Mr. Till sat in the headmaster's office while the headmaster, Benjamin, was looking at him with narrowed eyes as he stroked his beard. He was reading the reports over Dirin's progress, and he noticed that there was a dramatic shift for the worse over the past couple of days. In Benjamin's opinion, this wasn't something that should happen even if Dirin was feeling a little unmotivated.
The files also showed how many sick days Dirin had to take this last week due to a high fever. Two out of the past seven days were taken. This was all because he was soaked from dawn to dusk. Especially since it was getting colder outside, causing him to return to his dorm, almost shaking. "Mr. Till. I would like you to explain to me what you are doing." Benjamin looked at Mr. Till with level and a calm expression. He didn't seem angry, but with people of their level and age, hiding their emotions was very easy.
Scanning over the file for a bit, Mr. Till's gaze was also level and calm. He knew what he had been doing this whole time and even knew how off those numbers were. Dirin has been sick much more than two days, but to keep him in school, Mr. Till had to count him present for some days. It wasn't his first time marking students present when they actually were sick or had a day off. If he figured the student was earnest enough in their training, he would count them in his classes so they would be fine. The same thing went for Dirin. Except that his was more forced on him than anything.
"I'm training Dirin."
"Torturing him, more like. I've heard the rumors going around, as well as any student. You have just been assaulting him in the name of training. You say it's to make him have a reason to train, but he doesn't even have the capacity to train like this."
"Every night, Dirin uses that candle you gave him to learn. When he comes to my training field, it is my duty to teach him how to use that knowledge. My way is just different than what you think would be effective." Mr. Till responded evenly as he met Benjamin's gaze with his own. "My goal is to make him learn how to practice while being attacked. If he can't do that, then he won't make it to the ranks you want him to get to."
"Learning how to practice while being attacked?" Benjamin's eyes widened in amusement as he heard Mr. Till's words. "As long as he is in our areas, he would be fi-"
"We don't have the ability to train him to those higher ranks with the limited space and resources we have. The Flame of Creation only controls twelve galaxies. Not even Rank 10s could supply him with enough resources. We need to face the facts. After all we have learned about his current progression, we won't be able to supply him with everything to get to Rank 8, let alone the rest." Mr. Till argued, causing Benjamin's amusement to leave his eyes quickly. "We need him to learn how to act against people stronger than him."
"Your argument is sound. Now tell me the real reason you're actually doing it." Benjamin was straight and direct towards him.
Mr. Till's eyes widened before a smile came on his face. "I want all of his hope to progress gone." Benjamin was about to yell at him, but he continued. "I need it gone now rather than later. He needs to know that, realistically, he has no chance. Once he realizes this, then two things can happen. The first one is that he simply gives up. He already almost tried this when he tried to advance to Rank 1 on Monday. He didn't succeed because I knocked him out before that. The second one is that he stops using these childish thoughts of his that he got from Keith. Having a dare as your reason to get stronger is stupid and will only last as long as it's fun, but both of us know this isn't going to be fun for him. He needs a different type of determination or ambition to get stronger. Even satisfaction would be better."
Benjamin still wanted to yell, but he decided that he wasn't going to get a word in for the next couple of minutes, so he held his thoughts back. "This training is to make him find a reason to get stronger. It can't be something that can simply go away, like entertaining a friend or wanting to kill someone. It needs to be a drive that takes him to the end. What I'm doing is simply getting rid of that silly original desire that Keith gave him. The proof happened on Monday, when he tried to go to Rank 1 because he simply wanted a quick way to get out of what I'm doing."
There were no words for a couple more seconds. They both looked at each other expectantly, waiting for the other to speak. Benjamin finally opened his mouth. "Does he have a new desire yet?"
Mr. Till nodded slowly. Even he wasn't sure that Dirin would find a new drive intentionally, but he must've found some sort of desire since he seemed to be focused more on trying new things instead of dodging the barrage and waves of attacks that Mr. Till sent at him. This wasn't in the report yet, but Mr. Till remembered Dirin trying to throw a rock with his mind. An attempt both of them knew wouldn't work and seemed silly to do mid-battle, but it was better than simply taking every hit that was thrown at him.
"If you think that it can make him progress faster in the long run. Then, do as you please. Do you at least have any other news from what you've seen on the training field then?" Benjamin asked, hoping for some news to satisfy him.
"Sure." Mr. Till thought of some news that has happened over the past two weeks he's been training Dirin. "Keith and Tillie reached Rank 1 yesterday. They are one of the last people in this year's class, but they still reached it. I'm not aware of their current strength, sadly. We also have many experts in smithing and enchanting, with Markus Dane being in both and in the top five in both as well."
"And what about Zack? Has he finished his training yet?"
"I have not been told anything about that yet." Mr. Till said as he went over a couple of more names until the door opened and Mrs. Burk walked in, causing Mr. Till to suppress a groan. Over the last couple of weeks, he had to remember the threat of cultists. Who were getting more and more threatening as time went on.
"I found out they have a Rank 4 in their ranks." Mrs. Burk said solemnly as they both stood up quickly. Benjamin was currently Rank 5 himself, so taking on a Rank 4 wouldn't be too hard for him, but a cult having that much power in their ranks was bad to hear, regardless.
"I still have orders not to touch them." Benjamin had a troubled expression as he heard this news. Going against orders was something he couldn't do, not because of his morals, but because of an oath that bound his actions. "They are getting more and more troublesome as time goes by. How many people have been involved?"
"Since I have been deployed, there have been no missing or deaths in any place within five hundred miles of Falem. This could be due to low activity as well, so I'll keep my monitoring of the situation high." She looked at Mr. Till and saw the report in front of him as well. "There are still students who haven't reached Rank 1?"
"You don't need to worry about the students right now. Just know, we have some individuals who are going to what we believe to be strong paths." Benjamin explained. This didn't satisfy Mrs. Burk, so he had to keep going. "They are probably going to be a few of the more promising batches we've seen in a while."
That didn't satisfy her either, but she let it go, seeing how vague he was being in the first place. Though she did memorize the name Dirin Arbor pretty quickly. She had him for a class. He was with that one girl who asked a lot of questions. She wondered how that student was doing now. "I'm going to hire a couple of people from freelance agencies to help us out since the higher-ups don't plan on helping us at all. With my own money, of course."
"Good," Benjamin said as she turned around to walk away. "I also found some spare money to throw in a raise for you as well. For your hard work and nothing else." Mrs. Burk smiled as she finally left before Benjamin turned to Mr. Till. "We will have to take p-"
"Pay cuts." Mr. Till nodded a little as he tried to remember that this was for the best. He took a deep breath. "I know. I know."