Logan watched as the beaten cadets put themselves back together. It was interesting comparing himself to them. He didn’t want to sound old, but they really did seem like children to him. It wasn’t shown in their outer appearance since angels, demons, and cursed beings didn’t really age. The easiest way to see the age of a being was to look into their eyes.

  The more lives and experiences the deeper their gaze and aura becomes. It wasn’t a perfect method since someone with a hard life would have a deeper aura than someone raised in a greenhouse. Not only were their gazes shallow, they had too much hope. They still saw their future and that of the being community as strong and on the rise. The confidence and surety that what they are doing is right and they can continue the fight.

  Most would call Logan pessimistic, he preferred realistic. The sheer speed of advancement humans had undergone in the past fifty years, let alone the past one hundred, was unprecedented. It took over one hundred years from first car to flight, and only sixty from the wright brother’s first liftoff to landing on the moon. Every year they had to bring more and more humans into the know just to keep the rest of the population ignorant. He was just glad they got ahead of the game and made early investments. Some of the oldest money families in the world were secretly beings or served being dynasties. These dynasties paid a lot of money to stay anonymous and off those “richest people in the world” lists while buying every media outlet they could get their hands on.

  Logan found media empires to be like unruly children. You raise them the best you can, but you take your eyes off them for a second or cut off their allowance, they rebel. Just like with said children, if they misbehave they get punished. These punishments usually ended with dangerously nosy reporters disappearing or surprise nighttime visits. Nothing scares rich humans like showing them that they are vulnerable. Even the most complex security systems or strongest guards couldn’t stop a dedicated hunter-class from slipping in and putting a knife to their throat.

  Logan and the council knew it was only a matter of time before the secret really got out and the world knew their myths were real. He shook off the dour thoughts and refocused on his cadets.

  “Congratulations,” Logan said. “You have just lost your first game of ‘beat your instructor or pay the price.’ Since you lost you need to pay the price. After fighting the four of you I have learned where you need to improve. Personally, I don’t know if Instructor Liakos has gotten lax on your training or all of you are too stubborn to listen. If I had to give all of you a grade it would be and S.” He took in their confused looks. “You were all shit.”

  The still bruised angel and demon looked offended at the grade while Cadet Bishara and the limping undead-looking took the evaluation in stride. Sure, in human circles they would be considered experts, soon to be masters in their choice of style. That may be acceptable in the other classes, but not a Hunter-Class.

  “What I noticed from all of you is a lack of dodging and/or blocking skills.” He paused for a second to see if any of them picked up on his plans. The demon was the only one who seemed to catch on by her groan and slumped head. With a smirk he twirled his sword, “as your punishment we will be doing dodging drills. Usually I would use constructs for this. Fortunately for you I haven’t had the time to familiarize myself with the new systems,” he gestured to the room’s large computer. “As such it’ll be up to me to beat all of you till you shape up.” Surprisingly, while the other three cadets let out a groan, Cadet Bishara didn’t. The look in his eyes was straight forward and dedicated. Maybe he wasn’t a lost cause after all.

  “You,” he pointed at the demon with his training sword, “step forward and introduce yourself. If I’m going to be beating, I mean training you, I would like to at least know your name.” He was given their information beforehand but didn’t read any of it so he could judge them as unbiased as possible.

  She stepped forward into the circle with a pair of knuckle dusters. She looked like she was in her mid-twenties with long dark hair tied in a ponytail. He tried to quickly place the sin she was connected to. She wasn’t curvy or unworldly beautiful enough to be a succubus, wasn’t bulky enough for wrath, too thin for gluttony, too active for sloth and was missing the ornamentation of greed. That left pride and envy.

  He reflected on how she reacted to her previous defeat and how she seemed annoyed at herself. A pride demon would have been much angrier and directed that ire at him. Envy demons were significantly harder to predict since their sin can manifest in so many ways. He needed to know more about this one to determine the target of her envy.

  “My name is Alamisec D’Crusia, but everyone calls me Amy.” She paused as if looking for recognition. Logan didn’t care much for the political struggles in the so-called ‘demon realm,’ so he rarely paid attention to who was in power.

  “Alright Cadet D’Crusia,” he said, “I like how you’ve gotten used to your human form and can fight in it. I noticed in our spar that you need to work on forward assault. You send out too many feints and try to be too smart. When an enemy knows every move could be a feint, they will be prepared for when the real attack comes in.”

  As he readied his sword she raised her hands like a boxer. Logan started their dodging drill with multiple telegraphed attacks, all of which she dodged easily. He continued until he felt she was getting too confident. He then feinted with a stab before turning it into a diagonal slash. The sword slammed into her shoulder causing internal energy to leave Logan, flow through the sword’s enchantment, and turn into a charge of lightning. The shock wasn’t at the level of a stun gun but was enough to make her yelp and stumble back when combined with the lessened impact.

