It had been a long day and all of the new recruits had turned in early after a gruelling 12 hours of training. I had gone inside my tent too, but I had gone inside to hide how not tired I was. I didn’t get tired, I don’t get tired. 1849 years of walking had eliminated the concept of fatigue. Also the void energy mist inside me also improved my physical constitution so that I didn’t get tired easily.

I settled down inside my tent and then started meditating, I opened up a connection to the void realm and started gathering the void energy, after three months of meditation this had become second nature to me. Once I felt that I had gathered enough energy I started rotating the energy using that rotational force to mould the energy into a vague funnel shape. I took a deep breath and started controlling the energy swiftly guiding the energy around my meridians. I managed to guide the energy around my meridians 60 times before the energy dissipated from my meridians.

Then something strange happened, normally the energy would have dissipated across my meridians slowly bleeding into my body and then back into the void. This time however the energy didn’t disappear, instead the energy condensed in my core, and started extracting the void energy that had previously dispersed into my muscles and bones, this suction force felt uncomfortable, I felt myself get physically weaker as the energy was extracted away from my muscles. It started to hurt, a deep bone crushing pain as the energy was extracted away from my bones. I was getting worried, this wasn’t written anywhere in John’s meditation method, and I didn’t have anyone I could ask to help.

The energy started getting sucked out of my meridians, by this point I was PANICKING, the whole point of the meditation exercise was to improve my meridians and now this suction was causing my meridians to wither. I tried opening a connection to the void space, but the pain, which by this point felt like my body being torn apart into tiny little pieces from the inside, meant I couldn’t concentrate enough to gather the void energy. I could taste the iron in my blood; it tasted like licking a battery, and salt. I a moment of madness and desperation I opened a connection inside my own body, directly in my core, the hole opened up expanding from the size of a pinprick to about 10cm(4inches) in diameter. Energy rushed in, normally the energy that came in was like opening a tap about half way, easily controllable, but this time it was like a fire hose being opened, an immense amount of energy flooded in, my withered meridians rehydrated, the energy entered my bones and muscles. The void energy saturated my bones and muscles. And then it exceeded my body’s boundaries. A bubble of void energy formed around my tent, separating me from the earthly dimension. Isolating me inside a void bubble

I had had some relief from the pain when the energy had started flooding back, but when the void energy exceeded my limits I felt pain. I felt pain on a level I had never experienced. I don’t even think there is a way to quantify that level of pain. Back in my early teens I once fell off my bike in the middle of the street and broken my radius bone in my arm and cracked my knee cap in half. This pain made that look like a small scratch. I felt all of my bones being crushed to dust by the void energy. I felt my muscles being shredded. I felt my meridians literally exploding. The pain was unimaginable. I screamed, except there was no noise as the energy had already shredded my vocal chords and my body wasn’t even capable of making noise anymore. I hoped I would pass out from the pain. I prayed I would die. Except I knew I couldn’t; fucking John and his fucking immortality.

I cursed John, I called him every name under the sun and more, I even invented a whole new category of swears. I promised to myself that if I ever met John again I would kill him in the most excruciating way possible. I settled on grinding him to paste using a slow turning belt sander and a slow acid drip.

Finally there was nothing left except my amorphous consciousness and the void at the core of what was once my being. My body started to remake itself, the void energy permeating throughout every single cell in my body. I felt my bones being remade from the femur right down to the two stapes in my inner ears. I felt my organs being remade, new blood vessels being formed, new stronger muscles being formed, more resilient tendons and ligaments, a layer of cells started to form around the outside, these cells were laden with saturated void energy, and formed a neigh impregnable skin around my body. Even my hair grew back with void energy infused inside.

The void bubble surrounding me started to shrink slowly going back into the void. I opened my eyes and looked at myself. I was filthy. I was covered in the remnants of me. My old body was torn apart and rebuilt according to the void and these were the bits rejected by the void. Without even thinking I took out a clean towel and wiped myself clean, I took out some clothes and put them on and got out of the tent. It was still dark outside. I looked up and saw that the moon was high in the night sky, it was still the middle of the night. I walked out of the camp, I didn’t sneak as being caught sneaking is generally harder to explain, and into the public baths and bathed again. Using modern soaps and shampoos and not the survivalist lye fat soaps, to thoroughly clean myself. I took out a mirror and looked at myself. I was worried about how to explain the changes in my body that happened overnight. Thankfully there were no visible changes from the outside. I looked just the same as before. I looked internally and that’s where I found the changes, I was no longer within the human boundaries of strength and agility, I could now easily lift 500 kilos over my head (although why I would ever want to?) and I could now move with inhuman speed and agility. The biggest change however was in my core, the wisps of void energy were gone, in its place was a void energy whirlpool containing a whirling mass of densely packed void energy clouds. I also noticed that my shredded withered meridians had been repaired. But they were very different than before, they were a lot wider and smoother, which I expected. However, I didn’t expect them to be out of phase with my body, they were in a perpetual void phase, half in my body and half inside the void dimension. I didn’t know what to make of that.

