As Swordsmanship was my best skill, Cam insisted that I use something else. Spearmanship was the closest, but having two different weapon skills at that level wouldn’t do me much good. In the end, I figured that I should either go for Freeze Edge, to make my sword swings better, or Shield Bash, so that I could strike back against my enemies. Throwing also seemed like a good idea at first, though, unlike Edam, who could throw his weapons then grab more throwing knives to fight with, it would require me to use my javelins more, which was another weapon. Maybe I would switch to fighting with a spear and Javelins in the future, as they both used the Spearmanship skill, but for now I wanted to stick with a sword and shield approach.

As most magic, including my freeze spells, were too dangerous to use in sparring, like real weapons, he had me fighting using only my shield. As my shield skill was already at ten, I was able to block most of his blows, only occasionally missing. Every ten blocks, however, he left himself open and I hit him with the shield. After an hour of that, we were both pouring sweat so we took a water break. After a few minutes, I was mostly recovered, so I got back up and fought Edam instead. His knife strikes were faster and more nimble than Cam’s sword attacks, and I got hit much more until I managed to throw him off with a block, then backhand him with the shield. He stumbled backwards a bit and tried a few of his assassin tricks on me. Feints, rolling out of the way, trying to attack my blind spots. It took a lot of practice before I knew where he would attack from, and by the end of the hour we were both exhausted.

It was lunch time, so we went to the cafeteria. I ordered six portions of whatever the special was. Some sort of soup with bread. I didn't care. I was hungry. After finishing it all I was full, but I knew I still had room for another serving. As we were about to go back to sparing, I didn’t order one, though, as fighting when you were stuffed would make you vomit.

Back at the field I squared off against Fontina. She wasn’t as good with a sword, but she managed to make me block most of the time, only getting hit with my shield three times. The third time I backhanded her across the face and she fell over. Brie came over and held a glowing hand over her face and after ten seconds the bleeding stopped.

“I thought you couldn’t heal people with light?” I said, walking over.

“I learned the spell while you were out. I still need a lot of practice, though.”

I nodded. “In that case, I can spar other people and you can heal us after the fight.”

Edam smiled. “That’s right. I heard you passed out why betting on your own fights. How much did you lose?”

“Well, I only put a silver in at first, but I was up to three when I passed out.”

He shrugged. “In that case, how about I round the people up and you go again.”

“You aren’t going to start taking side bets again, are you?” asked Fontina, a bruise slowly disappearing from her face under the glow of Brie’s light.

“Why? You want to place a bet?”

“What odds are you giving?” she responded.

Ten minutes later she was back to normal and I was sitting on a bench beside Brie, my hand on her back as I made her clothes glow. It was the best way we had found to recharge her Light core, and I wouldn’t need my mana for the fights anyway, so I was recharging her. That would let her heal us without tapping into her own mana.

The three guys I had fought a few days ago were standing there. “Ya know,” said the dwarf. “Now that I know you were sick, I feel kinda bad about takin yer money. So I figured I’d come back and kick yer arse properly.”

“I wouldn’t mind a shot at it either.” said the Musk Ox man. It turns out they were all on a team together, along with a pixie priestess. The club man I had thought was a human was actually half elf, and they had come together because almost everyone in the city was human and they were facing a lot of discrimination.

“I saw you fight Cam and Edam earlier.” said Byaslag, the half elf man. “So I know you can handle it if I don’t hold back.” I nodded, and he went to grab a spear, the practice versions of which were just a bow staff with a rounded off triangular board attached to the end. Since it was just a friendly spar, I also grabbed a spear.

We each handed a silver to Edam, as he appeared to be the one who was taking bets on the fight, so letting him handle the prize money just made sense. “Even money on this one.” he announced, and a few people handed over money to him, including Chura, the Musk Ox man and Nguri, the dwarf each putting a silver on their friend.

A minute later, I stopped charging Brie and walked to the middle of the field. “Just remember, my friend wants to practice her Healing Light, so I’m going to make sure she has someone to practice on.” I said.

“And I’m going to make sure that person is you.” he responded, then charged. I parried a stab for my chest, deflecting his spear into the dirt floor of the field and brought my spear up to stab at his chest. I just stepped backwards. We did that several more times before I messed up a parry and redirected it from my kidney into my leg. It hit hard enough that I was going to have a bad bruise on my thigh, but at least I didn’t bleed out like if it was a real spear.

He drew back to stab at me another time and I let him in, stepping just barely out of the way and bringing the butt of my spear up between his legs. His forward momentum added to the force of the upward swing and he grunted in pain, dropping his weapon and collapsing on the ground. Several onlookers started booing at me as Brie immediately ran over to help him before realizing the Healing Light actually needed to shine light on the damaged area.