  Without a word he returned to a ready stance and waited for her to recover. She was only dazed for a moment before returning to a ready position. In the next clash he progressively increased the rate of feints and misdirections. It wasn’t long until she was outright ignoring the false attacks and only responding to ones that actually had the possibility of hitting. She dodged the third of such a strike when Logan stopped and dropped his stance. By the end she was hit another three times, once in the ribs and twice in the legs.

  “Do you understand now?” he asked.

  She nodded thoughtfully. “Yes sir.”

  “Good,” he pointed to the angel holding a short spear, “you’re next.” The cadets switched places with Amy sitting on the floor and rubbing her damaged legs.

  The tall pale-skinned angel bowed respectfully after he entered the circle and stopped before Logan. “I am Frederic of the Fifth Wardens.”

  “You have the opposite problem,” Logan said. “You are too obvious in your moves. You didn’t once try a feint or misdirect.”

  He lifted his chin. “I am a Warden and I fight with honor.” Logan noticed both cadets D’Crusia and Bishara scoffed and rolled their eyes.

  He stopped himself from joining them. Angels and their sense of honor was always annoying. If this was guardian-class training then it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Unfortunately for the stubborn being, Hunter-classes need to be ready for and to do anything to succeed in their missions. This belief often limited the number of angelic beings in his class.

  Logan looked Cadet Frederic in the eye. “You may think that it's admirable that you fight with honor, but what if you’re against someone who fights dirty.”

  “I will not lose to those without honor,” Cadet Frederic said with absolute confidence.

  “Alright then,” he said, entering a ready stance with Cadet Frederic following. Logan’s first strikes were straight forward with Cadet Frederic doing well in defending. The first feinted attack Logan used slipped through Frederic’s guard and slid across his rib. It wasn’t a heavy enough blow to do much damage but was enough for the sword’s enchantment to give him a shock. The cadet’s mouth twitched as he recovered but showed no other reaction.

  Logan repeated this pattern another three times. He could see Cadet Frederic’s frustration grow with each hit. As the cadet was about to boil over Logan made his final move. When he brought down his sword in a heavy overhand strike, Cadet Frederic raised his spear to block. Seeing the perfect opportunity, Logan kicked forward and met groin with boot. Nothing gets the point across like a painful lesson. The sorry cadet dropped his spear and fell to the ground clutching his crotch.

  Although Logan disliked fighting dirty, he wasn’t against using it. “What did I say about broken eggs?” he asked his only semi-cognizant opponent. Cadet D’Crusia laughed uproariously. “Is something amusing?” He asked her.

  “No, sir.” She said, clearing her throat trying to be professional.

  Logan gave her his best drill sergeant stare for the few moments it took her to regain control. He returned to the heaving angel. “I disagree,” he said evenly. “I think this is actually very funny.” He leaned forward. “Don’t you Cadet Frederic?” The temporarily crippled angel could only shake his head.

  “You could’ve fooled me. You practically invited me to practice my omelette recipe.” Logan knew the pride of angels and humiliation would drill a much deeper hole than any normal beating.

  He stepped away from Cadet Frederic and looked at the beastly cadet. She looked like a wendigo he had hunted down a decade or so earlier. Unlike that beast this woman seemed in control, if more animalistic than a normal human. Her problem was that she needed to pull back on her instincts and put in some tactics. Fortunately for her and Cadet Bishara, he needed some prep time, giving them a reprieve from their second beating.

  He checked his watch. “I think you guys have earned a break. Everyone put back your equipment and head out. Be ready for when I call for you, and someone help the pigeon,” he said over his shoulder as he returned his own sword. He watched them as Cadet D’Crusia returned all of their weapons and Cadet Bishara lent his shoulder to his disabled comrade.

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  He followed the cadets out and watched them limp their way back to the barracks. After they left, Logan started planning future lessons. He already had ideas for all of them and just needed to meet with Amara and see what she thought. There were also a few other things that he needed to talk to her about. They were already a month into their program and were still deeply stuck in bad habits. The monster he remembered wouldn’t have been this sloppy.

  While he let them take a break, he went to the computer and started familiarizing himself with it. When he graduated from Guardian and entered the Hunter-class training, this system was a cornerstone. The hundreds of magic circles connected to this computer were designed to create artificial environments and opponents. They would be like the boar he hunted the night before while also being able to create simple environments. He had once heard someone call it a holo-something.

  He nearly instantly fell in love with the new system. R&D had somehow connected human data storage to magic. This apparently let them increase the library of options while boosting the max size of the projections while also making them more detailed and lifelike. He did notice that as the program started there was a clear and blatant warning against uploading and/or using specific likenesses of humans or beings for any purpose. There was probably a story there that he didn’t want to know.

