Isabeau and Metcalf continued to discuss and comment on random parts of each other’s history as they walked to the shooting range.\u00a0 Isabeau admired the thought of Metcalf becoming a stealthy warrior.\u00a0 She had heard of a few missions that required skills in being unseen and untraceable.\u00a0 There were classes designed specifically to teach those skills in the Field Quarter, once Metcalf had the time.<\/p>\n
Metcalf on the other hand had second thoughts about accepting the challenge so hastily.\u00a0 She was unfazed by the presumed skill the regular participants groomed themselves with.\u00a0 However, Isabeau did not need to be there at all.\u00a0 She in the top eighty percent, almost an Aspirant!\u00a0 One does not reach that point without authentic skill.\u00a0 Metcalf was going to have to step up her game to even have a chance at winning.<\/p>\n
Walking through the doorway, the commotion of the melee training area was nearly shut out behind the closing door.\u00a0 Isabeau and Metcalf took numbers onto their handhelds and walked to the back of the enormous seating area to prepare their weapons.\u00a0 The near silence revealed a completely different culture than that of the melee training area.<\/p>\n
The ranged training area held a different type of madness.\u00a0 There were no grunts, clanging metal, or cheers of encouragement to the challengers.\u00a0 Instead, there was a deep silence held as all spectators watched; studying everything about the challengers.\u00a0 Most of the students were there for pure observation.\u00a0 They would record what they saw to practice the techniques later.<\/p>\n
Two combatants stood on opposite sides of the testing platform on colored pillars indicating their team color.\u00a0 One student had a long wooden staff, taller than he was.\u00a0 It had to be about six centimeters.\u00a0 He swung it to launch discs at his targets.\u00a0 It had some kind of pump action reloading system.\u00a0 The exact operations of the staff escaped her from so far away.<\/p>\n
From his motions, the other student seemed to have a tiny blow gun.\u00a0 It was invisible to her.\u00a0 She only saw brief glints of the darts in the light.\u00a0 His targets were definitely falling though.\u00a0 No doubt the two combatants used their energy skills to aid their aiming.\u00a0 They hardly missed and reloaded almost instantly.<\/p>\n
This was the reality for Sword Mint Academy Students.\u00a0 They must strive for perfection.\u00a0 Guns and blasters were greatly frowned upon by the Grand Master.\u00a0 He considered them solely for Commoners.\u00a0 However, the ranged weapons available to them had to be just as effective.\u00a0 A missed shot or a slow shot would be very costly on the field.\u00a0 All the students needed to use the most effective techniques for any shot.\u00a0 Body stance, target choice, and reload strategy influenced each other and were key to hitting a mark.<\/p>\n
The combatants towered over a maze of boxes and short walls.\u00a0 They launched projectiles from their nearly silent weapons at training robots pretending to be melee forces from either team.\u00a0 The training bots impersonated students as they fought each other to reach the opposing team’s pillar.\u00a0 The challengers tried to defend their pillar while assisting their bots.<\/p>\n
Metcalf and Isabeau’s weapons were nothing like those of the challengers’.\u00a0 They had little interest in the battle and quickly made their way to the back of the seating to prepare for the contest.<\/p>\n
#1<\/a> \u2013 Lost and Found #4<\/a>\u00a0– Lost and Found #6<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Isabeau and Metcalf continued to discuss and comment on random parts of each other’s history as they walked to the shooting range.\u00a0 Isabeau admired the thought of Metcalf becoming a stealthy warrior.\u00a0 She had heard of a few missions that required skills in being unseen and untraceable.\u00a0 There were classes designed specifically to teach those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[47,26,2,142,107,170],"class_list":["post-231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-isabeau-bo","tag-metcalf-luo","tag-sons-of-sword","tag-sword-mint-academy","tag-tales-of-glory","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":758,"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions\/758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}