The inside of the gym was warm, and the contrast between the cold outdoors and the warm indoors hit Alex hard after minutes of jogging in the cold. The change brought him out of his thoughts for a second and he took a second to look around and take in the environment. His reflective mood quickly returned, thinking about days gone by. His height and athleticism had made him a dominant athlete, even while he was more focused on combat preparation and completing scenarios.
The gym was a quiet building, at least in the reception area. Every room, court, and field was enclosed with soundproofing enchantments. They made sure that activities that required focus weren’t interrupted by a particularly loud yell when someone got stabbed by a practice sword or hit an impressive shot in a pickup basketball game. Alex had experienced both plenty of times over the years.
Once you left the reception area, all bets on noise control were off. Several rooms amplified sounds inside of them to simulate particular environments or raise the difficulty of those tasks that required high levels of focus. Alex remembered his first time practicing mana control in a room with amplified sound. It had been a frustrating experience, to say the least. Students practicing mana control already had enough difficulty getting used to the sensation of being able to sense mana in the environment, extra distractions were just unfair.
It had taken Alex years to be able to smoothly adjust to the sensation of having access to the soul attributes. The Academy’s illusion chambers were truly incredible, allowing students who hadn’t yet started the path to experience mana in the same way as an Aspirant, someone who had entered Tier 0. In fact, the chambers gave them the ability to sense mana with the senses of someone who had reached the limits of that tier.
Alex had been one of the students to adjust to the new senses and learn to control what was effectively a false limb relatively quickly, it had only taken him a few years after entering the Academy to control mana with the precision expected of an Aspirant with all four soul attributes. He’d been the first of his class to achieve the threshold. Later, he’d discovered that his accomplishment of reaching the Aspirant standard at ten years old was unmatched in the history of the Academy.
His musings were interrupted by the receptionist clearing her throat, “You going to do anything or just stand there?”
Alex smiled, “My bad, got caught up thinking about something else.”
The receptionist, a student a few years younger than Alex, groaned, “You’re one of the Seniors, then?”
“Yep.” Alex grinned at her, “I’m sure you’ll be all nostalgic when it's your turn.”
“Not a chance,” The receptionist rolled her eyes, “What are you here for?”
“Combat illusion chamber, if it’s available,” Alex replied. He looked down at her desk and saw a few textbooks and notebooks laid out, “Work for Harrison?”
“Yes,” the receptionist sighed, and Alex winced sympathetically. He was not going to miss those assignments. History was interesting enough, but it paled in comparison to studying magical effects and practicing his swordsmanship.
A few seconds passed and the receptionist looked back down at her textbooks, “about that chamber…”
“Of course, it’s not available.” The receptionist snorted, “It’s nearly the middle of the day. You can get fourth in line, probably less than an hour.”
Alex nodded, individual illusion chamber use was a restricted privilege. Even Seniors, who had permission to use the chamber daily, would only get five to fifteen minutes in before they had to return to mundane training. “Sounds good, I’ll need to warm up anyway.”
The receptionist tossed him a small black sphere, which he easily caught and pocketed, “They let you throw these things around now?”
She blushed at him, “No, but…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Alex laughed, “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”
Satisfied that he’d gotten one over the receptionist after she’d been a bit rude to him, Alex walked past her to the stairs and ascended to the second floor. He happily ignored that he had been the one just standing in the lobby distracting her from her homework.
The floors in the gymnasium worked a bit differently than other buildings. With fields and courts for sports events on the first floor, a ceiling at normal height wouldn’t be practical. Alex had to climb nearly a hundred feet worth of stairs before reaching the second floor.
Another student was working as a receptionist on the second floor, but Alex walked past them without issue. He knew where he was going.
The second floor of the gym was the home of sparring halls and other combat or mana practice rooms. There were even several rooms with permanent illusory environments. Walking down the hall, Alex entered one of the rooms that held a practice field. There were several students already inside, warming up with their weapon of choice or laying into the training dummies.
