In my tent, I waited for night to fall. I didn’t have anything else to do today so I decided to wait until every cadet fell asleep after the whole day of training before another day of hardships would start. When that happened, I would get up and train a little.

Once the sun completely died over the horizon being replaced by its sister moon, I left my tent inhaling cold, refreshing air. I didn’t inhale it with my lungs (...yes, because I didn’t have any), but rather with my entire existence.

The night… it was my time. I felt burdens and strange “fatigue” leaving my body and my mind becoming clearer. The hunger which I felt earlier was no longer… “troubling” me as much as during the day.

With confident moves, I headed toward the armory. Racks and chests were lined under its walls, leaving lots of free space in the middle of the tent for possible adjustments and training. Of course, normally, training inside the armory was prohibited (if a group of people would start waving their weapons in all directions they risked damaging items stored in there), but at this hour, no one should have any business in there. There, I was free to do as I pleased, far from the prying eyes of other adventurers.

I moved past the guards in front of the tent, who looked at me suspiciously, yet said nothing. As long as no blade nor shield went missing or got damaged they didn’t really care.

I took one of the wooden training blades and standing in the middle of the tent, I took a stance. I had a lot of time to watch other cadets and warriors train their skills. Swordsmanship revolves around a few basic moves, which later you would adjust to your current situation. I raised my blade over my head and brought it down, slashing vertically while taking a step forward. While the blade was low, I changed my grip twisting my wrists and slashed horizontally from side to side. I followed by taking a step back while raising my blade horizontally above my head “blocking” the upcoming attack, just to fluently shift to counter and pierce my enemy who didn’t manage to raise his guard in time after his last clumsy attack.

Horizontal slash. Vertical slash. Pierce. Block.

No matter how much you try to complicate swordsmanship - in the end, it will always be reduced to these four forms. Of course, you could do a feint, you could dodge, you could perform a pirouette, but all of these were - as old Jonson called it - flaws in the art. Unnecessary moves - tricks of someone whose attacks were too weak or too slow to finish his opponent.

Ha-ha. Remembering him now - he actually said that swordsmanship is no art to begin with. It’s just a way of ending someone’s life a little bit faster.

Now, everything that distinguished a good swordsman from a dead swordsman was correct judgment is choosing the right form while delivering it faster than the enemy. This is why every warrior needed practice and experience. Practice, to learn the proper flow of movements so they could keep on delivering a tempest of blows… and experience, so they would know when to block instead of attack.

And so, I once again corrected my stance about to repeat the four forms. I tried muting my other senses focusing on the “enemy” in front of me. Non-existing opponents took the form of a human. I could almost clearly see them.

I raised my blade… and started training. Again. Again. And again. After each sequence, I tried changing some details. The way I held the blade, the leg I would start moving with, eventually altering the order of four forms to find the most fluent and fastest combination.

Again.

And again.

And again.

- “You shouldn’t train alone - otherwise you will only embed your errors. If training was that easy we wouldn’t bother sending our best knights to attend to greenhorns such as yourself. We would just give you all sticks and let you hit one another till only one is standing… well, that actually might be still a better idea than to do what you are doing right now.”

I turned my head toward the person who disturbed my training.

It was Maria. Black-haired woman in her late twenties, wearing the same grey robe in which I saw her this afternoon.

- “Greetings Maria… Or maybe I should call you an instructor? Or teacher?”

- “Suit yourself. I will be fine with whatever form you would choose.”

- “Very well. In that case - Maria. Do you have problems sleeping? I thought that with the amount of work that mages have you would take every opportunity you can get to rest.”

- “Don’t joke around! Only at night when every other knight is asleep and no one bothers us with their nonsense do we truly have time for our studies!” She smiled visibly happy that someone noticed and appreciated their efforts.

- “How do you manage to keep such a tempo?” I asked, truly interested in this matter.

- “Potions. Captain Friedrich is truly a genius. He made a solution of few easily obtainable materials which eradicates body and mental exhaustion, even more, it actually puts our mind in overdrive mode… The only problem is that we can’t use it forever. After more or less a week we need to rest for about two days non-stop. Also, it greatly stresses your kidneys and liver, so we take that with other potions as well as asking priests to constantly cast regeneration magic on us. Still - results speak for themselves. We have never been more productive.”

- “That’s yet another reason to respect Captain Friedrich. I think I will need to start making notes of those, just to keep track of them.”

Her eyes lightly sparkled. It was easy to tell that her Captain was, in her eyes, a hero, therefore by speaking highly about him I hoped to score some reputation points with her. You can never have enough friends.

