Sergeant Rita led Karl down to the main floor and out across the grounds to a large open coliseum.
"This will be our venue for the day. You'll love it, at least when it's empty. With nobody here, you can send your Hawk as far out as you want, and we can spar with the training gear. Don't worry too much, it's capable of withstanding the attacks of Commander Rank magical beasts, we won't be in any danger from the practice." She explained.
The coliseum was actually a football stadium that was converted to an arena when the facility was repurposed as the Divine Golden Academy a decade ago after the injections were developed.
It was huge and open, with more than enough room to fight, and plated with a powerful magical barrier and armoured plating to keep the battles from affecting the crowd.
"Call out your bird, you two can make the first move." Sergeant Rita suggested as they walked to the middle of the battlefield.
[Hawk, fly up high, and attack from the side, she will be expecting you to go behind her.] Karl instructed as he checked his gauntlets and drew his sword.
As soon as he released it from the mental space, the Hawk flew up fifty metres in the air and began to circle, waiting for its master to be ready.
[Go.] Karl instructed as he slashed forward with the blade, activating [Rend] halfway through to create a small arc of power that Rita blocked with ease using one of the two daggers that had appeared in her hands.
Then she dodged to the side as the attack from Hawk streaked towards her, and parried again as a flick of Karl's fingers sent more rending energy her way.
Then she counterattacked, surging with energy and rushing toward Karl. He had no actual combat experience, but a sword was bigger than a dagger, so he sidestepped and swung his blade, which she easily parried, but while she was distracted, Hawk's next attack hit her in the back of the neck, leaving a bright red welt.
[What do we do? Her neck doesn't break when I attack it?] Hawk asked in a panic.
[Just keep attacking. She's stronger than us, but she is going to teach us how to fight.]
Karl frantically blocked the daggers with his gauntlet, but he could see that she was holding back, pushing him to see his physical limits.
"That bird's accuracy is deadly, I can see how you would have confidence against a Common Grade monster with a companion like that. If I were one of your classmates, I would likely be in the infirmary right now after that strike to the neck." The Sergeant congratulated them.
She had underestimated how fast that bird was, and hadn't realized that it had time to come in for another dive-bombing run so soon.
Rita turned to keep them both in her line of sight as the bird continued to circle overhead, then launched a flurry of attacks that knocked Karl to the ground just in time for her to block Hawk's attacks.
"Alright, I know where your weaknesses are now. The first thing that we need to train is your fighting skills. While the bird is equivalent to a repeated sneak attack, low output but incredibly difficult to dodge, you will have to face the wrath of your enemies until you can find a second pet or a group mate to take their attention."
That made a lot of sense. In a way, he was still a warrior class, just a pet warrior, who could fight alongside a magical beast. Learning an entire combat system wasn't going to be easy, but at this point, his life literally depended on it after graduation, unless he gave up on the dreams of becoming famous and powerful in exchange for doing some cushy job for the ultra-wealthy and somehow never get the reserve force call to battle.
But if he did that, he wouldn't be much different than where he had started, he'd just be at the bottom of a much fancier pile. Even most of the music and television idols among the elite were known to go and fight to improve their strength or deal with attacks.
They just did it with assistants and cameras following, so the world would know how awesome they were, not like some bureaucrat or lawyer who got sent to an attack that didn't even make the news to fight alone against a rampaging monster.
"Alright, what do we start with? Sword fighting? Martial arts? Some sort of secret magical body training art?" He asked.
Sergeant Rita laughed. "First, we start with basic physical conditioning. Your body is adjusting quickly to the mana injection, and it triggers an awakening in place of your natural growth. That's why we give the shots at the end of middle school, so that all the recipients are still in the rapid growth phase and can adapt more easily to the changes.
As your body adjusts, you should be able to move from a Common Physique to an Awakened Physique fairly quickly, and then you will be able to actually fight at an acceptable pace, closer in speed to the movements of your Hawk."
Karl sighed. He knew it, there were definitely going to be laps around the academy.
"Follow me to the gym. There will be a bunch of agility type fighters there now, so your standards should be suitable for the equipment that is out. I will lead you through a basic routine today, and then we will set your baseline for improvement.
Within the next month, I expect that you will be able to make the minimum Awakened Standard, but you have until the end of the semester before the official tests are done."
"So, most students take that long to make it to awakened?" Karl asked. That didn't sound so bad.
"No, many of them will make the minimum standard within the next few weeks. The true Geniuses will be getting close to Ascended by the end of the first Semester, and make it there either late in the year or at the beginning of the second year."
Just like that, Karl's dreams of easy days as an elite were crushed.