Sam woke up Tuesday morning with a crippling sense of anxiety squirming in his guts. He knew the reason for the feeling. And even though he repeated to himself that it was irrational to hold it, it didn’t go away. Go figure.

The reason for the feeling, he internalized, was that the previous day, heck, even Sunday, passed in such a blur to Sam’s mind so that he was feeling unsettled by it. He got used to every day being a procession of going to different places, meeting different people and learning new things, so that one day of his first ten days on New Terra felt like ten days of his old, regular ones.

But now, it seemed that the initial stage of him adjusting to his new life has finished and the second had begun. Habituation. The process by which the same plans outlined for each and every day were supposed to make the days seem identical to one another from a broad viewpoint. A process which, at the end, was supposed to make his new life easy and familiar by virtue of holding no unexpected surprises in store for him (such as getting kidnapped a hundred years into the future).

The problem was that Sam was supposed to feel happy with this chain of events. He might not like to see himself as a creature of habit, but saying that he wasn’t most comfortable with them would be an obvious lie. So why wasn’t he feeling satisfied with the quick passage of yesterday to his perceptions? Why was he feeling anxious instead?

The answer lay, of course, with the new meaning he had for the passing of time. Most of his life, it would have been, “grow up, finish school, get a job, and achieve financial independence.” The only duty derived from his aspirations to the future and directed at the way he utilized the day was simply excelling in academics (or doing just good enough for him to feel happy with himself). When he was stuck in the hospital, the meaning of a passing day would have been to get used (both physically and emotionally) to his new state. A much harder goal, of course, but one that was at the same time easier to live with because it stretched out indefinitely and seemed so out of his hands at the time.

But now, despite being back in school, academic excellence wasn’t a goal in it of itself anymore but simply a means to an end (although one could argue that is also wasn’t a goal before but simply a mean to securing himself a well-paying job. One could argue that. Sam would, but only depending on how he was feeling on that particular day. It was a very complex discussion). Now his goal for every passing day was to maximize it in such a way that would ensure he was becoming as strong as he could be and as fast as possible. A goal which was also a means to an end because his main drive (it was worth introspection whether it was his only drive) to become strong was the war in the north and, much more importantly, his role in it.

So it was easy (as long as one was familiar with the byzantine machinations of Sam’s mind) to understand why it was that he was feeling anxious about the previous day passing in a blur. A day being maximized should not feel like it passed in the blink of an eye, rather that he had to sweat tears and cry blood in order to fully maximize it.

Of course, if I’ve successfully created a habit of maximizing every day in accordance with my goal, then there is no reason to worry about the days beginning to feel familiar because they indeed are. Although there is the discussion of whether the new habit has opened a path for the day to be further maximized, thus beginning the whole cycle all over again. Doesn’t matter to me though, because even if I have been maximizing every day since coming here (and big fucking spoiler alert, I wasn’t), it still shouldn’t have been enough time for me to get used to the new state of affairs so that a day well spent would pass as quickly as yesterday did.

Then again, I could stop being such a little bitch. Trying to justify me feeling like shit because of stupid reasons, like simply getting used to my new life here. After all, didn’t we start the day with the knowledge that this stupid knot in my gut is completely irrational and doesn’t serve to drive me to better myself? Thus, doing away with any healthy psychological reason for the existence of anxiety in a person? “Ugh…” he groaned into the wall padding covering the exercise room that somehow became his and Lin’s permanent training place.

“What’s got you so bothered this early in the day?” Lin asked him once he walked in a minute later, holding, as always, two pairs of spears.

“Nothing,” Sam lied, or perhaps he was telling the truth and it was only his body that kept rejecting it. “Let’s get started. I want to spend some serious energy today.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t what I had planned for us today. We’re going to keep building upon your technical skill, like we did last time, instead of going back to the free-form sort of practice that we started with. Now that you’re committed to fighting with a spear, there’s no reason not to conduct your training properly. Starting at the basics and moving onwards from there. Fear not, you’ll have plenty of chances to let out some energy in the last third of the session. I’ll be testing you on everything that we’ve practiced today in real time.”

