As we finished filing in before our instructor, I looked around to see if there was a similar effect that occurred with our last instructor, and I definitely noticed a few.

This was due to the knight instructor being a woman who commanded your attention. She had a stern face that made me not want to argue with her immediately. She also had the purest white hair I've ever seen, pulled back into a single long braided ponytail that went halfway down her back. Not the salt and pepper you see on people getting over middle age or graying or even the almost translucent white you see on elderly. No, hers was a vibrant white. It was definitely done with intention, although I didn't see any any color difference on the roots.

She was also dressed in full studded leather armor that was very rigid and did not look loose on her at all.

There was a sharp pain in my side suddenly and I looked to see Bea with her elbow still dug in. "Okay, I get it!" I whispered to her, and she eventually relented and pulled her elbow back. She still scowled at me fiercely though.

Well. Maybe I had been staring too hard. I blame the young body though.

I shook it off and tried standing at attention and staring just over the instructors head. Surely this would be acceptable.

"Good morning. You are now starting your weapons training with us. I am your master of arms. We will just be doing basic drills, day in and day out. We will do this until you have reached sufficient mastery with every weapon in this room." She had begun pacing with her introduction, and it took all my willpower to not give Bea cause to jab me again.

"Now spread out and pay attention to what I say and do. You all already have your first weapon we shall learn." I quirked and eyebrow as she said that and glanced around at everyone else as we spread out. Most looked confused, but some looked thoughtful on that.

"To begin with we are starting with your hands. No matter what weapon you eventually settle with your hands will always be available to you should something happen with it. Now listen and follow along."

She spun with a flourish and started leading us through a myriad workout for our hands. Right now she was focusing mainly on stances and punching, but she elaborated that we would also get into grappling and kicks.

I had never taken any karate classes growing up, but I felt like this must've been what they were like. As we copied her she began pacing around us and corrected various forms for pretty much everybody.

—----

By the end of the day, our new training had taken its toll on everybody. It was more of a mental exhaustion in my case, and I'm sure most others were the same way.

From what I could tell no-one even got a second tray of food. I guess there was very little mana usage when we were just standing and practicing forms.

When we retired to bed we talked about the new training a bit. Tom and Bea understood what the instructor was saying, but said they really didn't care for the hand-to-hand techniques we were going to be taught. They were mostly excited for learning the longsword, which cliché or not lined up with what I expected for an order of knights. They asked me for my choice and I could not give them one. As cool as weapons were and everything, I still didn't understand why we weren't trying to cast fireball if it was a thing. And I knew it had to be, if there's mystic healing going on you must also be able to hurt with mana in some way!

Maybe my lack of knowledge of this world was coloring my thoughts. Who knows. Everyone eventually wound down, it did seem like it took longer. One downside to not getting physically exhausted I guess.

—----

The rest of the week continued without much else happening. The only thing of note that was on the 4th day of training I started getting famished again. Sam had mentioned that it meant I was most likely using my mana but I had no idea how I was doing it as of yet. I was one of the only ones eating a second tray now. This continued on until day seven which apparently was "Solsday". Days of the week, just another thing I had to learn about this world. How would you even broach that in a conversation?

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Anyway.

We were finally back to the obstacle course. As I easily cleared things which used to give me trouble, I marveled at the change I've gone through in what was just over a month.

I'm not sure if it was just confidence, familiarity with this body, or this mana thing in someway but I was thoroughly enjoying my time in the course. Even with the ever increasing height of the course, I was not breaking anything when falling even at 3 stories high now. While I didn't have any personal anecdotes about falling from height back in my world... that seemed excessive. Maybe it too was the mana thing? Next time I get hold of Sam I'm definitely asking if they have a library or something here. I have so much to learn.

There was no major shake ups in the rankings. I kind of wasn't feeling competitive over it anymore and was trying to stay around the range I was at hoping that Bea and Tom would catch up.

As this "Solsday" wound down I was just laying in bed actually anxious to start more of the training with the lady knight.

—----

And of course she decides to throw us for a loop this time! It looks like she wants to keep us learning new things!

We had all spread to out to our little groups, ready to receive a bit more hand-to-hand training when the instructor pulled the same move as the obstacle course knight. She was looking around at all of us and suddenly blurred. Suddenly in front of all of us were wooden shields. Time for something new!

She explained that when we fought, no matter what weapon we chose, having a shield nearby and handy would be invaluable for almost any encounter.

So, while not as exciting as I hoped, we spent the next week of class learning all about how important and universal this piece of equipment was. Almost as important as our hands according to the instructor.

On the next obstacle course day, more of the same happened. Tom and Bea were not making much progress and I didn't' know how else to help them either. As I finished up my last run, I noticed the instructor kind of eyeing me for just a brief moment. I don't know what he was looking for if he just caught on to the fact I was slacking. He did not say anything either way to me.

—----

Another month passed really quickly with the lady knight. Every week she gave us new weapons and we just went through stances, forms and practice with them.

However she casually dropped a bombshell on me that I had hoped for but no-one had mentioned until now.

Monsters!

I was always wondering about what we were training for. Some kind of holy war like the crusaders back from my world? Was I just conscripted into some kingdom army to fight and expand borders?

Now I knew!

No one else seemed surprised by this and the instructor mentioned it off-handedly so I'm assuming this is a well known thing on this world.

It was the end of our mace training when she just casually said that every weapon had its place, even something like the mace. She mentioned we would surely need it if we were to ever come across a golem out in the wild.

Now so far that was the only monster she mentioned, but she didn't elaborate on various types of golems, all that I had expectations of from video games! Rock golems, crystal, ore golems. This world had it all!

I'm assuming that if this world can have golems then surely it can have other monsters too! I wondered vaguely if I was going to get a "demon army" dropped on me in conversation at some point, or even other friendly humanoid races! So far no one had mentioned elves, orcs, dwarves or beastkin but here's to hoping!

This actually put me in a great mood as soon as I learned it. Truth be told I was a bit nervous on fighting humans, so I'm glad its actually something like monsters that we're training for!

This even reflected itself in the obstacle course as I moved up to rank 10. I decided to hold my place there and only advance if I fell to 11th.

After learning about the golems I was able to make even more small talk with my friends at dinner and back in the dorm. Simply asking them what they thought each weapon would be best against led them to speculating and providing so many potential monsters for me!

This world had pretty much giant versions of any animal from back in my world. My excitement shot through the roof over the following weeks as we discussed more and more outrageous monsters and stories.

—----

All good things come to an end unfortunately though.

We showed up to the training with the knight and I couldn't wait to see what weapon she gave us next. We had already been through so many I couldn't even think of what else we could cover.

"Today you will break off in pairs according to rank and step into a circle as I call your names. It is time to start putting your training into practical use as today, we begin sparring."

Guess I had to swing weapons at a human after all.