Getting a bucket of glacial runoff dumped on your head is a hell of a way to wake up. I gasped and spluttered as the cold water ran down my face and into my clothes. Temüjin was standing over me, backlit by the early afternoon sun, a bucket in his hand. The expression on his face wasn’t one of murderous intent, which boded well for me, I thought.

“You do realize that falling asleep outside in beast infested woods is tantamount to suicide for most people,” he said, rather sternly. “Your minor boon might be the most powerful thing you could have picked as a Jumpspark.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “it came in handy last night. The past few days caught up to me in a rush; I didn’t exactly intend on falling asleep.”

“Does it have something to do with the colorful walls you’ve managed to erect?” he asked.

“The walls would have held the structure up, but I noticed some strain when I probed them with earth qi. So, after I was done building them I tried to reinforce them with qi,” I explained. “It was that or add some thickness to them which I didn’t think would look as good.” A quick look around the new walls confirmed that I had managed to at least partially reinforce all of them. There was a small amount of bleed through to the original construction, where the walls met, but it wasn’t bad.

“Have you tried probing it further?” he asked. “The first ball you made was almost as strong as steel.”

“I haven’t, actually. But I will,” I replied. Qi sensing was something we had worked on a bit since my breakthrough and Temüjin had started each of the few lessons we’d had on it thus far with the statement that it was far more of an art than an ability that could be taught. Currently I was barely able to manage it with stone, and not at all with the other elements, but he was optimistic that further breakthroughs and practice would allow me greater control over the technique.

Placing my hand on the stone and closing my eyes, I sent a probe of qi into the transformed wall. Despite the various colored striations - I personally thought the colors and patterns looked a bit like those on Jupiter - the material seemed to have the same composition throughout. Reinforcement had been the original goal, before I had fallen asleep, and a cursory probe of the stone with a tendril of energy immediately confirmed that I had achieved that. My construction materials professors on Earth would have flipped out at seeing how strong the stone had become. Temüjin hadn’t been exaggerating when he said it was as hard as steel. There was no structural strain on the foundation at all. My qi probe returned a feeling that I had begun to associate with granite, but more concentrated, along with an almost overwhelming feeling of solidity.

“It’s granite,” I reported, “but more solid. Almost like it’s more real when I sense it with qi than actual granite. Denser, more compact maybe? But there’s a feeling of solidity there that nearly drowns that out.”

“I felt the same, when I attempted to examine it,” Temüjin said. “Dwarves do something similar with metal, but I haven’t run across anybody able, or willing, to dump that much power into reinforcing stone. Leave it for a few months. We’ll examine it each week. If there is no degradation in the underlying stone and the qi doesn’t leech out I’ll have you do the entire cottage.”

“I can do that. It’ll be good practice,” I said while nodding in agreement. It was something that I could apparently do in my sleep and I couldn’t blame the guy for wanting an even more solid foundation for his living space.

“Prepare some lunch for us. I will be getting ready for your afternoon training,” Temüjin said, apparently finished with the topic of new walls for the moment.

Used to his brusque manner, I headed inside. We stored food in a cold cellar beneath the kitchen that Temüjin had a water cultivator from Gladewood create for him some years ago. It stayed barely above freezing and reminded me of nothing other than a walk-in freezer from Earth. I might have to bathe in a freezing river rather than taking a hot shower, I thought ruefully, but at least the veggies wouldn’t go bad on us. Grabbing what I needed, I headed back upstairs.

We normally split the cooking duties and simple meals were the order of the day most of the time. Today, though, I was in the mood for something with flavor. I whipped up some quick flour tortillas and sliced some meat and vegetables as thinly as I could. Dropping a little oil into the wok, I cooked the vegetables until they were tender before adding the meat. Just before they were done I added a few eggs and scrambled them while adding in a few herbs I thought would complement the flavors nicely. The old man made his way to the kitchen as I was putting the finishing touches on lunch and brewed himself a cup of his vile tea. I contented myself with water and dished up the burrito abominations I had made before we tore into them with gusto. I was still hungry from skipping meals the day before and Temüjin just loved trying new foods. From the appreciative sounds he made while eating they were a hit. Not much of a stretch, really. His idea of a good meal was boiled meat and rice, with a mug of that nasty tea he drank.

“So, how did you build the roof here?” I asked between bites. “I haven’t figured out how to manage it without nails or actual lumber just yet.”

Temüjin gave a small chuckle, “I hired a carpenter from Gladewood. I have many talents, but building is not one of them.”

Puzzled, I asked him, “Then why did you have me start building that room on my own?”

