Considering how long the minutes seem to tick by while I’m pushing my body to the limits, it’s surprising just how fast the hours disappear. By the time Laeman, the third of my trainers, decides that I’ve worked hard enough to stop for lunch, I’m ready to drop and my stomach feels like it’s already eating itself. Still, I haven’t completely lost all my manners.

  “Will you eat with me?” I ask as I wipe my sweat away with a cloth from my Inventory. Though Laeman looks as cool as a cucumber, he must be hungry by this point. I might not have been able to push him enough to make him sweat, but it’s still lunch time.

  “Regan and I will eat in the guards’ hall, my lord,” the slim and deceptively strong man replies, a note of formality creeping back into his voice now that the actual training has finished.

  “What about Mathis?” I check.

  “Mathis has already eaten, my lord. He will remain with you on guard.”

  “Alright,” I sigh, unable to summon the energy to argue. To be fair, I’m probably not going to be great company over lunch – the morning has been almost as mentally active as it has been physically exhausting with all my efforts to repeatedly break my own limits. And I was already tired from last night’s etiquette training with Nicholas. It’s only as I’m heading towards the door that I realise I could have just used Flesh-Shaping to rid myself of the sweat on my face rather than a cloth. I promptly remedy that error, removing the uncomfortable residue of sweat on my skin and that has soaked into my clothes.

  Feeling much better just from that little bit of magic, I stride with more determination to the dining hall, vaguely aware of my Companions moving to walk with me.

  “How did your training go?” I ask the five of them.

  Well, Fenrir chirps with a sense of satisfaction even as Ninja contributes a wave of the opposite. The young raptorcat is looking more than a little downcast.

  She pushed herself hard in the session, Bastet tells me privately, her voice sounding concerned, but when the rest of us started practising our magic Skills, she was unable to join. She has been like this since.

  I can understand her being depressed – ever since my second trainer, Regan, informed me that a section of the training hall is warded to be able to cope with the use of lower-level magical Skills, my Companions have been keen to practise mixing theirs with the normal physical sparring. That is completely understandable, as is Ninja feeling left out since she’s the only one of the group who is still Tier one and so hasn’t yet earned any special Skill. Though, didn’t Catch have Stealth even before he Evolved? I’m pretty sure he did, though I’ll have to confirm that with him when I see him again.

  “Hey,” I say quietly to Ninja, stepping closer to her and reaching out to her. I telegraph my move, offering her ample time to step away if she wants – these days, she does that most of the time. But not today. Today, she lets me rub her behind the ears and even leans in a little towards me. Only a little, though, and she pulls away after only a short caress. But that’s more than she allows me most of the time and it gives me hope that maybe we’ll be able to eventually traverse this gulf which seems to have been created between us.

  “Did you have fun too?” I ask Bastet and Sirocco as I’m sitting down to lunch – the food is already on the table when I enter, a cold spread of meats, cheeses, and unfamiliar things that are probably fruit or vegetables. No meat has been brought for my Companions, but instead of complaining about that, I just pull out a couple of carcasses from my Inventory. It’s not ideal – it’s void of Energy, as usual – but it’s better than nothing. They’ve all worked hard and need to refuel their bodies, just as I do.

  I am beginning to control my Fire Wing even after it has left my body, Sirocco tells me proudly.

  That’s excellent! I exclaim, speaking mentally since my mouth is rather full right now. Maybe you’ll start developing the ability to control fire in general, like me.

  Perhaps, Sirocco agrees, still sounding pleased with herself.

  And I have been strengthening my wings, Bastet tells me. Though the changes I can make to my body are limited when I am not actively Evolving, I have found that by directing some of my focus to my wings while I am using magic, I can slowly make them stronger and more capable. I do not think I will be able to fly before I Evolve again, but if I can glide properly, it will be an advantage when facing a ground-based opponent.

  I agree, I tell her, thinking back to the times when I’ve used my wings to keep out of reach of an opponent while attacking from a distance. The most recent clash with Nicholas’ Bound is only one example.

  I am practising controlling my Burst of Speed, Fenrir chirps cheerfully. I only ran into a wall three times today!

  Are you alright? I check with him, slightly concerned, though pleased at the same time. Considering the limited space we have, that he only ran into a wall three times actually is something to celebrate.

  Yes, fine, he dismisses. I leave it at that – I know his regeneration is pretty impressive and his head is very hard. Maybe I should check the wall instead. I wince at the thought of what Nicholas will say when he realises just how many new signs of use his training hall has earned.

  And you? Has your training gone well? Bastet inquires curiously.

  Yes, I absolutely needed this, I admit honestly.

  I managed to break my limits twice more with Mathis, and even managed to push a little higher on the final time – reaching an approximate use of thirty-eight of my forty points in Dexterity and a whopping forty of my forty-six points in Strength. More Endurance than Power, but a good portion of the latter too. And that wasn’t the end of it. After I finished with Mathis, I had a session with my second trainer, Regan, where we continued to focus on Strength.

  That was for obvious reasons – Regan specialises in axes but is also proficient with clubs. Since that’s a category which includes maces, he’s been the one assigned to me for my mace training. Like Mathis, Regan uses live weapons and the blunt-headed club he gave me to train with required me to exercise my superhuman Strength just to lift it, let alone swing it.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Clearly, Mathis had told Regan exactly what had happened in our training session since the axe-wielder seemed determined to build on what I’d already succeeded in, even if the strength to wield a club isn’t quite the same as the strength to wield an axe.

  As it turns out, the divide that I’ve managed to develop between Power and Endurance is something that most people are taught to create fairly early on in their training. They get there by focussing on each aspect individually and over time that leads to the two separating out. That my Strength initially linked to my stamina and my Dexterity to my stamina regeneration is something that has puzzled all of my trainers. I guess I’ll need to ask Nicholas to see if it’s something specific to Tamers or if it’s just me.

