-- James --

"Bend and move. You are above level twenty now, and you still fight like a normal human." Hawthorn yelled. He had personally taken it upon himself to train me. I didn't know how I felt about this whole thing. First, they try to trap us, then they train us. It was all a little much. I couldn't even figure out what Hawthorn was even getting out of this. Except to torture me. My back does not bend that way.

"But, I am human?" I answered, but without conviction. The things he was having me do seemed impossible for a person to do, and yet I was able to do them.

Hawthorn laughed, "Once you're past twenty you might as well be a different species than when you started."

I decided to focus on what I could control, "Fine, why do I need to do all these...weird exercises?"

"First, and most important." Hawthorn began, "You need to see past your previous limits, which no longer apply to you. Once you do that, you will find new ways to move, ways to fight. Things that will break your opponent's brains."

"That makes sense." It did but what did he expect me to be able to learn in a week. It's not like they were going to officially teach us a skill, and force the training in our minds. If they did that we would be out for at least another week.

"We also need to ingrain your new sword skill into your body. Learn what it actually means to you. Then you can really start to engrave the impossible movements into every move."

"What do you mean; find out what it means to me? Isn't twenty the limits of human skill, and the rest is just learning different magic for your sword?" I still didn't fully grasp what it meant to reach twenty. Ever since I have found that when I swing my weapon it responded, almost like it was moving on its own.

"No twenty is when you leave your own mark on your skill. The levels are really just a measure of your...comfortability? No that's not right. Competence? Close, but not quite right." Hawthorn was having trouble coming up with a suitable word, "You know what it doesn't really matter. Twenty is highly skilled but there is no real measure of human limits. So don't worry about it."

"Ok." Something, he said bothered me, "But what if I hit the download button? I thought the higher the teacher's level the better more you can learn. Including the teacher's skill."

"It does but if you use it you'll get a boost to learning sword skills but you'll essentially be limited to what your teacher uses. Which can be good, but will limit your own future skills." Hawthorn explained.

"So. Don't hit it?"

Hawthorn looked at me seriously, "Do you want to be out for another week?"

I stayed quiet not having an answer for him.

"Didn't think so. Get to level twenty-five, preferably thirty, before you hit it. By then you'll have your own style and you can use the learning as inspiration. Now sword up." Hawthorn drew one of his short swords. "Maybe just having you move isn't going to work for you, so congrats we are going to spar."

I blinked as Hawthorn disappeared from view, and suddenly there was a sword in my gut. I stared in disbelief at Hawthorn. How could he do this? How did he move so fast? Hawthorn stood back where he had lunged at me leaving the sword inside my body.

"See what happened when you don't get your sword up in time?"

I could only stare up at the crazy man, paralyzed by indecision.

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"Now heal up." Hawthorn said with a slight tinge of disgust, "I know it's been a while since you've left your training. Maybe you need a reminder."

My hand was on the hilt of the weapon piercing deep into my vital organs. My mind finally started to form coherent thoughts. The rot was wrong with him? I could feel the acids and bile flooding into my system killing me. If I just removed the sword and sealed the wounds I would die from the toxins my own body produced. was more worried about bleeding out before sealing the wounds themselves, as the sword needed to be fully out before I could start, else I might seal it inside my body.

Us warriors are notoriously difficult to deal with when it came to poison. I just needed to rapidly flood my body with energy circulate it as fast as I could, that would heal the damage it was doing to my entire body while I focused on removing the poison itself.

I ripped the piece of steel out as I flooded my internal organs with fire. I held back a scream, from the pain. It only took a moment to seal the wounds shut, faster than I ever had before. It happened so fast I was taken aback. I could only attribute it to my new level, though I did wonder if what they said is true the air itself was empowering it.

Despite all this, I still found myself panting and writhing around on the ground as I sweat out the dark poison. I felt drained and sticky as I slowly stood. When I looked up to Hawthorn he was smiling.

"Good."

That one word pissed me off, as I screamed, "You didn't have to do that!"

He responded with two words, "Sword up."

This time I moved before I could think, my sword parrying the blow from Hawthorn's second weapon. "See now it won't happen again," Hawthorn said smugly. I wanted to slam my sword into his stomach to see how he liked it.

Hawthorn didn't seem to care about my anger as he just kept teaching, "You're faster than you realize, but lack the experience to know this. You will learn to move, in ways you never thought possible." He swung his sword at me again. This time I was barely able to intercept it. "Your body almost doesn't have to involve physics anymore." He swung his sword again, this time right at my sword. I didn't even need to block.

As the weapon struck Hawthorn slid his blade to the guard and jumped on his own hand. I was holding up his entire body, staring slack-jawed at the man. I barely felt him there at all. How strong have I become?

I snapped back to Hawthorn standing on my sword handle, as he spoke, "Something like this is the least you can do." Hawthorn jumped off the weapon, twisting in the air and stabbing his blade in the ground. He didn't land atop it, as I expected, instead, as soon as his hand touched the hilt he began to spin around it like it was a pole and not a two-foot long sword. He twisted and spun, seemingly spitting in the face of physics. "This training will force you to learn what you can do, push you to the edge"

"This training camp is only like a week." I pointed out. His display was incredible and made me want to learn, but I think he was expecting too much in so little time.

Hawthorn laughed, "Doesn't matter. I'll get you on the path. This week will be the most crucial for you. Afterward, if you want to keep finding your limits, then just keep doing the exercises I show you."

"Why do you care? Do you just want to be on TV?" I finally asked, not really expecting an answer.

He just shrugged, "Don't care about that. Honestly, it's kind of fun, and I get to use you as a guinea pig for my teaching style."

"Great! I get to learn untested styles." But I couldn't keep the grin from my face.

"Hey, it's refined of decades of practice and pushing myself." He said indignantly.

I title my head in confusion.

"There are more of us here to push ourselves than those who have come to the end, and I have been refining my skills for decades maybe a century." Hawthorn paused looking uncertain, "Time is weird."

I could only defer to him as he was higher level and a lot more skilled than me, and the way the man moved was impressive. I always did enjoy training.

We spent the rest of the day doing training exercises, all the while he would randomly attack me, to keep me on my toes. Though, he seemed to enjoy it a little too much. I have to say I didn't expect the throwing knives. He had me twist as he threw me in the air when he did that. "Always be ready!" He yelled every time he attacked.

At one point he had me climb a tree one-handed, where only my right hand could even touch the tree, and if anything else touched it he would throw things. Practically, guaranteeing that I would fall. I thought it was impossible at first, and he just kept telling me to try. I grabbed the tree with my right hand and found them dig into the trunk. I pulled my hand away and looked at it incredulously. Not a scratch on it, but the tree had a new handgrip indentation

"Not too hard. just enough to grip and you won't slip."

"Can I do that without digging in?" I asked wondering if that would even be possible.

"Hm, maybe, not at first. Just try not to damage the tree too much." He said touching the indents my hand made.

It took a while but eventually learned how to do it, and when I learned the trick it became almost too easy.

The entire day, I truly learned what being over level twenty meant.