“It’s good practice for using earth qi. I honestly thought you’d get to the walls and then ask me for help. I had no idea you’d get as far as you did. We’re going to take a trip at the end of the week, and we’ll stop by Gladewood to get supplies to finish it. Despite falling asleep outside you’ve been a dedicated enough student to earn the right to sleep in a bed,” he replied, finishing off his last bite of food.

“Just for that, I’ll see if Batuhan can spare some spices as well. I’ll make us some actual burritos,” I said, excited. The floor honestly wasn’t bad now that I had made my first breakthrough, but an actual bed would be even nicer. Plus, I’d wanted to go to Gladewood for new clothes since I had ruined mine. I cleaned the ones that Temüjin had lent me every few days but having a few changes of clothing would be a godsend, assuming I had the money.

Then, the middle part of his statement struck me. “Wait, a trip? To where?” I asked.

“There is a very small clan of goblins that set up shop at the other end of the valley. You’re going to kill them so that they don’t spread,” he said nonchalantly.

“I…uh…,” I trailed off. This world was bloody. I knew that. Hell, I had been forced to kill something in my first thirty minutes on it, but to defend myself versus actively hunting down and exterminating sentient creatures wasn’t what I had signed up for.

Mistaking my hesitance for a lack of confidence, he continued, “Don’t worry. There aren’t more than ten or fifteen adults and we’ll work on some basic weapon forms and stances. You’ll be fine.”

Lost in thought, I acknowledged him with a nod and began cleaning up the kitchen. When I was done, I joined him outside where he had set up a wooden pole in the earth. Next to him was a rack containing several weapons. The classics were all represented, swords, axes, spears, bows, as well as a few more exotic variants of each that I wasn’t familiar with.

“Today, we will go over each weapon and find one with which you feel a connection,” he began, “Each cultivator in this world tends to gravitate toward one or two particular weapons. The choice of weapon is not dependent upon the element of cultivator. An air cultivator might struggle at the early stages to wield a two-handed sword or axe with the same precision that a fire cultivator would, but by third rank even the physically weakest will have the strength to be effective with large weapons. Did you use any of these weapons during your first life?”

“I hunted deer with a bow, but only a few weeks per year. There were a few of my friends that practiced with hand weapons to keep traditions alive and for fun, but I never really joined in with them,” I answered, truthfully. Being able to bag a few additional deer during archery season each year was always welcome, but I was by no means great at it. Several of my acquaintances in college also practiced HEMA or were members of the SCA and had extended offers for me to join up several times. But with my weekends being taken up with the farm or homework, and money always an object, I never did.

“You must have come from a soft world to not need skill with weapons,” Temüjin scoffed.

Something about the tone of his voice or the look on his face set me off.

“Oh, we had weapons. I could, and have, killed coyotes at a thousand yards with a little luck and no wind and I wasn’t even considered a great shot, better than average, sure, but I had friends that were far better,” I continued, my voice getting heated, “Our military forces had weapons that could vaporize entire cities and they were delivered by ICBM’s that could hurl a chunk of metal the size of your cottage for thousands of miles accurately with no more effort than pushing a button. The nation I lived in, alone, had enough of these weapons stockpiled to destroy the entire planet.”

I continued, almost shouting by this point, “The last global conflict on my world happened fifty years before I was born. It lasted for six years and was directly responsible for the deaths of an estimated seventy-five million people. It’s not a soft world when you can be killed and never hear or see the enemy doing it. Maybe the fact that we didn’t have to physically hack apart an enemy to kill them makes us weak in your eyes, but I think it made us more willing to kill each other and less willing to compromise with people that didn’t believe the same things that we did.”

Temüjin stared at me silently after I finished my rant. I could feel the nervous sweat trickle down the back of my neck as the silence stretched out. Finally, as I was about to open my big mouth again and probably dig the hole I was in deeper, he bowed slightly at his waist.

He spoke in a measured tone, “My apologies, student. It was not my intent to insinuate that your people were weak. Perhaps we should come back to weapons training at a later time.”

I shook my head, “No, teacher,” I figured the honorific couldn’t hurt, and resolved to begin using it more often, “I let my emotions get the better of me. I had a lot of friends that joined the military for the opportunities and a chance at making something of themselves. Most of them came home from a war that should have never happened, maimed in both body and mind, because a politician wanted more money or power. I’ve always believed in the right to defend yourself and your home, but making war on another nation out of greed, a misguided sense of superiority, or because of religion was one of the major problems on my home world. Hearing us called weak, when a million people dead was barely a headline in the news some years…That just set me off. I shouldn’t have yelled, and I am sorry.”

He gave another slight bow and said, “I sense the truth in your words. Loyalty is a boon that I sometimes wish I had never taken. To be able to determine if the truth is being spoken often hurts as badly as being tricked by a falsehood.”

