The room I was guided in looked like the medieval version of a modern gym, a diverse set of equipment for those who were so inclined to torture themselves on, or maybe get motivated to torture themselves by an instructor. There was even one of those, but seeing him, I had to struggle to keep my poker face, whoever had designed him had a wicked sense of humor.

He was dressed in a dark green uniform, with the eagle-insignia of the Human Empire in gold on his left chest and, to top it off, he had a tan coloured, round hat on, even indoors. But when focusing on him, there was a green aura and a name-plate denoting him as Drill Sergeant Lee, with a title written under it, calling him “The Hard Man”. Somehow, I had a feeling that laughter would be met with an angry tirade, maybe even physical attacks and the fact that his level was only denoted with a skull made me discard the idea to try escaping from here.

Seeing my escort and me enter, he walked over.

“What do we have here, guard?” he asked the guy escorting me, shouting despite being only a step away from him.

“Sir, new beast-bait for the arena, Sir. Lady Julia ordered a full examination before she pays up, Sir.” the guard answered, shouting as well. I wondered if that was some sort of strange ritual, either part of being in the training room or when talking to the Sergeant.

“Beast-bait you say? I’ll be the judge of that. Just because it’s a blackpelt doesn’t mean that it isn’t vicious, hell, it means the opposite. If we let it at you, without the collar around its neck, I wouldn’t bet on you surviving the experience. And that’s with it being rather young. Now, get out of my room, maggot!” he shouted at the Guard, who promptly acknowledged his orders with a shout of “Sir, yes Sir.” gave me orders to stay in the room and follow the Sergeant’s orders and left.

I was curious, he hadn’t had the rod with him, but despite that, I wasn’t damaged when I didn’t follow him. It made me wonder what the limits were but I had a feeling that testing the Sergeant would be a bad idea.

“So, beast-bait.” he shouted, getting into my face. Curiously, I noticed that I was a little taller than him, even if he was loud and obviously more powerful than me. Still, I could look down on him, something I wasn’t really used to.

“It is my job to see how useful you will be and later, to make sure your death will be exciting to the crowd. But maybe, just maybe, you will be one of the few who prove their worth and win the favour of Kallendra, freeing you from the Arena. But I doubt it.”

New Quest offered.

Leave the Arena - Kallendra’s Favour

You learned that, if you earn the favour of Kallendra, the Divine Lioness, you will be set free from the Arena, becoming a Citizen of the Empire.

Success: Freedom

Decline: Not an Option Failure: A glorious Death in the Arena

Unknown

Again, my poker face was challenged and he might have seen the amusement in my face, causing him to start shouting that I would soon learn not to laugh.

“Let’s see what use you are, beast-bait. Pick a weapon, any weapon, and show me what you can do to my dummy.” he ordered, taking out a dull iron rod, tapping it to my manacles, causing them to open. That done, he pointed to the nearby wall, where a wide assortment of weapons was placed, ready to be used.

I hesitated for a second, not quite sure what some of them were, or how to use actually use them. Sure, I might manage to strap the strange claw-weapons I had seen in the trailer to my hands but I’d likely do more damage to me, than to my foe. As I walked towards the wall, I quickly decided to keep it simple, and somewhat traditional, grabbing a large crescent axe. It was clearly meant to be used two-handed and at least the basic usage of it was obvious, even for someone who never held a real weapon in her life.

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Focusing on the weapon told me that it was a Practise Crescent Axe, that it had a weight of two kilograms, even if it felt rather light in my hands, but that it also had a damage-value of zero.

Trying to remember how it looked when they used something like that in movies or other games, my only reference, I placed one hand roughly in the middle of the shaft and the other at the end and walked over to the dummy.

My first few attacks were rather clumsy, but I noticed that I was able to put some weight into my strikes. Finally, I decided to try something else, letting go with my right hand, which had been holding the axe in the middle, to guide it and give me some control. With just my left hand, I managed to bring it sideways and using the momentum, upwards, while I reached over my shoulder with my right hand, placing it right by the left, and letting loose with a full-powered swing, chopping down over my head, carrying all strength and momentum I could give the weapon. The result was quite impressive, even using a practise weapon that ostensibly did no damage.

The previous attacks had slightly penetrated the dummy, leaving glowing lines for half a second or so, before they vanished. In addition, small numbers were displayed in the yellow aura of the dummy, which was reduced bit a tiny bit. This attack cleaved through the dummy, leaving a massive, glowing line that remained for almost two seconds and a larger number appeared, telling me that I had managed to deal forty damage to the dummy.

After that strike, I needed to get my weapon under control, leaving me open to a counter-attack but luckily, the dummy didn’t try anything.

Once I managed to get myself back under control, two blue windows appeared.

New Ability acquired - Two-Handed Axe

Your Ability - Two-Handed Axe is now at level Novice I (0.00%)

You are able to split logs. Maybe. If they don’t try to dodge.

New Skill acquired - Powerattack

You are able to put your all into an attack, striking with devastating force, but in doing so, you leave yourself open for counterattacks.

Weapon-Damage increased by double the Weapon’s Weight (scales with Weapon-Ability and User’s Strength)

Defense reduced by twenty-five percent (scales with Weapon-Ability) for two seconds

Accuracy reduced by twenty-five percent

Cost: 15 Stamina

I quickly dismissed the windows, noting that the last attack had taken more stamina than all the others combined and readied myself to attack the dummy again. Getting Abilities and skills might be the point of this sequence. Sadly, the Sergeant interrupted me before I managed to get my grind on.

“Worthless! But not as bad as I thought, beast-bait. Maybe, you will shed some of the beasts’ blood before they rip you to shreds. The crowd loves that. Try the Halberd.” he ordered, still shouting. I was glad that there was a little distance, so I was out of range for his breath attack. He might have been some sort of water-dragon in a past life. Still, he had given me an order, so I moved back to the wall, placed the axe where I had taken it from and quickly found the Halberd.

I had seen similar weapons in history class and thought that they had been used for guards, maybe because of their rather intimidating looks, and to fight against cavalry, to either drag them off or take down their mounts. After thinking for a second, it might be a good weapon in a fantasy world where monsters as large as giants or dragons might roam, to say nothing of the strange horror of tentacles and teeth I had seen in the trailer. The Halberd had a large axe-blade, similarly shaped to the Crescent Axe I had used before, a pointy-head that could be used to stab an enemy and even a small hammerhead opposite of the axe-head, giving it even more weight and thus momentum, while allowing to deal purely bludgeoning damage as well.

This time, I tried to swing the weapon around a little, before going at the dummy, and felt that it was challenging, it was heavy and slightly unwieldy but trying to move it exactly as I wanted seemed like a fun challenge.

With a smile on my lips, I advanced at the training dummy, eager to show it who was boss.