“I’m so glad that I finally managed to convince you to let me do my job,” Lin said, while holding direct eye contact with Sam. “And look on the bright side, we only wasted less than half an hour, which we could’ve used for training, on doing that.” Sam gave him a sheepish look in return. There’s no way that new students just pick up the weapon they’re handed without complaints, he thought, but kept his malcontent to himself. “We’ll begin with warm-up. Take this.” Lin, thankfully, handed him one of the lighter spears. “And run laps around the room until you can’t anymore or I tell you to stop.”

Apparently, that was it for instructions. No “go!” or anything. Lin just stood there, looking at him expectantly. Giving into the pressure, Sam bit his tongue before he could ask why was he running with a sharp weapon, and started trotting around the room. False to its name, the personal training room had more than enough space for a person to run around in a circle with getting dizzy. The good was tempered by bad, however, because Sam stupidly started running counterclockwise and so had to hold the spear close to his body in order to prevent it from hitting the walls.

Not too long after he started running, his body began its reporting on Sam’s lack of physical fitness. From his nerve-centers in the legs came cries of alarm and indignation at undertaking another physical exertion when he still hadn’t finished recovering from yesterday’s ordeal. From his lungs came the ever familiar sensation of burning and the cry of “Why the hell are you doing this to us?” And new to the equation, at least as far as solely running was concerned, his upper limbs. His right arm, which supplied the force necessary to keep the wooden weight aiming skywards, didn’t enjoy its new job at all. But an even worse hand was dealt to the hand itself, tightly clenching the spear’s shaft in his already sweaty palm in order to prevent him from dropping it. After all, Sam never was one for grip strength, his soft silk smooth hands being the most treasured piece of his bodily self.

Eventually, he stopped counting what lap he was on and just kept running, focusing on keeping the spear in his hands and away from any wall, floor, or ceiling. He kept looking at Lin, waiting for him to tell Sam that he could stop. But that order of respite never came, and eventually it was Sam himself who forced the exercise’s stop. Surprisingly, it wasn’t any limb that gave out first but rather his lungs that couldn’t take it anymore when a breath couldn’t find any purchase in the organ before being pushed out. Hacking a fit, his vision getting blurry, he fell to the ground, this time without being able to use his hands to soften the fall. Luckily, there was an adult in charge to be found nearby and before Sam went headfirst into the floor, Lin grabbed him and gently sat him against the wall.

“I’m impressed,” Lin said. “Not with your physical performance, of course. That was abysmal, but according to expectations from what I understand. It’s your show of resilience. Didn’t think that you had it in you to run until you literally couldn’t anymore. You should be proud. There are a lot of first years who still haven’t been able to push themselves up to the point you’re now in, content to let themselves off when it’s their mind telling them to stop and not their body. You have water in your bag? Good, I’ll get it for you.”

Sam was pretty sure he wasn’t thirsty, but he was wrong. Because when Lin handed him the bottle, he only stopped his ragged chugging in order to go back to ragged breathing. Eventually, he finished the bottle and gave it back to Lin’s outstretched hand. “I’ll give you seven minutes to rest,” Lin said. “I’ll refill this meanwhile. Let me know if you’re ready to go earlier.”

Sam nodded in response and closed his eyes in the hopes that without having to interpret vision, the burning in his lungs would lessen. That didn’t happen. What did end up happening was Sam becoming ever aware that his body contained more that just his smoky lungs. His legs were beating furiously and his right arm was feeling much heavier than his left. Noticing that he was still tightly clenching onto the bloody spear, he opened his palm and let it fall to the ground.

Eventually, Sam’s condition improved enough to allow him to think once again. And his first coherent thought turned to what Lin said about him. Resilient? First time someone accused me of being that. Although I guess he’s right. I don’t really recall ever having exerted myself so much that I simply crashed to the ground. And definitely never worked out so hard that I wanted to vomit as much as I do now. And despite everything, it’s not like yesterday I was any different. It’s just that Sarah, God bless that angel, went easier on me and stopped me before I was completely wrung out.

So what the hell changed? Is it this shitty new body of mine that can’t run one K but can still make me more happy than I’ve ever been? Am I suddenly so strong of will because all my life up to now, I’ve been beset by horrible annoying chemicals that made it harder for my brain not to give up when push came to shove?

Or should I be giving the credit to myself? Maybe now that I’m responsible for the safety of every living thing, I’ve finally managed to stop being an asshole? That’s a nice turn of events, no? “Oh me? Yeah, I used to be a spoiled crybaby who always gave himself a break when things got a teeny bit hard for him. But now? With the power of having the whole fate of the universe on my shoulders, I’ve done and turned myself from a SAD into a CHAD. And you too can enjoy a new state of self! For the small price of 69.69, we’ll kidnap you into your very own strange new world and tell you that you better shape up because the good guys are about to get their asses kicked in.”