- “Putting the courtesy aside, may I ask for a reason for your visit? I doubt that you have any business in the armory and the middle of the night is a rather unusual time of the day to say hello to your future disciple.”

- “Correct judgment…” she nodded with recognition hearing my words “...as I just told you, the night is the time when we have some time to spare, and, as some little birdie told me that you have left your tent and went training, I thought it might be a good idea to not wait with your magic classes. We would rather avoid getting your mind controlled again. Actually, raising your resistance is a priority. One of the captains even suggested not teaching you anything else unless we could be absolutely sure that there is not even the slightest possibility of some mage affecting you.”

She said, looking me straight in the eyes.

So. A little birdie quickly informed them that I changed my location by merely a few hundred meters. I thought that I would be watched carefully… but they must have assigned some ranger to supervise me. On the one hand, it was but a reasonable move - if I were in their shoes, I would probably do the same, at least at the beginning… on the other hand, I still felt slightly outcast.

Not that my personal feelings mattered. For now, they were using me, and I was using them.

- “I don’t think I need to guess which of the captains was so… careful with anything concerning my person.” I allowed myself for a small causticity toward Adam - the head priest who hated the very idea of working with an undead.

- “Are you upset about it?” she tilted her head with curiosity.

- “I am not sure. I certainly do not enjoy being treated as guilty before any crime has been committed… To him, I am a stranger, and people tend to fear what they don’t understand…” I remember this quote from one of the sociology books that Liz’ forced me to read “... It will be my job to convince him about the purity of my intentions.”

- “Splendid! With such an attitude convincing anyone will be but a matter of time! But, back to the topic. I was told by Captain Friedrich the earlier you admitted having some prior experience with magic? Care saying something more about it?”

Fuck. I said that “I felt better with a sword in my hand rather than magic” because I wanted to join the squad of Sir Godric. I never thought that my words would be used against me like that!

- “S-saying that I have experience is a great exaggeration! I was checked if I had any gift for magic but… My teacher told me that I am an anomaly and that I am not supposed to use magic without her supervision… a few days later I died, so I never got to train again. Also! Since my resurrection, I was unable to re-cast that spell, probably because of its affinity. It was a simple spell that accelerated the growth of the plant and…”

- “That would be expected. Undead are not in tune with life-oriented magic - such as nature school. Also, I feel that you are not a fan of magic, are you not?”

Lying was pointless and futile, I was pretty sure that she borrowed that lie-detection stone from her teacher.

- “No, when I used magic I felt completely deprived of control. I was frightened, and when the spirits showed up…” her eyes sparkled.

Shit. I said too much.

- “My-my! To be able to see spirits one must have a deep connection with the Un-World! Did they react to your magic, or did your spell merely awaken your inner eye?”

- “I am not quite sure, it was like a dream, though they seemed eager to somehow affect my spell, they kept on saying how my magic was lacking… sparkles? Fluff? I can’t remember…”

- “Wait! Not only you saw them, but they saw you too!? And they wanted to actually participate in your spell!? Ha! No surprise then that your spell went out of control!... What did your teacher do?!”

- “She gave me a bag of salt and iron… and said that she needs to do some research before…”

- “What an insular, short-sighted, close-minded approach! What a waste! Have you seen spirits after stepping into the Mist?”

- “No.”

- “That was to be expected. Spirits are attracted mostly to life. In this aspect, they are quite like the undead. They can’t use you, just as very few undead can use them… Well, no reason to dwell on this matter for now. But, just the knowledge that you have awoken your inner eye is already valuable information! Now I know what I will be dealing with! At first, we will start with the basics. I will try to affect your mind, you will have to notice my impact and try to repel it. Then, we will shift to handling your mana flow within your body, even if you would be incapable of performing an actual spell, you should still be able to strengthen your body.”

Having her attack my mind?! My whole existence yelled in refusal! I yelled and screamed and cried and shouted internally, before finally replying:

- “I will do my best…” Because, in the end, there was no way that my personal opinion would be even taken into consideration. Cooperation was my only option.

She smiled widely with a pure, innocent smile.

- “You might want to sit down in a comfortable position and relax.”

- “I am an undead. I feel no physical comfort. I assure you - no matter if I sit, stand, or lie down I will be in my optimal, fully relaxed condition.”

- “I was more concerned that people that are not used to this kind of treatment tend to faint or collapse… but just as you said - even if you fall down you will not get hurt! Sorry for that, I keep on treating you as a fellow human…”

Wait, actually - do not stop treating me this way!

- “Here I come!”

- “W-wait! On the second thought, I am not re…”

And at that very moment, I lost consciousness.