“Hey Alexander! Stop tinkering with that sword and come see this! You can already see the camp!” Stefan points excitedly out of the front of the carriage. “Hey! Alexander! Hey! Stop ignoring me!”

“I heard you the first time, calm down. Do you really think its necessary though? I was going to learn how to combine elements next but this came out of nowhere…” Alex responds.

“They do this every year, we were told after registration remember? Supposedly it’s to learn about the world outside the walled cities, camping and the basics of military service post university.” Stefan continues. “Its supposed to be perfectly safe and routine but my older brother did warn me to be on guard just in case. This area is not completely safe is it?”

Ah, so this is a test of some kind… maybe preparedness or teaching us to stay on guard even in “safe” places? Hhmmm…

Alexander rubs his chin and replies, “No its not safe, we won’t be seeing any Prime Beasts but I am sure there are some Beasts anyway. Keep your weapons with you at all times, even when you go to the toilet.” He warned

“Oh, the toilet! How are we going to do that? In a hole dug in the ground or something? That’s, that’s just so wrong, we have magic for light’s sake but have to do our business into holes in the forest… I want to go home” Stefan whines to everyone around him.

Alex sighs audibly, why was he friends with this guy again?

Now back to my sword, finally with Wendy’s help I have a decent prototype. The first one exploded, luckily still in Wendy’s shop so not too much damage, the second was too inefficient but finally I have a usable one:

Short Sword of Minor Sharpness

A common sword made by a blacksmith of Rodium.

Enchantments done by apprentice Alexander Derroid

+1 Agility

+1 Sharpness

Active Effect: When 100 mana is supplied, a thin sheen of wind surrounds the weapon. This increases the reach of the sword by 5 cm. The extra reach acts in the same way as the base weapon.

Uncommon Tier 0 Line weapon

Uncommon Tier 1 enchantment

Iron

Binding expires in 6 hours 20 minutes

Basic Elemental Core charge: 180/250

The sharpness enchantment was done by chaining wind symbols together along the edge of the blade and the extra statistic enchant was placed on the handle. The hardest was getting the active skill enchant to be charged from the basic elemental core in the grip and then to lead it to the blade. Wendy ended up doing that one, seems there are transference symbols too not just elemental ones.

Still 100 mana is a lot, I have been practicing with the active effect every time the core regenerates fully. How big is my mana pool now?

STATUS Name Alexander Derroid Race Human Age 6 Level 0 Experience to next level 1000 Class Citizen Available Classes None Statistics Constitution 14.33 Manipulation 13 Mind 24 Strength 16 (+2) Agility 15 (+1) Intelligence 26 (+2) Vitality 12 (+1) Dexterity 12 (+1) Wisdom 25 Stamina 17 (+1) Endurance 12 (+1) Concentration 21 (+1) Secondary Statistics Health Regeneration 1.2 per minute Free Stats Mana Pool 52 Stamina Regeneration 0.85 per minute Mana Regeneration 4.8 (+0.5) per minute

At a ratio of 2 to 1 I can use the active effect once before having to recharge for 10 minutes and 24 seconds. If I have to use it, I have to make sure it’s a sure kill too!

I need to start on another mind journal but Wendy has recommended to save my points for the first tier of rune crafting as it will give me something useful. “Adults” and all their secrets, humpf!

“Okay everyone, we have arrived at the camp site, get out of your carriage and then clean it up! They will be carrying timbers back and at this point in your training, the wood is more important than you are!” A shout comes from the head of the convoy.

“You heard him Alex, lets do this…” Stefan grumbles to himself as he starts cleaning up.

“Okay you lazy bums! I think I heard someone was excited about this “camping trip”, that it will be “just like in the stories”. And that got me thinking, if its just like in the stories, then you my dear dreamers will be just like them, you will set up the camp, post sentries, that will be tested by us; forage for firewood; hunt your own game and cook it, all by yourselves. And we, the instructors will be the readers in this little story, with the comfortable, tents, good food, our fires made for us!” the instructor from before paces in front of the ‘lazy bums’.

“Now, the tents are all in the pile over there, the forest further along the path has all the food you could want, there is a stream over on the left. The latrines will go on the right, AWAY from our water source! Lights off at 2200 hours. Get to it!”

