The mess hall was rather busy. On the bright side, there were not too many dwarves, meaning Skadi stood out. Of course, her size made her harder to spot. Somehow Helena found her at a table near the wall. There were four empty seats.

“Skadi, how was your day? It’s a shame we are in different classes.” Helena said.

Skadi looked up from her food. She had not noticed our approach. “Helena, Koyuki.” She said with a nod. “My day was alright. Mostly weapons practice.”

“Ah, we will have that tomorrow.” Helena replied.

The chairs next to Skadi were empty. The group of five we shared the table with ignored us.

“Who is your roommate? Don’t you get along?” I wondered. I did not see Skadi interact with anyone, besides us. And she was eating alone.

She shrugged. “Her name is Clara. She is tolerable.”

I had a feeling that Skadi was not the most sociable person.

“You need to invite her to eat with us!” Helena suggested.

“No.” Skadi answered.

Helena pouted.

“Anyway, we had basic magic today.” I said. “The instructor turned a student to stone because he was late and rude!”

“Cool. That's some advanced magic. I wish I could have seen that.”

“It was awesome! And the student totally deserved it. Archibald Winston. Be careful around him.” I advised.

“Thank you for the warning.”

“We should drink to our first day.” Helena suggested, raising her mug of ale.

We raised our drinks as well. “To our first day.”

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Despite Helena’s enthusiasm we did not stay up late. We had classes tomorrow and could not spend the night partying.

The next day was less about magic and more about physical training. It started with a lot of running. Thanks to my training in the past two weeks I could more than keep up. My magic had helped with building muscles and it showed. Physically I was among the top in our class. Being a foxkin helped as well.

Next was weapons training. Our instructor's name was Peter. He was bald and clean shaven. While he lacked hair he seemed to make up for it with scars. Judging by his runes he was a spellblade.

“Everyone here should know how to hold a weapon. What many of you don’t know is how to use one in real combat. Or how the army fights. You will be officers. To give proper commands you need to understand formations. You need to experience them. And, depending on your specialisation, you will be right at the front with your soldiers.” He looked at each of us. “We will start with something familiar, one on one fights. In the coming weeks we will move to group battles and formations. Later this year we will add monsters. Fighting teeth and claws is entirely different from fighting an armed humanoid.”

We were in the same class as yesterday. So far Archibald had behaved himself. I wondered how long that would last.

“We have practise weapons here. For now just grab what you are comfortable with. The first fight will be Eva vs Shin. The rules are simple, cause no permanent harm, use no magic. The fight lasts until someone scores a hit that I would consider lethal with a real weapon, someone is knocked out, or I decide to stop it.”

Eva was the busty woman who seemed to enjoy Archibalds company. She chose a longsword. Shin grabbed a spear. Eva was slightly taller than Shin but his weapon gave him a reach advantage.

As the battle started it became clear that the catkin was a lot more experienced. I now understood Helena’s comments about nobles. Eva had perfect posture, elegant movements and absolutely no answer for a fast fighter with more reach. She was on the defence for the entire duel. Shin kept forcing her back. After a while he found an opening, his practice spear stopped at Eva’s throat.

“Good match.” Peter said. “It showed the importance of reach. Eva would have needed to close the gap to have a chance. How could she have done that?”

“With a shield.” Helena suggested.

“Yes. That would have given her a chance to get closer.”

“What about magic?” Someone asked. It was Archibald’s friend.

“Jack, I hope I do not have to remind you that the rules said no magic.” Peter said in a stern voice. “But if you are asking a general question, yes magic can obviously help. Having more reach is meaningless if you are turned to stone.”

Jack paled while Archibald looked angry. The example was a clear reminder to behave.

“Ok, time for the next battle. Jack vs Koyuki.”

I was nervous. How would my limited training stand up to Jack? I grabbed a staff. It was one of the two weapons I had trained with the most. I figured it would give me more reach than the arming sword. Jack chose a longsword.

“Begin.”

I grabbed the staff at one end to give myself reach. You could argue it was just an inferior spear. So why a staff? Many mages had a crystal on their sticks instead of a pointy end. So getting used to whacking things, instead of stabbing things, was a good idea.

I had learned some moves in the last two weeks. But in the end I mostly swung the staff around in front of me. It made it hard for Jack to get close. While Jack was bigger, and had more muscles, that meant little. Foxkin were naturally stronger than humans. Especially after two weeks of magically enhanced training.

I failed to land a hit but he was getting more and more frustrated. After a while he tried to charge in and got smacked in the chest. The blow knocked him down and might have cracked a rib.

“This is ridiculous!” Archibald protested. “She is just an animal swinging a stick! This is not fighting! She should be disqualified.”

“On the contrary, this is fighting.” Peter replied. “And it shows you how dangerous someone strong with a stick is, if you are unprepared. Good job Koyuki.”

“You did great!” Helena cheered.

I felt proud. My first win!