Recreating something from one’s memories was just as hard as John expected it to be. His memory not being perfect was just a small distraction in that matter, for it was hard to forget something that captivated one’s heart as quickly as that halberd did.

No, the main problem was the fact that he had to specify everything about the weapon in question by himself despite not knowing what its exact properties were. The hardness of the shaft was just one problem of many that popped up, alongside the ratio of shaft to blade length.

Thinking back to how he created those boards back then, John couldn’t help but sigh in the circular world inside his core. Ignorance really was bliss. He had simply assumed a few things about the properties those boards were supposed to have, and in the end, they popped exactly as he had imagined them. Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that it would be far more complex if he decided to specify a few traits like he did when trying to create the perfect toothbrush.

After noticing that it didn’t quite look the same, John once again dispersed the unfinished weapon in his hands. He had already been in this dark space for quite some time, and, if he had to be honest, his motivation was rapidly going down the drain.

Just what was he missing?

Clenching his fists, John closed his eyes in order to be able to concentrate better. With but an intention of his, the aether rushed past him to create the tip of the wooden spearhead. A second later, two axeblades followed until the shaft began taking form.

John opened his eyes, gazing at his finished creation, only to immediately dissolve it again. The spearhead was too long, the axeblades too wide. Just the shaft was somewhat acceptable.

Gazing up at the non-existent ceiling above him, John scratched his head. He had a faint inkling that this was going to be one hell of a frustrating creating session.

When John finally exited his core, he noticed that he was the only one left on the field. Even the old geezer had left.

The sun was already in the middle of descending, dyeing the whole world in a warm orange. In its place, the three peculiar moons had already begun rising along with the carpet of stars, and the last lingering heat in his surroundings was slowly fading.

The surrounding fields were also deserted, save for a solitary figure three fields to his right. It was a girl practicing with what seemed to be a staff. John squinted his eyes as he stared at the wild black hair dancing about in the air as she moved around along with her weapon.

The last remaining rays of sunlight reflected off two round metallic orbs that were fixed to both ends of it, sometimes shining brighter and at times even completely vanishing from his vision as the girl swung the staff in dozens of different trajectories.

A loud grumble interrupted his trance.

John ripped his eyes away from the mesmerizing scene rubbed his rampaging stomach, only now remembering that he hadn’t eaten in quite some time.

He patted the sand off his trousers and headed towards the cafeteria with the sun at his back and an oversized shadow to his front. The shades that the trees and bushes on the sides of the path he walked on gave covered everything in his surroundings in a dark hue. He blinked, seeing a sun-shaped mark floating around on the back of his eyelids.

The moons had long since replaced the sun by the time he reached the cafeteria, which was a large hall located in the middle of the expansive building he slept in, and the air was slowly becoming too chilly for John to walk around in the thin tunic he was wearing.

Two heavy wooden doors that bore the same decorations as the main gate represented the entrance to it. They were flanked by two bigger than life golden statures of the same couple that had been painted onto it, and under the pedestal of each stature several symbols had been engraved in gilded letters.

‘I really have to stop delaying learning the written language, otherwise I’ll probably stay illiterate forever.’ John shuddered when he thought about staying illiterate for the rest of his whole life. Knowledge was power, and he craved both.

John stepped through the doors that would have been able to fit a giant under its frame and set foot on the food-repelling carpet covering the entire cafeteria grounds.

The fact that a carpet could repel something as vague as “food” had already induced more than just one headache in John, but he eventually learned to accept it as another impossibility aether was capable of achieving, despite him already having a hard time with reproducing a weapon he had seen once.

The old geezer had taught him that, aside from creating life, almost everything was possible inside one’s core, including the dubious “enchantments”, whatever they were supposed to be. Although his core space was quite small as of now, it would expand to be as big as a small island or even continent as he lived and trained on. What was even more shocking was that he would, at that point, be capable of freely manipulating that continent to his wishes. It was almost as if he were a god inside his core space.

Snapping out of his dreams of grandeur, John ignored the curious gazes of the few other students gathered at some of the dozens of extremely long tables that had been placed at regular intervals, ensuring that even hundreds of people could eat in here at the same time if they so wished.

