Waking early the next morning, I look around for Notch, but I don’t see him anywhere in the small room. Peeking out of the door and into the library I call out for him. From between the cramped bookcases, I see my little green friend start to slime towards me.

“Were you cleaning the library again? You know that’s not our job right?” I can’t help but say to him shaking my head. He just shrugs and continues to make his way over to me. “Alright, I guess if you want to do it it doesn’t matter.” From there I start my morning routine eventually returning to my office.

Today, I finally finish the first book lying it to the side I start on the next, but as I do, Notch slimes over opens the book with a tentacle and begins absorbing all of the ink from each page one by one.

“Notch, can every slime control their dissolving property as you do?” He shrugs… I don’t know what I expected eh, doesn’t matter it was just a stray thought. After this minor distraction, a thought occurs to me. “I’ll be right back Notch,” he nods, and I walk to the training area shoot off two mana bolts then back to the up to my office. If I do this at any point, my mana reaches four I’ll hopefully raise my skill level a lot faster then just at the end of the day.

The day passed by quickly overall I spent twelve transcribing with a break every four hours to run down to the training hall and fire a mana bolt. There’s no visible progress in my magic, but I feel like I can manifest and fire off the orb a mana a little faster… but that could be my imagination. Leaving my office with Notch on my shoulder we walk down to the training hall again. First, I fire off another mana bolt then step back to the same dummy picking up a short sword on the way.

As I’m trying to remember my sword forms and hitting the dummy over and over, I hear laughing behind me. This distracted me enough that on my next swing I stumble forward into the dummy then back on to my butt. Embarrassedly I look behind me to see Lea laughing even harder now.

“Nox… what in the hell were you doing? Cause it looked like you were just trying to chop my dolls into firewood, unsuccessfully at that.”

“I am a, uh... little rusty…,” is all I can think to say in response to her mocking me.

She takes some visible deep breaths to stop laughing and then asks, “Nox, that looks more like you have only ever been shown a sword maybe even was allowed to hold it but never swing it. But I have another question for you, are you part of an adventuring team?”

I was getting ready to defend myself against her accusations on my swordplay, but her question stumped me, “No, it’s just Notch and me… why?”

“I’ll answer that if you can answer this, are you planning on fighting with a short sword in this dungeon?”

“I ah, was, I mean it was the only one I was trained with…,” I respond even more confused and now embarrassed that I am confused.

“Alright, let's see if you can figure out the problem, Notch can you help us out?” He nods, “Alright, Nox step away from the doll and face Notch in your fighting uh, ‘stance’ and swing your wooden sword at him.”

Not understanding I follow her directions standing in my fighting stance, even if she doesn’t like it, and swing my sword, slowly, at Notch… but it swings above his head.

“So, I need to crouch more in my stance?”

“That’s what you got from that?”

“...Yes?”

“Fine squat down further till you can reach Notch there and then I want you to try to move around like that,” she says all this shaking her head at my apparent stupidity.

Still not understanding why I crouch down, reach out my sword to see if it would hit Notch. Confirming that it would hit Notch, I start to do a kind of crab walk and swing my sword around him, that is until my leg cramps up and again fall.

“Okay, now what do you think is wrong?” Lea asks with a small smirk.

“It’s unrealistic to fight crouched like that…”

“Correct, now do you know in what situations a short sword should be used?”

“To uh… stab things?”

“Well you’re not wrong, it should be used with a shield if at all possible and for short stabbing or slashing attacks from behind it. That is why I asked if you were in a group because then if you are just supposed to just guard against attacks while the rest of your group attacks then using a shortsword is fine. Otherwise, I’d hold off on using that kind of weapon in this dungeon.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense but then what do I do?”

“Well, that’s really up to you, but I can give you a few suggestions if you want,” she says walking over to one of the barrels of practice weapons.

“I’d be more than happy to take your suggestions.”

Lea started looking through the barrel and took out three weapons pointing at each, “Quarterstaff, Saber, and a Short Spear. Each of these has advantages but also a weakness. The quarterstaff is considered a weak if not useless weapon by many but that is completely wrong, I would personally consider it one of the most powerful and adaptive weapons out there, but it does not have an edge so this weapon may not be able to hurt some monsters that have a strong defense, and in a dungeon the length may be more of a hindrance than a help. The saber, and as you probably saw in my office, my personal favored weapon, is great for both slashing and stabbing with a length of about 36ins shouldn’t be a problem in the dungeon while still giving you enough reach to hit your target, but it’ll take a lot of training and practice to get up to a proficient level of skill. Last but not least is the short spear, this weapon can give you reach while also not getting in your way and like the quarterstaff, there is a lot of adaptability with this weapon, but while this weapon has all the strengths of a quarterstaff and little to none of its major weaknesses it is still at the end of the day a stabbing weapon meaning it will not be as effective against certain enemies like many earth-based monsters.”

