Tom took control back from Little Ta as the mathematics lesson ended. Over the course of the last hour, he had mostly remained in the pseudo system room, only regaining command every six minutes to practice his magic when his pool filled up. He hadn’t wanted to waste any of the precious mana.
“Now for your favourite part of the day,” Dimitri told them. “If you were paying attention, you would know that Instructor Susan has set off on an expedition.” Around half the kids seemed surprised by the news; he, of course wasn’t. They had been told that it was going to happen on three separate occasions. “Do you think that means you get free play?”
“Yes?”
“No,” Dimitri told the enthusiastic boy, laughing as he did so. “No, it doesn’t mean more free time. It means we can broaden your horizons. For the next month, we’ll let you experience all the different programs that we offer. Most of the rooms and trainers can’t handle forty kids at once, so you’ll be split into smaller groups. There’s no set way of doing it, no defined order, but we’ll make sure everyone gets to experience everything. The order is fluid, because, if another expert like instructor Susan comes through, they’ll get priority time to train you.”
Then, based on a list held by all the different volunteers, Tom found himself in the group of around twenty. They were led to a massive isolation room. It was about four times larger than usual, and the floor was soft and spongy.
The class was run by a thin, wiry man who taught wrestling. He was a no-nonsense kind of person, and there were no rules, no cautions about eye-gouging or hitting below the belt, it was open slather. Everyone was to fight until they won.
To someone with earth sensibilities, it might have been deemed to be unnecessarily violent, potentially even dangerously so. On the other hand, there were two healing crystals available, so you could push harder than you could on earth. If someone suffered injuries, that wasn’t a problem. Any damage a four-year-old could inflict was easily fixed.
The trainer would set them up in a grappling position, and then they would try to subdue each other. It was not fair by a long shot. In his first fight, the starting position had Pa at his back with his arm already around Tom’s throat.
He was choked out in moments.
That was the worst beginning situation that he received. For the other contests, the setup was fairer, and, because they were in an isolation room, Tom triggered his ring. Electricity crackled through his muscles, causing them to tense and relax unevenly. It absolutely screwed with his coordination, which was exactly what he wanted.
Using it was a risk, but Dimitri had told him to play with it, and, from what he had been able to tell so far, the magic was purely internal to him. He had spent half an hour using it on the highest intensity in the isolation room to confirm the assumption. Even on that setting which had him jerking like he was being tasered there, had been no evidence he could sense of either electricity or the magic when he studied his reflection in the mirror. The artefacts designed for independent measurement that he had retrieved from the top cupboard showed a lack of reaction as well. The fact that it inflicted the status on him via internal channels meant it should be almost impossible to be noticed by external examination. Which is what his independent experiments had shown.
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Tom knew the system well enough to know that no protection was absolute. Someone with dedicated skills could pierce the veil, but within the isolation room the only risk was the instructor, and, given how careful every adult was not to do anything to risk discovering a reincarnated one, he was confident the trainer would not use any skills that were powerful enough to pick up on the magic.
The purpose of the ring was to equalise his abilities down to a more age-appropriate level. Despite trying his very best to win the fights, he was only good enough to be grouped in the middle. Pa was in the top group along with Ma, with Bir being in the bottom one. She was petite and had resisted the temptation to use fate. That had resulted in her suffering numerous heavy losses.
What was the most impressive part in Tom’s mind was that she had clearly made a conscious decision. He had previously seen her use fate for the smallest goals, from emptying her entire pool on a prank to spending a single point to help herself run a balance beam. She knew what she was doing, and, despite two of her fights leaving her in tears, she did not touch the resource, even though her reserves were almost full. The restraint she was showing demonstrated remarkable wisdom.
It was also the right call.
Resorting to fate would have been ineffective. For it to help in a wrestling match, it needed to act on a living being, and humans, naturally burnt some of their own to counter the threat, as most creatures did when attacked by fate. If she had used fate, it would almost certainly have been negated by the person she fought. Instinctively, she had restrained herself.
It was impressive.
Somehow, she had developed a working knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of directed fate use. It was a mechanism both simple and complex. Fate shifted probabilities. More variables in the environment and a longer, more complicated fight provided more opportunities to drive the desired outcomes at lower costs. A vanilla engagement, on the flip side, would provide fewer chances for it to act. Wrestling one person on a consistent level floor represented almost the worst case scenario. There were no weapons that could suffer catastrophic failure mid-battle, no stones to slip under your feet at the last moment. None of those levers were available.
Getting fate to do anything would have been expensive, so she had resisted the temptation and suffered the heavy knocks instead.
The class ended, and the instructor reminded everyone that he ran regular sessions. While it had been fun, it was not a skill he wanted to specialise in. He planned on basing his build around teleportation skills partially to avoid exactly this. The training on offer would not enhance his deadliness, so Tom put it out of his mind.
The next day they were taken to receive classical martial arts training.
It was taught by a fourteen-year-old who had been training since he was five. His skills were impressive, and his grace told Tom that he had gone well beyond the point of mundane mastery. If any sensei on earth thought they could fight this boy, they would have been defeated in moments. At a minimum, he possessed a high-levelled Mastery Skill, and, based on the blows he landed against the dummy, he also had multiple other skills on top of that. These abilities included one to increase the power of strikes, both kicks and punches. Another sped up the attacks – so much so that, to Tom, the teenager became a blur when he activated it. Finally, there was an enhanced movement speed that let him cross the isolation room in less than a quarter of a second, which meant that, briefly, he had been travelling at over a hundred kilometres per hour.
He was scary.
The boy bowed to them:
“This room is dedicated to the training of mixed marital arts. During the daytime, we offer classes every hour. I encourage you all to attend.” He practiced a punch and when he finished, the air boomed like with a cartoon superhero. “Come and learn true power. We also finish with lollies.”
As they left for the history lesson, everyone was excited by the idea. Over half the class declared they would be going the next day. Privately, Tom didn’t believe that for a moment. They were four- and five-year-olds; a different shiny bubble would get their attention before they went through with their promise.