The following three days flew by, with long days filled with Physical Training, practice missions, and study. The nine fighters were mostly kept separate from the rest of the group, outside of meals and after hours, as the others’ training focused more on their job roles and supporting functions; basic combat skills were required, but not considered worthy of development in the short time spent at Basic.

The few skills that Ted had picked up he had found useful so far, if a bit basic; Dash let him sprint short distances at an enhanced speed, Drift let him slide further and more smoothly at a low height to get behind outcropping. He was sure that the Break-fall skill would be very useful if he could gather the courage to jump off something from a height again, though after speaking to an instructor he was reassured that even falls from a small height would improve the Skill, and itself be improved. He’d not yet tried it.

He’d wondered about the range of Skills and Techniques, and how difficult or easy it was to learn them, and between the instructors and the books that he’d been given access to, he’d found that there was a compiled list, though it was not considered exhaustive, and it was believed that there were many unknown or rare abilities out there that may not have been recorded. Agile Manoeuvres and Stealthy Manoeuvres were not one of them.

He’d even found out a bit more about some of the more impressive sounding abilities that his Class should excel at; Time Magic, Portal Magic and Spatial Magic. He was dismayed to find out that all three were considered very advanced, requiring a well developed Basic Magic Skill, and sometimes an Advanced Magic Skill, before he’d be likely to learn them. It also would require much research into the nature of time and space.

His D grade Physics GCSE would pay off dividends, then.

Through reading and experimenting alone he was able to improve Light to Level 8, and Basic Magic to Level 4. The levels felt a little arbitrary, but he did notice the spells getting stronger and the concepts behind using them getting easier in his mind, if only marginally. He discussed it with Jerah, who’d noticed the same, and was querying whether there was a difference between when he kicked something having just got to a Level 4 kicking ability and a kick just before going up to Level 5. An instructor had cleared it up for them both. Mostly.

‘The levels should be tangible differentials in power, and you will not get the differential until you reach it. This is not your old worlds, where every small amount of work will provide a small increment; here it is discrete. Think of it like a tower; you can climb the stairs to the next floor, but you won’t get the benefit of the height of the floor until you actually reach the top of the steps. At the lower floors you’re fresh, and it’s easy to climb the floors, but you won’t get much out of it; you won’t be able to see very far, for example. But the higher you get, the better the view, but the more difficult it is to keep climbing.’

Bennie had seemed very pleased with her analogy, apparently made up on the spot, and Ted figured it made sense, in a weird and frustrating way. Being halfway somewhere meant nothing, you were either there or you weren’t. It wasn’t just the Sith that dealt in absolutes.

‘But don’t be discouraged; just by being in the tower, you’re at a huge advantage to those that aren’t. Level 1 means you’re comparable to someone who would have been training for a good while in the old worlds. Abilities here are supported by magic; the limits that existed before just don’t here.’

He had started sparring with Jerah when given the opportunity, an interesting match of Jerah’s unarmed skills against Ted’s spear and shield. Jerah had been given practical primers by several instructors on multiple different martial arts, the physical process of trying them out and being beaten by them, alongside his skills from his previous life letting him officially gain the Skills rapidly. The names of the Styles weren’t always known to Ted, but many of the moves seemed familiar, from a Taekwondo-esque martial art that focused on putting a foot through his face, to something closer to capoeira that involved spinning around on the floor a lot.

‘Christ.’ Ted said, as he got his buckler out in front of him, just in time to stop an elbow coming straight towards his face, his arm still feeling like it was hit by a hammer through the thick wood of the shield. He was standing with his left foot forward, right leg back supporting, and it was driven back by the force of the blow, as Jerah’s attack had started with a flying leap.

Jerah fell backwards, continuously moving, somewhere between a boxer’s pacing and the capoeira’s dance. Ted immediately went back on the attack, ignoring the pain in his forearm, gripping the spear in both hands, thrusting and stepping forwards using a low powered Dash at the shifting Jerah, who managed to just slip aside and around. He casually threw out a low kick at Ted’s legs as he did, aiming to trip him up, and to Ted’s dismay, succeeding. He felt his balance go forward, and he dropped the spear, which went clattering ahead of him. But some instinct came out of nowhere, and he found his hands coming in front of him and his head tucking down, and in moments he’d turned a calamitous fall into a smooth forward roll out of danger.

‘Break-fall finally comes in handy’ Ted muttered under his breath, whipping round as quickly as possible to spot where Jerah had gotten to. The man was a few steps away, but closing in fast; Ted knew he also had Dash and would close the gap in microseconds. He stepped back, turned, and Jerah flew past him, the knee that had been raised to impact on Ted’s abdomen continuing to rise.

As he landed, now facing away, Ted hastily picked up his spear and swung it in a high to low arc, moving forward, aiming for the legs to try and sweep them from under the Warrior Monk. The move succeeded, impacting just above the ankles, causing Jerah to cry out and fall, as his ankles went left and his body went right.

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Ted turned the sweep into an overhead slam, pulling the force a little so that he didn’t break Jerah in half, but Jerah had already rolled away. In moments he was standing again, though Ted could see that he was favouring his left foot. That was good; Jerah’s kicks were brutal and his footwork regularly disguised feints and attacks that caught Ted off guard.