I dressed myself and went back to the tent. I felt tired, I had thought that the walk had made me immune to fatigue, but I was feeling tired. I lay down on my mat and closed my eyes and felt asleep.

I slept a dreamless sleep, it was restful. I woke to the clanging from the church indicating the start of another day. I got ready and was out of the tent within 10 minutes of waking up, I checked into Fred’s tent to see if he was up, he was not. I got a mug of water and poured it over his head, he woke up startled. “You have 5 minutes, and then I am dragging you out. And don’t forget your equipment”

He was out, still mostly undressed using his shield like a platter to carry his equipment we were lined up in the same spot as yesterday. Mark looked at Fred and sighed, he shook his head.

All of the recruits were made to run around the camp 15 times. We finished the run and got breakfast. After breakfast it was shield training again. Learning how to block against enemy strikes. Unlike yesterday we were taught how to move our shields around, moving the shield forwards to meet the oncoming strikes before they reached their apex. But it was still 5 hours of shield practice

The change in the day came after lunch. After lunch we were shown how to use our “spears”, which was pretty simple work. We were being trained for formation battles using spears and not individual spear combat, so it basically just involved holding the spear and thrusting and thrusting and thrusting. It was repetitive and boring. I was glad about this since I was still recovering from last night’s incident. This complacency almost got me “revealed” as a being more than just human. I had tuned myself out and was just mindlessly practising the spear thrusts when I noticed a strange whip cracking noise coming from right in front of me. I thrust my spear forwards and it happened again, and that’s when I noticed it, I was creating a sonic boom on the tip of my spear as I was thrusting it. Normally a really fast thrust of a spear can cause the wood to vibrate slightly. Unfortunately for me, my relaxed unconscious thrusts were violent enough that the shaft was bending and snapping back fast enough to generate a sonic boom. I quickly paid more attention to my actions and slowed down; luckily for me I was unconsciously matching the timing of those around me so no one really noticed too much.

I was much stronger and faster than normal humans. I paid more attention to what I was doing, but the repetitive nature of the task made my head wander, and for some reason (I suppose it really had to do with my new found super-ness) I started thinking about how the superman had sex. And if he had to spend so much of his time and effort on consciously slowing and gentling himself down, that was the sex even fun anymore?

Spear practice is boring work.

After about 4 hrs, though it felt much longer, spear practice was declared over for the day, and we were shown a real demonstration of spear fighting. A Corporal Robert was facing up against my good friend, Private David. Corporal Robert was an affable fellow, I had sparred with him yesterday and I was left with a good impression. He was the type of guy you couldn’t really hate. An easy going fellow, with a lazy ever present smile. He was gracious in defeat and even joked around with the other soldiers after the spar.

David kept looking at me with venomous hatred. I turned to Mark and asked “That loss against me couldn’t have been that humiliating, could it?” I had also sparred against Mark and won, he didn’t seem to be angry at me.

Mark gave me a pointed look and said “The Staff Sergeant punished him for attacking you before you were ready. He got five lashes from Bernard’s whip. Barnard gave him five more for breaking your wooden sword.” He said looking down at my belt loop which now had David’s old sword.

