Sam woke up on Sunday morning with a bright smile due to the lack of soreness in his body. Hopefully, that meant that the worst was behind him; that this week, he’ll be able to move about without being constantly reminded of the fact that physical exercise has drawbacks. He didn’t hold out hope that this would persist through the next time Sarah decided to increase his workouts’ difficulty, though. He only hoped that said day was far off in the future. Gotta be at least two more weeks, right? You can’t go around changing a person’s routine every two weeks. Well, maybe you can when magic is in play. Also, you probably can even when it isn’t, and I’m just whining. But, it’s a new week, so I’m allowed to complain, aren’t I?

Although Sunday’s sanctity was taken away inside the academy’s blasphemous halls, it did retain something in common with Saturday. Sam’s Saturday at least. It had its own unique schedule. Which, to tell the truth, caused him a minor amount of annoyance. The lack of symmetry, or whatever the correct term for the sort of similarity that his brain craved, between the weekdays due to having his session with Lin on Saturday and not on Sunday. But he wasn’t going to change it. And anyway, it was good for him to have an exercise planned for each day of the week.

What this meant for This Morning Sam, however, was that he had the time until breakfast free. Which obviously made him somewhat depressed, since he was forced to think about how today was the only day where he had his morning free. Don’t think about how it would feel like to sleep in on Saturdays! You’re not allowed to sleep in.

“Ugh…” he grumbled as he washed his face. Always the same story every Sunday. The stubborn sense of malcontent remained with him (as always) all through the meditation, but quickly passed once he sat down and officially started the day.

Two-thirds of the morning were dedicated to studying and the remaining third was to cultivating. That was his Sunday schedule ever since he started cultivating per the schedule. Today’s studying was a specially prepared treat, however. Thanks to the thoughtfulness and forward-thinking of past Sam, both subjects for the day were old and familiar; the kind that Sam just had to read the textbook and didn’t even need to spend all that much brainpower deciphering (hopefully, because whenever he came across something he didn’t know or remembered it was easy enough for him to immediately grasp, and not because he was taking it easy on himself due to knowing he wasn’t going to be tested on the material).

So, after an hour and something of what was (in his eyes) a lacking discussion on both Locke and Hobbes, Sam closed the textbook with a satisfied grin. Cultivating went just as well as his last session from yesterday (that ran a little long due to him wanting to make up the unplanned time he spent playing video games). And wasn’t that a cause for a smile as well? The lack of anxiety and worry all throughout (and especially before) the cultivation session. The steadfast confidence that he was both doing it well, and that what he was doing was good enough for who he needed to be. At least, he assumed that it was good enough. Hopefully, Web-Web’s acute absence in these last three weeks was a result of the AI’s own choices.

And don’t I miss the little bugger? Hm… no. Not really. They’re sort of like a Sword of Damocles, ready to drop down at a moment’s notice and deliver me some earth shattering news. Better they keep silent. Means there’s nothing for me to ask them and nothing important for them to tell me. Although… I have to admit that I’m curious about the stuff they purposefully intended to spend time and energy telling me. Better not worry about that too much, though, I’ll just end up developing unrealistic expectation.

“Yeah…” he scoffed. “As though me saving the Web is a realistic expectation. Is it still level 10 in five years, Web-Web? Never mind, don’t answer that. Shouldn’t’ve disturbed you.” He got up from the chair with a stretch before getting dressed and ready for the day. “Lest we forget you,” he said to his earbuds as he picked them up. A podcast might not be in the cards anytime soon, but just because he worked out with other people, that didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to listen to music in order to help him through it. Besides, they can’t all be like Sarah, who likes working out enough to feel comfortable spending so much time doing it without external aid. Felix and Yvessa certainly weren’t. Of course, they still had an easier time working out in silence than he had. But Sam blamed their ability to cultivate while exercising on that, rather than any difference in character between them (he was probably incorrect to do so, though).

“Good morning,” he bid Sarah, who was already waiting for him downstairs (same as on Friday, but she counted Saturday for her internal calculations, despite them never having met downstairs on Saturday morning so far).

She smiled at him and said, “Good morning to you too,” as they started walking towards their mess hall. “How are you feeling today?”

