The Ranch

Choosing Professions (1)

The small group of four enter the lecture hall and head towards the electronic board. A group of children are crowding the hallway, making it impossible for the to reach the board. Kai raises his voice so he can be heard over the commotion,"Looks like we're too late."

"Don't give up so quickly, we just have to find a way to get to the front." Sherlock looks on the bright side.

"How? There's no room to squeeze through and if a fight ends up breaking out, it won't be good for anybody."

While the two were trying to find a solution, Lucien leaned against the wall and observed from afar. Tih looks at the sea of newbies squished together, he turns his gaze up and finds what he's looking for. Tih walks over to the arguing Kai and wraps his thin arm around Kai's waist. "Eh? Tih?"

Without answering Kai's questioning gaze, he pulls out his questionably small grappling hook that he has yet to test out. Tih aims at a ledge above the sea of children and fires. A whooshing sound is heard as the flexible metal wraps around the ledge and starts to pull the two forward. The length of the rope decreases and the two gain height.

Tih easily carries Kai with his one skinny arm as Kai, who was surprised by the sudden situation, clings to Tih so he doesn't fall on top of the crowd. Once the get high enough, Tih flicks something on the gun and the rope stops pulling them in. The momentum swings them towards their destination. The make an ark in the air before Tih retracts the hook, pulling the rope back into the gun, and losing their support, the two start to fall.

Kai's grip on Tih gets tighter as he closes his eyes, waiting for the pain of impact, but he feels nothing even after a few seconds. The only thing that changed is the extra hand supporting him. Kai opens his eyes to, once again, find himself in a princess carry.

Tih took all the force of the impact and managed to reduce all of his momentum the moment they landed, only having to bend his knees slightly. While they were still falling, he put away his grappling gun and put Kai into a princess carry to protect him from the impact.

The crowd below stared wide-eyed, as the two flew over their heads, their mouths agape as the watched the child land as lightly as a feather, while carrying someone. The silenced crowd watches as Tih puts down Kai and inserts Kai's ID that he kept from when he ordered his food. The electronic board lights up as words appear on screen. Tih turns to Kai, gesturing in a 'go ahead' manner.

Kai looks at Tih blankly before thinking to himself,"Still not used to this kid's weirdness." He walks up to the screen to look at the class options.

Although he's still not used to Tih's "uniqueness", he's grown somewhat accustomed to it, which is more than can be said for the rest of the people in the Hall. Still shocked in amazement, the crowd quietly watches without complaints as Tih and Kai use the board after "cutting the line".

After Kai's focus turns to the classes on screen, Tih pulls out his grappling gun and swings back to the others. He stretches his hand out in an innocent manner, implying," Do you want to go next?" Two more people get to experience Tih's amusement park ride.

After the group reunites at the front of the electronic board, Kai start repeating all the options from memory. While Tih brought the other two, Kai busied himself with skimming through the entire selection of options.

They were right. There are many more classes available than the past two days, including ones that are probably considered "undesirable" by the newbies. The best example being Metaphysics, in which Kai doubts it's existence and purpose on the island.

Finishing off the entire list, Kai comments," We should get in over our heads, picking two or three classes would be best. Preferably one combat and one class we have talent in as our main profession."

Sherlock continues,"Yes, we need to pick carefully. Life on the island will be a lot harder if we don't preform well and pass our classes. Taking too many would be suicide."

"...do I have to pick a combat?" Lucien mutters. He was never the type that watched his own health, often neglect to exercise or go outside his room for that matter. He regularly skipped meals, forgetting to eat for days on end.

"You should. If we don't train our bodies, we'll most likely fail our future trials...and I'd rather not know the consequences of failing." Kai answers.

"Oh! You noticed that too? It's just a hypothesis for now, but I believe the trials will test both our wit and strength. It'll be hard if we only having one or the other..." Sherlock comments.

"We also shouldn't pick classes focused on weapons. We don't know when our next trial will take place and learning the art of a weapon takes years to master. The best option is to pick some kind of movement technique." Kai explains.

Sherlock agreed,"Right now, we need speed and strength, not some fancy or cool looking class."

Children tend to want to pick the things that look the coolest to them. Weapons like swords will peak their interest. But they're not a very good option in the short run. Sherlock suspects that the sword classes will be filled quickly.

"That's why I'm going with Environmental Engineering. For the combat class..." Kai recalls the list which includes styles like Capoeira, Hapkido, Bai Jong footwork, Muay Tai, and Krav Maga.