The Elemental Relics

On the next day, Ali found himself coming up with a straightforward daily routine. He and Belen both woke up first and they would wake up Kurata and Kamis to get ahead of the crowd. While instructor Caelan was right about there being fewer C rankers than D rankers, there was still a lineup that they could avoid if they were fast enough. In addition to standard drill and exercise courses, Ali took two new courses. The first was a master class with Juraj that would give him a chance to read more of the books in the instructor’s collection. Books was something he thoroughly missed after he left the airship. There didn't seem to be enough emphasis on them outside the airship, though it made sense people prioritized other matters over books. The second class involved Instructor Tsie, one of his new instructors who specialized in traps and infiltration.

Svenne would have loved learning under instructor Tsie.

As a way of introducing the new C rankers to his class, Tsie planned a trap filled maze for them to navigate through until they reached the exit. The veteran C rankers all contributed to the maze design so there were several nasty traps hidden until some unfortunate soul triggered them. Through trial and error along with lots of time spent on HP regen, the new C rankers all got through the maze, though with more discontent towards their seniors. Upon escaping the maze, Ali approached the instructor with some questions.

“Instructor Tsie, how common are trap abilities? I would imagine there are those who can do this as a profession.”

“Excellent question! The answer may surprise you but trap abilities are exceptionally rare. Outside of a few mentions of the abilities in ancient records, we actually have no confirmed cases of anyone with the abilities alive today.”

“If that’s the case, then those who make traps today…”

“Are done by those who are creative enough to turn their abilities into traps. It’s not a profession for anyone but the experts in the field make plenty of money. After all, there will always be people with secrets to hide and enemies to fend off.”

If Svenne is still alive, he would become a genius in traps, wouldn’t he?

After some thought, the teenager realized why individuals like Svenne were so rare. Their abilities really hindered their chances of survival because traps were that difficult to use. The abilities more often than not would be viewed as worthless and the individuals would be cast aside to mines and other dangerous jobs. Unless the stars aligned when those with the trap abilities met those in high places that wished to nurture those abilities, all trap ability users would be discarded very quickly in society. Those who did make it would probably keep their craft a secret too.

To think Svenne was also getting better at his abilities too.

Ali felt that his former companion had a huge opportunity to make it big in the world. Following the maze session, everyone in the class went through an obstacle course designed by the instructor himself. The traps, while not as nasty as the ones placed by the veteran C rankers, were more strategically placed to increase the maze difficulty by a large margin. The difficulty spike was so bad that no one could complete the course before the class ended.

“Think about how you can clear the obstacle course next time,” said Tsie. “The more of these you clear here, the better you are at solving traps while you are on an active mission where time is a luxury you won’t have.”

I wish I had even one of Svenne’s abilities. That would make me a lot more versatile in combat.

Ali knew that trap abilities by themselves had limited uses. One needed to have plenty of preparations to make the traps work. If a trap ability user had other abilities like summons, then the individual would be terrifying in combat when the person could coordinate all the abilities well.

What the…

The teenager was so deep in thought that he didn’t notice someone had left a foot out and he tripped right over it. The responsible person and his friends laughed as they ran to the next course. As Kamis helped Ali up, the teenager noticed his prompt showed up with an odd message.

<

Would you like to inherit trap abilities?

( Yes / No )

>

Inherit? I’ll revisit this later. I cannot afford to be late for the next class.

Belen, having already scouted out the floor, got the group to their next class in time. Caelan was the instructor and, once again, he summoned a bunch of golems. Ali only needed to look at them to notice they were different from the ones he defeated as a D ranker.

They are certainly stronger than the other golems and…they have their own elements…

As shown by one of the golems, its fist suddenly became a flaming attack as the golem relentlessly beat down the challenger. When Ali turned his attention to a different challenger, that individual’s golem opponent turned its fist into ice before it began its assault. The two golems appeared no different on the outside but their element attacks made them more dangerous as no defensive subtype was effective against elemental attacks.

Well, this should be a lot more interesting than those other golems.

Ali walked into a circle and his opponent turned its fist into the wind element. He first dodged the golem’s attacks to get a sense of the timing, noting that these golems were faster than what he was used to before. Once he got the timing down, he began using his air slash to inflict damage. After several hits, he couldn’t tell if his attacks had an impact or not. Then, the golem unexpectedly released an AOE attack that knocked him flat on his back. Before he could recover, the golem beat him down until he was defeated.

Instructor Caelan made these golems so much stronger. I need to figure out what the AOE attack was and how to avoid it. Otherwise, I doubt I’ll get past these golems even once.