“Ha, hu!” Sam’s pity laugh turned into a cough. He was feeling a little better, but didn’t know how many minutes were left for him to recuperate. It could very well have been six minutes, leaving him only mere seconds before Lin would grab him by his bootstraps and force him to start learning how to fight with a spear. The bastard! In order to avoid imagining such a painful future, Sam tried to turn his mind blank by focusing solely on his breath. He was still breathing by the mouthful, but every couple of breaths hurt less than the previous few before them. Immersed as he was in his breathing, he didn’t notice at first when Lin called him.

“Sam.” Lin’s voice and the touch on his arm made Sam shiver in surprise.

“Sorry about that,” Sam said. Taking a deep breath, he got up. Slowly. Very slowly.

“Don’t worry about that. Now grab that spear and come and join me. We’ll begin with basic thrusting exercises.” And he walked off to stand next to the wall on the other side of the bloody room. Sam sighed, and slowly bent down again, making sure to keep his balance and will in order not to fall, and picked up the spear. When it started wobbling and almost fell out of his hand, he grabbed it with his left hand as well. Spear in hands, he joined Lin where he was standing, and tried not to give up before he even knew what the next (or rather first) exercise was.

“For today we won’t go over anything too technical; just the stripped down form to get you used to the spear,” Lin said with arms crossed over the heavier spear. “Stand over here and crouch a little until you feel most comfortable with the spear leaning forward. Now, with both hands, thrust the spear into the wall, moving it back the moment it makes contact and repeating until I tell you to stop.” Despite his crying legs, Sam did as he was told and began stabbing at the wall repeatedly. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do, so he simply moved to spear back and forth as though it were a broom.

“Try to make as little movement as possible,” Lin told him after a minute or two of stabbing. Sam did as he was told, but apparently that wasn’t enough for Lin’s standards, for he placed his own spear next to Sam’s hip so that it pricked him every time he went forward to stab. “You’re using your body too much. You should just be using your hands.”

“I wouldn’t be hitting the wall in that case,” Sam said between clenched teeth. The lower side of his stomach, now a new arrival to Sam’s list of painful areas.

“You would. You’re positioned perfectly at the point where you could still touch the wall with the spearhead were your arms fully extended. But your body isn’t used to letting your arms move that much on their own. It’s more natural for the rest of the body to come with up with arms in order to make that final push than to it is let the arms do that themselves. You need to leave that instinct behind. Fighting with a spear is all about reach. The farther you are from your opponent while still being able to hit them, the better. Now, try again. With the arms only.”

Sam complied and got another stab above his hip in return. How the hell does he know that I can reach the wall from here with just my hands? Still, he kept at it; thrusting back and forth, trying to use his arms for the movement and only his arms. Eventually, without even realizing it, he succeeded. Realization only dawned on him when, on the succeeding attempt, he once again felt the blunt head of Lin’s spear. His spirits now uplifted, his newly gained motivation lasted even through almost a dozen more failures until, once again, he was rewarded with a clean thrust.

The exercise continued very much in that vein; the number of painful stabs between Sam’s painless thrusts, staying relatively the same until, at last, Lin told him to stop. “Very good,” he said. “Take a short breather. I left your bottle by your bag.” Sam had to look around in order to remember where he left his bag before slinking towards it. After satiating his thirst, much lesser now than before, he opted to stay standing, resting against the wall. Who knew if he could manage to get up a second time?

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Lin soon called him over once again. First, he showed Sam the correct way to hold the spear when moving. Before moving on to a movement exercise. Sam had to keep the spear at the same position, his hold still, while moving around as per Lin’s commands. This time, there was no punishment for when Sam made a mistake (and he made plenty of mistakes) so besides his legs and arms, there was no other body part partaking in sending pain signals to his brain.

After a couple of minutes, Lin joined the exercise actively by adopting the same stance as Sam was and levying his spear against him. Now, Sam was supposed to react according to Lin’s movement; retreat when Lin advanced, and advance when Lin retreated. All the while keeping their relative position the same and still moving only with his legs. And this brought the punishment back into the equation. For whenever Sam was too slow to follow in Lin’s footsteps, or followed wrongly, Lin would lightly tap Sam’s spear with his heavier one. Even that small tap was enough to almost throw Sam off balance and weaken his hold on his own spear.

