33 Risen#re

Commander Pexis followed behind Lirian, he felt that Lirian was quite the mystery, he had heard everything about the young prince candidate before he arrived at the base.

He didn't care much for the politics of the world, which was probably why he was stationed on an outlier world to further its exploration, all things considered, he liked being away from all the back biting and hypocrisy that goes on amongst the nobles.

He was more of an outgoing person himself, his only problem with being made a commander was that he had to spend most of his time behind a desk, and almost no time in the field unless an emergency occurred.

This world however was just too ancient and weak, the things here barely even gave his troops a challenge, and so far, the only truly notable things that he had found were some traces of long dead civilizations, but he was stuck behind his desk and unable to go out into the field for something so small.

He watched as Lirian walked forward without a guide this time, in his single trip he had memorized the path to the student's barracks, and despite constantly tapping the ground his pace was just as good as a normal persons.

He remembered during the first year of exploration on this world he had to deal with a batch of candidates, and each one kept trying to compete to see who could gather the most intel while also trying to keep small pieces of intel to themselves.

Lirian's approach was completely different, he left everything in the hands of another, originally due to Lirian's ailment he had intended to answer any question Lirian asked him with vague answers, after all, it did go against the rules to tell him anything.

Due to Lirian's circumstances, he was willing to bend the rules slightly, but to his surprise, Lirian intend to rely on someone else to gather his intel, and aside from a few pleasantries Lirian didn't probe him at all.

In fact, he felt a little confused, he found that Lirian was very different from what he had heard, a rude and wilful genius without any grace, and aside from Lirian sticking his free hand in his pocket at all times he felt that he was rather cordial.

When they reached the barracks, the students were already lined up in neat lines according to their classes and the candidates were standing at the front, whilst many teachers and guardians were also standing at attention facing the students.

Commander Pexis went around greeting the many teachers first and when he came to Anya he did a full 90-degree bow to show his respect.

He naturally knew that Anya would be here as Lirians guardian, and he was old enough to know about all her legendary feats performed during her time as an empress candidate.

You can scrub the internet of all the intel on her but it was impossible to scrub all the memories held by the people.

He walked in front of the students and took two quick steps up onto a podium overlooking all of them.

He waited for Lirian and Media to get into place with the other candidates before speaking.

"Starting tomorrow all of you will be heading out to explore the wilds of the world, and to many of you this will be a completely new experience," he was mainly speaking to the nobles, they were completely unused to walking about without a full stomach, and taking a dump in the middle of the forests.

In truth, it was small things like that which gave most people a hard time and caused the most trouble.

"Over the next month you will experience discomforts you never thought of, and learn many things about survival, some of you might not even survive,"

"I want all of you to remember that you will be graded on how well you perform, and it will depend on your individual performance,"

"Tomorrow you will each be given a watch that is to be worn at all times when you leave, it is through this that we will monitor your progress and efforts."

"On the watch you will find a scanning feature, this is what you will be using to scan any and all items or creatures that you come into contact with, there will be a certain number of points awarded for every new discovery, you can even use the watch to make progress reports and describe how you discovered something."

"Now are there any questions?" he asked them now that the main topic had been covered.

"Will there be anyone supervising us?" someone asked in the crowd.

Pexis shook his head, "This expedition will be carried out by you alone, our only contact with you will be through the communicators, if anyone feels that they can't handle the situation at any point in time, you may send a request to return, however, it will result in an immediate failure for you no matter how well your performance was previously."

The students sucked in a cold breath of air, they were going to be completely alone with only other students to look out for them, they couldn't help but feel a sense of fear.

Another student quickly raised their hand and asked, "What purpose do the points serve for us, will it only improve our grades?"

The commander smiled at the student who asked that "No, the points that you receive will have no effect on your grade whatsoever, your grading will depend on an entirely different criteria."

The students were startled, what was the point of gathering points if it didn't assist them in any way.

Sensing their discontent he quickly continued, "The points you earn may be used when you return to the academy, it will allow you to purchase resources helpful to your cultivation, and you may also exchange them for cultivation techniques."

This earned the enthusiasm of all the students, the requirements to get a technique was having excellent grades while also having reached the pique of your cultivation grade, and that took years, so anything that could help them along earlier was a welcome surprise.

Commander Pexis quickly cleared his throat, ", that said, there are several things that could cause you to lose to lose points, you better watch how you behave when you are out there in the field,"

Without super vision many students would take it as a chance to have their way, some were simply disobedient, while the nobles would try to force the ordinary students to do their tasks for them.

And all too often students tried to force themselves on to others, with a month of mainly walking around and nothing to do, they would give in to their frustrations, such behavior was completely intolerable.

They were free to act how they wished when they weren't in the academy, but this was work and if they thought they could get free reign to act as they pleased, they were deluding themselves.

Another hand shot out in the air, "Sir may we know what will cause us to lose points?"

Pexis chuckled and shook his head, "That isn't for you to know," he said, in truth if the students knew what exactly could get them in trouble, they would find all types of loopholes to suit themselves, this way it kept them in order.

"Sir may we know what the criteria for our grading will be?" another student asked.

"There wouldn't be much sense to this exercise if you know how to score points, but I can tell you that most of your points will be based on how well you discipline yourselves over the next month, and asides from that there are hidden criteria,"

"Depending on how well you handle unexpected situations, it is possible for you to earn points, but it is also a possibility to lose points."

Once he finished there were no more students raising their hands, he smiled in satisfaction, "Alright then, now that all of that is out of the way, there is one last thing that all of you will have to do!" he said rubbing his hands together.