Christopher awoke from a soft hissing sound. It only took him a second to realize that it was that damned soul alarm. He did not want to leave his soft comfortable bed. Some things never change. He thought wryly. Still, he should remove the water quickly. He did not want the alarm to disturb the still sleeping Tinos and Menos after all.

Just when he was about to get up, he received a slight scare. On top of the covers, looking right at him, was one of those tiny pink lizards that he had seen scuttling all over the city. He quickly regained his composure. Looking at the small creature, it really was not scary at all. It was actually even kind of cute. As he got up, he let it walk on his hand, depositing the little guy on the windowsill. He quickly emptied the soul alarm of its water, stopping the hissing sound.

He quickly put on his boots and simple clothing, also taking his weapons with him. He hoped that his armor would be dry by now downstairs. In the dining hall, some simple food was already available for the taking, which he thankfully wolfed down. He drank some normal water to wash it down with, making sure to fill his flask with water as well.

He collected all his armor from Varam, who was already dutifully manning the lobby desk at this early hour. He quickly donned the armor in one of the side rooms. It still had a few holes in it, but all the blood was gone. Maybe he should be disturbed to wear it because of its origins, but internally he already considered it his own.

Varam warned him to be careful in the western part of Lumen, which was where the training fields were located since crime was apparently rampant in that area. She also suggested he take some bread with him, which he thankfully accepted. Having everything ready, he moved into the open air of Lumen, the sun had already risen. The upper walkways cast a multitude of shadows all around. The soul lights all over the city were no longer visible, but the city still gave him that sense of wonder. He had received directions for the outer training field and tried to follow them to the best of his ability.

He opened the interface store once again. He figured that the time to buy his first skill from the store was fast approaching. There was a range of fighting skills available at this point. He now believed that he would be best served by buying a skill that would aid him in developing his proficiency with his chosen weapon more quickly.

He figured that this would also aid him in his training and allow him to at least keep up with the others. But he was still not sure that he wanted to go with a dagger as his main weapon, despite what Portos, the number five on the Lumen ladder had suggested. A dagger was too close range for his taste. He looked over the skill called [Dagger’s Flow], his thoughts churning in indecision.

All the different types of weapons had a similar skill to [Dagger’s Flow]. All supposedly revealed the optimal paths of the different weapons. They all had the same price of 600 Soul Points, making them the cheapest weapon skills in the interface store.

He felt that it would be best to buy this skill if he was indeed going to be training with a dagger. It might help him to rapidly increase his proficiency. There were a few others that he could buy within his price range of 860 soul points, but of those, he was even more uncertain about being able to properly utilize them at his point.

How would this path be presented to him? And it said that the skill consumed soul force, was this even going to work for him? And how long could he use it? There was so much uncertainty. He could buy his skill at any time. He would decide after today’s training, the skill was in no rush to be bought after all.

As he made his way to the outskirts of the city, he saw that not all of the city was as prosperous as it had seemed at first. Gone were all the naturally grown buildings. Here the buildings never reached above the first floor. The houses had been built out of planks, with many appearing to be somewhat hastily and crookedly built.

The people here also looked much worse for wear, many in tattered clothing. He saw a man drinking some foul-smelling liquid from a bottle in front of one of the ramshackle buildings. He had started to believe that the ability to use magic had somehow eliminated poverty for the people here, but clearly, he had been naïve. He remembered that twenty percent of the population could not even use their innate soul force. He felt bad for their fate, and painfully realized he may very well share their misfortune in that regard.

He asked a woman who was hanging out some laundry for directions to the training field. Apparently, he was close, and he moved towards the pointed direction.

He was confident that he had found the right place. Wooden training dummies, as well as bow targets, were lined up around the area. Long yellow weeds swayed gently in the wind around the wide-open field. A few of the tiny Sweetpluckers flew across the area, probably looking for food. This place was right next to the massive wall of Sternal trees that circled Lumen, meaning that the bright red leaves fell heavy down here.

He was not the first that had gotten here since a lone lithe woman was firing arrows at one of the targets in the distance, all of them were spot on in the middle. She had Reddish Blonde hair braided down her back, a short stature, her hazel eyes were narrowed in concentration. She was also decked out in light leather armor. There was a dangerous aura about her, and Christopher had no doubts that this was the Warrior Priest that would be his teacher for the coming time.

Wait, bows! Did this mean that they would also be instructed on how to use a bow? A ranged weapon was just what he had been hoping for.

He waited for a little while, not wanting to disturb her practice, before walking up to introduce himself.

“Hello ma’am, my name is Christopher, I was hoping to join as a trainee in your class from now on. Portos suggested that you might be able to train one more person.”

More than two heads shorter than him, she looked up and gave him a look over, with her bow still in hand. Two daggers were fastened to the hilts on her belt. She scrunched her eyebrows.

“Do you have any experience fighting with a dagger?”

“Not quite, but Portos tested me at the Adenium Church, and he seemed to think that a dagger would be a good fit.”

“I am sorry. This class already started two weeks ago and you are too far behind. New classes will start next month, try again then.” She walked away, walking over to a stash of training weapons laying not too far from here.

Dammit, he had not really expected any objections. He did not know how much time this world had, but he did not believe for a second that he could afford to wait it out for a whole month.

He followed her, refusing to be shipped away this easily.

“Please ma’am, I understand that I am behind the others, but I am willing to train twice as hard to catch up as soon as possible.”

She did not look happy at his insistence. “As I said, I will not change my training curriculum for any student. You could be the holy Adenium himself, somehow risen from the dead, and I would still not allow you to join.”

Oh man, that sounded disturbingly final. As he was thinking over what the hell he was supposed to do now, the trainees were starting to trickle into the outer training field one by one. Surprisingly they were quite the diverse bunch. He had expected people that looked more like warriors, but this motley collection of people clearly did not qualify.

Some looked outright unsuitable to train with a weapon. There was a balding old man of 60, not even looking all that spry for his age. There was a heavyset middle-aged woman with tattered looking clothing. A rotund looking middle-aged man, clearly in terrible shape. The rest looked somewhat more like what he had imagined. Nobody came in wearing any armor though.

Yet unlike him, they had received and would continue to receive training. He needed to figure out a solution!