Then he practiced his spear forms until the timer ran out.

The next day at lunch, Dimitri walked over to their two tables.

“Everyone, from tomorrow, your routine changes. In addition to afternoon isolation rooms, there’ll be two hours of communal education. For now, it will be reading, mathematics and general knowledge. Then in two weeks’ time, we’ll start practical training courses on every second afternoon as well.”

There were groans from all the kid’s tables.

Tom was not surprised at the revelation. From his observations of the orphanage, he had already concluded that this was coming. The five-year-olds, the ones a year older than him, had seven hours of organised activities per day; ten for the older kids, though some of the supervised time was closer to elective sports than study. Dimitri doing this now made sense, because if they were back on earth, Tom would be approaching the age when they would normally start school.

“Meet here tomorrow after breakfast.” Dimitri ordered.

The following day, Tom turned up to the first class and there were twelve volunteers who proceeded to start teaching them to read. It was too much for him and he retreated to the pseudo system room to ensure his understanding of the written language did not reveal his special status.

Dimitri took the next class:

“Who here knows about the competition?” Almost every hand in the room was raised. “And who here understands the stakes?” Tom left his arm up with most of the other, children. The big man frowned. “I assure you that you don’t. I’m sure you’re aware of the ladder placings, but none of you comprehend the very real consequences of failure. If we end up in the last few places, do you understand what that means?”

“New people won’t get city.” A boy piped up.

Tom winced.

“That’s outcome, but not cost. Failure means deaths. Not one, not ten, not thousands, not millions, but billions.” Tom felt the chill that accompanied those words deep inside of him. That would include Mum and Dad, friends, Em, his little sister. The consequence of failure was absolute. “It’s everyone’s job to earn ranking points, and I do that by volunteering here. In five years’ time, I’ll go back to adventuring, even though it will probably cost me my life, because every ranking point is precious, but for now I’m here to help you become more powerful. Who here knows how to get stronger?”

He went around the room, and there were a variety of suggestions.

“Better muscles.”

“Master the obstacle course.”

“Become good at swords.”

“Develop skills.”

“Titles,” Pa said next to him.

“Exactly.” Dimitri pointed at Pa. “And what do we do to help people earn titles? Do we tell people the steps?”

“No,” almost everyone yelled back.

“Do we hint at them?”

“No,” they all roared.

“Do we tell people we have them?”

“No.”

Dimitri nodded:

“Precisely. Titles are the best path to strength and how to get them is a secret. The only thing I can tell you is to do lots of things, take risks, work hard, and perfect stuff you’re good at.”

Tom shivered at that risk part. The cupboards, the lairs, the climbing frames without protective spells. From most points of view, this place was deadly, but as far as he could tell, no one had died or disappeared. That was based not only on the last few weeks, but on Little Ta’s memories as well. That was curious.

Then a thought occurred to him. Was it possible that the new human racial trait was responsible? What proportion of the daily prayers went into ensuring none of the children here were killed or badly hurt? The lack of injuries and deaths suggested the town was making a substantial investment. The cupboards alone proved that.

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Another week and a half passed, and Tom found himself in the trial once more. The monster, an amalgamation of a monkey and a metal elemental, charged him once more. To hold it off, he thrust forward. It halted its rush. Its sharpened metal arms crossed themselves fast in front of its chest, and targeted his probing weapon.

Too quickly for him to react.

The shaft under his hand jerked as the end of the spear was lobbed off.

It backed away, giving him a few more moments before he succumbed. His muscles were screaming in pain, and he could feel his concentration failing. He was lightheaded, which meant the blood loss was probably worse than he had thought.

Too many cuts were covering him for him to think about healing. Heal Cut was efficient, and none of them were deep, but there were probably hundreds at this stage. A couple of points of mana could close most of the slashes on his right arm, two more for his left, but if he did that, those on his torso and on of his legs would still be left bleeding, and more importantly, it wouldn’t progress his magic directly.

But he was losing the fight. When he looked at his hand, it seemed like his natural skin tone was red rather than his normal slightly tanned colouring. The rest of him, he knew, would appear the same. He pumped the spell that refreshed his red blood cell count. The spell worked, but not well enough to cause a ding, though he felt a burst of energy in response to the extra blood flow. His legs were no longer so wobbly.

