Seed of Titan

"Rock Smash, huh? Quite a fitting name," Christo said as he and his two roommates walked toward VV headquarters on this particular evening.

"I think it's too simple," Jian argued. "Why not go with something cooler like 'Hailstorm of Destruction'?"

"Hmm… It does sound pretty cool…" Drai murmured. He imagined himself posing for a poster, executing his new move; the move name would then be plastered at the bottom part of the poster with a trendy font. "Hailstorm of Destruction" would surely sound a lot cooler than "Rock Smash".

"Sometimes simplicity is the best. It's easy to remember and convey, and I reckon there will be a lot of conveying our skills during our party ventures. I think you did great, Drai," Christo said, expressing his contrasting thoughts.

"Yeah, yeah… First rule of venture parties: the leader is always right," grumbled Jian, making the other two chuckle.

"I wish there were such a rule, but you should admit that I've got a point, Jian," Christo said.

"That's the problem, Christo. You always have a point. And these points of yours usually sacrifice style for function!" Jian whined.

"One day when you become a peerless swordsman, you can be as cool as you want, Jian. But now when we're all still fledglings, the most important thing is surviving and accomplishing our tasks," Christo stated.

Jian couldn't refute Christo's words. He inwardly admitted that he seldom thought far ahead like that. His mind was usually focused on the present, and "face" is naturally one of his main concerns due to his class.

Jian slowly raised his fist toward the dark sky as he looked forward to the day when he could finally unleash his coolness to the max.

"Just you wait, Christo," he muttered. "One day, I'll stand at the pinnacle and force you to witness me rename all my lame moves into super cool ones. I'll even rename yours too, Drai, so we could be cool together. Just bear with the lame-ass names for now."

"Sure. Thanks, Jian," Drai replied with a chuckle.

Seeing this, Christo shook his head in resignation as he said, "Then I'll make sure you guys don't die before that."

"Heh. This Jian won't die that easily. I'll vanquish all my adversaries, crush all the obstacles in my path, and prove that my Dao is unrivaled under heaven."

Drai and Christo could only look at each other helplessly as their cultivator friend became further lost in immersion.

***

VV headquarters wasn't as crowded as it was during the first gathering. Although many members occasionally hang out here, most of the time they're in their division offices and areas, preoccupied with their tasks.

Drai and his friends sat down at the empty lounge. Shortly after, Enda came down and joined their table.

Drai and Christo greeted him casually, but Jian immediately stood up straight and loudly greeted, "Greetings, senior brother!"

Enda was slightly baffled by Jian's peculiar greeting, but quickly replied, "No need for honorifics. Just call me Enda. Nobody uses honorifics here, Jian."

"Er… Okay! Thank you for your generosity, senior—I mean, E-Enda!" Jian clumsily responded. It was still difficult for him to act casually toward the upperclassmen; after all, respecting seniors, especially those belonging to the same sect, was one of the prominent cultural values in cultivation stories. And Soluna Academy could be considered as a sect if this were a cultivation world.

"Is it just you guys here? Where are the girls?" Enda asked while looking around.

"They're probably still on their way. Auri notified me quite a while ago that they've left their dorm," answered Christo.

"Hm… I guess we'll just have to wait for them," Enda said.

Looking at the surroundings, Drai promptly inquired, "Will the other party be here too?"

"Nah, tonight it's just you guys and me," Enda replied. "The other team will be mentored separately by the second-years, Muzie and Rofalo. Rofalo's skillset doesn't suit anyone from your team so he'll be less effective here."

"How about yours?" Christo asked.

"I specialize in projectile weapons so I can't say that it suits your party perfectly, but since I'm from the Faculty of Combat and a year older, I believe I have enough knowledge to prepare you for your ventures, at least combat-wise," Enda explained.

"I see. Then I hope we can get along well, Enda," Christo said as he offered a handshake.

"Likewise, Team Leader Christo," Enda said, shaking Christo's hand.

Drai and Jian looked at each other awkwardly, not knowing whether to offer handshakes too. Luckily, sounds of footsteps could be heard, bringing salvation for their current predicament.

"Sorry guys! We had to make several quick stops on the way here," Auri apologized. Behind her, Natalia and Flo followed closely. Flo was looking a bit nervous and Natalia was patting Flo's head lightly. After these couple last weeks, Natalia managed to get closer to the girls but not so much to Christo and Jian.

"Why's that?" Jian questioned. "Did you all need to pee or something?"

"Can't you be more gross, Jian?" Auri sarcastically remarked with a rather disgusted face.

"Huh? What's wrong about peeing? It's a natural thing to do for humans, isn't it, Drai? Nothing gross about that," Jian retorted.

"Don't bring Drai into this," Auri rebuked. "And being natural and gross aren't mutually exclusive, you know?"

"Okay, okay! I was just asking…" Jian said, trying to de-escalate the situation in case another senior found their quarreling a nuisance just like Maxwell did after they disagreed on the party name.

"So, what took you so long?" Drai asked.

