As riveting as watching them play hand games was, I’m gonna skip ahead to when the girl came in. She was dressed in leather armor like all the other soldiers he’d seen. Samuel wondered why they had metal weapons but not armor.

She walked up to their cages and pulled out a chalkboard.

“Hekken!” Derek said brightly.

She stared at him, confused. “So that is not hello. That’s what the guards yelled at us when we first saw them.” Derek explained to Samuel.

He in fact had pronounced stop so badly it sounded more like boots.

She shook her head and pointed at the chalkboard. It was a decent drawing of a soldier.

“Shalzar.” She said slowly, enunciating the syllables. She then pointed at herself and repeated the word. She gestured to a guard by the door and repeated it.

Derek and Samuel smiled and nodded to communicate that they understood Shalzar meant soldier. She proceeded to teach them sword, spear, officer, and follow. She then drew a scene of them running, followed by being filled with arrows.

“I have a bad feeling we are being conscripted.” Samuel observed.

“Who conscripts a couple of strangers that don't even speak your language though? Either this place is about to be attacked and we are front-line fodder or something else is going on.” Derek replied.

As predicted she opened their cages and told them to follow her. She led them to a room with a selection of wooden weapons and gave them each a sword. Samuel would have much preferred to be taught how to use a bow but he had no way of communicating that without one present. After equipping them with practice weapons she led them out of the building they had been in. As promised, Samuel and Derek saw a couple archers standing nearby watching them.

“Follow.” she said again, then began swinging a real blade in a practiced motion. Derek and Samuel both tried to copy her. Derek managed a reasonable approximation of her swing, whereas Samuel accidentally threw his sword and hit one of the archers. The man threw it back at him and shouted “Yalik”, clearly angry.

“Hooray our first swear word.” Derek said grinning. Samuel shot him a glare as he rubbed his arm where the sword hit him. Again the man seemed stronger than he should be considering he seemed to barely put any effort into the throw.

Their instructor rolled her eyes and continued showing them how to use the swords. She had to stop finally and show Samuel how to stand and hold the sword so he wouldn’t keep losing hold of it.

In general Derek seemed to pick up what she taught them much faster than Samuel, which wasn’t a surprise. He played a lot more sports and had significantly better hand-eye coordination than Samuel.

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Derek enjoyed it immensely as well. There was something that felt so… graceful about swinging the sword, even though it was just a practice one. He imagined it would only be magnified with a metal weapon. Plus, the instructor had taught them a bunch of new words! With some base vocab, he could start trying to figure out more words from context.

After Samuel could somewhat copy her forms she took them back into the building. Unexpectedly, instead of taking them back to the cages she took them into some sort of meeting area with benches. On a wooden pedestal in the middle of the room there was a glowing black slate. It was the most obviously magical thing either of them had seen.

The instructor led them both over to the pedestal. She looked at them both and quite firmly said “Shalzar”. She then took each of their hand and slapped them down on the pedestal.

And suddenly glowing words appeared in front of each of them, writing themselves out in paragraphs while the old words faded. And they were even in English. I’m quite proud of my nifty little System.

Samuel read

“Congratulations on surviving the ongoing machinations of the one who brought you to Panderan. I am an artificial being created to regulate the aggregation of power. Other Earthlings have compared me to a video game. I present various Classes that can aid you in whatever tasks you pursue. Multiclassing is possible and allows for powerful fusion classes, but specialization is also powerful. More could be explained, but the best learning is done by doing.

Classes Available:

Herbalist

Scholar

Soldier

Samuel read mechanically, his thoughts once again shocked into auto-pilot for the third time. You’d think he’d get used to it.

It was obvious soldier was the class their instructor wanted them to take, and it was likely available due to the basic sword forms she had taught them. But Samuel just imagined the wonders (and horrors) he could make with magic enhanced cross-breeding. Crops that would survive anywhere and feed millions. Medicine that could be mass produced and dirt cheap. If this war was absolutely necessary, poisonous compounds that would cause this world’s Geneva Convention. Heck with magic maybe he could turn a venus flytrap into a plant that would eat like a piranha. He had to choose Herbalist.

Herbalist Selected

Herbalist Level: 0

Prior botanical experience verified.

Herbalist Level: 1

New Skill Choice available!

Green Thumb: Plants grown under your care will mature 2x as fast. Skill can be upgraded.

Manic Mixer: Poisons brewed have their effects enhanced 1.2x. Skill can be upgraded.

Medicine Maker: Poultices, teas, and other beneficial products have their effects enhanced by 1.2x. Skill can be upgraded.

Ah… I may have influenced my System and caused an inordinate love for alliteration. Try to ignore the pain.

To Samuel, the choice was easy. Even though double growth rate wasn’t much as it seemed considering how long most plants took to mature, the faster he could grow plants the faster he could graft and breed them. He focused on Green Thumb.

Green Thumb Selected.

Samuel Arethran

Resiliency Enhancement 0

Stamina Enhancement 0

Strength Enhancement 0

Speed Enhancement 0

Memory Enhancement 0

Will Enhancement 0

Processing Enhancement 0

Available Classes

Scholar

Soldier

Samuel had no idea how to get those Enhancements but he could guess what they did. That explained why the soldiers displayed such casual strength. If Soldier was still available though, he should probably take it so the woman wouldn’t kill him or something. The others might have some use in the future but for now he didn’t bother.

Soldier Level: 0

He took his hand off the slate.