Unfortunately, he was still bleeding, and Refresh Blood Cells was not a spell he could use twice in one battle. It was a temporary boost, no more.

The fight had to end now.

The monkey thing was coming at him. Its metal arms would be invulnerable until Tom gained Power Strike or a more powerful skill, but its flesh-and-blood body was fragile. Potentially it was more so than that of the versions from earth. It weighed far less than him, so all he had to do was to land a hit.

It was a stupid plan, but a plausible one. He glanced at his weapon and, like it had all the times before, it had been restored to its full length.

As the monster came at him, he committed fully. He remembered the last encounter. It had sliced off his spear end and that happening now was the best-case scenario. Luckily, Tom didn’t think he needed a sharpened tip to hurt the creature. His plan relied on him losing the top foot of his weapon. But if he lunged further and scored a hit with the remaining section, he might be able to leverage that into a more comprehensive victory.

His muscles flowed through the unconventional form. There were no partial commitments, no way to pull back. He was a hundred percent decisive. He just needed the thing to stand its ground like it had done in the previous engagement.

Tom grimaced in frustration. It was crouching instead of pushing forward. It was a different posture than in the last encounter.

It dodged to the side.

He hit nothing and stumbled helplessly.

Then it was on top of him, its sharpened arms slashing down at his throat and trying to decapitate him.

The world blinked.

He was sitting at the coffee table with both of his hands pressing into his split-open throat to try and keep the blood in. His mind registered the location, and he pulled his shaky hands away from his neck and looked at them.

They were spotless, without a single smear of red on them, let alone the torrent he had imagined. The God shield had activated. He was safe and alive, despite his recent memories warning otherwise.

“What you tried then was ridiculous.”

Tom replayed the battle and his desperate manoeuvre. It had felt like the right choice at the time, but the odds had been worse than with a coin flip. He sighed, lowered his unstained hands, and met April’s eyes:

“I know. But I had already lost, and it only dodges seventy percent of the time. That lets me claim victory one time out of three and, given the position I was in, that’s pretty good.”

“Less than that. You do know there are defensive spear forms and not just offensive?”

“Of course I do.”

“Just checking, because sometimes…”

He stared at her suspiciously and remembered the rest of the fight:

“You think I’m relying on the GOD’s shield and learning bad habits.”

She nodded.

“I could have played that last encounter defensively, but, given the way I was bleeding, not to mention my prior blood loss, fighting cautiously was a guaranteed death.”

“Absolutely. Your mistakes came earlier. Even against something like that, I shouldn’t have to be restoring your weapon multiple times every fight.”

“Yes, you could give me a proper spear and then it wouldn’t get destroyed so easily.”

“Don’t blame your tools. Someone aiming for spear mastery ought not be making those mistakes. That was a shit show.”

Tom lowered his head. “I know. Everything is so hard. The fights are relentless. Am I making any progress?”

She hesitated:

“Statistically, you are better at estimating that than I am.”

“Just answer me, April,” he yelled and then stopped himself, embarrassed. “Sorry, it’s only that.” His hand touched his neck. The trembling was barely visible, but he was only halfway through his time here. “This is just so hard.”

“I understand what you’re going through, and I’m confident it’s the best play. You’re on track to get the skill in forty weeks or so. That’s fast.”

He put his head in his hands:

“Shit, I don’t know if I can keep this up.”

“Drink your coffee.”

He did as instructed, and the bitter taste grounded him like it usually did. The slight trembles vanished completely.

“You’re ahead in both spear mastery and your skill acquisition. The trial sessions will get a lot easier once you’ve fully mastered precognition energy. That’s only a couple of weeks away.”

He took another sip. He hated the taste and he wasn’t sure that was going to change, but the sessions themselves, he loved. Ten minutes later, he finished their light conversation. Refreshed, he went back to training.

He hung in the void with needles of energy assaulting him, and around forty percent were precognition flavoured. For those, he focused on absorbing them while, ignoring the others for now.