Thoughtfully, he slipped the ring on and then swung the weapon at the dummy. His thoughts were in turmoil. He went over how he acted to try to work out whether he had let slip he was a reincarnated one, and decided he was safe. Yes, relatively to everyone around him, his technique let him hit hard, but he had been careful not to show too much proficiency. He also had little prior knowledge to draw on, as he had rarely used the hammer in the tutorial, and never in this not quite right child’s body. Someone looking in couldn’t discern an ability that didn’t exist.
It was probably just good fortune.
As he kept hitting his target, Tom funnelled a point of mana into the ring to activate it. He was instantly aware of the different settings available. He could increase the gravity he would be subjected to, cause air to impede his movements, create a lightning field that would make muscles spasm, agitate the air so that it would cut him or dampen his senses, or a combination of them all. They were the exact functions Dimitri had alluded to - with the exception of dampen senses, which, out of them all, Tom thought to be the most valuable.
From what he knew of the system, this ring would not help him gain titles, and, while it could potentially contribute to skill gains, that benefit would be marginal. However, Tom could see the benefit of practising with his body under strain, and dampen senses might actually be very useful to him. With his precognition affinity, anything that took away from his perception and forced him to use a sixth sense would be valuable.
Briefly, he dialled up the dampened senses, and, for a moment, his entire world disappeared. He could barely see, sound was like he was standing in an ocean with a roaring, almost physical noise surrounding him, and it felt like fifty grandmothers had descended like a flock of seagulls onto a stray chip and were busily pinching him. Hurriedly, he turned it off. In the future, when he was ready to develop precognition, the ring was definitely going to be useful.
With a shrug, he focused on a more mundane kind of advancement, and increased gravity by the smallest interval of twenty percent. The hammer almost became too heavy for him to swing. However, he pushed through and struck the dummy hard. It felt good to get the most out of his body, even if it was only a fraction of what he had achieved previously.
After history and lunch, Dimitri was there to escort him to his isolation room. Defiantly, he clutched the four toys he had prepared earlier.
The big man rolled his eyes. “What’s with the poor acting. Toys, you can take them, but you pack them up afterwards.”
The moment he was in the room, he set up his tower and grabbed what was to be his target for the next week of training, or at least until he had mastered it.
Poison: Magical Itch – Tier 1
This slowly spreading poison creates a nearly irresistible itch.
Unlike a lot of the options, this one was not deadly, which made it a useful substance to train the Magical Impermeability spell. The latter would theoretically fortify the Skin Wall against the purely magical substances that it currently couldn’t block.
When his two hours were up, the room let him out as normal and he hurried straight to the obstacle course wing. Tom found the other two in the fourth room.
This one was dedicated to movement. It was about half the size of the main gymnasium, which still made it larger than a basketball court and five stories high. The entire space was filled with various obstacle courses that went from ground level to the roof. Tom knew that there were spells to stop you from hurting yourself too badly when you fell, and lots of padded surfaces on the lower levels. Nevertheless, it was intimidating.
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The idea was to choose one of the thirty plus start points and then navigate the loop to return to where you started from. The course made use of all the available space, and some courses took you from the ground to the roof and back again multiple times.
Bir was having a lot of fun throwing herself over, through, and around the obstacles on the second easiest course, which was still incredibly challenging for kids their age. Even with her knack for it, she was being reckless; on the other hand, fate was clearly in play, and Tom could see it actively smoothing out her mistakes. Well, not precisely, but it was possible to observe how chance favoured her over and over again.
Pa was attempting to follow in her wake as best he could. His attempts were surprisingly effective, but he looked kind of like a bull in a china shop. Tom saw him crash into a hurdle and sort of flop over the top. It worked and got him past the obstacle quickly, but scored zero points for style. Despite how awkward his progress looked, he was keeping up with Bir, who was pushing the extent that fate could help her. Without hesitation or pausing to determine the pattern like you were supposed to, she sprinted through the rotating padded obstacles. She was struck multiple times, but, by a flukish chance, managed to keep her feet. A pretend-mace thumped her from behind as she ran along a plank. She stumbled, one foot on the edge, the other beyond it. Her hands windmilled. Another one of the spinning dummies hit her, and, fortunately knocked her back onto the plank, so she promptly fell over. One of the giant arms whizzed over her sprawled body. She stood. Squealed. Failed dismally in her attempt to jump over a knee-length revolving hazard. She half-tripped and half-collapsed onto a different arm and got carried forward two metres, where she fell off onto the next platform.
She had crossed the complicated section in seconds, but not in a way that would have made any instructor proud.
Tom shook his head. Not one step of that had looked deliberate. Pa, who was following just behind her, reached the same platform the way he was supposed to, by pausing and allowing the obstacle to go flying past before advancing into the space they created. Together, they ran forward and completed the remaining section, with Bir coming out victorious by a mere two seconds.
Laughing, they both went to the healing crystal to remove the aftereffects of the heavy bumps they had taken.
She checked the recorded course time, then jumped up and down excitedly:
“Look, look, look how fast I was.”
Tom did as requested and agreed with her. Two minutes and thirteen seconds was a great time. Tom, if he went all out with a tiny fate investment, could probably beat it, but it would be close. He joined them for the next run, and, to even the playing field, he focused on keeping his moves precise rather than bumbling through everything like Pa had. Bir must not have used fate this time, since she was slower, and on multiple occasions Tom had to let one of the spinning dummies knock him off the balance beam to ensure he did not beat his friends. It looked appropriately clumsy, but really was anything but. He ensured that they struck him just where he wanted them to, and not a single one had hit him by surprise.
While there was nothing he could do about his weakness, his perception and awareness of his surroundings hadn’t been diminished.
During the next run, he used the ring to dim his senses. His performance was nowhere near as perfect as the previous run, but he learned how to push through the disability, which was the important thing even if it would not be rewarded with a system-assigned bonus.
The next day, Tom snuck into a normal isolation room when it was his turn. He emerged grinning only to meet a stern-faced Dimitri.
“This is wrong room.”
“So, I’ve done my session today.”
Dimitri grabbed him before he could run away and forced him into the clean room. Little Ta, given brief control, screamed and yelled, while inside Tom grinned at having successfully gained an extra session.
“I’ve already done isolation room. I’ve already done it!” he shrieked at the top of his voice.
Dimitri said nothing and pushed him into the room and locked the door behind him.
Laughing at the success of the ploy, he grabbed the practice spear and trained while rotating the settings of his new ring. They were all frustrating and difficult to cope with, but he was experienced enough to know that all the conditions he was being subjected to were environmental effects that he might have to fight through in the outside world.
The next person who thought a diffuse electricity cloud would slow him was going to be stunned by how ineffective the ability would be against him.