Picking each weapon up she demonstrates a few attacks and guards as she describes each one, “Now these are the weapons I would suggest for you and for this dungeon they may not be the best choice for a different one. I’ll leave you with that you should swing around each one and find one you like.” With that, she leaves me stunned at her explanation and a small demonstration.

Picking up each weapon I swing them around in my now secluded corner. After playing with each one, I look to Notch, “Any ideas, I’ve never used any of these weapons before and have no idea which one I should pick.” He gives me a shrug and slimes his way over to the shooting range. I guess he won’t be able to help me with this one… well, let's try to think about this logically. Starting with the quarterstaff, well I remember my former uncle and leader of the Lightningstorm family uses a metal quarterstaff as his primary weapon, I think it’s just too long for the dungeon. Now that leaves the saber and the short spear… the short spear is a great weapon with a lot of versatility and range but without being overly long. But the saber is a sword, so I do have some small foundation in it plus Lea does use it, so maybe I could get her to train me… they don’t let just anyone become a guild leader so she must be pretty strong. Saber or spear… saber or spear…

Notch’s Mana Bolt has leveled up!

Mana Bolt is a spell that allows you to shoot a ball of pure mana. At level 6 this spell cost two mana and does three damage.

My introspection was interrupted by some great news rushing over I see Notch sliming back over to me like it was no big deal, “Great job Notch, you’ll have to show me more tips on Mana Bolt again.” He shrugs then gives me a nod. Back to my quandary… let's see they can both be used with one hand so that will be useful if I start focusing on spells I’ll still have a hand to use, but I can also use both with two hands, depending on the saber, of course, to increase the power behind my melee attacks. This is hard… fine screw logic, well… maybe not screw it, but I’ll look at it from a different angle if Lea teaches me then I’ll choose saber if not then I’ll select spear. There it’s decided.

“Hey Notch let’s go see Lea,” I say picking up my partner and putting him in his customary seat. Heading upstairs I go up to Adile.

“Hey, Adile is Lea in her office?”

“Yeah, she went up there a little bit ago muttering about stupid kids. Did you upset her again? You know it’s not a good idea to annoy your boss Nox,” Adile says all this while smirking and holding back a laugh.

Even though I can tell she is just teasing me I can’t help but feel worried, I really like my bed and do not want to have to sleep outside so I can only respond in a dispirited voice, “...I know, I’ll try not to.”

Adile’s face goes from the teasing smirk to worry, “Nox, I was just messing with you. You don’t have to worry about your job Lea is just worried about you.”

I am only able to nod then head up to Lea’s office. Getting upstairs I see Lea’s door is open and she is doing paperwork. Knocking on her door, she looks up.

She greets me with a smile gesturing to the chair and then asks, “Ah, Nox I was wondering when you would be up here did you pick one of my suggestions or decide to go with something else?”

Still thinking about what Adile said I meekly respond, “Well I kind of choice but I had a question first… Will you teach me how to use a saber?”

She sits in her seat looking at me for a bit then nods, “I will, but know it’ll only be the basics, your monster choice, and spells will heavily change your fighting style if you continue to grow.”

With more excitement than I felt when I came in, “Thank you, Lea when do we start?”

“Hmmm, well we both still have jobs to do so we can either do it first thing in the morning or the evening. But a little exercise in the morning is good for waking you up so let’s do morning. So starting tomorrow come done to the training grounds at five.”

“Okay, five it is then, thank you again, Lea,” I say backing out of the room.

“Don’t thank me yet, good night Nox,” She said giving me an evil smile.

Walking out of the room with a slight shiver at her last remark I’m able to make it downstairs before finally turning to Notch, “So, uh that last part was a joke right?” He definitively shook his body, “...Yeah, I didn’t think so either.”

While trying not to let it get to me, I make the walk over to the inn for food and to get paid the one Talon for Notch's work cleaning the stables. Getting back to the guild I first head down and shoot another bolt off in the range then head up to bed for what is probably going to be a long and painful morning.