The instructors had all of us split into two big groups. The first were recruits with more than 3 seasons of experience, taking two thirds of the instructors with them. The rest of us were paired up and given a choice of what armor we would want to wear. I took up a mix of leather and mail armor, but the group was very diverse. With full plate all the way to cloth, though the two cloth users were given a bit of a glare for their choice.

The armor was very real but the weapons we used were specifically blunted swords and axes as well as padded hammers. Their logic for this was to keep it as close to the real thing without putting us in unhealable danger. For my weapons I picked an axe and hammer, going with my highest skills.

Most everyone else went with a shield in one hand, though some took up two swords or a spear. Looking around I noticed that while everyone was fully grown and nobody was out of shape, their muscles weren’t as defined as mine had become from years of training. Based on my experiences strength worked like a multiplier, so the same numbers would have better results on more muscled people, it clearly wasn’t linear.

My first bout had me matched up with a slim boy, half a head shorter than me. He was dressed in full plate and used the standard sword and shield combo. As we were given the signal I found myself on the back foot very quickly. His technique was sloppy at best, with nearly no thought given to his swings. His stats on the other hand were a lot higher than mine.

The first exchange where my axe parried his blade told me in no uncertain terms that he would break my guard in short order. The heavy blow of the blade knocking my axe aside and smashing on my forearm. My health dipped quite a bit from the attack costing me 30 points.

The one thing I had on him was technique, even with a rapidly forming bruise I started deflecting his sword while using the hammer to try to unbalance him. Lucky for me he was in full plate and that slowed him down enough to where I could keep up. Sadly for me the small space we had was restrictive and the boy was no idiot. He saw the difference in skill and stats and tried to push his advantage, even at the cost of a few of my strikes making it past his defense.

The whole bout lasted about two minutes before he had managed to land blows on both my legs and my other arm, slowing me down enough to where the instructor parried the blow heading for my head. I took deep heavy breaths as I looked at my health 20/180, his final jab to my chest hitting for 60 points.

“Well fought, both of you.” the instructor said, while I looked around to see that everyone else was already done with their bout and talking to their own minders. Clearly having finished their fights before us “You realized he had more skill than you and used your stat advantage to push him, be careful doing this though as poison would have quickly put an end to your tactic.

“As for you, well done adapting to a defection focused defense after the first exchange, you definitely have skills for both the axe and the hammer but you should have put some more of your points into your physical stats. Go over to the healers and get yourself patched up.”

I headed off to the tent, it seems these weren’t the new recruits I was seeing. There were a lot fewer of them than there had been this morning or when I first came to see Tom. As I stepped in and headed to the first bunk the healer took me in.

“So there’s more of you this season?” She looked at me with a shake of the head.

“More what?”

“Every season we get one or two that got some skills with weapons but for some reason decided to max out those mental stats first. You tend to be the ones that lose by being slowly chipped away at and need a heal after every bout.” she said while flicking her head to the other two bunks that had people on them getting healed.

I nodded at that. Then sat down and let her start the healing process while focusing on feeling the mana around me. The other two were being healed up with the same basic healing I felt this morning, if a little stronger as the spells were better layered on top of one another. But the spell used on me felt different, the light affinity I felt from the usual healing spells was different here, it still had traces of the light element but also not. The light emanating from her hands being more intense than I saw Kate ever use.

“What was that?” I asked after seeing my health top up and feeling my bruises disappear.

“What do you mean?” she frowned at me, her moth being hidden behind a shawl like the mages to keep her spells muffled.

“My brother’s with Kate, I’ve seen her heal before but it didn’t look like that. This was stronger and a bit different.” I tried to explain without giving away that I could sense it was something else.

“Oh, you know Kate?” her eyes crinkled a little and I assumed she was smiling. “She hasn’t yet gotten the holy spells down, but she’s close. She’ll be able to do things like this soon.”

That was new, was holy affinity a step up from light? Did this mean that all elements had stronger forms? This was something that I definitely had to look into. Too bad the only one I felt so far was the one for the light affinity. If I could get the one for earth or air I might have a better chance at unlocking it.

“You’re good to go.” she said.

I opened my mouth to ask something but she quickly cut me off. “I’m sure you’ll be back here in the next five minutes, you can ask me whatever it was then.”

I closed my mouth and nodded before heading back. As I came out I looked on at the others sparring in my section. Cadmael stood out from the with his clearly better armor, he and another boy were going at it. His opponent seemed to be a little behind on stats but not much, and with only wearing leather had a speed advantage. Looking at the field I started to notice that these two were the best in the group. They moved faster than the rest and the boy seemed to have skill with his daggers. Cadmael on the other hand seemed to only have a skill for his shield and not his sword.