He gave her a thumbs up. “Woke up right as rain. So I’m holding out hope that even after tonight I’ll still be sore free tomorrow.”

“I’m sure you will. But even if not, it’s not going to be anywhere near as painful as last week. So that means this week will be easier on you for certain.”

“You sure got a way with words when you want to excuse your barbaric mistreatment of my body. But, you’re filled with good intentions. So I’ll allow it.”

“Thank you very much… So, am I right in assuming that after we left you yesterday, you cut your nightly leisure time because we stayed playing for so long?”

He held up his hands in appeasement. “Only by half an hour, I promise. I told you, one hour before sleep is my hard limit of what must remain my free time.”

“I said leisure time, though, not free time. Because if you term it as free time than you could excuse using it for other things… like showering or meditating.”

“Sure, but that’s only for half an hour… as long as I’m not back to writing my journal. Which will only take me ten minutes max.”

“So your real hard limit is twenty minutes of leisure time before bed?”

“Sure, if you frame it like that. But I, for one, have never hit that worst-case scenario. And even though it’s only been four weeks, I think we can extrapolate that fact in order to indicate my future behavior.”

“Mhm… We’ll see.”

The rest of the day passed in relative calmness. Not much different from its counterpart a week ago. Well, the sum of his actions wasn’t all that different, but the way he went about them definitely was. First of all, Dan didn’t have anything new and groundbreaking to teach him, as they were only going to start studying about magical theory on Tuesday (to give Sam Monday evening to read more about it). Sam hoped that the constant repetition of just watching him while he was doing magical stuff inside his own body wasn’t wearing too much on Dan’s nerves. Hard to imagine that it wasn’t, as even for Sam, it was getting a bit tiresome. But then again, no one said that Dan was a piece of shit human being like Sam was. Thankfully, for the both of them, Dan said that he was pretty certain that next week they were going to lessen their gathering practice as promised. Although, the final decision was ultimately still in Dan of Next Tuesday’s hands.

He made good use of his earbuds at lunch already, due to Dan growing more content with sending him off to eat alone. What of the level 10’s meal, then? Sam wasn’t sure. But Dan promised him that he was, in fact, eating, and not to worry. So if the man himself told Sam not to worry about that, then there’s nothing else a person like Sam could do to prevent a person like Dan from resenting him due to missing lunch because of teaching him. That was the joke Sam thought about during lunch, but didn’t feel quite comfortable telling Dan. It also wasn’t really much of a joke, which could very well explain why it went unuttered to his friends as well.

His dinner with them was also different from last week. If only because they stayed on one topic and one topic only for the entire conversation (and there wasn’t any annoying meta-commentary concerning what they were talking about):

Apparently, The first years were going to have a tournament of sorts in three weeks. Well, ‘tournament’ is giving what this was too much credit. It was basically a sparring competition between all first year (and was that except Sam or did Sam not count as a first year?) cadets. The entire ‘tournament’ was to take place during the regular combat practice each cadet had during that week and it was wholly carried out inside their regular gyms. “It can’t really count as a tournament if it takes places in the usual environment and during the usual time.” Was how he put it. Felix was the only one that disagreed and insisted they kept referring to the tournament as such.

“A, it’s called a tournament,” Felix said.

“Not officially,” Yvessa argued.

“What’s the official name?” Sam asked.

“Preliminary Testing of First Year Cadets’ Advancement in Personal Combat Capabilities. The instructors specifically referred to it as a series of exhibition matches.”

“Right,” Felix said, “and then they, and everyone else, forgot all about that and they just kept calling it a tournament. Moving on to B: the tournament has an official ranking of all final participants.”

“Which isn’t public.”

“So? At the end of the day we know who the top ranks are because it’s determined by who wins in the final rounds. And since there can only be one first place, one second place and so on… Criticize it however you want, but it’s perfectly clear that functionally, it’s a tournament.”

“Are there any prizes?” Sam asked.

“No. Maybe there’ll be a student who ‘moves up’ a combat class, if they really outperformed their peers. But… at this point in our studies, the difference between the classes shouldn’t be that great, ideally. And if we’re speaking of ideals, then the instructors themselves should have changed the better performing cadet’s class well before the tournament.”