“OK… so what are we starting with? Oh right, stupid question.” Lin nodded his head in affirmation and waited with the answer until he finished guiding Sam through their usual routine of warm-up exercises and body-scan meditation.

“We’ll begin with the most basic of action, the stab,” Lin said.

“There’s more to learn than stick them with the pointy end? I thought the whole point of the spear was its accessibility.”

“Very well then,” Lin threw him one of the spears he was holding. The light one thankfully, otherwise Sam doubted he’d have caught it with the same ease (or caught it at all). “Stab me if you will.” Sam shrugged his shoulders and went down to his approximation of the spearfighting form that Lin kept trying to teach him. He thrust the spear with both hands and it struck Lin straight in the abdomen, although you wouldn’t know it by looking at the man. “First question: did you hit the place you were aiming at?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, “roughly I guess. Aim for the center mass, right?”

“Which you had no reason to aim for since I was immobile and defenseless. If you can surely hit me, then why not try for a more critical location, like the neck or my dominant hand?”

“Because I wasn’t sure about hitting it? Is that what you want me to say? That I should practice my aim before moving on to more complex techniques?”

“That’s part of it, but aiming and hitting your marks is part of thrusting, which we’ll get to later. We’re still talking about stabbing.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Guess.”

“I don’t know… One’s the action and the other’s the result?”

“Very nice. Have a gold star.”

“They still give those?”

“To everyone who wasn’t me or my brother in the under-ten class that my family taught, yes.”

“That doesn’t sound mentally healthy.”

“It made us better fighters. Because we knew, that unlike everyone else, we could always do better, the expectations for us much higher.”

“Does that mean that I’m not actually getting a gold star?”

“I’ll get you a sticker if you manage to beat me by the time you graduate. Back to our lesson. You were half-right: Stabbing is always the end result of thrusting with the spear, but it is also an action in its own right. And while your thrust may have been passable, so long as you truly hit where you were aiming for, your stabbing was anything but. You aimed for one of the better defended parts of my body. If we were using magic and real weapons, you’d find it much harder to penetrate deep into my abdomen than say my hand or thigh, for example.

“So that’s your first mistake: not committing enough power into the stab to drive the spear far enough to cause damage. Your second mistake was pulling the spear back in a straight line. You’ve already passed my defenses. Unless you were being pressed to defend yourself and needed your weapon back as fast as possible, you should have cut out in an arc instead of just pulling it out like you did. Doing some extra damage at no cost to yourself. And of course, both of those mistakes were compounded by your third mistake. You stabbed me in the middle of my body simply because it was the easiest place to hit, not because you were being guided by strategy.

“If we were in a real fight, then your best bet would be to eliminate me as fast as possible, as I am much stronger than you. So, aim for my neck. Your enemy is rarely going to die from a wound such as the one you would have inflicted upon me, even if you had made no other mistakes. Your reason for aiming for my abdomen shouldn’t have been because of ease but because all other potential targets were either impossible or too dangerous; leaving you wide open in case of a counterattack.”

“So what?” Sam asked. “I should never aim for people’s lower chest then? Only their vital organs and limbs?”

“If your enemy makes a genuine mistake and leaves themselves open, then by all means, stab him where ever you can. As long as you’re sure that you won’t be giving up any future—more critical attacks—by committing to that one. It’s all a matter of intent. Your aim in a fight should be to finish it as efficiently as possible. Usually, that means finding a balance between time and energy spent. If it’s a duel, take your time. If you’re in the middle of the battlefield, you might want to rush your enemy in order to help one of your comrades or avoid being ganged up on.

“This is what I want to teach you about stabbing. First, how to stab. Which depends upon the second, where to stab. And they both depend on the third, why to stab. We’ll start with theory, then practice each on their own and finally execution of all together. At the end of the lesson, we’ll go back to ‘sparring,’ and I’m expecting you to showcase at least some of what we learned today.” He stopped, apparently caught in the trappings of an altogether different thought. “You are getting all this, yes? I’m being clear enough?”

“Why?” Sam laughed. “You’re worried about your future appointments with Farris?”

“Mostly that, yes. Although Dan Ritter has been in quite close contact with me as of late, making sure that our sessions were proceeding well, whatever that might mean.”