I expected the noble to lose, not much he could have done without an offensive weapon skill against a faster opponent. I was very much surprised when he got the upper hand, it seemed like he could predict the other boy and the fight ended after a leg sweep landed the rogue on his back.

As I approached I was quickly paired up with Cadmael, as he was the only open person that wasn’t heading to the healers tent. To say that the fight ended quickly is an understatement. After about three exchanges he baited me into overextending and used his stats and shield to bash me left and right.

“How the hell did you do that?” I muttered as I took the offered hand. I had ended up on my back just like his previous opponent after he swept my legs.

“Training, fighting people with skills in certain weapons tend to have a similar style, at least at low levels. You had some quite odd forms, but your lack of stats made it easy to react to the differences.” he said while the instructor stepped next to us.

He told us very much the same thing Cadmael just said, my lack of stats and his calculated prediction meant I had no chance from the start. I nodded and headed for the healers tent with 40 points left over. I had a feeling today was going to be a long and painful day.

I sat down at the dinner table still feeling some phantom pain. I didn’t manage to get any more useful information out of the healer about holy spells. When I asked Kate about it she told me it wasn’t something she could discuss, her contract prevented her from giving out information that advanced.

“So, how was it?” Tom asked with a grin.

“Not bad, though I can still feel some of the bruises I got.” I said as I rubbed my left forearm.

“That’s just phantom pain, keep getting healed up and you won’t even notice it.” Kate mentioned as she finished her food.

“So when do you think I can go out hunting again, I want to try work on my mana and magic some more?” I asked Tom. “I got quite a few ideas from watching today.”

“Not for another 5 days. That’s my next day off and you’re not going alone.”

I wasn’t quite happy with that decision but I could understand it. They knew I had low physical stats, even if they assumed it was because I chose to raise my mental ones instead of just not assigning them. So I decided to focus on the gains I did make. To say that I was pleased with one days work was an understatement.

Name : Ajax

Level :12

Experience : 5850/12100

Traits: Prodigal Apprentice , Divine Witness

Health: 180/180

Mana: 280/270

Stamina :270/270

Vitality : 18.80

Strength :23.75

Endurance : 27.90

Dexterity :23.23

Intellect : 38.70

Wisdom :30.32

Mind : 28.99

Perception : 21.12

Stat Points : 242

Skills :

Common :[Mathematics Lvl 22] [Stealth Lvl 21][Drawing Lvl 30][Athleticism Lvl 20] [Running Lvl 22][Reading Lvl 20][Writing Lvl 20][Cooking Lvl 20][Sewing Lvl 20] [Cleaning Lvl 12][Haggling Lvl 19][Gardening Lvl 20][Axes Lvl 30][Hammers Lvl 23] [Deception Lvl 16][Sword Lvl 13][Shield Lvl 11][Bow Lvl 10][Spear Lvl 10][Throwing Lvl 10][Persuasion Lvl 10][Unarmed Combat Lvl 12][Knives 20][Skinning Lvl 10][Tanning Lvl 10][Dismantle Lvl 10][Climbing Lvl 5][Tracking Lvl 4][Heat Resistance Lvl 3] [Poison Resistance Lvl 4] Uncommon :[Meditation Lvl 36][Sense Mana Lvl 40][Expel Mana Lvl 39][Sprinting Lvl 13][Mining Lvl 10][Lumberjack Lvl 10][Smelting Lvl 10][Blacksmithing Lvl 10] [Chanting Lvl 10][Mana Farming Lvl 10][Increase Price Lvl 10][Lower Price Lvl 10][Danger sense Lvl 5][Leatherworking Lvl 10][Alchemy Lvl 10][Mana Milling Lvl 6]Precise Cut Lvl 13][Precise Blow Lvl 11][Judge Threat Lvl 2][Piercing Shot Lvl 1] Rare : [Manipulate Mana Lvl 18][Water Aspect Mana Lvl 10][Fire Aspect Mana Lvl 10] [Air Aspect Mana Lvl 12][Earth Aspect Mana Lvl 14][Inject Mana Lvl 14][Spot Weakness Lvl 4][Residue Recognition Lvl 1] Epic : [Mana Augmentation Lvl 5]

New :

Upgrades :

Sense mana 39 -> 40

Axes 29 -> 30

Hammers 21 -> 23

Shield 10 -> 11

300 Exp as well as dent gains in my physical and perception. A whole 0.30 increase in my vitality from getting beaten up and healed back up definitely made me want to go back tomorrow.