  Since my efforts with Mathias had more effect on the Endurance sub-category than the Power one, Regan decided to focus on the Power sub-category in this first lesson together. According to him, it’s actually the easier one to feel. And with my increased awareness of my body and the Energy in it as a result of breaking my limits with the spear earlier, I have to admit that he might be right. Even as I struck at targets with my heavy, but blunt weapon, I felt flickers of Energy flow along with the movements. Just like the motion itself, the Energy started in my Core and then expanded outwards into my limbs, more into my arms than my legs. That was a reversal of what happened earlier with Mathias – then, perhaps because it was my Endurance which was being tested and my legs which were taking the brunt of the movements, more Energy settled in my legs than my arms.

  There were no sequences in that second lesson. Instead, it was spent with Regan showing me the basic positions and swings, and then letting me loose on some targets to practise them. The targets must have been magically reinforced because, even trying hard, I didn’t manage to even dent them – apparently the best result I’ll be able to get at my level is to make them move slightly, and that will only happen when I apply more than twenty points of Power specifically to them, not just twenty points of Strength. When I’m able to use my full twenty-five points of Power, I might manage to make the thing rock back slightly.

  The downside of pushing my limits, however, was that by the end of the lesson, I felt like I’d strained something within me which I still can’t touch with Flesh-Shaping. It doesn't appear to be my internal matrix either so I’m not sure I’ll be able to actively heal it. My trainers don’t seem concerned, at least – when I described the sensation, Regan just grunted and told me that it was normal and then sent me on to my last weapons training of the day – archery and daggers, not that we did much of the latter today.

  The third instructor, Laeman, didn’t take it any easier on me. Though less immediately exhausting, the tasks were still difficult in their own way. We focussed mostly on aiming, tracking targets and the repeated actions of stringing and releasing arrows as quickly as possible. The last is important since, according to Laeman, it uses the Dexterity subcategory Flexibility combined with Wisdom and Intelligence to know where and how to aim, so it’s a workout of stats I otherwise wouldn’t use much in combat training. The other benefit was that at least I didn’t make that sense of strain any worse – since the Dexterity I was working with Mathis earlier this morning was more Agility- than Flexibility-focussed, at least I was working out something slightly different than the previous two sessions.

  I checked with Laeman but, although Agility and Flexibility function differently – gross motor skills in comparison to fine motor skills, it seems – most people don’t tend to attempt to separate them in their statuses. That’s because they’re not as distinct as the Strength sub-categories – Agility might use more gross motor skills, but it also uses fine motor skills for smaller movements, such as to retain balance; equally, Flexibility might be more about fine motor skills in how it can enable the fingers to move more quickly, for example, but it also enables the body to take increasingly contorted positions by making the bigger muscles more flexible.

  I’ve also learned that, while Perception isn’t a recognised stat or sub-category of a stat, it is a real thing, known as a combination-Attribute. In short, it requires both connection to the world around through Wisdom, and the ability to react quickly through Dexterity. For obvious reasons, it benefits any fighter to have good perception, but archers and knife-fighters in particular focus on making sure their Perception is high. Apparently there are other combination-Attributes, but I’ll learn about those as and when they become applicable.

  Really, the only stat I haven’t really worked on so far today is Willpower, though I suppose that keeping on making as much of an effort in the fourth hour as in the first was a test of my mental endurance as much as it was my physical, especially after the sleepless night spent learning etiquette. And, of course, my Constitution gets a workout when I’m in pain, either because of my own efforts or because of practice combat with my trainers. In total, I’ve probably done about five hours of weapons’ practice – far more than I’ve ever done in a single stint – or, as they’d put it, five ‘candlemarks’. At least it’s had an effect on my status – both Spearmanship and Archery have finally ranked up to Journeyman, and I’ve earned a new Skill: Clubs.

  The two rank ups for Spearmanship and Archery both showed that it was indeed my lack of instruction which has been preventing me from reaching Journeyman.

  As for my new Skill, it’s much as I have been expecting based on what the other Skills were like at Beginner levels.

  The only weapons I haven’t practised this morning are daggers, but I get the impression that Laeman would like to continue after lunch. I guess we’ll see what happens with Nicholas, though – and I definitely want a break first to recuperate. Hopefully this strain I feel to whatever it is inside me reduces soon.

  By the time I lean back in my chair, I’m feeling pleasantly full, and ready for a nap – the combination of no sleep last night, the exercise this morning, and a full belly are extremely soporific. Still, before I can justify hiding away in the room where my Companions slept – even if I didn’t – I glance over at Mathis who’s standing by the door, ready to deal with anyone who comes through the door or my orders alike.

  “Mathis?”

  “Yes, my lord?” Since my session with Nicholas last night, I’ve become more aware of the etiquette being used or not used around me, and more accepting of it. Still, I find it odd how easily the guards seem to be able to slip between hard-nosed trainers, yelling at me to try harder, and the formality that they use outside the training ring. It’s like they’re two different people. If Nicholas’ words are anything to go by, I’ll have to develop that capacity too, but I’m not sure how. Perhaps I just have to consider it as being the same as having a ‘work personna’ and a ‘home personna’ – perhaps if I’d been better at separating work from home earlier, all this wouldn’t have happened.

  I realise that I’ve been silent for a little long, but Mathis hasn’t indicated any discomfort or confusion.

  “Have you heard from Nicholas?”

  “No, my lord,” he answers crisply, and I sigh. The answer is not unexpected – if there had been news, I expect I would have been told immediately – but it does make me worry. What could be taking them so long?

  here!

  here!

  here!

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