“Assuming the young cadet in question was performing to the same capabilities in class and not hiding their talents for the big match.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know, you tell me. It’s not like there’s a prize, or it’s a real tournament.”

“Screw you. You’re just jealous you’re not allowed to participate.”

“Well… I do love embarrassing myself in front of a large audience.”

“Not that large,” Yvessa said. “The only cadets allowed in the gym during the matches are those participating in them, and the aiding third years.”

Sam turned to Felix with a pitying look. “Is this thing being a tournament really the hill you want to die on?”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“It’s a fucking tournament.” Felix frowned.

“Fine. We’ll have it your way. See this as my contribution to your marginalized community.”

“Which community are you referring to in, what I can only assume, is a lame effort to have a joke at my expense?”

“You’d be correct. And it’s the community of people who are confidently wrong.”

“That’s hardly a marginalized community,” Sarah said.

“True… but the gay jokes were getting stale. I had to pivot to making fun of some other aspects of Felix.”

“Had to?” Felix raised an eyebrow.

“I can’t make fun of Sarah or Yvessa! People might think me sexist.”

“So it’s better for them to think you a homophobe?”

“Sure is. Smaller market share.”

“You’ve made plenty of jokes at our expense,” Sarah said.

“Of course I did. But never once about you being women.”

“Yes you did. A ton of them.”

“About you being women…? Or just women in general?”

“Both.”

“Yeah. That sounds right… Anyway, so how does this tournament actually work?”

“So you gave up on objecting to it being a tournament?” Felix asked.

“What’s there for you to be smug about? I told you that I’m only doing it for your sake.”

“Sounds more like an excuse to me, after you realized I was right, but whatever. I’ll let you keep your dignity.”

“You will? Where’d you even find the darn thing?” Sam tapped his back with a small nod. “Good joke Sam, really well done, etcetera etcetera... Now answer my question.”

“The first round,” Yvessa said, “is a round robin of the ‘lower’ ranked combat classes. Thankfully, our class is one of those exempt from the first round. The second round is a group stage. And the last one is classic elimination rules. That’s pretty much it. Same deal as the end of the year tournament.”

“That doesn’t sound very exciting…”

“It’s not.” Sarah nodded. “I would’ve skipped mine if I could.”

“Didn’t want to embarrass the rest of the children?”

“Hardly… I only finished fourth place half a year ago.”

“That’s what you get for training in four different weapons,” he said with a smile and she returned him a sour face. “Wait, what do the people who train in ranged combat do during the tournament?”

“They have their sole competition at the end of the year, after the ‘regular’ tournament takes place,” Yvessa said. “But there aren’t people who only train in ranged combat. At least not in the republic. You have to take close-quarters combat classes. So everyone takes part in the tournament.”

“Man, that sounds like a hassle. Thank God I won’t have to participate.”

“You’re going to flunk out on even the end of the year tournament?” Felix asked.

“Of course I am. It’s not like in half a year I’m going to be able to be a top contender.”

“Maybe not top contender,” Yvessa said. “But surely with your private tuition you’ll be good enough to participate..”

“I think we can both agree that’s a very big, and a tad unrealistic, assumption. But we’ll see. Anyway, even if I manage to exceed expectations, I’m with Sarah on this. If I don’t have to compete, I don’t want to.”

“You won’t be able to completely avoid competition though, you know?” Felix said. “There’s also a tournament at the end of the third year.”

“Oh god… The same deal?”

“No,” Yvessa said. “This one is an actual tournament. Still no prizes, but it takes place over a period of three weeks after the year ends, in an arena with an actual audience.”

“And it’s with magic,” Felix said. “All cadets to showcase everything they learned in their three years here, so we could see who’s best.”

“I assume that this one you are going to win?” Sam turned to Sarah.

“That’s the plan. It’s you three I’m worried about.” She smiled. “There can only be one first place.”

“Not it!” Sam called.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Oh, it’s not because I assumed I won’t be good enough. Although, I definitely won’t. I only meant that since there’s no prize, I’m definitely going to throw the match if I come up against either of them.”

“Thank you for your consideration,” Felix said dryly. “Now I can rest easy knowing that I only need to worry about Yvessa.”

“What do you mean, rest easy?” she asked.

