Luna stood in front of the massive weapons rack.
She held the simple iron shortsword in her right hand. The metal felt cold and heavy. She looked down at the sharp edge. She imagined trying to stab a giant, armored wolf with it.
To use a shortsword, she had to get close. She had to step inside the beast's guard. If she was close enough to stab a Core Formation monster, the monster was close enough to bite her in half.
She hated the idea. Distance was her only advantage.
She put the shortsword back on the wooden peg. She stepped back and scanned the massive wall of steel again. She ignored the spears. They were too long and awkward for her small frame. She ignored the bows. They required heavy upper body strength to pull the thick strings.
Then, she saw it hanging in a dusty corner of the rack.
It was an unusual weapon. It looked like a farming tool modified for murder. It was a kusarigama.
Luna reached out and took it off the wall.
It had three distinct parts. The main piece was a sharp, curved metal sickle attached to a short wooden handle. Connected to the bottom of the handle was a long, heavy iron chain. At the very end of the chain hung a solid metal weight.
It was a complex weapon. But Luna immediately understood the tactical value.
She could hold the sickle in one hand and swing the heavy iron weight with the other. The chain gave her massive range. She could smash a beast in the head from ten feet away, keeping it at a safe distance. If a monster got too close, she still had the sharp sickle to cut its throat.
More importantly, it perfectly matched her new Foundation Level 5 abilities.
She had the Space Element legacy. She could already distort the air around her fingers. If she combined her spatial affinity with the iron chain, the possibilities were lethal. She could throw the heavy weight, warp the space in front of it, and make the iron strike the beast from an impossible, blind angle.
It was the perfect tool to keep the world away from her. She wrapped the chain tightly around her forearm and gripped the wooden handle.
A few feet away, Jin was testing his own choice.
He held the massive falchion. It was an incredibly broad sword. The blade was thick, flat, and widened heavily toward the tip. It looked more like an oversized butcher's cleaver than a knight's weapon.
Jin held it out straight. The muscles in his forearm burned immediately.
It was a very heavy piece of steel. Choosing this weapon came with a strict tactical trade-off. It heavily decreased his mobility. He could not swing this giant slab of iron in fast, flashy combinations. He could not parry light, rapid attacks easily. If he missed a swing, the momentum would pull him off balance.
But Jin did not care about flashy combinations. He cared about raw kinetic force.
He raised the broad sword high above his head. He brought it down in a slow, controlled chopping motion.
The physics were perfectly clear. Gravity did half the work. When he combined the sheer weight of the heavy iron blade with the dense muscle power of his Devourer body, the downward strike was devastating. He did not need a razor-sharp edge. The mass of the weapon alone would crush a beast's skull and shatter thick bone armor.
It was an executioner's tool. It was built for one heavy, absolute hit.
The sound of scraping metal and shuffling boots finally stopped. The entire freshman class had made their selections. Hundreds of students stood in the dirt arena, holding live steel.
Instructor Thorne stood in the center of the room.
He slowly turned his massive body. His flat, cold eyes scanned the crowd. He evaluated their choices. He saw rich kids holding elegant rapiers. He saw massive mercenaries holding heavy axes. Most of them picked exactly what he expected.
His eyes stopped when he looked at the back of the room.
He looked at Jin. He looked at Luna.
He saw a skinny, pale girl holding a highly complex chain-sickle. It was a weapon that usually took decades of dedicated practice just to avoid hitting yourself in the face with the iron weight.
Then he looked at the quiet boy standing next to her. The boy held a broadsword so heavy it was usually reserved for mounted cavalry breaking through shield walls.
It was a very odd pair of choices. They did not match their physical builds at all.
Thorne did not say anything. He did not walk over and correct them. In the Genesis Zenith Academy, you lived and died by your own decisions. If the girl strangled herself with her own chain in the jungle, that was her problem.
Thorne turned his attention back to the center of the room.
He raised his right hand. A thick silver ring on his index finger caught the dim light of the arena. It was a spatial storage ring. It was a highly expensive artifact, far superior to Jin's cheap leather pouch.
Thorne pushed a sliver of Aether into the silver ring.
The air in front of him warped. A large, heavy wooden box materialized out of thin air. It dropped into the dirt with a loud thud, kicking up a small cloud of grey dust.
Thorne kicked the lid open with his heavy boot.
The box was filled to the brim with small, smooth stones. They glowed with a faint, pulsing blue light.
"Listen closely," Thorne commanded. The quiet arena instantly focused on him. "These are memory crystals."
Jin looked at the glowing stones. He knew about them from his corporate research in the library. Memory crystals were standard training tools in the high-tier empires. They held pure, compressed data.
"You do not know how to fight," Thorne told the class bluntly. "You just know how to hold a piece of metal. These crystals contain the absolute basic martial arts for every weapon on those walls."
Thorne reached into the box. He pulled out two crystals.
He held them up. Small, crude carvings were etched into the glowing surface of the stones. One crystal had a tiny picture of a sword. The other had a picture of a spear.
"Stances. Grips. Basic strikes. Basic blocks," Thorne listed. "The data is recorded directly from the muscle memory of the senior drill instructors. When you crush the crystal, the knowledge goes straight into your brain. Your body will instantly understand the fundamentals."
He dropped the two stones back into the wooden box. They clattered against the others.
"Form a line," Thorne ordered. "Walk past the box. Find the crystal with the carving that matches the weapon you are currently holding. Take it. Crush it. Start practicing."
The students immediately started moving forward. They were eager to finally learn some real combat skills.
"And one more thing," Thorne said. His deep voice cut through the shuffling boots.
The students froze in place.
Thorne crossed his massive arms over his chest. A dark, terrifying shadow crossed his scarred face.
"Do not get greedy," Thorne warned. "Take only one crystal. If I catch any of you trying to sneak a second crystal to learn two weapons at once, I will kick you out of my class."
The threat hung in the air.
"I will ban you from this arena for an entire month," Thorne continued slowly. He looked around the room, making sure every single student understood the math. "The jungle tournament is less than a month and a half away. If you are banned from practice... well. You all know exactly what will happen to you when you face a Core Formation beast with zero training."
A low, grim chuckle rumbled deep in Thorne's massive chest.
"Heh. Good luck."
Thorne stepped back from the wooden box. He closed his eyes and resumed his silent, motionless stance in the center of the arena.
The line of students started moving again. Nobody spoke. The threat of the jungle tournament was absolute. Being banned from training was a guaranteed death sentence.
Jin joined the line. He held his heavy broadsword in one hand. He waited for his turn to reach the box. He needed the data. He needed to know exactly how to swing the heavy iron efficiently. The hostile acquisition was moving to the next phase.