Eventually, Lin lowered his weapon and called for a stop. Sam was quick to follow as well. Breathing heavily, he leaned on the back of his heels in space and struggled not to drop the spear. “We’ll take another break before continuing, this one a longer than before,” Lin said. “Rest up.”

Sam saw no issue with having another break, or a dozen for that matter. And mere seconds after being told to, sat, or more like crashed, down next to his bag and the precious bottle of nectar. A couple of mouthfuls later, and the large bottle’s water supply was greatly diminished. Sam then attempted to dry himself with the small towel he brought with him, but eventually gave up and simply put it behind his back as he leaned down on the floor.

After some time, Lin sat next to him, spear resting on his legs. “This is going to be much easier and more productive once you’re in better shape. Until then, I think that we should keep our session to once a week. How about it?” Sam grunted in agreement and let his mind wander onto the glorious future where he will finally be in the aforementioned “good shape.”

“So who’s the guy you mentioned, Markos something?” Sam asked after his consciousness conjured the name back from his short-term memory.

“Markos Falvan. He’s one of the two elven Chosen, the younger one. I mentioned him because he’s been acknowledged as one of the greatest swordfighters in the Web even before he became Ruler. One of those figures that makes people think that prodigies are a real thing…”

“Please tell me that he’s not the strongest Chosen?”

“Why would you care? Because he’s using a sword? I told you to drop that already. And, no, he isn’t the strongest Chosen, not that I know who is or how the Chosen measure their strength. But he’s supposed to be weaker than the queen mother—the other elven Chosen. Maybe that’s just propaganda, but even if he is the strongest Chosen out there, I highly doubt that it’s due to using a sword.”

“Good to know.” Now, if I end up being shit at fighting with a spear, I just need to hope that I won’t die before I reach the level where weapons don’t matter. Or that I won’t make any other suboptimal choices along the way that are going to fuck me later on. Wait a minute, why am I back to criticizing the spear as not being good enough? Didn’t we already mention Malazan? Now don’t nobody come telling me that guy wasn’t the best version of himself. Who’s another cool character that uses a spear? Alexander maybe? But he’s real, and I don’t really want to end up like him. I mean, can you even imagine? Marrying a Persian princess? Oh, just thinking about it is giving me shivers. Achilles maybe? He had that cool ass jumping move in Troy. But, he’s got some pretty stupid fucking weakness. Back of the fucking heel, my ass. Why are you wearing sandals if that’s your fucking weak point? Maybe some of the guys from Romance of the Three Kingdoms? But didn’t they use a halberd?

“What’s the difference between a halberd and a spear?” Sam immediately asked Lin once his curiosity was raised.

“A halberd has an ax blade below the spearpoint. Why? Are you already looking to leave the spear behind?”

“No, was just wondering what the difference was, figured you’d know. So do people also fight with halberds? Is it considered better than a spear?”

“Again with the ranking. I told you, there are no superior weapons, just superior fighters. And yes, there are those who fight with a halberd, but the increased complexity of using it with magic makes it much less common than a spear.”

After a few more minutes, Lin clapped his hands. “Alright, break’s over. Let’s go.” Sam gave a silent cry but made to follow him. They went back to the same exercise from before, only this time Sam had to thrust towards Lin once he finished reacting to his movement. After every thrust, Lin would tell him what he did wrong (with the most frequent mistake being what they spent the first exercise trying to remedy), and very rarely what he did right, before starting to move once again.

Time turned into a blur as Sam continued to literally follow in Lin’s footsteps. When Lin called a stop to the exercise, it took Sam a couple of seconds to internalize that command before he sprawled himself onto the floor. “Good job. This is enough practice for today. We’ll use the rest of our time for simple visual instruction. Tell me when you’re coherent enough to pay attention.”

Sam nodded and slowly started making his way towards what remained of his water. Emptying the bottle in a few huge gulps, Sam leaned on the wall and closed his eyes. He was bone fucking tired, and he was going to have to do the same thing every fucking week, at the very least. This being only one of the workouts he was going to have to do in order to get his body in combat shape. Sam was beginning to feel the fear creeping into his mind: did he really have it in him to go on like this? It was only two days, and he was already wanting to give up. How was he going to survive the same regimen week in and week out, on top of the other shit that he will also have to do?

Still, if we’re being honest; didn’t think I have it in me to go as hard as I did just for today. Maybe it’s a sign of things to come… Or! Maybe it’s like biblical lesson kind of deal, pride goes before the fall business. I’m gonna get full of myself because I’ve managed to complete one week of academy life, and then BAM! Second week hits and because I was so prideful before, my fall is going to be even more magnificent.