Alex nodded to a few other students he recognized but didn’t interrupt their practice as he moved over to a rack of swords and picked up a worn, magically blunted steel sword. The practice weapons were enchanted to not deal serious damage to an opponent, and Alex could see minuscule runes drawn across the surface of the weapon.
The precision required to draw an enchantment with such small script implied the work of a higher-tier craftsman, and not all of the practice weapons were so well designed. The lower-quality weapons weren’t a risk to students, but Alex felt that he could tell the difference when he had an inferior blade in his hands. His ability to pick out the best practice swords at a glance was just a matter of repetition. The nicks on this blade’s edge had left it on the rack, but Alex wasn’t looking for a sharp edge, just something well-balanced he could warm up with.
Alex moved over to a corner of the field that was unoccupied, not interested in chatting with other students while they practiced. He started by stretching and making sure that his body was loose, a warrior on a battlefield might not have the opportunity to stretch before a battle, but they also wouldn’t be going to the library after their fight.
Also, all of the instructors recommended that low-tier fighters stretch and warm up before entering a combat trial, so it was good practice for his life after graduation.
Picking up his sword after going through a series of progressively difficult stretches, Alex finally felt calm. He stepped into the first move of one of his more basic sword forms, and it felt like all his worries melted away.
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The disappointment over missing some studying with Becca. The confusion that thinking about Becca seemed to come with, these days. Any guilt from teasing the receptionist who was just doing her job. Stress about the future. It all seemed so much less important while he practiced his swordsmanship. His mind gradually emptied as he focused on increasingly intense movements.
In his early days at the academy, when he had been a kid with a mind full of stories about heroes, Alex had declared to anyone who would listen that he would be a swordmaster when he started the Trialbringer’s Path. He’d babble on about how he’d be the next great swordsman of New Chicago. He’d follow in the footsteps of Dale Lemmings, a man who didn’t have the right name for heroics but had reached Tier 3 anyway and cut down giant beasts by the dozen with a single swing of his blade.
His instructors had seen a child with a romanticized opinion of a flawed weapon, and done their best to show him why there were significantly better weapons to choose for fighting monsters and completing combat trials. While he was still a kid they’d shown him stories of other warriors who used weapons with greater reach. As he’d reached his preteens they’d explained to him that swordsmen didn’t do as well as spearmen in plenty of trials, citing both anecdotes and statistics. For a few months, he’d even tried practicing with a poleax.
When he insisted on returning to the sword, the teachers gave up on explaining the inferiority of the weapon to him. Throughout his teens, he had been pitted against other students using various polearms and forced to fight against greater reach time and time again.
He’d lost, of course, reach was the main decider for pretty much any fight between unskilled teenagers. He’d either charged in only to get prodded back or switched to the defensive only to find himself forced into desperate gambits to avoid his opponent’s weapon. Magically blunted weapons removed the real danger from fights, as the enchantments also prevented any broken bones or similar injuries. Alex had still walked away from spars with bruises too many times to remember. Magical healing was too precious a resource to be wasted on teenagers with bruises, and Alex spent some time seriously reconsidering if pursuing mastery of the sword was the right decision.
In the end, it had been this feeling that kept him certain of his choice of weapon. He felt right in a way that was hard to explain, He just knew it had to be an affinity for the weapon. His instructors had reminded him that affinity was nearly impossible to understand before entering Tier 0. He could very easily be wrong, but they’d acquiesced after he insisted.
It was a simple fact at the Academy, that students could choose their path to power. While untiered youths didn’t yet have the Connection required to sense their soul and try to determine where their talents lay, they still had a better chance of figuring it out than anyone else.
Alex wasn’t the only student who chose to practice with the sword despite the instructors’ warnings, but he was part of a minority. Many other students in the training field wielded long, winged spears. The boar spear was an ideal weapon for fighting various bestial monsters that were quite common at low tiers. The weapon wasn’t without its flaws, but weaknesses could be covered up with Abilities and Enhancements as one progressed. A weapon that kept you alive at Tier 0 was important.
Alex’s trancelike state as he worked his way through sword forms didn’t last. The noise of others practicing pulled him out of his focus when a younger student yelped in surprise and pain. Alex immediately looked over, only to see it was a kid in his early teens who had swung his sword too hard at a red dummy, not knowing how reinforced those dummies were.