“I think it means he’s concerned whether you’re a good teacher for me or not. Am I becoming better, and so on.”

Lin scoffed. “It’s only been a week. Your aptitude for combat and the spear could have been ten times higher than it is, and I, ten times a better teacher, and we still wouldn’t get much different results considering you’ve never trained before a day in your life.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Nuh huh, fencing, remember?”

“No… I honestly forgot. If it makes you feel better, it’s not at all apparent in the way you’re fighting.”

“How would that make me feel better?”

“No mistaken preconceptions that we would have to waste time on correcting.”

“Well hurray for twelve years-old me lacking sense of commitment. Thanks to him, I’m a complete blank slate.”

“It’s not such a bad thing despite the way you’re putting it. Most cadets coming here have already been training for a couple of years, usually since their Awakening, but some, like me, even from when they were children. And even if you were being taught perfectly, you can still end up with some incorrect assumptions and mistakes in your form. There is a major difference between the body our cadets grew up with, hell, even the body some of them have now, to the body they are going to spend most of their life fighting with. You don’t have that problem. You can rest assured that everything you’re going to learn, as long as you apply it correctly, is going to carry you until the end of your journey.”

“That does sound nice. I hate having to relearn stuff. So you were saying about cutting?”

“Stabbing.” Lin’s rebuke was grave. “Cutting is a completely different topic. It’ll be a long time before we get to it.”

“I know, I know. I was just yanking your chain. So, you asked whether I understood what and how we are going to learn about stabbing. From my perspective, I’m saying yes. But like you said, I have no prior experience with this stuff. Might be, I’m just putting too much trust in myself. Although saying that about that really simple explanation that you just gave is stretching my incompetence really far, even for me.”

Lin nodded and straightened his back. “Then I’ll have to see for myself how far your understanding extends. Now, stand where you are. We’ll begin with a demonstration.” The following “demonstrations” were just a pretty word for Sam standing still and letting Lin stab him repeatedly all over his body. At each point, Lin tried to press Sam on how deep the stab should be, how he should be moving out of it and the reasons for initiating it in the first place. Pretty much, just as he said they were going to do, only Sam didn’t expect his own body to be used for the explanation.

It’s not like he was in serious pain, though. Lin’s attacks were delivered from point blank range and so held no force behind them besides the discomfort of having one’s body squished inwards. Now, whether that was the objective truth of his sensations or whether it was a lie made up some half an hour later in order to comfort himself when they moved to the second stage of practice and despite being the one stabbed, Lin showed no hint of feeling anything, would remain forever unknown.

But that didn’t matter now, because they were coming up on the last third of the session and Lin declared that they should move on to mock-sparring. The two of them would circle around each other. Lin would indicate where Sam should hit him and then evaluate Sam’s inflicted wounds. At one point, he stopped telling Sam where to strike and just told him what were his current intentions for striking in the scenario. Trying to get Sam to start developing his own combat intuitions (Sam was pretty sure that he kept fumbling that last part).

“You did well,” Lin said once they were finished the second body-scan of the session. “Nicely done.”

Sam clicked his tongue. “If you say so. So how long are we going to stay on stabbing? Or just framework in general?”

“As long as we need to. Probably for the entirety of our time together. Three years is too short a time to truly instill all the habits that you should be fighting with just by pure practice. But, If I were to hazard a guess, after one or two more sessions and I’d want us to start incorporating thrusting theory as well. Once that’s done, we’ll go back to footwork and alternate between the two for a about a month before starting to incorporate more complex aspect into your studies. Two or three months after that, for most of our sessions to become just practice fighting. In a year, I’d like it if we had the chance to go over every form, technique, and piece of knowledge that I’m aware of and am capable of teaching. That would just leave learning to utilize them and going back over them every once in a while. Of course, by that point, you should also be training by yourself and with other people, which is really when the training begins. After all, even if I were the best spear-fighter and teacher in the Web, that doesn’t mean that I would be the best to teach you. Which also means that eventually, when you are confident enough in your skills, you should stop taking everything I’m saying as gospel and start figuring out what’s best for yourself on your own. Don’t worry about that for now, though, we’ll get to that eventually.”