Alexander and the other 49 trainees move away from the instructor and start breaking up into teams. 10 people get shovels and go to dig on the right, 15 people go to set up the tents, the other 25 people break up into teams of 5 and go hunting and collecting wood.

Alexander and Stefan join a group of 2 other girls and a boy. One of the girls seems to be an archer, and seems to enjoy the wilds; the other girl uses daggers, so she probably wants to become a rogue. She doesn’t look to comfortable here. The final boy also uses a sword and shield, though his shield is more like a big door instead of a small buckler like Stefan and Alexander.

“Okay everyone, my father was a major in the royal army. He has taught me how to arrange groups before we came here. My name is Vale and, in the future, I want to earn the Guardian Class” the last boy, Vale starts. “What are your names, please introduce yourself and tell us a little about you and your combat style.”

“Hi everyone! My name is Stefan and I use my mace to slow and maim my opponents. I will aim for the joints of armour, knees, elbows and ankles. I wish to become a Reaver!” Stefan jumps in.

“Hello everyone, my name is Andra and my mother is a ranger for the kingdom. She has been taking me with her to practice in the wild since I was like 3! As you can see I wish to become a Ranger! So long as you give me a target, you can be sure I will hit it!”

“Um yes, as she said, my name is Reiva and my dad was in the army. He was a dagger specialist. I wish to become a rogue for now but a Nightblade in the future. My damage is high from my passives but my vitality and stamina is low.”

Finally, Alexander introduces himself, “It’s nice to meet all of you, My name is Alexander and I use a sword and shield. I don’t know what I wish to become in the future though I would think a combination of magic and blade would be a good start”

“My father said that a Mage Blade a very weak class, they can’t use any of the high magics because they don’t have the time to study and train their bodies, and they don’t have the stamina to use any of the more refined image-based abilities, again because they don’t have time to study and train. I would choose something else.” Vale started to lecture.

Uh this boy, ‘my father this and my father that’… just placate him for now I guess. I will see how it goes with my enchanting first.

“Hmmm, I didn’t know that, I will need to think on this longer. When do we even get a class anyway?”

“Well my father said …” Andra interrupts Vale, thankfully. “It can be at any time so long as you have the prerequisite image for your class and petition the ADMINISTRATION to grant it to you through one of the terminals,” she explains. “Though I would hold off on that, getting a class means you can start getting experience, and after level 1 stats become really hard to get through training. There are people that train until the end of the Academy who are still Citizen level 0”

Alexander considers while the conversation moves on from there. Vale seems to be arguing about some point his father made again. Huh

So I can wait to get a class and train up my base stats to as high as possible. This world seems to need great images to get the better classes. Can I use something from my old world to create an image so amazing that I will create a completely new class? I need to think on this more…

“Alex? Alex!? ALEXANDER!” Stefan is shouting in Alex’s ear. “This always happens to you, snap out of it, wake up or the world will pass you by!” this finally snaps Alex out of his thoughts and he looks at the rest of the group.

“Sorry what? What were you saying?” he looks at Stefan.

“We were discussing where we should start, Vale wants us to follow the road into the forest and then to take one of the branches like his father taught him to patrol. Do you have an opinion?” Stefan fills Alex in.

“Hmm well,” Alex turns to Andra, “Andra, you spent a lot of time in the wilds with your mom, what do you think we should do. The goal is to get food, If we can catch some rabbits or a deer, that would be best.”

Andra instantly perks up and replies, “We need to find a game trail then and follow that, we are sure to find something doing that, maybe we set an ambush at a slow-moving stream too…”

Alex looks at everyone else, Stefan is looking at Andra with interest; Reiva is looking around the cleared area with a sort of panicked look in her eyes and Vale is pouting. “Vale do you agree with our only expert of the wilds? Is there something in the army about listening to experts if you are outside of your own area of experience?”

Vale nods his head once and also looks at Andra expectantly.

“Andra, don’t look like you are the prey and they are the predators, you are a woman of the wild. Lead us to FOOD!” Alexander’s praise snaps Andra out of her fugue, she nods at Alex and points to the left of the camp near the stream. “Near the stream is a likely place to find animals in forests like these. Vale as our vanguard. Would you lead on?”

There, now she will make a good leader, good thing Vale is staying quiet too. Ah, what am I standing here for, the others have already started moving.

Alexander starts jogging to catch up to the rest of the team while Stefan gives Alex the stink eye.