“That’s ok,” I said. “I’ll just pull his pants down.” It was medical care, after all, so it didn’t matter if she saw it.

“Nope.” grunted Byaslag, clearly still in pain. “Just help me to the clinic. I’ll be fine.” He gritted his teeth and I helped him to his feet before helping him walk to the clinic. Brie offered to heal him, but he turned her down, so we both went back to the field.

“I talked to the other two fighters.” Edam told me. “They agreed that hitting people between the legs on purpose is a dirty move, so we called the fight a draw. Besides, they’ll probably need it to pay the doctor. So from now on, no hitting people between the legs, or you forfeit the match, ok?”

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“I what the match?” I asked, not understanding that word.

“Forfeit. It means ‘give up’. Basically, you let the other person win. This rule will apply to the other side too, and before you ask, yes, it applies to any women you fight too.”

I nodded. Seemed like a weird rule to me, since animals and monsters attack you there if they can, but I agreed to the new rule.

After that the Musk Ox man Chura stepped up. I told Edam to use the silver I already gave him and we stepped into the field. This time he was using a great sword and I was using a bastard sword and shield. “Kick his arse.” yelled Nguri, and he treated it as a start signal and ran at me.

I managed to block his first swing, but as he had thirty centimeters of height on me and a longer weapon I underestimated his reach and got hit on the upper left arm, my sword arm. I jumped back in surprise and left myself open for another attack, barely getting my shield in the way of the next blow.

I backed away from him by another step and could now properly dodge, as I was at the outer edge of his range. I dodged several times before he threw a powerful swing at my right and I managed to catch it on my shield. I brought my sword around and hit the side of his knee. While I didn’t damage it that much, the bruise I left was enough to make him favor the leg for the next few minutes, throwing off his dodging by enough to let me land several minor blows to his body.

He tried to backpedal away from me, briefly forgetting about his sword, and I brought up my shield and ran a few steps forward, knocking him down. I put the edge of my shield to his throat and knelt on his chest with one leg, putting just enough of my weight on him to keep him down. “I yield.” he said, and I reached to help him up.

The large man panted a bit. “I don’t know how you do it. You barely seem out of breath.”

“Troll regeneration.” I said. “Really helps you recover from tiredness.”

“Huh,” he said, “I only thought that worked on injuries.”

“Nope.” I said. “Show Chura Average Troll Regeneration.”

He looked it over and nodded before closing the status. “Interesting. I might have to look into it.” He limped over to the side and sat down beside Brie, who started fixing his knee. I did have a bruise on my thigh, but it didn’t hurt that much, so I motioned for the next opponent.

“Next fight, Michael Vs. Nguri. One point five for the dwarf.” As I had already beaten one person, you could earn half again as much if he beat me.

A minute later he finished taking bets and we started. Nguri was the opposite of Chura in terms of style. While Chura had greater reach and favored using it to avoid attacks, Nguri liked to get as close as possible. His arms were much shorter than mine, which gave him a slight speed advantage when attacking. I was forced to keep my shield close in so that I could twist my body to block his attacks. He seemed to speed up the longer we went, so the harder it was to block him. After about two minutes I didn’t quite get my shield over in time and his mallet blow hit my elbow. There was a pop and my arm went limp.

He pause for a second in surprise at dislocating my elbow, and I gritted my teeth and kicked him in the chest with the bottom of my foot. This made him fall over backwards, and I smacked him in the head with the side of my sword. “Ah, that hurt.” he called out, and I stopped. “Fine, fine, you win. Just get that arm looked at, will ya? The way it’s flopping there is just creepy.” I nodded, gritting my teeth harder from the pain and willing myself not to scream.

Cam and Edam ran over and Edam put me in a bear hug from behind, pinning my arm down. Cam grabbed my forearm and pulled straight down. There was another pop and I couldn’t help be cry out in pain for a second. That was worse that when it got hurt.

They took me over to Brie and she switched from Chura’s knee to my elbow. Chura stood up, most of the bruise having gone away, and soon the pain in my elbow started to go away as well. “You want to keep going?” asked Edam after a few minutes, and I nodded. Most of the pain was gone, and I would heal quickly.

I put another silver on myself and told him to let it ride, then went back into the field. I fought several more battles, and by the time supper got here I was panting, but had won twelve silver in prize money and over a gold in bets. With my new gold and fourteen silvers, I told the people that I would start the prize again at one silver after supper, and went to the cafeteria, ordering quadruple portions of the steak meal. I had the money to afford it now, so I was splurging.

My first opponent after supper was Byaslag. Apparently he had bought a cup to protect himself and returned for another shot at beating me. I handed Edam two silver, one for a bet on myself and one for the prize, and we got to work. Over supper most of my injuries from the fights had reduced to Petty bruises, so while I hurt I wasn’t really hindered.

