April took another sip of coffee.

Tom stared at her, confused. As far as he was concerned, their conversation was over.

“Why am I still here. Shouldn’t I be sent somewhere?”

She shook her head and looked pointedly at his coffee:

“We finish our drinks first.”

“That’s-“

She pointed, and it was clear she was not going to change her mind.

Resigned to his fate, he picked up the coffee cup with a look of distaste and took a cautious sip. It had cooled significantly while they had been chatting. If she wanted them to finish…

Without hesitation, he gulped it down and recoiled slightly at the taste. Annoyed by the experience, he crashed the cup down hard on the table like he would have done with the empty cup after downing a beer in front of his mates:

“I’m done.”

She smirked at him. “I’m not.” She took another dainty sip of coffee.

Annoyance flashed through him. “Really? You can’t be…”

“No, not really.” She chuckled and the cups of coffee both vanished. “But we’re not quite finished here. I know you’ve used skills in the past, but you almost certainly never understood what you were doing. I’m sure every previous skill was gifted to you by the system.”

Tom agreed with that. Even the skill he had earned had ultimately been awarded to him. It had been gifted as a pat on the back, to acknowledge that there were multiple times he fell when chance should have killed him, but didn’t.

“Think about what you’ve done when you triggered a skill. Can you honestly say you understand anything about the process?”

He did not argue with her. April had far more experience than him, and was oathbound to do her best for him, too. Her advice was like precious nuggets of gold, so he thought hard about what she was asking. In his memories there was a clear blank spot in the skill execution process. He could recall perfectly both how he had triggered them and how they ended up acting in the real world, but everything between those steps was a blur. That contrasted with his regularly used spell forms. When it came to them, he had thought he knew everything, and only when trying to recreate them had he discovered how shallow his knowledge had been.

But ultimately, while it was shallow, he had at least possessed it. That was not the case with skills. Using them had been like flexing a muscle - in other words, instinctive. He knew how to do it, but excluding his earth education, he wouldn’t have had a clue about electrical synapses sending a signal and then individual muscle fibres reacting to them - only the starting point, the command from the brain, and the ending point of the muscle moving would have been known to him.

“Spells are external to you.” April explained to him. “They’re part of a framework, or, I guess, if put in terms you can understand, they draw on a massively complicated computing language. Create the key, supply the energy, and that framework does all the nuts-and-bolts stuff required to cast the spell, whether it is controlling the electricity or balancing you while you flow. Skills are different. They’re internal to you.” She hesitated. “Well, mostly. They all originate from your soul, but some, not the ones I’m showing you, plug into the same framework the spells use at a level that can’t be perceived by most mortals…” she waved her hand. “It doesn’t matter. The key bit is that skills come from the soul, and imparting attuned energy is the easiest one of them that you can learn.”

She tossed him an empty shard of crystal. He caught and examined it. It was yellow, and already containing mana.

“What’s this for?” he asked even as he knew the answer.

“You’re going to fill it with attuned energy.”

Tom frowned at her:

“And how would I do that?”

She smiled:

“I don’t know, but I’m interested in seeing you try.”

She was giving him a test, and he tossed the small chip of crystal up and down, thinking.

“Here’s a free hint: staring at it is not the solution you’re looking for.”

Tom glared at her:

“I,” he started to object and then stopped himself. “I was thinking about the best method.” He tore his gaze away from her and threw himself into the task. All he could do was experiment.

He focused and wished it to be full, then he imagined energy slowly sinking to it.

Nothing happened.

He focused on his soul interacting with the existing mana and imparting the precognition affinity onto it.

There were no perceivable flows of energy, and the crystal in his hand hadn’t changed.

Tom was not discouraged. One by one he rolled out another dozen mental images. Some created connections between it and him, others were like a whip cracking to force his power through. None of them worked. The crystal remained completely unresponsive.

For a moment, he paused his efforts to try to remember what it had felt like when he had used skills previously. His Spear Skills provided no insights. With them, he flexed something and then they worked. Dodge was just as bad, and Social Silence activated without his conscious direction.

With a frown, he looked up and met her gaze. “Sorry, I don’t know how to do that.”

