missions.
The ranking of soldiers goes like this - Operators, Rangers, Elites, Aces and then finally Champions. Operatives are footsoldiers while champions are heroes of the nation.
An example of a champion was the principal of this school. However, she was away from school temporarily. The official reason given was that she was away on a mission.
Shivan teamed up with Alexia as she was the only other person he knew in this entire school. After finding her, Shivan noticed that Alexia also seemed to be looking for else.
"She should be here. I requested for her to be in class near mine..."
'Apparently, you could request someone you know to be in a class near you. The more you know.' A flicker of amusement appeared on Shivan's face when discovered that fact.
Eventually, Alexia came across a girl with ebony hair. Her hair was long and loosely braided. She had violet eyes, high cheekbones and a chiselled jaw.
Though she could be called pretty, compared to the rest of the girls here she was average. Compared to Alexia, she barely stood out.
Alexia as soon as she saw her, jumped onto her, much to the other girl's displeasure.
"Chloe! It's great to see you again."
"We were just in your dorm yesterday, calm down."
Alexia then turned around and introduced me to her.
"This is Chole Vale. She's been my closest friend since I started school. She's really smart and good at science. Along with being in the combat course, she's also taking the academic course as well."
"You speak as if you don't practically ace all your tests as well," Chloe bantered with a small grin on her face.
"And this your boyfriend you were talking about yesterday? Your name is Shivan, right?" While saying that, Chloe scanned Shivan from top to bottom.
He was about to respond, but Alexia spoke first. "Please don't cause misunderstandings. I don't want to scare him away."
"I'm not going to disappear if silly rumours spread. It doesn't matter much to me." Shivan interjected with his indifferent tone.
"Tsk, you're no fun. We should probably search for another teammate to create our four-man squad." Chloe grumbled while clicking her tongue.
Then they all split searching for their final teammate.
After scouting the area, Shivan found a lone boy looking around nervously. "Over there." He pointed in his general direction after the group reconvened.
"Well.... he's okay I guess." Alexia didn't seem very interested in the guy he picked. But most others had already formed groups. So they decided to settle on him.
"Hey, do you want to our group of three?" Shivan extended an invitation to the boy as he approached him. The boy had blonde hair with emerald-green eyes.
He nearly jumped when Shivan asked him the question. "Umm... sure. I would be glad to." He replied anxiously.
"Well, that's four, let's register our names." Chloe chimed in.
Soon after they registered and were given the group name of Diamond 17. Since the group of 5 classes were combined for team training, each class group was assigned a gemstone. Then each four-man team was assigned a number.
Then they all introduced themselves formally. The new member's name was Arlo Arcadius and he was a non-gift user.
During the entire conversation, he would always try to glance at Alexia. But every time he did he would constantly blush and turn away. Alexia muttered something about boys when she saw him acting like that.
Arlo was a part of the Arcadius noble family, which used to be quite big a couple of decades ago. Shivan also discovered that Alexia was part of the Terrano noble family, but only half-blooded.
'Is Alexia related to the principle?' That was the question Shivan had after emerging from the conversation. After all, the principal was Natasha Terrano, the Seismic Architect.
The class went by quickly as most of the time was taken up by the team creation and then only did team training drills afterward. When everyone was released from the lesson, they went to eat at the cafeteria.
Diamond 17 all sat together due to them being part of a team. They were obligated to help each other. As Shivan ate through the surprisingly good homemade bread, a group of boys approached them.
Their group had quickly become infamous because of their abysmal rankings. The main reason they were getting picked on was because they were mostly gift-users. And they were the only gift users with ranks below 1000.
Chloe had a rank of 1270 while Arlo had a ranking of 1245, being the highest of all of them.
"Hey weaklings, how's life? The biggest guy in the group squashed himself between Chloe and Arlo. He was basically a giant. Maybe he a gift related to size.
He grabbed some food from Arlo's plate and then knocked his plate to the ground. Arlo didn't respond and just let it occur. He was smart enough to realise that it wasn't a good idea to mess with some in the top 300.
