Below the arena battleground was a massive area known as the arena training grounds. These grounds were utilized for a different purpose during the academy tournament. This entire giant area was the common area for teams to hang out between fights to not only be left alone but also have a place to congregate and practice. The already sectioned off rooms with training equipment in each made it perfect for each team to have a base to meet up and congregate.
This also left plenty of opportunity for trouble to happen between the rival academies so teachers were constantly roaming the halls from all of the academies to ensure safety. This didn't stop the bold and stupid or the super desperate, not really sure what inspired the kids to create havoc in this area but of course we were the target.
Each room had the team name on the door so it was quite obvious whose room it was, so when we entered our room after our first battle we were shocked to find it in the state it was in. The best way to describe it would be as if someone tried to quickly find something in absolutely everything possibly by then throwing it onto the floor once looked at. All of our clothes and random items were scattered in all directions including the girls' stuff. There were bras mixed in with shorts mixed with make up stacked on top of each other.
The girls were furious seeing all their personal belongings thrown about the room. I honestly just started laughing, causing everyone to look at me like I was crazy but really this was crazy. "What? This is crazy! Like who does this? Why do this? What do you gain?" I asked no one in particular.
I turned and saw Adam looking down the hallway as if he had seen someone. "What is it? You see someone?" I inquired.
"Not sure, let's not worry about this anymore, it's most likely to distract us before our next fight." Adam resigned himself to the room and closed the door behind him. Abby and Maddy were furious still and were quickly going through everything sorting out their stuff. Travis and Joey helped out as Adam and I stood off to the side.
"I think we need to come up with a new strategy as you wore yourself out and got knocked out of the fight." I pointed out to him trying to change the subject of the room.
"I know man, I didn't keep track of my blinks so when I set off the orb attack it takes up so much more than you realize!" Adam admitted.
"Have you thought about swinging your sword while blinking instead of after the blink? Is that even possible?" I asked as I had never done it but I could see that his long swings with the sword were being defended now by more experienced fighters.
"I also think you're more deadly with just the machete but that is my opinion." I pointed it out to him as well. I think that conversation went a long way as the rest of the tournament Adam used the machete the entire time and became even more deadly.
I sat down and started to meditate again as I had nothing in the room to clean up, Adam seeing me take my mediation pose actually sat down and asked one quick question. "What do you think about while meditating so I can do it also?"
"I concentrate on the energy that is my beast, Wispy, when I see him I can then focus on his realm in my body. Once I figured that out it is simple to get there anytime I want to. I now meditate to increase my affinities to the elements as each element is slowly being built up by the gems in our armor. When I meditate I can speed it up slightly and I can concentrate on one element like when you saw my [Shadow Shield] was learned during meditation."
Adam sat down next to me and didn't say anything but the two of us were meditating for an extended period of time before Abby broke both of our concentration. "Wow Adam, you are glowing arcane energy right now!" Opening my one eye I could see an intense light coming from his body. Adam's eyes were closed but it appeared like his eyes were open from the intense amount of energy flowing around them. All of the glow around his body dissipated but seemed to condense at his eyes.
Opening his eyes Adam no longer had normal eyes, they had completely transformed into pure arcane energy. Adam shouted out in pain as he later informed me that the first time he opened his eyes it was as if a million needles stabbed the nerves in eyes. It took him several minutes but he stopped making noises of agony as he finally stood up and looked around. He told me that from that point on the whole world was now visually completely different. All colors had changed, he could now see energy flowing all around us.
We have a few hours till our second fight and in that time we kept to ourselves in our room basically reorganizing it. We decided as a team to go to lunch together to make sure that no one would mess with one of us if broken off by themselves. I never found out who broke into our room or what they were looking for but no one expressed anything missing. We chalked it up to a scare tactic by one of the other academies.
At the cafeteria while we were eating, groups of students sat down at various tables discussing the tournament at large. This conversation bled into our ears and started to bother Adam especially as he suddenly replied to one of the tables near him.
"You know nothing about what is going to happen, Ghostrun Academy sixes will win the freshman tournament." Adam confidently proclaimed to the table of students from some other school.
"Muhlhauser Academy has a lightning gryphon, a life faery healer, and a fire salamander with all of them using ranged attacks. They will kick your ass and everyone else's" The one kid confidently retorted.
"Wanna bet?" Adam stood up holding his arm out to shake on a bet.
"You don't have anything we would want!" The one who had been arguing so far retorted.
"That is the response of someone who is scared to bet." Adam was quick with a response.
"Ok, then if you are from Ghostrun Academy then you will have to get me a date with one of the princesses." The kid responded thinking he had Adam for something Adam couldn't produce.
"I get your sword when we win" Adam reached his hand out to shake which the kid didn't reach out to shake back. Instead he instinctively grabbed his sword, the sword his great grandfather created and passed down generation to generation in his family. Suddenly the bet was taking a whole different turn in this individual's mind.
"You can't even introduce us to the princesses so no bet." The kid stammered as he didn't want to lose his family's heirloom.
"You wouldn't even know a princess if you met one you idiot!" Maddy exclaimed to the kids at the table. Not one of them realizing her and Abby were the princesses they were talking about. The entire situation had me laughing internally as Adam knew we were going to win and he wanted to get a nice katana, the one sword Adam wanted to make his perfect trifecta of weapons as he would call it.
Abby stood up and walked up to the boys at the table, "I will let you in on a secret, don't go expecting princesses to be interested in you when you try to get their attention through someone else. If you had any brains you would have realized you were just talking to them." With that she walked off which we all followed seeing that was a perfect closing argument.
"Did you see his eyes?" The boy clenching his katana with white knuckles asked his table. The whole group nodded and stared at us as we walked out of the cafeteria.