Toby tried to relax his stance, He slowly twirled his staff around in an overhead smash at a target dummy, pulled back, and followed it up with a slow thrust, low sweep into a reversed sweep, and a stance reset before starting up a new sequence with an overhead smash again.

This was very different from how it would have worked in reality. Each attack was a sequence of movements not quite under his true control.

He could choose what kind of strike, and when, but once he was underway, the system took over and his body completed it on its own accord.

It was quite unnerving in a way. But it was also easy to do. The tricky part was to get the timing and choice of target point right.

As he started to get a better feel for the relative length of each move, and the timing for when he could launch into the next he tuned his striking speed up, going faster and faster until the staff twirled around with a blur and a heavy thud on each impact.

After a while of repeating the routine, his timing got tighter, his body no longer returned back to the ready position between strikes, allowing him to chain them up. Sometimes turning into unexpected moves, tripping up his timing again, resulting in a stumble.

“I can see you are getting a feel for the timing.” The deep bass voice of Urist said straight into his ear.

Urist wasn't there with him, but rather watching him from a screen in Toby's room for now. Staying out of the way while Toby did his solo exercises. He wasn't going to be as bad with utilizing his skills as he was during yesterdays reconnaissance mission in Aethea ever again.

Going through the review of his death had been a sobering experience. He had just stood there as an idiot, trying to do all the work with his spells, while a monstrosity of a pig had charged him down and crushed him as a bug.

It was the animals own overconfidence that had let Toby kill it, and no real skill on his part.

“Try to experiment with new combinations Toby, mix it up a little and get a feel for what you can do with chain attacks,” Urist advised in his ear.

Toby did as he was told, and started to mix it up, randomly at first. Once again stumbling whenever he got an unexpected chain until he got a better feel for how one moves timing had a short window for selecting a new attack to chain up next.

Toby finished up a series of rapid attacks by perfectly chaining 2 overhead strikes. It turning it into a quick overhead strike, followed by the staff spinning back from the strike with a lot of momentum that got turned into an uppercut with the other end of the staff striking the training dummy squarely on the chin.

Toby felt intense gratification as the head of the poor dummy detached from the torso and sailed away into the distance in a beautiful arch.

As Toby straightened up again after the sweet finishing move and someone started clapping behind him.

Urist had spawned into the training simulation, equipped with an identical staff as the one Toby was wielding.

“It's time to start teaching you how to use your new timing skills to fight properly now,” Urist said with an evil looking grin. “We will go slow at first, then speed up gradually as we have done so far.”

“Alright coach!” Toby replied. This was probably going to hurt a lot, but this sim didn't do more than hurt thankfully. It was a training sim, not a game world with full-on sensory realism.

Urist and Toby squared off towards each other. Urist calmly observing Toby before slowly attacking him.

The timing was a lot trickier now since it depended not only on himself but also on what Urist was doing at the time.

Again and again, Toby failed to get the timing right, earning himself another sharp jolt of pain at each strike that passed through his defense.

Urist thankfully kept to a steady rhythm, and after a little while, Toby started to get the feel for the timing. Fewer attacks went trough, and soon enough he was able to not just block most of them, but also throw in a few attacks of his own.

“Good Toby, now let's crank it up a notch again.” Urist grinned.

A new set of sharp jolts of pain ensued as Urist started to break the rhythm apart, becoming less predictable, as well as throwing on some heavier combos every now and then.

Forcing Toby to concentrate even harder on observing each move Urist made in order to time the corresponding defensive move and counter-attack right.

As the training progressed, the speed they moved at kept creeping up until the both of them was fighting in real time again like it was done during the training set with the dummy.

Toby started to gasp for air as fatigue set in, and his movements started to slow down again.

Urist immediately punished him by doing a few rapid attacks that went straight trough Toby's guard, causing several jolts of sharp pain before the world turned dark.

Toby came too again standing in the middle of his room, feeling rather confused about what happened at the end of their session. He hadn't even seen that last strike before it hit.

“So he finally trained you to death?” Ortho smirked from his position sitting on Toby's bed looking up from one of Toby's dirty magazines.

Toby plopped down on his office chair next to the useless computer, totally wrung out mentally.

“Yeah, I think I hit my limit hard,” he replied with a deep sigh just as Urist blinked into existence in the middle of the room as well.

“Good work today,” Urist praised Toby, soliciting a raised eyebrow from Ortho.

“You are a quick study, and have good mental reflexes,” he continued.

“If you train like this every day for a couple of centuries, you will have reached a passable state where you might be able to hold your own against some of the less mele combat savvy players.” He finished with a grin.

“A couple hundred years worth of this?” Toby's mind went blank at the immense difference in skill between himself and the rest of the Nexus when it came to this type of gameplay.