Slapping himself, to rid his mind of all the self-defeatist melancholy, Sam open his eyes to see Lin silently observing him from the other side of the room. “Alright, I’m ready,” Sam said and made to get up.

“You can stay there, for this part I just need you to see and listen, so feel free to rest your body.” Sam breathed out in relief, and settled more comfortably along the wall. Lin then began to lecture Sam on the finer arts of spearfighting, but not before going on a tangent. “There are two conflicting views on how to teach weaponfigthing, hell, any form of martial arts that is going to be used in combat. The first holds that you must first teach the basics of combat, the underlying frameworks that remain the same no matter what weapon you are fighting with, who you’re fighting, or where. In case it wasn’t already clear, this won’t be how I will teach you. You will be taught the second method: weapon or form comes first and basic understanding of combat follows from it. There are valid arguments for each method of teaching. I will not waste anymore time on explaining why I chose the second one for you. Next…”

He then introduced Sam to the parts that made up your basic spear, all three of them. Going over the different uses of each one in combat. Then he started showcasing the different basic moves that the spear excelled at. How to use it offensively, how to use it defensively. He jumped from topic to topic at such speed that Sam was hard pressed to follow. But that was alright, Lin assured him. His little presentation was just meant to get Sam used to thinking in a certain way, and they wouldn’t even be doing it if it wasn’t for Sam’s abysmal shape.

Sam wasn’t an expert, but it was evident to him that Lin was. Every move Lin made was both throughly calculated and performed effortlessly. At one point Lin told him to follow only his feet, to concentrate on his movement only. At another, he told him to follow only his hands, which apparently was different from following only the spearpoint because that was his next objective. Sam very much doubted that he managed to learn anything from this part of the lesson. But, at the very least, it gave him an ideal to strive for.

From there, the visual instruction was replaced by a dialogue in which Lin asked him questions about how would he theoretically respond in a combat scenario. And when Sam ultimately gave the wrong answer, he would explain why and give his own examples of the correct way to react. It was during one particular ‘problem’ that got Lin very animated (even on the art of carrying a dialogue with one’s self, Lin had something to teach Sam) when he was interrupted by Dan entering the room.

“I see Sam found his way fine,” Dan said.

“He did, got here before me even. Why?” Lin asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just that if I remember correctly, I asked you to tell me when you found Sam.”

“But I didn’t find him, because he found me…”

Sam stifled a laugh.

Dan sighed. “Quite… And how did the training go?”

“Good enough. As you can see, we had to cut the hands on part short, considering Sam’s physical state.”

“Anything you want to add, Sam?”

“Nothing that’s not vulgar.”

“Very well.” Dan said, looking between Sam and Lin before turning to Sam. “May I advise you to take a quick shower before we continue with our day?”

“Sure,” Sam said, “but only if you guys gossip about me when I’m gone. Oh right! Where’s the showers?” he asked Lin as he bent down to get his backpack.

“Down the hall to the right.” Sam gave his thanks and made his way towards the shower. There was no one inside, thankfully. Sam might not be ashamed about his body, but he certainly didn’t want anyone to see it and know his shame. Making sure that there was indeed no one inside, turned on the water and whispered, “Web-Web? Can you hear me?” No answer. “Web-Web?” this time louder. “Hey asshole!” in his normal voice. It seemed that interrogating the uninvited AI whether fighting with a spear was the right choice for him or not would have to wait until the bastard deigned to show himself once again.

Sam didn’t wallow too long in the shower, mainly because he didn’t bring any soap with him, so there was no excuse to do so. After a couple of minutes, he was dressed once again, and only lightly sweating. Fuck, I knew I should have showered with cold water. This always happens. Damn me and my warmth craving skin!

He made his way back to the training room where he found Lin talking and Dan nodding. “Ah,” Dan said, “Sam, you’re back, good. You ready to go?” Sam nodded.

“Just a moment,” Lin said. “What about his physical training? If he doesn’t get in shape soon, our sessions together will be much less useful.”

“Sarah Khan will take care of him in that department, so you have no need to worry. Besides, you’re adamant on only having one session a week, no?”

“For now.”

“Then you have no reason to worry. It’ll take him only a month or two to get in good enough shape to make full use of your weekly sessions. Now is that all? Because if you want me to follow your advice and explain some basic knowledge to Sam, we really must be going.” Lin still seemed to want and argue, but waved his hand in dismissal in the end. Dan smiled and bid the other man goodbye. Sam did the same, returning a handshake when one was presented to him before following Dan out of the gym.