"Ah, we were just accompanying Flo while she restocked her medicinal plants," Natalia replied. "That's why we stopped on our way whenever she identified a harvestable plant. It turns out there are quite a few of them on the campus grounds."

"Y-yeah. I'm sorry for making you wait," Flo quickly apologized.

"Nah, don't worry about it, Flo. In the end, you'll be using those plants for your heals, right? I'll gladly wait a couple more hours for free heals in the future," Jian reassured.

"You better get used to being spoiled, Flo," Enda commented. "Ultimately, a healer is the most valuable member of a venture party. If some of your friends haven't realized this yet, they'll do so by the end your first venture."

Instead of being relieved, Flo's face turned red upon hearing Enda's words. She imagined herself sitting on a comfy chair in the middle of a jungle, surrounded by her squadmates who were tending to her needs. Auri and Natalia were standing at both sides, fanning her with huge leaves; Christo was manicuring her hand nails; Jian was massaging her feet while Drai fed her grapes.

"Okay, let's head to the cellar since you're all here," Enda's voice pulled Flo back into reality. She quickly shook her head repeatedly, ridding her fantasy.

"Cellar?" Jian asked.

"Yeah, that's what we call our training area. It's located in the basement, hence the name," Enda explained as he led the group to a staircase behind a door. The group descended through a relatively short flight of stairs before arriving at a large room with light blue walls and gray floors. Along the walls were several weapon racks containing what seemed to be weapons of various kinds. The bladed weapons had dull edges, obviously meant for training purposes.

"Welcome to the cellar, guys. It's a bit lacking but it's all we have here. Numerous venture parties in the past have trained here, especially during the assimilation phase of the newcomers. They usually wouldn't train here that much after the first couple months of the academic year since nothing beats field experience."

Drai and his friends took in the sight of the simple training room while picturing the image of their predecessors running around, sparring, and sweating in this room. Drai even felt invigorated to be part of the history, particularly because it involved training. He breathed in deeply, inhaling the lingering collective fighting spirit and willpower to become stronger.

Enda smiled a little as he noticed Drai's subtle zeal. He walked forward in silence, letting the group take in their surroundings as they followed him. He eventually stopped around the center of the room before turning around, facing Drai's party.

"I've received your general information from Halo, courtesy of your party leader, and I'll assume they won't deviate much from your actual abilities, so we'll be basing your training on that," Enda said as he opened the relevant info on his comm.

"From a quick analysis, I can see the obvious strength and weakness of your party, aside from your lack of experience and teamwork of course. Your first strength is your offensive power. At least four of you seem to posses the firepower of a standard damage dealer at the minimum. In my opinion, ambushes and raids suit your party the most as well as beast hunting.

"For your second strength… you have an anomaly—a potential powerhouse, basically," Enda nonchalantly said while glancing at Drai. Except for Flo who was slightly surprised, the others merely nodded in acknowledgement upon hearing Enda's statement.

"And having such a valuable member, I'm sure you know what this entails, Christo," Enda said, looking at Christo who nodded in response.

"On the other hand," Enda continued, "your weakness is your lack of aptness for anything else other than combat. Infiltration, resource collection, intelligence gathering, archeological expeditions… Christo's the only one who seems to posses skills suited for these activities. In other words, the rest of you need to pull your weight if you want succeed in ventures which don't mainly involve combat."

Upon hearing these words, the group became silent. They thought of the activities mentioned by Enda and realized that they really didn't have much to contribute to them. Drai couldn't help but glance at Christo, thinking that they'll probably rely a lot on his knowledge and wits in order to complete the ventures safely and sufficiently.

"Don't fret it. At least you'll probably survive with relative ease. And this flaw is to be expected due to all of you being first-years. Don't forget that our parties have always consisted of upperclassmen and only one or two first-years until now," Enda reassured.

Hearing this, most of them felt relieved. They had truly forgotten the fact that this year's venture parties were a bit special due to the influx of first-years. Of course such parties would be ridden with shortcomings.

"In other words, we're like a trial run," Christo remarked.

"Yup, you got it right," Enda grinningly replied. "I don't think there was ever any venture party consisting of mostly, if not all, first-years, so you'll be our trial run. Well, don't feel too bad about it since we'll adjust your ventures to better suit your capabilities since we still have Smash 'n Grab for the higher level stuff."

Despite being told so, Drai and his friends couldn't help but feel a bit worried. They could only pray that their ventures would truly be adjusted to their level and not be overwhelmingly difficult or even impossible.

"Anyway, let's start with your training. Are you ready, Mango Seekers?" asked Enda.

"Yeah!" Auri shouted.

"W-we're ready!" Flo added.

"Yeah—wait a minute… Mango Seekers? What the hell is that?" asked Jian confusedly.

"Hm? Isn't that your party name? It says that right here," Enda replied, pointing at his comm.

Confused, they looked at Christo for confirmation.

"That's right. We're Mango Seekers," Christo confirmed. Whether deliberately or not, up until now he hadn't informed the others about his self-decided party name.

"You guys can discuss the matter later," said Enda. "But now we've got some training to do. Now pick up any weapon you need from the racks and show me your moves."

***