“Alright, sounds good to me. And when do you reckon we can start learning how to fight with magic?”

Lin laughed dryly. “Eager are you?”

“It should be pretty evident to you, based on knowledge of my past, that were magic not a part of the picture, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Indeed… Same goes for most Terrans, I assume. As for when we’ll start you on actual combat practice… We’ll see. There’s a lot of theory that goes with that, way more than with simply physical fighting, and it all builds on every other aspect of your studies. Tracing, patterns, gathering, our training together, and so on. And while I’ll be the one teaching you how to wield the spear together with magic, I’m not going to be your sole teacher for magical combat. But, to actually answer your question: Not until your level 1 and I deem you skilled enough with a spear. So at least half a year away. And I’m being optimistic about both of our aptitudes.”

Sam shook his head and squinted in disagreement. “We both know that you are more than a capable teacher. I have Dan’s admission of that fact. That leaves my future solely in my hands, thank you very much.”

“I’m afraid that General Ninae isn’t going to see things that way, even if I were willing to do so. He said something along the lines of were he to teach you, then you would surely become just as skilled a fighter as he is. That leaves no doubt to which was of us he sees as a variable for your future success.”

Sam raised his hand up in defeat. “Alright, just remember that, if turns out that it’s not just my lack of training that makes me a bad fighter.”

“We’ll see about that… Same time on Thursday, yes?” Sam nodded, and they bid each other farewell.

After showering, he left the gym towards the mess hall in a much better mood than he was when he entered the building. He was already pretty certain of the matter before today, but after his session with Lin, there was no doubt in his mind to prevent him from reaching the conclusion. It seemed that part of Web-Web’s remodeling of his body was making the exchange between working out and getting endorphins in return much more consistent.

Of course, his improved mood might’ve also had something to do with the fact that he felt like he learned, truly learned something today. As opposed to yesterday, and even the day before that, when he was just practicing the same thing that he was a week ago.

Although that isn’t actually very fair now, is it? Cause I’m pretty sure that Dan’s volume of comments yesterday while we were together was larger than usual. So maybe it’s my ease of internalizing them that’s causing me to worry? Oh, it’s probably the lack of worry about internalizing them that’s causing me anxiety. Yeah, that’s it. He nodded to himself in satisfaction.

Once he made it to the mess hall, the lack of a text message from Sarah pretty much confirmed that he actually got there before them for once. His head start wasn’t that big, however, because just one minute after sitting down and texting them where he found a spot, he was joined by Yvessa. “Tough morning?” he asked once he saw her downcast mood.

“I got too distracted with cultivating and my own thoughts that I wasn’t focusing on the weights and ended up fucking up the motion and pulling a muscle. Had to go get checked out at the hospital.”

“But you’re alright now?”

“Of course I am. It was just a minor tear, nothing that couldn’t be fixed by fifteen minutes of a professorial’s tracing. You’re not going to miss me at our evening run, if that’s what you were worried about.”

Sam was prevented from assuring her that he wasn’t the least bit worried about her wellbeing or her lack of presence in their get-togethers by Felix and Sarah’s arrival. “And here’s our wounded warrior!” Felix called in mock concern. “And how are you doing, my dear? The doctor stitched you up fine?”

“Wait,” Sam said, “you didn’t go along with her?”

“What for? It was just a cramp.”

“OK, first of all, you’re all saying different things, but I’mma let that slide. Second of all, she went to the hospital, the hospital. You don’t leave your friends to go to the hospital alone.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like she went to get hospitalized or anything. We’ve all been at the hospital at one point or another during our time here. Well, I haven’t, but that’s just because I’m that good.”

Sarah laughed. “While it might be a hospital, Sam, most of us are just treating it as a regular infirmary and doctor’s clinic. It’s just that it’s also treating people with more serious conditions. But none of of them are students right now, thankfully. It’s really not a big deal.”

“Yeah. Besides, if she was fine enough to take a shower after she was injured, then she was fine enough to go get checked up alone. I wouldn’t need any company if I was in her place, which again I have never been and never will be.”