David noticed Mark’s look at my sword and snarled. David and Corporal Robert squared off and started the demonstration they were using real spears, unlike us, we were literally using sharpened sticks. They circled each other jabbing at each other with their spears, feeling each other out, finding the opponents range. They started moving the tips of their spears in a horizontal figure eight pattern, trying to tangle against each other hoping to create an opening to attack. David was the first to attack, lunging forward thrusting his spear at the Corporal’s abdomen, the used the shaft of his spear to deflect the spear away by rotating the spear in his hands by 90 degrees , whilst also side stepping slightly to avoid the blow. The Corporal made efficient use of the opening completing the full half rotation and jabbing at David’s chest with the back of his spear, pushing David away. This was meant to be a demonstration so the Corporal didn’t use the opening he created to end the bout. He took a step back and reset the fight. David didn’t seem to like this; he looked like he thought the Corporal was mocking him. He charged forward and used an over hand sweep, using his spear to slash at the Corporal’s head. Corporal Robert matched him with the same slash. this was meant to be a training demonstration, so at you were only supposed to be using 80% of your strength and speed, so that you could maintain control and not injure your partner, but David in his rage had forgotten that and had swung full force. Corporal Robert was surprised when the spears collided he barely dodged out of the way. Ducking down and to his left, the Corporal showed his experience and superior skill by using the recoil from the overpowering to deliver a low sweep with the rear of the shaft. The sweep struck David on his calves upending him on to the dirt. The Corporal realizing that David was out of control pointed his spear at David in an obvious declaration of victory which should have ended the bout. I say should have because David swung his hand up as the Corporal was approached, throwing a handful of dirt at the Corporal’s eyes blinding him. The Corporal flinched away blinking temporarily blinded by the dirt. David got up and swung his spear at the Corporal’s back, there was a sickening crack as the wood splintered and broke over the helpless Corporal’s back and David stood up arms raised in celebration as the rest of us looked at him in contempt.

He turned around faced me with a smug look on his face and loudly proclaimed “I claim challenger’s rights!”

I turned to Mark and asked confused “what are challenger’s rights?”

“It is a way for us commoner soldiers to challenge someone within the platoon to unarmed combat without reprisals, it was designed to minimise infighting and improve overall discipline” Mark replied looking grim

“Can he actually challenge me? I haven’t been fully enlisted yet. I am still a recruit” I asked, annoyed more than anything else.

“I think so.” he replied sighing heavily

“Seriously, he attacked me. And now he has the audacity to come at me with a challenge?” I asked indignantly “How badly can this end up?”

“Depends on the winner, but it is unarmed combat for a reason. You shouldn’t be hurt too badly” he said consolingly

“I meant what are the rules and how badly can we get hurt?” I asked ignoring that jab.

“It’s combat so injuries aren’t uncommon. No one has been killed or anything but broken bones aren’t uncommon”

The Staff Sergeant walked up to the demonstration area. “Who is the challenge directed at and what is the grievance?”

By this time some of Corporal Robert friends had rushed in and carried him to the infirmary tent, whilst giving David all sorts of angry looks.

“I challenge Recruit Emris, the reason for the challenge is that he stole my instructor’s sword” he claimed.

The Staff Sergeant looked at him with one eyebrow raised.

“Um, sergeant is this even allowed?” asked one of Corporal Robert’s friends.

“It is something of a loop hole.” The Staff Sergeant answered with an almost apologetic shrug. “And why do you have Private David’s sword?” The sergeant asked looking over at me.

“It was given to him so that Emris could continue to practice his swordsmanship, to replace the one broken by Private David. I deemed him ready to handle a real sword sergeant” Mark answered quickly, bailing me out.

“The matter of the sword will be resolved by the quartermaster”

“Does that mean that I don’t have to fight?” I asked. “I was about to head to the medical tent to check on Corporal Robert, I am a pretty good healer”

“Unfortunately no. although you got approval to use the sword, it was Private David’s so his grievance also has some merit.”

I made my way to the demonstration area; I wasn’t worried about the fight. Even before my body was improved I would be confident. I was surprisingly good at fighting. I had a green belt in karate, which doesn’t actually mean much in a fight, but it did mean I knew how to block a punch and how to throw a punch. I also had a lot of cousins my age and we were into rough housing… and it turned out I was pretty good at joint locks and choke holds that I had seen used in MMA and subsequently used in our rough housing bouts. Plus now I had superhuman strength and speed… that kind of helped.

“I’m going to kill you!” David said with an insufferable grin on his face. He looked mad, not angry mad, raving-lunatic-in-a-straightjacket-threatening-a-superhero mad.

“Um, can he do that? What exactly are the rules?” I asked the Staff Sergeant

“No weapons, no groin shots, no eye gouging. You fight to the first blood or till one of you is judged not to be able to continue.”

Ok, finally some rules. I didn’t want to fight, so the simplest thing would be to end this quickly. The thought of losing never even occurred to me.

I nodded my head in acknowledgement. “I will be the judge.” The Staff Sergeant proclaimed.

He raised his left arm up. David squared up to me ready to fight; I turned 45 degrees away from him my left side slightly closer to him than my right. The sergeant dropped his hand to start the fight and… it was over. I started walking away whilst David crumpled to the ground holding his nose. I had quickly jabbed him in the nose. Drawing first-blood. And winning the fight quickly.

The sergeant looked at David crumpled on the floor holding his bleeding nose and said “Emris is the winner. All matters between Private David and recruit Emris are now considered settled”