But even with the handicap, Jerah still managed to fly forward, weaving past Ted’s spear, leading with a flurry of punches that Ted could only try to block or dodge. He took a few blows on the buckler, ducked under two, and took one straight to the abdomen, making him double over, breathless and bruised. He fell back, trying to use his spear to ward off any future hits. He was surprised to see Jerah not following, but instead standing still, holding his palms together, looking deep in concentration. Ted looked, confused, then started to prepare a charging attack. As he took a step forward, he spotted something, or maybe sensed something, from Jerah, and he twisted aside, as a near invisible blast of something that looked like air flew past him at lightning speed. Jerah was looking worn out by the effort, and Ted suppressed his confusion in order to continue his forward movement. Jerah was unable to move fast enough as the blunted spearhead jabbed him hard in the stomach, before it was retracted and used to sweep Jerah’s feet from under him again.

Half a second later, Ted was standing over Jerah with the spear at his throat.

‘Concede?’ Ted panted.

‘I concede.’ Jerah agreed weakly, winded from the jab to the stomach. He grabbed on to the spear in front of him and Ted helped pull him up. ‘You certainly did some damage there!’ he added, as his left foot struggled to hold him.

‘Sorry’ Ted said, offering an arm to help support him. ‘Let’s go grab a health potion, that’ll sort you out.’ He re-racked his spear and guided Jerah towards the combat area gateway and towards the medic station. Over the last few days injuries had become common, and they’d been informed that they could access health potions when needed. They’d been warned not to take more than one at a time, as a single health potion would heal significant damage, providing fifty hit points and healing simple wounds. If there were any more serious issues, they were to speak to an instructor,

‘Hey, what was that weird spell you threw at me right at the end?’ Ted asked as he helped him towards the medic hut. ‘I only just dodged!’

‘It was a new Technique I learnt this morning.’ Jerah said, wincing as he put pressure on his injured ankle. ‘It’s from my Monk’s Chakra Skill; it sends a shockwave of mental energy forward at speeds nearing that of sound. It requires a lot of concentration however, and a lot of magical power; it used up half of my mana! I was very, very surprised you managed to avoid it.’

‘I am too, to be honest. It looked very powerful for a Level 1 spell!’ Ted replied.

‘I suspect it would have just pushed you back a pace or two; as you say, it is only Level 1. I was intending on immediately following it with an attack, but the drain on my magic reserves had a greater effect than I had expected.’ Jerah explained. ‘The instructor informed me that at high levels it had been known to destroy walls.’

‘Lucky for me I’m pretty dodgy and you can’t handle your spell usage, eh?’ Ted said, grinning.

‘You moved very quickly.’ Jerah admitted. ‘I did not expect it. Was it a new ability?’

‘I do have some notifications that I haven’t checked yet. So, maybe. But I suspect that I’m just really, really perceptive.’ Ted said.

‘Your attributes are the same as mine.’ Jerah said, doubtfully.

‘That’s true, but they’ve also barely explained what they mean, so who knows? In any case, I’ll check my notifications, hold on.’

Ted had now mastered the art of multitasking when it came to shuffling forward and looking at his Stats window at the same time, in much the same way most kids in his world had mastered phone usage and low level obstacle avoidance. He was pleasantly surprised to see that he’d managed to unlock a new Technique and two new Skills, plus a few level ups. The Technique, Dodge, was an obvious one; he’d been twisting around so much in that fight to try and avoid Jerah’s punches and kicks he’d felt like a fish on a line. He was getting to grips with most of these types of Techniques now, and understood that if it was a simple, physical action, the Technique would simply allow it to be improved by supporting it with mana. He could dodge a punch by himself, or he could use the Dodge Technique to improve his reflexes or movement speed. He suddenly had an image of a Matrix style dodging scene, and chuckled to himself, wondering if he’d end up in a situation like that. Thinking about it, it would probably be a good way to train it, with Jerah limited to punches or simple kicks. He decided to suggest it at the next training session. His Spear Mastery had also gone up to Level 4, which he’d also expected.

The first Skill was Shield Mastery - Basic, which he’d expected to come up eventually; he’d been making efforts to use the buckler on his arm as much as possible, and Jerah raining blows down had certainly helped. It was also one of the Skills that the GateKeepers had an affinity to, so he’d been keen to get it before leaving Basic. He was more excited by the last Skill though.

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‘’Timing - Level 1. The basis for true understanding of time and place, this Skill provides a significant improvement to instinctual reactions and timing based actions.

Improving this Skill will improve reaction times to unexpected or rapid attacks, a heightened sensitivity to the passage of time, and an instinctual understanding of time-dependent actions.

This skill is supported by the Intelligence attribute.

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It was the third Skill he’d learnt from the list of proper GateKeeper abilities, and the one he’d known least about. It sounded more like a physical skill allowing him to react faster, but he also felt like it was linked to the magical skills needed for Time and Spatial Magic.

He guessed that he’d find out soon.