The boy pursed his lips in a futile attempt to pout but Henrik just threw him a dirty look from the side to instantly stop him in his tracks.
"Would you prefer to go back to the surface and join the others, Berk?" he asked lightly, looking down at his drink.
Berk suddenly forgot about all the pain coming from his fractured wrist and shook his head side to side.
"N-No, brother Henrik, I didn't mean it like that. I appreciate you bringing me along. It was just a joke."
The atmosphere suddenly tensed up when Henrik brought up the topic of the surface. Many of the boys looked away, refusing to meet each other's gaze for an extended period of time.
Henrik saw their behavior and let out a despondent sigh.
"Don't blame yourselves. You are neither cowards for running away from a situation like that nor traitors to the academy. It was unreasonable of them to ask for such a thing in the first place. In fact, you should be proud of yourselves, that you were able to see past the momentary heroics and catch a glimpse of the bigger picture."
Despite his words of encouragement, none of the boys bothered to raise their heads. They were still young men and were taught better than to be running from a fight.
Henrik nudged the boy named Berk, gently pulling his wounded wrist towards him. He took out a gold medallion from one of his pockets and started channeling Qi through it.
Once he placed the medallion on Berk's wrist all the pain vanished instantly and he could feel the injury being healed from inside out.
"Thank you, brother Henrik," he said in a low voice.
No one else bothered to speak up again so when Berk's injury was completely healed, Henrik asked him a question.
"You were the last one to come down and saw what they are doing on the front lines. Care to share?"
Berk was a fairly simple-looking boy in his late teens and looked to be rather mature for his actual age. He was one of the only few here that had seen the most combat since arriving on the planet.
His father was the King of a small Grade-3 kingdom located somewhere near the continent's edge, away from everything and everyone.
Their kingdom was isolated for the most part and life there was quite harsh due to the extremely cold climate, the recurring beast tides, and the relentless assault of vagrant cultivators.
To protect himself he had learned to wield a blade before learning to read or write, as a consequence of which he became quite used to the bloodshed despite his young age and grew his talent for the killing arts.
Keeping true to his roots he was never the one to shy away from getting his hands dirty. Upon arriving on the planet he quickly got to work volunteering for various missions and over time became one of the rare few people that witnessed the change that occurred throughout their stay on the planet.
It went from simple diplomatic missions that gave points for each successful ally added to their side to straightforward kill orders. But since his background wasn't anything special Berk didn't complain and put up with a great many assassination missions for his old father and Kingdom until even that became too much.
He went from killing suspicious nobles and corrupt lords to butchering mortals by the dozens. Burning down villages and entire encampments for no sensible reason other than to spread fear.
But there was nothing he could do. The orders were coming directly from the top, from the mouth of the first protector, the great Dai Zhi himself. If he disobeyed he would be labeled a traitor and would either be abandoned on this world or killed off.
He knew those were the only two options because there were more than a few times when he had to kill other examinees from the academy that couldn't put up with it anymore.
That is until Henrik reached out to him with an olive branch. He said he needed an experienced fighter on his side for a "special" mission and Berk was more than happy to oblige.
Most of the others here were in the same boat. They could see how things were changing for the first on the surface and wanted to get away with it. If they could run away many of them would have already.
Berk nodded lightly, "Sure, I only know a few things though so it might not be that helpful."
Henrik thought for a moment before coming up with a suitable query, one that had been bothering him for a while.
"What exactly are those native armies doing? The ones that aligned with the academy. I heard some of them were being trained for something special."
Berk was surprised Henrik knew about that since it was supposed to be a well-guarded secret. But if he was asking, there was no use hiding it.
"Lord Dai Zhi sent a few deacons from the Church of the Sacred Light.. They started converting the mortals en masse and all the skilled soldiers were taught how to summon and utilize the power of the Holy Light."