“I think we both know what I meant by that.”

“That you’re an overconfident asshole? Because there’s no way that you’ll beat me. Let alone easily beat me.”

“Oh god…” Sam rolled his eyes. “You’re not going to be arguing like for the entirety of the next three weeks, are you?”

“Nah…” Felix said. “I don’t care about it all that much.”

Yvessa laughed. “Also, he knows that I’m definitely going to win.”

Sam groaned. “Thank God there’s no audience allowed, so I don’t have to make up an excuse why I won’t be coming to cheer you either of you.”

“But if you had to,” Felix said, “who would you cheer for?”

Sam cupped his chin. “It fucking sucks that I don’t know any other first year to say their name for the joke.”

“Does that mean you’ll be cheering for me in my tournament?” Sarah asked.

“But of course. I assume we all will. Right there at the front with Maurice. Although, who knows what will happen by then? A year and a half is a long time. We might no longer be friends by that point.”

“Don’t joke about that.”

“Sorry. Can I reformat that joke to make it about the friendship of people who are not you?”

“You mean you and Felix, or you and Yvessa?”

“Or Felix and Yvessa. Any configuration that will prevent all three of us from being there to cheer you on together.”

“You may not.”

“Fair enough.” Sam nodded, and, looking around the table—or more specifically, the emptied plates and trays—said, “So, we ready to go?”

“I’d have thought you’d be disinclined to say something which will have us start our workout early,” Felix said as they got up to leave. “Is this your attempt at making for time because you still feel bad about yesterday?”

“No, but good guess. Really shows how well have I communicated to you the main facets of my personality. The actual reason is that I had nothing else to say and because of who I am—as you are, of course, well aware—I felt like I had to say something. That was the first thing that came to mind.”

“Uh-huh… And what’s the real reason?”

“I’ve been running a tally in my head of how similar and different today is compared to Sunday of a week ago. And I wanted to get the workout out of the way before I forgot about it.”

“Why?”

“I dunno… Just felt like it. Put the day in a nice thematic box.”

“And how’s that going for you?”

Sam shrugged. “You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out, as I’ll only know before going to sleep.”

“I’ll write myself a remainder to ask you tomorrow then.”

“Will you really?”

“Nope.”

“Thank God.”

The rest of the evening did end up fitting with Sam’s overall categorization of the day. As in being composed of the same general acts that last week’s Sunday had, but the experience of going through the acts themselves being different. Although, his workout was perhaps the one act which was closest to its earlier counterparts in subjectivity. It was still fucking hard. Not as hard as last week (at least that was what Sam kept telling himself). But definitely not as “easy” as the workout from two weeks ago was.

I blame Farris forcing me to dance for him yesterday, Sam grumbled to himself during his second break of the workout. At least the headphones were a huge help that he didn’t have access to last week. Hopefully, he’ll soon get over his need for the mental support he got from having high octane music pumping in his ears and be able to go back to listening to podcasts while working out (or, in the case of cardio, to start listening, as he was never able to keep the practice going long enough to get over that hump). Although, that left the question of what will happen to his Workout playlist—which was finally back to seeing use after a long period of inactivity—afterwards. Probably consigned to just the days during which he had no power to hear other people talking any more than he had to.

Just like a week ago (although, every cardio day really) Sarah escorted him back to his dorm, but unlike a week ago, it was only to his building, and not all the way up to his room. Perhaps providing proof for the assumption that he truly did have an easier time today compared to a week ago. Although, in a twist on the theme of comparison, he ended up taking—or what felt like taking at least—the same time walking up the blighted stairs as last week.

Once back in his room, it was indeed fully the same, though: shower; meditation; studying; and cultivating. But again, there were differences. The shower was shorter. The meditation, not on the bed like last week. Studying went easier and faster. Much faster. As he was not going to even entertain the thought that his knowledge of ethics as deteriorated enough for him to need a refresher on any philosopher he had studied before. And he was familiar with all brought up in the curriculum. Sam was greatly disappointed to discover that fact. Not one major advancement in any of the five mandatory branches of philosophy taught at the academy—at least none that the textbooks referenced—in more than a hundred years and after the introduction of magic into the equation.

