Soon, the boy next to the complainer spoke up.
"Yeah, and what was with that anyway?" He piped in. "That idiot decided to still attack him anyway! He should be punished!"
These two boys were a Level 2.5 student named Fei, and a Level 3 named Loop.
"That's enough." Leo replied, walking up from behind them.
He turned towards Fei and Loop.
"I can guarantee you that none of the weapons in this hall are faulty." He replied. "Each one has been given the same care as the next."
Leo heard a snort from Tsukuru, who was standing next to him.
"Besides, everything here's a Basic-Tier weapon." He replied, eyebrow quirked as if to express confusion at the two boy's words. "You honestly expect it not to break eventually?"
Tsukuru lifted up his left dagger so it's blade was visible to everyone.
In the light, the small chip in the center of the edge from his battle with Erin was visible.
"See?" He asked.
Fei clenched his hands into fist.
"Then how do you explain the weapon breaking?" He asked. "He had to have cheated using an Ability!"
Instantly, the group of students began to murmur among themselves.
In response, Tsukuru let out a long sigh.
Leo looked down at him.
"You…high Levels wouldn't understand." He replied with a discriminatory tone.
"You've spent so many years thinking an Ability Level means everything, that you've completely forgotten about the physical conditioning."
Tsukuru looked back at Quinn.
"Perhaps Quinn is simply stronger than most."
Leo glanced back at Quinn out of the corner of his eye, inwardly thinking that Tsukuru might be on to something.
He then turned back to the group.
He cleared his throat to get everyone's attention.
"Settle down, everyone!" Leo announced. "I can assure you that no Abilities were used."
Fei grit his teeth.
"How the hell can you be so sure?!" Faye yelled, pointing at Leo. "You're blind as a fucking bat!"
A sudden gasp filled the hall.
Instantly, Fei found himself being encased in ice from the ground up, the ice stopping just below his neck.
Footsteps approached from the side.
Everyone turned to see Erin approaching.
"Fool." She hissed in that same cold voice. "You dare disrespect our teacher?"
Fei gulped.
"Do you have ANY IDEA who he is?! He is one of the Great Heroes of the Dalki War!" Erin announced, motioning towards Leo. "He is Leo Suiyan, the 'Blind Swordsman'!"
At Erin's declaration, the students began to chatter among themselves.
The name "Blind Swordsman" was known well even by the commonfolk.
Loop rolled his eyes.
"Well, if he's the "blind" swordsman, doesn't that mean that he definitely couldn't tell if a person was using their Ability or not!" He retorted.
Instead of replying, Leo simply walked back towards the ring.
Walking a little distance away from it, he found one of Tsukuru's daggers, the one he had thrown at Erin, who had in turn dodged, forcing him to create a replacement.
He picked up the dagger, and flung it at Fei.
It hit him square in the chest, next to his right rib.
Instantly, the ice encasing his body began to fracture at the point of impact.
It was as if someone had just driven an ice pick into a glacier at its weakest point.
The ice encasing his body began to crack, and fall away, falling to the ground.
The dagger then clattered to the floor.
With the ice no longer holding him up, and Fei distracted by his shock of the display, he fell to the ground, letting out a surprised "oof!"
Instantly, everyone turned to Leo in shock.
He had a slight smirk at the corner of his mouth.
"I can see…and hear…perfectly fine." Leo replied, as he approached the group. "In fact, I dare say my sight is better than most of you. My Ability allows me to see the aura of people."
Upon hearing those words, something clicked in Tsukuru's head. That sounded familiar.
'Wait a minute…' Tsukuru thought, eyes wide open in surprise. 'Could this man…could he have…Ray's eyes?'
He thought back to the passages he had read in the "fantasy" book he had received from the library.
In it, the boy known as Ray Talen possessed a special set of eyes.
They could see through most objects, allowing him to perceive the world in a wireframe vision when the particular Skill was in use.
It allowed him to see Beasts as a red aura, and people as a white aura.
It had also allowed him to see a special kind of energy all humans possessed, something called "qi", as a yellow aura.
Tsukuru was pulled from his internal musings, as Leo continued.
"When someone activates their Mutant Cells, their aura changes. So believe me when I tell you that Quinn didn't use an Ability."
With that, the students began to settle down, although grumbling.
It had been an interesting first day for the students of the Beast Weapons class.
So much had happened.
But the class was finally over, and it was finally time for everyone to head home.
As Erin left, she shot a quick glance at Tsukuru.
'That boy…' She thought. 'He might actually be worth remembering.'
She thought back to their earlier fight.
Although he had been woefully inadequate to her standards, upon her "fight", if it could even be called that, with the man with the axe, she had come to realize that Tsukuru was…acceptable.
Though time would tell if he would reach her standards once they were allowed to use Abilities in their spars.
The hall was soon empty, with only Leo standing in the back.
He had an undiscernible look on his face.
He couldn't stop thinking about that boy known as Quinn Talen.
He inspected the broken spear again and again, but found nothing out of the ordinary.
'Could this be due to that purple aura of his?' Leo thought.
Out of all of the students, the only ones who looked…different to him were Quinn and that short boy named Tsukuru.
However, the boy was known for having a quite…unique Original Ability.
Leo brought his watch up to his chest.
"Bring up the file on Quinn Talen." He replied after activating a com link.
Soon, a voice replied from the screen.
"File found." The voice replied.
Leo looked down at it.
"Ability?" He asked.
"No Ability." The voice replied. "Power Level 1."
Leo raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"Intersting." Leo replied, as he put his arm back down to his side.
He brought his hand up to his chin, and began stroking it.
"Quinn Talen. What are you hiding?"
Once the class had ended, Quinn, like all the students, had been ordered to give back the gauntlets, and leave them where he had found them on the wall.
After all, they didn't belong to him, and they were only there for the purpose of getting him used to using a weapon.
Once the students went on their first portal outing, they would be able to hunt down Beasts.
They could then harvest their Beast Crystals, and have them forged into their very own set of Beast Gear.
They would also be allowed to borrow their weapons during the portal outing.
It was common knowledge that even Basic-Tier weapons were completely impervious to all weapons that weren't Beast Gear.
Back in the Weapons Hall, Leo walked up to where Faye had been frozen, where the Black Obsidian Dagger was laying on the ground.
He picked it up, and looked at it.
"Hmm…" Leo thought to himself.
Even though he had "seen", metaphorically speaking, Tsukuru make it with his Ability, he could feel the Beast Energy coming off of it.
To him, it looked no different in his wireframe vision than any other piece of Basic-Tier Beast Gear would.
"Fascinating." Leo thought, as that was the only word that came to mind when he thought about Tsukuru's strange Ability.
Fascinating.