Stupid mistakes were rather common when teenagers were involved, which was why the safety enchantments on the weapons were rigorously maintained. There would be a Tier 2 instructor somewhere on the second floor as well, but they would probably be in the sparring hall instead of a practice field.
Even if they were in the room, some kid dropping his sword after it rebounded off a dummy harder than he expected was hardly an emergency. The kid was blushing furiously as he shook out his hand, clearly trying to push through it to look less pathetic around all of the older students.
Pretty much all the older students had made their own mistakes and quickly resumed their practice when it was clear the kid wasn’t hurt. Alex considered doing the same, but he had a few minutes to spare, so he walked over to help.
“You hit that dummy pretty hard,” Alex smiled at the kid, trying to avoid sounding too judgmental.
“Y-yeah,” The kid frowned, intently not making eye contact as he blushed furiously, “I wanted to see if I could leave a mark.” Alex decided he was either twelve or thirteen years old, the Academy didn’t let younger students use weapons without direct supervision.
Alex chuckled as he looked over at the dummy, which was a bit battered and had a few scars, “Didn’t they tell you not to swing with all your might in class? Do that in a spar and you’ll fall over as likely as hit someone.”
“Yeah…” The kid sounded dejected.
Alex realized that his words may not have had the desired effect, as the kid looked more upset than he had at the start of the conversation. “Don’t worry too much about it, I’ve done the same thing more than once.” Alex didn’t mention that he had also dropped his sword the first time, the rebounding force hurt.
“What they don’t tell you is that all of these marks on the red dummies are left by tiered instructors or graduates with a Strength focus and a vendetta. These dummies are rated for Tier 2 blows, and you won’t be fighting like an Attuned any time soon.” Alex smiled, “I’d head over to one of the green dummies, they’ll have a lot more give.”
The instructors had definitely told the kid to avoid the red dummies, but a reminder couldn’t hurt.
The green dummies were the most numerous in the practice hall, the kid must have gone to one of the hardest dummies intentionally. Green dummies were only marginally reinforced and had cushioning enchantments so that wild haymakers wouldn’t be an injury risk.
Of course, if the kid got into the habit of wild, full-force swings and fanciful maneuvers in practice he would quickly find himself struggling in spars. To say nothing of the rebukes and lectures he’d receive from his instructors.
Alex had experienced those same things as an overeager kid, so he was sympathetic.
The kid mumbled something in agreement and picked up his sword. Not wanting him to feel too embarrassed, Alex gave him another smile, “You’ll get there, just make sure you practice your sword forms and the improvement will come.”
That prompted the kid to flee before Alex repeated any more cliche instructor statements. Oh well, he’d learn eventually.
Alex gave the red dummy a long look, thinking about trying out a haymaker of his own. It would be fun, but it would also make him a rather atrocious role model if he ignored his advice right after giving it.
Alex walked over to a green dummy instead, making sure that he was far away from the kid who was now diligently practicing the basic sword forms he’d been taught. Alex started by practicing his forms, but quickly moved on to less practical attacks.
Alex exaggerated a dodge away from an imaginary strike, spinning into a wide slash that the dummy easily absorbed. He pulled his weapon out, and the “wound” closed behind it.
What followed was a series of arcing slashes and chops that left him exposed to counterblows that wouldn’t come at every turn. Part of him cringed at the lack of finesse, but he was having so much fun that he ignored it. A grin spread across Alex’s face as a thrust connected with the left thigh of the dummy, and he pushed through instead of pulling it out.
Tearing his sword out of the material before he reached the hilt, Alex transitioned into another spin that exposed his back needlessly and his sword slammed into the back of the dummy’s neck. The pure joy of letting loose made Alex laugh.
This continued for a few minutes before the sphere the receptionist had given him started buzzing and he came down from his high. Panting heavily, with sweat pouring down his face, Alex returned his sword to the rack near the entrance.
As he walked out, Alex glanced over at the kid he’d rebuked. He was staring at Alex with wide eyes.
Oops.