After a deep breath, he continued, “I was once one of those politicians that you spoke so passionately against. That you have fathomed at such a young age the lesson it took me over six hundred years of bloody warfare to learn speaks volumes about your character. It is the downfall of the powerful to not recognize the damage they do to those weaker than they are. Or, if they do recognize it, to dismiss it as inconsequential. Why did you choose the powers that you did, when given the Choice?”

“Magic seemed too good to pass up. My world didn’t have real magic, but we had stories about it. I was a construction engineer at home, and I was raised on a farm. I didn’t want to do either for another life, so I thought I might try something different. I took Animals as a minor boon because I wanted to, honestly. I just like animals, the thought that it would be so useful in this new life didn’t really occur to me,” I answered.

Temüjin nodded along with my entire explanation, almost like he had expected such a response, and replied, “I chose Krieg because I had waged war my entire life. I chose Loyalty because nothing is more important to a leader. I was, am, good at killing. I led my warriors against the most powerful nations of the day and destroyed them, utterly. I burned, pillaged, raped, and looted a thousand towns before I died, and when I was reincarnated here I did the same to ten times that number. Choosing my powers based upon what I wanted never even crossed my mind. When offered the choice I went with what I knew I was good at.”

“If you had to do it over again,” I asked, “what would you pick?”

He pursed his lips in thought, “Perhaps I would have reversed my boons. I could have taken the route of honor and justice and reserved blood for those that deserved it. Or maybe I could have been a merchant, instead.”

Amusement entered his voice as he continued, “Although your animal boon is tempting. Sleeping outside, here, and the worst that happens is that you get a crick in your neck! But enough of that melancholy talk. We both chose our lives, twice, and reflecting on remorse will do me no favors. Let’s begin!”

And we did. He had me pick up each weapon and focus qi into it while he walked me through some basic forms. I learned, rather quickly, that I was terrible with both an axe and a mace. My attempts with the bow had Temüjin howling with laughter. Firing the stubby recurve bow that he had provided was a far cry from a modern compound bow with stabilizers and sights. The sword was a bit better. I was able to muddle through some saber forms without embarrassing myself, at least. That one went into the “maybe” pile. It was the only member of the maybe pile, in fact, until I got to the spear.

The spear that Temüjin had provided was short, barely topping my own six-foot frame, and sported a foot-long leaf-shaped blade that he assured me was useful for both stabbing and slashing. I connected my qi to it and began to step through the form that Temüjin was demonstrating, thrusting, slashing, and blocking my imaginary opponent. As I began to get more comfortable with my footwork and the stances I let a small thread of air qi seep from my reserves into the spear. The spear tip began to leave sparking trails behind in the air as I spun it and executed a slash. Temüjin, noting this, slowly began to increase the tempo of the exercise, until we were whirling around the small training circle. The form finished with a powerful thrust, and as I executed it I angled the spear toward the horizon and pushed the air qi out. A rippling bolt of lighting burst forth from the spearhead with a crack and lanced out into the air.

Breathing deeply after the exertion, I grinned at Temüjin and said, “I think the spear might have spoken to me.”

“It appears so. The spear is easier to learn than the sword but every bit as deadly in the hands of a skilled wielder. An excellent choice for a first weapon,” he said approvingly, “Now, do the form again.”

That set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. Each time I went through the form, which he called by the ridiculous name of “Heron Wading in Reeds”, he would correct my footwork or the placement of my hands on the spear haft. By the time the light was starting to fade I had managed to get almost a quarter of the way through without requiring any corrections, which he assured me was excellent progress.

The next day I had expected to continue with the spear but was caught off guard when Temüjin tossed the saber to me. While I had felt a small connection to it the day before it hadn’t felt nearly as natural as the spear.

Anticipating my query, Temüjin was quick to speak, “It is a poor soldier that rides into battle with a single weapon at their disposal. While you may not have any desire to be a soldier, I cannot count the number of times having another weapon has kept me alive, in both worlds. You will train each weapon equally from this day forward, until their movements come to you as naturally as breathing. Even if you are never forced to use them in anger I can swear to you that in this world you will be forced to use them in self-defense. Most goblins won’t die to a single swing with a rotted tree branch.”

Unsheathing the sword, I planted my feet and nodded to Temüjin that I was ready. He was right, I didn’t want to be a soldier. That didn’t mean I could skimp on the self-defense, though. Being an easy target on Earth meant you’d get beaten up in high school or perhaps mugged in a larger city. Here, though, being an easy target was a quick way to become a corpse. I’d died early once, I had no plans to do it again.