“My oh my,” Ortho added with raised eyebrows. “Urist must be impressed indeed to give such high praise.”

“Was that praise?” Toby replied totally exhausted.

“It sounded like an awful lot of training to even reach passable.”

“Not at all,” Urist replied. “the most skilled players have had thousands of years of practice under their belts by now.”

“Ahhh. You guys make me feel so special,” Toby joked.

“I'll get an inflated ego if you keep praising me like this.”

“Don't worry,” Urist laughed. “I'll beat you back to your senses again next time we train.”

“I was afraid of that,” Toby replied with faked horror.

In truth, he was quite pleased about Urist training him, he would hopefully be able to at least fight back a little bit when they inevitably ended up in direct conflict with other players, guilds, and factions.

The worries he was carrying in regards to the 2 main factions was constantly in the back of his head these days.

How long could they keep them away without open conflict?

What kind of response should they expect once they found out that Toby and friends were trying to stay away from them?

How would it affect his current relationships?

“That's one big frown Toby,” Ortho said, startling Toby back to the present.

“I'm just thinking about our position within the nexus in relation to the Order and the Hegemony,” Toby replied.

“Not to mention how it can affect our relationship. I'm afraid that I might be dragging you guys down when push comes to shove.”

“I see,” Ortho nodded.

“I really don't mind going down with a ship or 2 with you as long as we have some fun on the way.”

“And neither do I,” Urist added. “We have had a round of dying horribly together after all.”

“Does getting killed in a horrible manner count more than beer?” Toby asked deadpan.

“Depends on the death.” Urist laughed.

“But sharing a terrible fate certainly is good bonding material.”

“True enough,” Ortho giggled.

“Especially shameful deaths that should never be mentioned again.”

“That particular death is something I'd rather forget,” Toby groaned.

“I got practically eaten alive.”

“That piece of angry bacon didn't expect you to be so fatally spicy now did it,” Urist choked out between laughs.

“It was a brilliant way to go if I have to say so myself.”

“You at least got some revenge against those porkers,” Ortho pointed out.

“From now on I am going consider pig's as an honorary vegetable until my thirst for revenge has been sated.”

“That is one achievement I'd happily have done without,” Toby replied, feeling a lot better now that they could laugh it off a bit. There in his trophy case was a small plaque engraved with the final moments of Toby and the monster boars final moments, Toby's arm firmly lodged into the throat of the animal while smoke was pouring out of its ears.

“Since we are talking about achievements, how do you feel about that gold badge then Toby?” Ortho asked, pointing out his recently acquired golden Chtulullean badge.

“I don't know,” Toby replied honestly. “On one side, I feel like I have committed some kind of taboo.”

“On the other side, It was a really nice experience,” he continued.

“But more importantly than anything else, it has left me uncertain about the status of my relationship with her.”

“Don't worry about taboos when it comes to getting down and dirty in the Nexus,” Urist advised while giving him a clap on the shoulder.

“I knew a guy who kept going back to this bug girl who always ate her lovers during the act.”

“I bet that girl is another one of your exes?” Ortho snorted before Toby could even wrap his head around the concept of getting joy out of getting eaten.

“Don't be jealous Ortho, my love,” Urist replied.

“You have been the only one for me these last 500 years or so.”

“I still think you are a philandering goat that will screw anything with a pulse,” Ortho said accusingly.

“I do have some limits,” Urist defended himself.

“Unlike Alice, I've never gone cradle robbing”

“Hey, I'm considered an adult among my species you know,” Toby defended Alice.

“Suuuuuure,” Urist snorted.

“A mere babe at almost 40 years? Alice is probably 100 times older than you,”

“Toby's a good guy,” Ortho snickered. Sort of jumping to Toby's defense.

“He takes care of the elderly you know.”

“You wouldn't be able to tell that she was a month over 20 if you saw her naked,” Toby countered.

He had avoided the question of how old she was all together. The hints, given to him so far had convinced him that he was probably better off not knowing.

“I do wonder what motivates her to do the things she does,” Ortho asked with a frank tone.

“When you get to her age, the petty conflicts of us younger species should seem pretty insignificant and boring.”

“I actually have no idea,” Toby admitted.

“All I do know is that she has given me a lot of opportunities to make a difference for humanity.”

“That's a really good thing too,” Urist added.

“without her interventions, humanity would have become easy pickings for those damn birds and clowns.”

“No use spending so much effort speculating on these things. Enjoy what you have been given and make the most of it,” Ortho finished.

“Now Let's go grab some beer, Tomorrow is a busy day.”

Taking Ortho's wise words to heart, both Toby and Urist filed out behind him. Tomorrow was tomorrow, and today they would enjoy some freedom.