  He had to think for a minute to decide on who their punishment opponent would be. They were almost entirely reliant on their instincts and needed to put some thinking and strategy into her actions. He smiled as he selected something she could just pounce at and tear apart. By the time he learned and set up everything a half hour had gone by and it was time to collect the cadets. He retrieved the hand held radio and keyed it. “I hope you’ve gotten a good rest,” he said into the receiver, “it's time to get back to work. Everyone back to the gym.”

  It was only about two minutes later when the cadets jogged in, all of them back in peak condition. Logan stood ready at the main circle’s edge for them. Once the four of them lined up he started. “We’re starting with Cadet…” he looked at the wendigo who just stared back.

  “We just call her Wen, sir.” Cadet D’Crusia said.

  “A little on the nose don’t you think? Cadet Wen get to position.” Logan said pointing to the center of the main circle. The other cadets stepped back as she positioned herself showing they had previous experience with the system.

  “Are you ready Cadet Wen?” he asked after reaching the computer. When she answered with a nodding grunt he activated the program.

  Mana flowed from around the computer and into the formation of circles surrounding the room. Once all the circles were lit, they flashed in a kaleidoscope of colors. The shifting slowed as a tall form started to coalesce a few meters in front of Cadet Wen. The near four meter tall creature was humanoid in shape with a torso, two legs, two arms, hands and feet. The missing head, oversized fists, glowing red circle in the middle of its chest and stone gray skin showed that her opponent was a stone golem. An unintelligent creature mostly made of rock and held together by mana. The figure was unnaturally still until becoming fully opaque and hunching slightly and focusing on Cadet Wen. If he didn’t know any better he would have considered the golem to be real.

  Logan watched Cadet Wen closely. She was clearly confused at her opponent. She didn’t stay that way long as she essentially pounced for the golem’s leg. The ponderous movements of the solid creature wasn’t nearly fast enough to dodge the little beast. Logan noticed that while mid-air her claws seemed to freeze over and leave trails of mist behind them. With animalistic strikes she tried to brutalize the leg like a feral cat. Over and over she stabbed and clawed in the brief time it took for the golem to react. She did more damage than he expected leaving long, deep scratches in the rock. Even though each of the cuts were almost an inch deep, her opponent didn’t seem affected.

  The golem brought down its boulder of a fist in a crushing blow. Cadet Wen released and jumped back as stone met stone. The crash caused a few splinters to fly off but nothing else. She slid backwards a meter before regaining traction and pouncing for the opposite leg. Logan kept a careful eye on the fight and was ready at any time to hit the program’s kill switch. Even though he set the program so the hits wouldn’t do more than bruise them or maybe crack a few bones on an especially bad hit, a head-shot could still prove deadly.

  The fight quickly became repetitive. Over and over Cadet Wen dodged and clawed. This dance continued until she began to slow. Every dodge took a little longer and each strike wasn’t quite deep enough. By the time she was heaving for breath the golem was covered in savage cuts. Unfortunately for her, none of them touched her target’s weak point. He allowed the fight to continue until one of the golem’s reckless swings connected on a failed dodge. Its fist smashed into her side with an audible thump. Logan winced as she was thrown sideways and rolled to a stop. The golem took two steps toward its unresponsive opponent and raised both fists to finish her off. The arms descended as she brought her arms up in a weak blocking attempt. Only a meter from impact Logan hit the program’s kill switch. The golem unnaturally froze like someone hit pause on a movie. It took a second for Cadet Wen to realize she wasn’t about to be crushed and look around.

  “Cadet Wen, you failed this exercise,” Logan said and she crawled out from underneath the still frozen golem. “You let your instincts control your actions without thinking or looking for a weakness.”

  He looked at the other cadets. “Can anyone tell me the weakness of a standard stone golem?”

  Cadets D’Crusia raised her hand. “Damage and/or destroy any and all control circles.”

  “Textbook answer,” he said, “that is correct.” He restarted the program returning the golem to particles to reform its originally pristine condition back at their initial point. He hit another key telling it to fall to its knees. “Everyone approach the golem.”

  Once they all got close he directed them around the back. He noticed Cadet Wen stumble over while clutching her injured side. He pointed to three palm-sized linked magic circles where the base of the neck would be on a human. “These are the control circles. When in tact they will activate and run a golem.” He grabbed his sword off his back and, with a little extra power to his muscles, brought its pommel down on one of the circles. The impact damaged the stone and made the flowing mana spark and flicker.

  It started twitching and shaking. “Some basic damage will cause errors and slow it down.” When he hit the circle a second time it split. The twitching stopped instantly as it collapsed forward. “The destruction of even one of the circles will completely disable it.” It soon began fading away into particles.