Dinner times were quite lax in the Golden Gate. As one could basically eat whenever one liked, making situations where the cafeteria was congested were extremely rare. Most students had, after all, no problem with waiting for a few more minutes in exchange for a better ambience.

He approached one of the two long series of counters that were on opposite ends of the room, stopping in front of the tall man, whom everyone called Dread Eyes manning it. John avoided his piercing gaze, picking an empty plate up and presenting it to him.

“Has no one ever taught you that you should look people who serve you food in the eye?” Dread Eyes asked him, narrowing his already barely visible eyes into slits.

John gulped. This server’s temper was well known throughout the school, and he knew that if he gave him an opportunity to punish him he would definitely grab it like a drowning man would grab a piece of driftwood. As such, he steeled himself and forced his gaze towards the two barely visible swirling vortexes of blood this man whose real name nobody apparently cared about called his eyes.

It was utterly disgusting. With every second that he had to look into the other’s eyes he could feel his hunger be replaced by complete and utter terror. Those eyes weren’t eyes that humans were supposed to possess. John had already seen all kinds of peculiar eyes, like those of Ronnie, during his time here, but he instinctively knew that those weren’t eyes that humans were supposed to possess.

With a symmetrical face that seemed to have been chiselled out of stone and wavy auburn hair coupled with two rows of perfectly white teeth, Dread Eye would have been quite the handsome man had it not been for his eyes. Unfortunately, things were as they were and the middle-aged man had long since become known for being particularly cruel, especially to the young children.

Dread Eye beamed at him whilst filling the plate with bread and butter, dismissing him with a nod after he was done.

Grabbing a cup of water on his way out, John sat down as far away from Dread Eye as possible after confirming that the only person he recognized was the girl from earlier sitting at a table not too far away from himself.

She apparently had, at some point of time, arrived at the cafeteria before John without him even noticing it. Around her were a few young men and women, all looking to be around John’s age.

Taking a sip from the cup, John tried to listen in on their chatter, but unfortunately they were too far away. Was he becoming obsessed with this girl? Definitely, but John wasn’t one to care about trifling things like that. There was something about that girl’s techniques that he couldn’t draw his gaze away form. Something unique, but he couldn’t quite place a finger on what it was.

‘Perhaps I should start training with my halberd?’ John mused. It was a good idea, and it wasn’t like there was anything stopping him from doing so once he was in his room again. Preferably with closed windows, so no one would be able to see it when he messed up.

With a new plan in mind, John wolfed the last bread down and returned to his room without looking at the girl again. He could watch her another time.

Once the door closed behind him, John summoned his masterpiece out of his core. Immediately, a now familiar weight appeared in his hands, along with a halberd longer than he was tall.

Pale white moonlight streamed onto it, bathing the wooden weapon along with the rest of the room in an unearthly glow. The moons were unusually bright that day, almost illuminating the room to the same extent the sun did during dawn.

John took a deep breath. He tentatively lifted his weapon off the ground, letting the shaft hop from one hand to another in an attempt to get a feeling for its weight. After a while, he noticed that it didn’t work and tried to imitate the grip he saw in movies. For once, his coarse hands actually helped him since they made getting a good grip on it far easier.

Thankful for the fact that he was still quite small, John raised the halberd above his head and swung it down with all his might with the intention of stopping it just before it hit the floor.

He failed to stop it in time and one of the axeblades crashed onto the ground. A sharp noise resounded through the room as he dented the wooden floor slightly. The axe itself seemed to have remained intact, though John was starting to be thankful for his inability of sharpening the wooden edge.

John flinched at the loudness. He just hoped that there wouldn’t be any grumpy neighbours making his life unnecessarily hard tomorrow.

‘Can a wooden weapon even cut properly?’ he wondered as he moved closer to the dent he had made.

It was, if he had to be honest, just a small mark on the polished wooden ground. John wouldn’t even have noticed it had it not been for the fact that he had made it. He scratched his head using one hand, utilizing the other to touch the spot where the mark was the deepest.

“John,” a serious voice he knew all too well called out from behind him, “I believe you do realize that you’re in trouble now, right?”

He didn’t even need to turn his head around to know that his teacher had, however he had accomplished that, entered the room without his notice and probably watched him dent the floor.

“It was an accident,” John replied whilst searching the ceiling for hidden trapdoors. There had to be a way that old geezer entered the room every time so sneakily. Perhaps some secret teleportation device?

“It sure didn’t look like one.”

John grimaced at the old man’s words. How long had he been standing there, observing him without a word? “I just wanted to try swinging my weapon, and, uh, lost control. Fine control isn’t my specialty, you see.”

Footsteps approached him until John felt a hard hand nudge him to the side. He complied, and gazed at the serious expression of his teacher, who was examining the dent in the ground whilst kneeling. “Erm, will I be punished for this?”

The old man hummed, neither confirming nor denying his words as his eyes remained stuck to the dent. A few minutes passed in silence, before he snapped his fingers. As if on cue, the floor began to creak and the dent slowly vanished as the wood realigned itself.

Then, the only physical adult in the room stood up and brushed some non-existent dust off his robes. Once finished, he sized John up with a pair of amber eyes that seemed to glow in the dark. “Young man, you have damaged property that belongs to the Golden Gate, and if that wasn’t enough you actually did it whilst trying to practice with your weapon!” he shouted, becoming louder with every word.

“This is practically begging for punishment! Give me your weapon.”

John hesitantly reached the hand holding his weapon out. “But Teacher-“

“You dare to talk back to me?” The light streaming off those two amber eyes intensified, emanating an oppressive aura that made it hard to breathe.

John swallowed the rest of the words he wanted to say back down. It would be most unwise to speak brashly in a situation like that, and he wasn’t dumb enough to try defying someone who could probably kill him with but a single exclamation.

The old man took John’s weapon into his hands and held it to his right ear, as if he were trying to listen to it. After a while, he finally put it back down and nodded, tracing the shaft with a grim expression. He examined it from all angles, tested the sharpness of the edges and even tried to pry the spearhead and axeblades apart.

At the end, he slowly nodded and returned it to John. “That’s a nice weapon you’ve created here. Had the quality been any worse than it is, I would have broken it apart.” His gaze softened for a moment before sharpening even further.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that you deserve punishment. How about thrusting this halberd a hundred times before going to sleep? If you fail, you’ll have to thrust it 200 times tomorrow. If you fail tomorrow, you’ll have to thrust it 400 times the day after tomorrow. You start now!”

“Y-yes Sir!” John reflexively replied before realizing what he had done.

‘Damnit! I’m not in the military anymore!’ he cursed inside his mind. Doing it oud loud with the hearing of his teacher would be a very bad idea.

His teacher flashed him a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “A good answer, brat. One I certainly didn’t expect form a person of your origins.” Upon seeing the expression on John’s face, he chuckled. “Don’t worry, I won’t pry into your past. We all have our secrets to keep, right? And why haven’t you started yet, huh?”

John secretly heaved a relieved sigh and widened the distance between his feet. He raised the spear until the tip was about level with his chest, and thrusted it. The old man didn’t say a word, so he continued until his arms were starting to feel like they had been replaced with lead weights. That was when he realized that this wouldn’t be quite as easy as he had assumed it to be.

He stopped at the thirtieth thrust, leaning on the spear whilst panting. Thrusting a spear once may be relatively easy, but as time went on, each thrust would begin to draw at one’s stamina. It wasn’t quite as easy as those movies made it seem to be-

‘How the hell are people supposed to fight like this?’ he thought to himself.

“Your form is sloppy,” the old geezer next to him remarked. “Your thrusts are slow, your stance completely random. You don’t use the weight of your body, and becoming tired after just thirty such thrusts is a feat I would be ashamed of had I been you. Restart from one.”

John suppressed the storm of curses that was threatening to burst out of his throat and opened the window. Comfortably cold air along with moonlight streamed into the room, brightening it just a bit. When the moonlight fell onto his tired body, he could feel himself becoming more energetic again.

Taking deep breaths, John readied himself for what he knew would be a long night.