“Developing skills from scratch is harder than doing the same with spells, probably by an order of magnitude. I’ve factored in three months for you to learn imparting the precognition affinity. It means your time here won’t be pleasant. You’re basically going to rotate between dying grisly deaths and being tortured. Luckily, once you’ve learnt one properly, the others will be easier. The task of acquiring Attuned Energy and then Shaping Wood will take you four to six months together. If you go straight to Shaping Wood, that time doubles. I know that seems extreme, but skills are tricky like that. Luckily, I have the experience to share when it comes to what works for you humans, as it’s different for most species. However, this process will make your time during the trial miserable. Are you sure you have no objections to the plan?”

“No, I don’t.”

Abruptly, he found himself naked, suspended in a void.

“I’m going to be blasting you with three types of energy.” April’s voice said from all around him. “Arcane, Precognition and Air. I want you to tell me once you can recognise the difference between them.”

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The bombardment started, and he suddenly felt pricks of pain all over his skin. Each one was enough to make him say ouch, but they were coming too quickly for that kind of reaction. He stayed mute and forced himself to focus on what was important. She had said months, but he hoped to accomplish it sooner. He had not been told not to, so his magic sensing ability unfurled to try gaining more data on what was happening.

“That’s an innate skill,” April told him. “You won’t ever see it on a status sheet, but it’s a skill.”

Tom wondered if that was significant, but then pushed the comment out of his mind, because it was like all the other ones he had previously. He could trigger it and see the result, but nothing else.

He would ponder on the wisdom of the observation and whether it had any hidden meaning when he had time. That would be when he was playing with the others and not here, where he was alone and could focus on training. Within the empty void around him, he could sense the little needles of energy appear about five metres away from him and then shoot at him. His experience with his pseudo spark domain let him track trajectories, but that didn’t help him. There was no way to dodge, as it was as though he was suspended in space with nothing to kick off. He just had to stay still and take it. Each of the needles felt like a pinch of pain when they hit, then they rapidly faded to nothing.

The issue was they all felt identical. His magic sense was incapable of differentiating between them, and, because the needles struck a fresh patch of skin each time, there was no getting used to it.

“Does it have to be so unpleasant?” he yelled out. “These things hurt.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Time passed while being continually pelted. Then, after half an hour, he was moved to watch the recording of the spear master go through its forms. Then he was thrust into a desperate fight for his life. Battles where it felt like he was continuously losing. Then he would be given a break and transferred to the coffee shop. Sometimes it would be to eat a cookie, other times a hot chocolate, and every second time a long black that he was expected to finish. They chattered about his past and the horror of the previous hour receded, and then he was sent back in again.

Once more, he was in the coffee shop. The last few hours had blended together into an exhausting mess. He listened to April chatting happily about the similarities between the world Tom had described and the cities built by an alien with a single eye stalk and no limbs, but instead used telepathy for everything. The words mostly went over his head, and, as was his custom he ignored the coffee until it was lukewarm. He grimaced and picked it up.

It is time, and all you have to do is to suffer a few quick gulps and the cup would be empty, he thought to himself. Then he would be able to return to training.

“Wait,” April whispered. “We’re out of time.”

He froze at that announcement and hastily put the cup down:

“Does that mean I don’t have to drink this?”

She laughed. “This once you don’t. Before you go, I wanted to say that, as far as I understand, you believe that you’ve made no progress.”

“I don’t feel that at all,” he objected. “My spin sideways, forward impale and static impale have advanced a lot. The rest of the forms admittedly have done nothing, but I never expected this to be an instantaneous process.”

“I’m glad you perceive it that way, but you know I was talking about the skill training. It’s difficult, and your tenacity and dedication were amazing.”

“It’s almost a torture. I don’t know how, but the latest needle hurts as much as the first, and they still all feel the same.”

She smiled sadly at that. “I don’t expect you to make progress for weeks, if not months. Acquiring a skill is hard, but worthwhile, and what this process does is teach you to connect to the soul manually. It’s a technical skill that will serve you for a lifetime. Once you’ve done it once, all the rest gets easier.”

“I wasn’t complaining.”

“I just want you to know that you’ve done well today.”

Abruptly, the world shifted, and he found himself outside the trial in Existentia once more. A hand grabbed him and tugged him to the side.

Tom didn’t resist. According to his memories, this was the usual routine, so he allowed Dimitri to move him away.

He was guided two steps, so he was no longer next to the trial sphere, before being released to allow Dimitri to move back to his guarding position.

Bir appeared, and he steered her away in the same fashion. She looked relaxed and happy and Tom, despite the underlying trauma of the experience, attempted to force his own face to look the same way.

The two of them loitered until Pa emerged and then, by mutual agreement, they left to play tag.