  He looked to Wen, “do you now understand why you failed?” she nodded. “Good, now do it again.”

  Cadet Wen's second round wasn’t much better. She was able to destroy the circle and disable the golem but it seemed to be more of a coincidence than it was on purpose. Like the previous match she seemed to lose her senses and claw madly. The destruction of the circle occurred when she was dodging an attack and reached toward its back for something to grab onto. He would need to come back to this lesson in the future.

  He spent the next few hours conjuring specific opponents for the cadets. Starting with Cadet Bishara’s punishment opponent, an undead called a ghoul that jumped around and fought similarly to Cadet Wen. He needed to work on his speed and coordination so such a fast opponent was a good match.

  When he believed he was finally getting them out of their habits, two beings entered the training room. They were Sarah and Amara. He could tell that Sarah was in a better state than when she left. She still had nervous energy but did stand taller and more confident than she did before.

  Logan gave Amara a quick salute. “Report.” she said crisply. The bruised and tired cadets spun and gave their own salutes.

  “Familiarizing myself with the cadets,” he answered.

  “And?” she asked expectantly.

  “Honestly Ma’am, I’m disappointed. Their habits are pretty deep and I’ve only just started beating it out of them.” Normally such a statement would have been idiotic. Little would infuriate an instructor like questioning their lessons. Fortunately, Amara wasn’t so thin-skinned and hated sycophants.

  She nodded. “Understood. The cadets will now be released for lunch then their next lessons. All dismissed.” They all saluted and separated. Sarah hesitantly followed the other cadets toward the barracks leaving the instructors alone.

  “Alright, what the hell is going on?” Logan asked, completely dropping formalities.

  “Standards,” she scoffed.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, obviously confused.

  “I mean your standards are too high for one month.” She continued seeing Logan’s continued confusion. “You, frankly, were different from the usual cadets we get. You had a sense of dedication, focus, and recklessness that only comes around once every few decades. You also had personal tutelage from Sir Sigurd and years of wild survival so your starting point and personal expectations were higher than others. Do you remember how often you lost against fellow cadets in combat exercises?”

  It took a moment for Logan to remember such a moment. “Well, there was the time-.”

  “You were surrounded and ganged up on by five beings and beat three of them, and that was the only time. Listen, there’s nothing wrong with high standards, it's a good thing to have in our job. You just need to know that some need more time and effort to meet those standards than others. As an instructor you will need to know how to push them enough to improve while not completely demoralizing them. Today was good. You needed to assert your dominance and prove to them why you’re here and you have things to teach them. The occasional one-sided beat down and humbling is a good thing and will make them stronger. Nothing but beat downs will only show them they will never be enough.”

  When he frowned in thought she gave him a half-smile. “Being a teacher is hard. Being a good teacher is practically a nightmare. I’ve been doing this for over a century and I still need to adapt and improvise for the betterment of my cadets.” She motioned to the exit. “Come on. I don’t know about you but I’m hungry and lunch is waiting.”

  He followed her to the barracks where the cadets were already eating around a large table. Each plate was different and personalized to the diner. He looked around and found two more filled plates on the shared kitchen’s counter. One plate was a gyro stuffed with fragrant lamb and vegetables while the other was an old-fashioned hot dog and chips. He thought back and remembered how his own food would be waiting for him like that back when he was a cadet. Brownies really were the best.

  He and Amara wordlessly collected their lunches and ate while leaning on the counter. The food was as delicious as ever and he was looking forward to eating like that more often. Everyone ate quickly in a combination of hunger, delicious food and the rush of a limited lunch period. By the time Amara told them to move on to their next lessons all but Sarah had finished with her shoving the last bite of her burger into her overstuffed cheeks.

  “Alright,” Amara called out, “everyone off to your lessons. Cadet Jacobs, you will be in room one. The rest of you go to room three.” The cadets saluted and started for the hallway past the stairwell.

  Amara looked at Logan. “You’ll be in charge of her ‘intro to beast-cursed.’ That’s what you’ll be focusing on till dinner call…Be careful with her. She had a bit of a breakdown before Cora could get to her. She’s better but delicate.”

  Logan nodded. He personally knew how good the psychologist was after she helped him with his own rough introduction to magic. “Of course ma’am.”

  “Good, dismissed.”

  Logan gave her a salute and turned on his heel. He collected a dumbbell from the weights rack before heading to room one. He began ordering what he needed to teach a new being. He looked back on his own introduction and ordered what he would have wanted to know if someone was there to teach him. He then remembered Amara’s earlier advice on tempering expectations and patience when teaching. Him and Sarah had very different lives. He grew up in the woods as a northern pioneer while she was a scholar through and through. He was still planning by the time he reached the classroom.