I chose to start with Swordfighting practice Tuesday afternoon. The class in the morning had been mainly introductions and rules review for sparring. New forms, theory, and practical instruction would come later. Today's spar was to get acquainted with the other students in the class and warm up to using the sword again, as for many of the students, it had been almost a year since their last course in Swordfighting.

I watched a couple of matches. The fighters were all Swordfighting level four. The only differences would be stats and physical size. I supposed level could play a factor, but, unless they were at least level 11, it would just be a question of stats. I was the youngest in the class by a considerable margin. The next youngest was nine or ten. The majority were eleven.

"Hey, kid," one of the older kids called to me. "Are you sure you belong here?"

He laughed and a couple of others with him did the same.

Bullies, I noted.

"Next match?" I asked.

"The kid wants to fight! Better not wet your diaper when I beat you!"

I rolled my eyes. A match ended, giving us room to spar. I took my wooden longsword in both my hands and stepped onto one end of the field. The main bully did the same. His longsword was bigger than mine, a consequence of our difference in size. To some degree that favored him. On the other hand, my stats were quite good, I thought.

The bully attacked right away, not waiting for any signal and certainly not having any pre-match pleasantries. I had to commend him for his dedication to dickishness. There was a time and place to be ruthless, and a sparring match between students was not one of them.

I parried his initial strike and attacked back, hitting nothing but air. We attacked, blocked, and parried for what felt like minutes, but probably was no more than thirty seconds. He swung in an overhand manner and I blocked. Before I could counter, however, he struck me with a fist in my face, a no-no as far as the rules were concerned. The hit shocked me and I staggered back. I knew i was bleeding, but adrenaline kept me from feeling anything.

"Is the widdle baby gonna cry?"

"Eat shit."

He laughed and lunged at me. I sidestepped and parried. As I went to counter, he again struck at me with his fist. This time, I expected it and ducked out of the way. My retaliatory punch hit him square on his balls. The bully doubled over and glared at me.

"Your fists might line up with my head, but never forget where mine will hit."

The Swordfighting had been inconclusive, but the dirty fight that followed was my victory. Thankfully, no one intervened nor said a word afterward. I supposed he wasn't a very liked individual. We'd have to spar again to settle it, probably... but that suited me just fine. Fights in the wild would be dirty, and learning how to fight, and, most importantly, defend in such a situation would be invaluable.

I chose not to have any other matches and instead watched the matches play out. There was no one who stood out in our class, which was good. I'd have a challenge and learn, and so would they. It was a good system.

I had dinner that evening with Dave, Alicia, and Keira in a smaller cafeteria in our building. Since rooms and apartments were kept for the entire time we were in school, our building was people of our age group and two others--the nine-year-olds, and the twelve-year-olds. It was done this way so that the difference in age wasn't too much between any one group, otherwise, you could end up with fifteen-year-olds in the same dorm as six-year-olds. That was a recipe for dead kids.

The small cafeteria had maybe twenty to thirty tables in total where the larger ones had a couple hundred. It was open early for dinner and stayed open later than the bigger ones. It was a good place to go to talk if you wanted food and a bit of privacy... and it was a good place to go during a binge studying session.

Once we had our food, we sat down at a round table with four chairs. As today was Tuesday, we talked about the different classes we had and how the professors were. Although Dave and I shared having to take Intro to Magic, we were in different sections with different teachers. None of our other classes lined up. That was the case for myself and Alicia as well. She was behind me in the core classes and ahead in magic.

Keira was in the same Intro to Magic as I was. We'd mentioned how Mr. Ryan seemed rather intense and what his rules had been. The others were shocked, with Dave exclaiming that he was damned glad to be in another section.

"Alicia," I began once we'd finished the topic of classes.

She looked at me with a face that asked me to continue but didn't say a word.

"I had a question about magic that I hope you can answer. Well, a couple of questions."

"Ok."

"Dave, Keira, I trust the both of you with what I'm about to say, so please keep this between us four.:

"Sure."

"Ok."

"Alicia," I continued, "I got a magic skill today through meditation. I don't know what skill or skills you got to get where you are now with magic."

"I've got three basic magic skills, which I think is what you mean. Blue Magic, Green Magic, and Black Magic."

"That helps a lot. As I said, what I'm going to say has to stay between us. What Alicia said confirms this. I got a skill called General Magic."

"I've never heard of that before," Alicia said, cocking her head to the side.

"I have all affinities, so I think that I got General Magic instead of specific ones like you did."

"What?!"

Alicia slapped a hand over her mouth after her exclamation.

"Are you serious?" she asked with a quieter-but-still-loud voice.

"Yes. This is why I wanted to ask you and not Mr. Ryan. I trust you, not him."

"I get it. That's just crazy."

"The actual affinities are pretty low, though. I'm hoping there's a way to increase them, because, otherwise, I'll just be real shit at all kinds of magic."

"How low?"

"10 each."

"Yeah, that sucks."

"On the plus side, it seems the skill gives +1 to everything."

"That makes sense, actually. Blue Magic gives +1 to INT for example, so I think each type of magic matches one of the stats. General Magic being all of them would give 1 to all of them."

"That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation."

"You're welcome. As far as I know, there is no way to increase affinities... but magic has only been around for thirty years or so, so it could be possible and we just don't know yet."

"Wait, thirty years?"

"Yeah, you didn't know?"

"No, my parents never taught me anything about the past."

Dave and Keira added their voices to mine.

"Well, something bad happened thirty or thirty-five years or so ago. It has been called The Calamity. Before that, there was no magic and a lot of people; after that, there was magic and a lot fewer people. I only know what my dad's told me. He was young when it happened... maybe five? I don't remember exactly--it's not my story.

"After The Calamity, he was lucky to get in with a good group of survivors. His parents and siblings didn't make it, killed off by monsters. Their group and others came together to form this town. This town and others like it formed the Kingdom of The Eastern Cape about fifteen years later."

"Magic's this new?" Dave asked rhetorically. "And they teach it to us like it's already set in stone!"

"Then find a better way!" Alicia told him.

He wisely shut his mouth.

"James, can you help me with Swordfighting?" Keira asked.

"Me too!" Alicia and Dave said at the same time.

"Sure. You can practice with me in the afternoons on Monday/Wednesday/Friday or on the weekend. I have official practice for my level on Tuesdays and Thursdays, though it's encouraged to keep sparring on the other days, so I won't be able to just help you guys."

"That's fine!"

"Weekends make sense, I think," Keria pointed out.

The others agreed with that suggestion.