This time, with my sword going against his spear, he had a reach advantage, but I had learned how to deal with that by fighting his two friends, both if I had the advantage and if my opponent had it. I stepped back and let him wear himself out swinging at me for a minute, and, about ten seconds after he started slowing down I noticed an opening. So I switched to using Nguri’s strategy. I got super close to him so that the most he could do is hit me with the shaft and started using shield bash to hit him repeatedly. After about six or seven hits, one landed on his head and he fell over, unconscious.

Several disappointed sounds came from those that bet on him, but I could tell they still enjoyed the fight. I had recharged Brie during supper, and she ran over to start working on him, starting with the concussion I probably gave him.

I picked him up and laid him on a bench on the side of the field, where Brie continued to work.

Edam nodded and addressed the crowd. “I believe we were up to five against Michael?” he asked, and several people agreed. Most of their money was already lining Edam’s purse, but a few new people had wondered up and put a few coppers or a silver against me.

We continued like that until ten, when the betting pretty much dried up. I was covered in bruises and breathing heavily, but had managed to beat my last opponent, a human martial artist. Still, the odds were up to seven to one.

I walked to the side of the field and sat down. “Ok, looks like the champion is done for the day, folks.” he said. “But don’t worry. After our team gets back tomorrow, he’ll be happy to fight any challengers.” They sighed in disappointment and wondered off, probably heading to the cafeteria to spend the few coppers they had left on ale.

Edam walked over and handed me two gold and thirteen silver. “Your winnings and bets.” he said. I nodded and put them into my purse. “So, you calling it a night? There are a lot of places in town we could go.”

“Don’t you go corrupting Michael, you whoremonger.” said Brie, putting a mostly depleted light stone in her bag. They had sold the few we had that were high enough quality, providing them to the guild to fulfill the quest, but someone else had completed it while we were taking time off as they gathered enough to fully meet the demand. The light stones that were left were all taken by Brie to use as reagents when healing people, thus using less mana. “Besides, the two of you need to get some rest. We’ll be heading out in the morning. I’m sure Cam will have us another insane mission.”

“Not yet.” I said, “I want to practice my magic a bit before we go back into the dungeon.”

She nodded. “Unfortunately we didn’t manage to snag any of those Ice crystals, so you’ll be on your own.”

“Well, if he saved a few Fire crystals maybe we can grab some next time.” I responded then went over to the training dummy.

At two in the morning I wondered back upstairs to the bunks, took of my sweaty clothes, and went to sleep. I might have spent the last several days asleep, but I needed to make sure I was well rested if we were going back into the dungeon.

The next morning I woke up around six, put on some clean clothes, got a bath, dropped my clothes off at the laundry, and went to the training field. I threw Freeze Bolts at the target until I started to get a headache, then swung my sword at it until seven. I then went upstairs, grabbed my standard equipment, and left for the cafeteria.

After five portions of bacon, eggs, and toast, Cam handed out the DP crystals from the last time we were in the dungeon. They had looked up the market rate for the skills I gave Brie, and, as they were over the amount of crystals she earned last time, I got all of hers. Eight hundred and nineteen DP was split five ways, and I ended up getting 328. We checked my status and realized that I was ready for a promotion.

Name: Michael, son of Brin Mason

Race: Human

Age: 18

DP: 343

Status Effects: None

Criminal Status: Banished (Gray Forest Town)

Common Talents

Strength: Petty

Endurance: Major

Dexterity: Petty

Intelligence: Petty

Willpower: Average

Wisdom: Petty

Charisma: Petty

Personality: Major

Perception: Minor

Stats

Strength: 25

Endurance: 30

Dexterity: 24

Intelligence: 11

Willpower: 27

Wisdom: 14

Charisma: 8

Personality: 28

Perception: 19

Talents

Average Improved Immune System

Average Devil’s Luck

Average Rage

Petty Ice Magic

Average Swordsmanship

Monster Talents

Average Troll Regeneration

Minor Tough Hide

Skills

Workout: 11

Study: 5

Spearmanship: 10

Shield: 12

Shield Bash: 9

Use Magic Item: 5

Throwing: 5

Swordsmanship: 14

Dodge: 4

Magic Skills

Freeze Touch: 3

Freeze Bolt: 5

Freeze Edge: 6

Cam took me to Margaret’s line and after showing her my new status she issued me a new copper card. I replaced the one on the leather strip around my neck with the new card, bought seventeen Talent Candies so I could keep twenty on me at all times, and we set off. We swung by the armorer on the way to the same dungeon as last time, and, after verifying that his apprentice had properly replaced my shield strap, paid him the six copper for the job and headed for the dungeon.