The fake angel met Tom’s eyes:

“Can I help you learn those skills? I can, but it’s not black and white. Right now? This instant?” She shook her head. “But eventually? Yes, I’ll be able to.”

“What the hell does that mean?” He asked bluntly, not understanding the need for evasion. “You don’t have to be cagey. I don’t have time for it. My species’s very future is on the line.”

She held up a hand imperiously:

“Stop. Remember my oath. I’m on your side. I swore on the GODs. My loyalty is not up for debate or doubt.”

Tom’s brief flash of anger faded. Her point was more than valid. She had made that oath unprompted, and it was not one that could be a pretence. It was real and the GODs wouldn’t allow doubt when their name was invoked. Not even illusions or hallucinations would permit such a misrepresentation to exist. If he thought it was sworn on the GODs, then it had been.

“Things are not simple. I’m bound by rules, and I’ve already stated that I can’t give you stuff. I’m not like a normal trial in that regard.”

There was something about her tone.

“And here comes the but.” He guessed.

She smiled:

“Yes, here comes the but. I can’t give, but you can earn the help to develop those skills.”

“Great, let’s do that now.”

She laughed:

“Don’t be so impatient. There’s a process to go through, an order in which to do things to achieve the best result.” She looked at his hands, then at his eyes. “Your weapon is the spear, correct?”

He nodded.

“Earning the right to the aid to acquire true skills will take time. Hundreds of hours should pass, usually, before I can give you hints. Most reincarnated ones don’t start getting help until at least one year has passed. You will get it earlier, given the time dilation, but we’re still talking about months. I suggest you use the time you’re getting and the extra fate to work on relearning the basic Spear skill. I assume you’ve had it previously?” She finished, giving him a hard look.

“Of course, in both lives.”

Her face softened. “Sorry, I had to clarify. Others have misled me before, and thus wasted time, because, in my ignorance, I inadvertently provided them with poor advice. Better to ask at the start and make sure that we’re both on the same page.”

“Why would they do that? What would they get out of lying?”

“They had specialised in swords and had figured spears were better and decided to reset things. It might have been an accident of omission rather than them deliberately misleading me. Pretty dumb on their part, anyway. Now, as I was saying, my recommendation is that you use about a third of your time and all of your extra fate to earn Spear Mastery. The remaining time can be spent earning hints for the other skills. This first set of clues is for free,” she waved her hand. “This was given to me for this purpose and approaches the line without crossing it.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

A man or a woman, or at the very least a humanoid, appeared, holding a spear. The person was so thoroughly disguised Tom couldn’t distinguish a single feature.

“I’ve been able to use this for ten years.”

The figure started showing different spear moves. A thrust, a block, specific footwork, the shifting of his hands to an alternative position on the shaft, spinning the weapon to reposition it; between each set of movements, it returned to rest. Then it began chaining them together. The display was precise, and no movement was ever repeated.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? And this was a real person. Every movement done perfectly,” she whispered next to him. “Incredible talent, and a genius as well to share it like they did to be used by kids in the future. Note everything about it. The angle the ankles are at, how the fingers spread for some moves but constrict on others. Every bit is important, not just the vibe. If you duplicate eighty percent of these, you’ll get the skill.”

“I thought the threshold was fifty.”

“It is, but I suspect not all the moves are shown here, just enough of them to be of help.”

The routine ended.

“I can show this to you as often as you wish. The system may interpret it as if you were learning from a master, which would be unfortunate. It might not, of course. I don’t know. I hope it doesn’t, and I think it won’t, but be warned - I don’t know anything for sure. In any case, I recommend you take advantage of the opportunity. I can’t imagine there being any real benefit to you studying it by yourself. At worse, it’s just a tier zero skill. Its weight in any calculation has to be almost non-existent. Better in my mind to get help with this one and fill the prerequisite for the other superior skills, so you can start working on them sooner.”

“Agreed,” Tom told her.

A weapon appeared in his hands, and the figure started going through the moves from the start again, and he duplicated the motions. Everything he did lacked the crispness of the example he was trying to emulate, but he persisted.

By the time the routine finished, he was drenched in sweat, and it was a struggle to breathe properly. He gasped for air, standing straight with his hands above his head to open his airways.

The angel glanced at him and the tightness in his chest and the trembling in his muscles vanished instantly. “You know what you need to do and, as I said, combat helps. Remember this.”

She looked pointedly at the shrouded figure that was in its resting stance.

Tom shut his eyes to reflect on his own attempts and review what he had seen and what he had done.

The background noise changed. There was a distant rustling and the touch of a breeze on his skin.

His eyes snapped open to grass surrounding him, trees ten metres in front and an open sky above. The spear he held hadn’t transformed. It was the perfect size for him, unlike the one in the isolation room, but that was a secondary consideration. He was exposed, and presumably in danger. He spun around on the spot, searching his surroundings for enemies.

It was suspicious, and the fact that he was in this new location with a spear in his hand was not a coincidence. He was in a large clearing in a forest, with the ground being covered with the type of grass you would find on a golf course.

Sure enough, a dog poked its way out from the trees right on cue. It was white and fluffy and clearly a poodle, even if it was a little ungroomed. Once it emerged, Tom assessed it. The animal was larger than he expected, with its head on the level of his shoulder, but that might have been more a comment on his own height than the animal.

It was skinny, but given its height and the fact that it ran on four legs, it was going to outweigh him, even if marginally.

“This is a dog from Earth, and it has rabies,” the trial administrator’s voice said from above and behind him.

Tom didn’t bother looking. Whether the angel facsimile was here in person, or it was just a projected voice, didn’t matter.

“It will attack you to kill.”

It was stalking slowly toward him, and he knew it would speed up once it got in range. He positioned his weapon ready to engage it. “In the future, no pets from Earth.” He snapped. “That’s crossing the line.”

“Oh… Sorry.” The dog was frozen like time had stopped. “I thought it would be appropriate because you would both have unenhanced strength.”

“No dogs,” he repeated.

“And most of you don’t care.”

“I do!”

Obediently, the dog’s body shape changed. The mass and attributes he suspected remained the same, but its fur was replaced with scales and its snout became more reptilian even if the rest of the body shape didn’t seem to alter. Then time restarted and when it moved, its gait had altered. There had been structural changes he hadn’t been able to see. Now, the legs spread out like a crab so that its stomach was closer to the ground, and it scampered rather than bounded.