The days passed in a blur with Tom focusing on his magic. Four days after the trial he received the spell he was targeting.

Spell: Alleviate Surface Bruising – Tier 0

This spell allows the healing of surface level bruises with poor efficiency.

The next visit to the trial went much like the first, and two days after it he got his first evolution.

Spell: Heal Skin – Tier 0

This spell allows the healing of injuries to the skin.

The spell was a lot better than expected. The description had dropped the disclaimer of poor efficiency, and it showed in what he could heal. Scratches and low-level bruising took half of the mana to heal as previously. The only disappointment with the upgrade was that his title hadn’t activated to give him a sideways evolution. It was disappointing, but his overall progress was not. He had gained two spells and an evolution in less than three weeks. They were still shitty, but they represented him taking a step, if admittedly a tiny one, and that brought him closer to slaying the dragon.

Another few weeks passed with everything going to plan, apart from his hope that he would miraculously acquire the first skill faster than April had predicted. His dedicated training had successfully evolved the lesser spells into Triage Cut, and he had also successfully gained the Remove Dead Tissue Minor spell. His capability to heal himself from significant wounds remained dismal, both due to his lack of mana and the fact that the spells he had learned so far weren’t that great. However, his progress was steady, and the information contained in the isolation rooms was definitely proving its worth. Both completed evolutions turned out to be exactly as it had specified.

Tom gritted his teeth while suspended in space and focused on trying to predict what made up each of the projectiles. He was sure he was starting to sense the difference between them. About every fourth needle felt different from the rest. It was as though they were closer to being part of him, while the majority of needles remained unknowable, alien.

He was close. He could feel in his bones.

There was a jerk of reality.

He was in the café once more. April, as usual, sat across from him with her perfect wings and inhuman face. The stress of the last two sessions got to him; with trembling hands, he grabbed the coffee and took a shaky sip.

“Fuck,” he cursed as the piping hot liquid burnt the insides of his mouth. “Why’s it so hot?”

“It’s the same temperature as always,” April told him, and with a wave of her hand the pain vanished from his tongue. “Why are you so shaken, anyway? They’re just needle pricks.”

“They’re relentless,” he admitted. “Between that and the monkeys taking me by surprise.”

“I promised you that I wouldn’t let your combat instincts fade.” She reminded him. “The lizard dogs were becoming too predictable.”

“And the monkeys are anything but that,” he groaned.

“Cheer up,” she continued cheerfully. “You’re making progress.”

“It doesn’t feel like it. Am I really improving?”

She stared at him in a disapproving fashion:

“Don’t try to use those puppy dog eyes on me. I’m way too old for that to have a chance of working. Also, are you improving? Did you really ask me that? What do you think? That’s what’s important.”

“It’s really not. My objective skill levels are what matters, as does how well I’m performing against my peers and whether I am I doing better or worse.”

She glared at him, and, despite her youthful appearance the force of her immense age and her disapproval came through. He stopped arguing.

“I’m improving,” he admitted. “I think I can even sense some of the precognition needles.”

“I believe so too,” she agreed.

“But I’ve only had a connection with about a quarter of them, not a third.”

“You’re definitely sensing them. I vary the ratio by session, but it was twenty-four percent in the latest. The next step is to absorb them before they hurt you. Once you do that, I’ll take you through the next stage of skill acquisition.”

“April, I do have a question. This is not about me, but about others. Why is it so painful? I can’t imagine Bir or Pa managing this, even if they’re motivated.”

“I match the technique to the recipient.”

“Are you implying that I’m a masochist?”

“No, this is the fastest method, and you’re tough enough to survive it. I have less invasive approaches for the non-reincarnated ones, and the reincarnated ones who lack your level of willpower. Having said that, I can always dial it down if you want.”

“Nope, no need. I can do this.” He took a shaky sip of his coffee. It burnt his tongue slightly, but not sufficient to cause him to flinch, or he guessed, to require extra healing. Sometimes he wondered if he was pushing himself too hard; but, given the stakes, how could he do anything else?

“Stick with it, Tom, and you’ll do great. Now, last session, you were telling me about Bazza from work.”

“Yeah, he was an absolutely crazy guy,” Tom told her animatedly. “Have I told you the one about Bazza and the nail gun?”

She shook her head and him recounting the story had them both in hysterics. He finished and found his cup empty.

“Until next week,” she said, and he found himself outside the trial with Dimitri’s hand on his shoulder, guiding him away.