So that gave him a lot of extra time for cultivation. He entertained the thought of using that extra time for his own enjoyment. But managed to quickly shoot it down by forcing himself to start cultivating right at the moment that he closed the textbook (thankfully, he already had made a daily alarm for ten-fifteen at night, so no time was wasted on setting that up). The option of using that time to study something else instead also made itself known in Sam’s consciousness. But he decided against it due to already being slightly ahead of the schedule, and frankly, because he didn’t feel like going back to studying more magical theory today (picking up anything else was, of course, an impossibility, as that would’ve meant going against the schedule).

Which meant that cultivation was the last bit of difference between today and last week—both in its length, difficulty, and how Sam felt during and afterwards—as the remaining hour and a half of the day was spent in exactly the same fashion as last week. Just different episodes and chapters was all.

He regaled Felix with that fact once they met up on the following day. To which Felix asked, “So, are you going to keep this weird comparing obsession that you’ve got going for the rest of the week?”

“I haven’t thought about that. You think I should?”

“I don’t. But then again, my brain isn’t as multifaceted as yours is.”

“That sounded like a jibe. Was that a jibe?”

“That depends. How will my answer affect your thematic box of today?”

“It’d fit right in probably. I think that it’s fair to say that the chances of you having told a joke at my expense a week ago, any given day really, is pretty high.”

“Where do you get off saying it like I’m always making fun of you, when in reality I’m the one who’s constantly being mocked? If anything, I’m just trying to match your behavior towards me.”

“It’s the modern state of public education, my friend. If you fight back against a bully, then you’re the bad guy.”

“That’s not how things worked in my public highschool.”

“That’s the poor one, right? The rich one was private?”

“Please don’t refer to the school where both my mother and sister—up until this year—as well as most of my friends studied, as the poor school.”

“What? You’re the one that told me about it like that.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m allowed to. And to answer your question, I’m talking about both schools. Technically, the rich school was also public, as it was mostly funded by taxes. Only the general public would’ve never been able to afford living in its district.”

“Oh,” Sam said, “looks who coming in strong with political commentary. So rich bullies weren’t a presence in the fancy school?”

“I never used fancy to describe it, so you’re definitely not allowed to use that. And no, obviously there were rich bullies at the school. But mostly the bullies didn’t bother me. And if one of them did, I never got into problem responding to them in kind.”

“No problem with bullying, then?”

“Honestly? After my first year there, none. And even before that, there were barely any. At least if you don’t count snobbishness and general assholeness as bullying.”

“I’d count a slight breeze as bullying if it fit my narrative.” Felix pursed his lips and blew air in his direction. “I’m telling Sarah,” Sam said.

“Tell me what?” She asked, coming from behind them.

Sam got up to give her his spot—it was Sarah’s new method of ensuring Sam didn’t tarry too long between sets, adjusting her own exercises so that they shadowed his. “Felix and I made a pact to launch an anti-bullying public campaign once where rich and famous. Yvessa wouldn’t join, but I thought that we should still try to hook you in. Just for appearances, of course, to avoid accusations of misogyny.”

“How’d you even get to talking about bullying?”

Felix shrugged. “At this point, who knows… I think it all started from me insinuating Sam was weird for focusing so much on the difference between this week and the past one.”

“Oh… you’re still on that, Sam?”

“Eh.” Sam jerked his hand sideways. “I think I’ll give it up by lunchtime. Besides comparing how I physically feel after working out, there isn’t much to work with for the rest of the day.”

He was only half right in the end. While there was indeed not much to contrast between today and Monday a week ago besides the physical aftereffects of his morning, he still kept the comparison going until dinner. Lessons with Dan were roughly the same—unlike lunch, which he ate with Dan today—just required less on an input from Dan compared to last week when he had only just learned the new gathering methods. They worked mostly on his excavation. Dan decided that there was a lot more space for Sam to improve in that department compared to his seeking technique. And of course, half of the day was still dedicated to tracing practice, still the same thing as it had been a week ago and even before that.

But he lost the thread of thought stretching back to last week until dinner, and only realized he lost it while trying to fall asleep, at which point it was too late to try and play catch up. Still, by the most important metric, how he felt after the day’s end, today had won over last Monday by some margin. Maybe he really was getting used to his new life.