“You sure about that?” Yvessa asked with a threatening smile. “How about we test your assertion with, say, two kicks to the back of each knee?”

“Yvessa, please! Ever since your injury, you haven’t been acting like yourself. Snap out of it!”

“I’ll snap your neck if that’s what you’re asking of me.”

“So you’re alright?” Sarah verbally stepped between them. “You’ll be up for cardio tonight?”

“One-hundred percent. But if you’re still worried about me, there is something you can do to make me feel a little bit better. Increase Sam’s laps.”

“Hey!” Sam objected. “What’d I do to you? I was simply showing concern. How was I to know mister never broke a bone over there would be such an asshole about it?”

“It’s exactly that. You showed concern to me and I’m showing you the same in return. After all, it’s already been a week since you started exercising. We should be increasing your workout’s difficulty.”

“Really? You think so?”

“No,” Sarah said. “You’re doing just fine right now. It’s not yet time to change your routines. Especially since you also have three combat training sessions every week. We won’t get anything out of upping the intensity just yet.”

“Phew… that’s comforting. Although, and I’m reluctant to mention it, but I will for the sake of transparency, my session with Lin today wasn’t all that physically demanding. It was mostly just ‘theory’ and examples. Although getting stabbed over and over again might have helped me build my pain tolerance a bit.”

“Did it?”

“Nah.”

Felix laughed. “He’s putting you through the all basics of the basics thing? Breaking up the action of fighting into smaller actions and so on until you’re left with only the fundamental bullshit and then focusing on that?”

“Not in so many words.”

“So he taught you about ‘stabbing’ today, then?”

“Yeah.”

“And did he also make a distinction between stabbing and thrusting? And went on a whole spiel about when and where and all the rest Ws of stabbing?”

“He did the same for you? I figured that you’ll have already been past this stage.”

“Not with me, no, but with the class of those that didn’t have much, if any, previous combat training. But I got the whole series of lectures as well, a couple of years ago. Didn’t think much of it then and even less of it now.”

“That’s because you fight without thinking.” Yvessa pointed her fork at Felix.

“If what you mean is that I fight without over thinking and by doing what comes naturally, then, yeah, you’re right. C’mon, don’t tell me that you seriously buy all that combat theory crap.”

“Not as much as Lin does, of course. I’m somewhere in the middle, same as you are probably, if you’ll ever willingly admit it to yourself. It’s just that you prefer to learn everything by practice, internalizing the theory by seeing for yourself what works and what doesn’t. But if you’re coming at this with no prior knowledge like Sam is, then I think there is no better way to have him learning by teaching him step by step.”

Sam cleared his throat. “Some prior knowledge, guys, remember?” They all started back at him dumbly. “The fencing class, three to four years? Only stopped because of my ingrown nails? This doesn’t ring any bells?”

“You haven’t told us any of this, mate,” Felix said.

“I don’t understand.” Sarah furrowed her eyebrows at him. “So you’re not willing to tell me what you studied in university, but apparently you’re totally fine telling the entire would about how your fencing career was cut short by your ingrown nails.”

“I understand where you’re coming from, Sarah. I totally do.” Sam nodded gravely. “You’re telling me that you want to know how I got my ingrown nails problem, right?”

“No.”

“You’re right. Save that story for another time. I’m already beginning to run out of unclassified material to tell you guys. By the way, I feel like I have to say this: My fencing career wasn’t going anywhere at that point. My finger injury, back when, was a much greater hindrance, not to mention my lack of will to dedicate myself to the sport. Really, the ingrown nails were just the straw that broke the camel’s back that was my childhood fantasy of fighting with a sword.”

“What’s your finger injury all about?” Felix asked, emphasizing his interest by cupping his chin with both hands.

“Oh I didn’t tell you guys about that? Mhm hm… That’s a pretty classic Sam growing of age story is what that is. The story, some would say. It has its beginnings before I was born and its effects are living on even to this very day.”

“You know what?” Sarah directed the question to Yvessa. “I think that I will up Sam’s laps somewhat today. He’s a strong guy, he can take it. And it’ll only help him in the long run.”

“Noo!” Sam wailed. “I’m not a strong guy. That’s just one of the points the finger story makes.”