Chloe who was engrossed in her book, didn't notice the commotion to till her book was stolen from her.
"Hey, I was reading that." Chloe tried to get the book back but she was too short to take the book from the giant.
His other team members started laughing. That was the last straw for Alexia. She had been sitting quietly trying to bottle up her anger, but that caused her to explode.
"If you wanted a concussion on the first day, you could have just asked." Alexia got up and stood right next to him.
The giant then stood up looking down at Alexia, his face morphed in anger. Though he towered over her, she was not intimidated.
The cafeteria was silent as everyone watched with intrigue. They were excited for the drama that was about to unfold.
"Say that again!" He spat through gritted teeth.
"Or what, you little bitch." Alexia provoked him again.
The giant brought up his right hand, ready to deliver a nasty right hook. Yet as the fist approached her, Alexia made no effort to dodge.
The fist, nearly the size of Alexia's head, collided with her cheek and created a loud impact.
Yet Alexia was unfazed. She hadn't moved an inch.
"Is that all? You're too weak for your size."
Alexia then grabbed his hand which was still in contact with her head, and started twisting it, causing him to buckle.
It was quite a funny scene, seeing a giant of a man being forced to kneel in front of a much smaller girl.
Then she kicked his leg, causing him to collapse onto the ground.
His friend then tried to attack her, but she punched him squarely in the jaw knocking him out.
Another tried to use the stainless steel plate to attack her, but she easily caught it and then Roundhouse kicked him. When she caught it, she created dents inside the plate.
The last guy tried to defend himself with a plate, but she punched through it like it was paper and hit his nose. It started bleeding when it made contact.
Then using her other hand, she ripped the plate in half, then headbutted him.
The giant man whom Alexia knocked down first, had gotten up and grabbed a chair to hit Alexia. The chair was made of metal, so if a regular man got hit by it, especially a man of that size, they could die.
Yet Alexia caught the chair, taking it away from him, then ripping through it like it was cardboard.
The man got so scared, that he unintentionally started using mana to enhance himself. That was a mistake.
"You fucking idiot. You just committed a federal crime."
The alarms started blaring as teachers rushed to the scene. Using mana without strict supervision or permission is an offence that can land you in jail for several years.
It was the equivalent of firing a gun in public. Especially here where everyone's use of mana was proficient enough to easily kill a person.
Besides the fact that people could be killed, severe property damage could also occur.
Though he probably wouldn't be punished that severely, a suspension was definitely on the list.
As one of the teachers took away the offender the other teachers picked up the other unconscious students.
They then told everyone to continue eating as they cleaned up the mess.
As Alexia sat back down, Chloe asked "Hope you didn't kill the other three."
"Don't worry, I held back enough so I wouldn't kill them," Alexia responded nonchalantly.
"And that big guy. You wanted him to use mana. You scared him enough to force him to do so."
"Guilty as charged," Alexia replied without looking up from her plate.
After seeing that demonstration, Shivan had several questions. He asked the first question on his mind.
"Aren't they going to punish you?"
"Nah, fights are allowed as long you don't use mana or severely hurt each other. Though they are probably going to ask me to pay for the broken plates and chair."
Well, that was his first question—a reasonable answer.
"Also, how were you able to use mana with tripping the detector?"
"I didn't."
"What..?"
All gift users as a base had enhanced physical stats, making them stronger, faster and having a better healing factor than a regular human, without using any mana. However, that came at the cost of a greater metabolism and requiring many more calories than an average human.
As well as the base physical stats, all gift users had unique advantages based on their gifts. Shivan had his hearing and other senses cranked up to 11 (which causes him issues sometimes) and was also slightly more resilient to attacks in general.
He also had this powerful instinct that warned him of any incoming danger and could vaguely detect threat levels.
The giant from before was probably that tall because of his gift.
But even with the physical superiority of all gift users, it was still impossible to tear through metal like that without using mana.
"My gift gives that level of super-strength. In a fight without mana, I will always win." Alexia declared with confidence in her tone.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone