The sound of rain greeted Kael when he woke up in the morning. A drab, grey sky was visible through the half-opened window of his room, reflecting some of the emotions he was feeling. Summer was coming to an end slowly, but the air was still warm, despite the weather. Kael sat on the rim of his bed for a long moment before he felt ready to get out and face the day. After donning his clothes, he checked his phone for answers. Martin's response to a meeting in person was entirely expected. He would be coming over later in the day. He was a little worried for Andrea. Barbara had assured him that she was fine, but not seeing her answer set him on edge. Despite hating to do so, he dialed her number after quickly checking the time. “Straight to voicemail, fuck.” Kael forced himself to put his phone down gently, not wanting to accidentally damage it. A deep breath and a few punches into his mattress later, he had himself under control once again. “Training, Kael, you have training now. If you have enough energy to burn with being angry, you have enough to train.”

A dip into the kitchen later, Kael was down in the training area once again. Sean was not yet there, so he took his time getting warmed up. Since he had no idea what would be in store for him today, he avoided anything too straining for now. He had been on a treadmill for twenty minutes when he heard the door open and close. Turning around, Kael almost fell. Ever since his first visit to the restaurant with Martin, Sean had been immaculately dressed. The man was somewhat goofy when he was not in the dining room, but even then, seeing the muscled, athletic body of his coworker in sweatpants and a T-shirt felt somehow sacrilege. “Oh, you’re here already. Good! Are you ready to get started?” Kael still had trouble combining his image of the man with how he looked at the moment as they walked to the arena in the back of the room. ‘Focus on the objective, Kael, why does it matter that your bartender looks more fit than top athletes.’ “Uh, so, Sean. What are we going to be doing today? Barbara only said that I would be learning to defend myself against the monsters behind the barrier.” - “Mhm! Correct. There is not that much time left before you will enter school and learn more there, but we can at least go over some of the basics.” Kael nodded along as Sean spoke. “But first, we have to decide what weapon you want to learn with.”

“Uhh… Weapon? Isn’t magic what I will be using?” Kael said as Sean led him to the training weapons. “Well, yes. That is what you will be using the weapon for.” Maybe he saw the confused look on Kael’s face, or he wanted to do it anyway, but he elaborated. “Look. You are still very early on in your life as a mage. Your skill with mana is, naturally, atrocious, and with your mana reserves being so low, the chance that you can actually use magic to harm anything but yourself is very low. There is also the fact that you awakened to a physical talent, making you much more capable of using magic targeting your own body and physical objects. Now! Before you fall into despair. That does not mean you can’t use pure magic, you just need more training to get similar results.” - “AH! Oh, Ok. But, can a weapon damage something like the Thrizon? They are immune to them, no?” - “Excellet question!” Sean complimented him as he took one of the wooden short-swords off the weapon rack. “You see, if you just whack the thing on the head with sharp stick of metal, like a sword, for example, it would do jackshit. BUUUUTT! If you make your magic flow through the weapon instead…” His eyes focused on the training weapon in Sean’s hand. He could feel the movement of mana before he saw any changes with his eyes. Slowly, the wood seemed to become denser, its smooth surface turning slightly coarse. Then its dark brown color lightened, slowly losing color and turning gray. By the time the transformation seemed complete, the sword presented as a strange hybrid of wood and stone. Suddenly Sean’s voice broke his concentration. “You get something that is both physical, as well as magical.”

Sean held the transformed weapon up, bringing it closer to Kael’s face. “Violá! Magical beatstick!” Kael could not help himself but groan at Sean’s stupid grin. “Now let’s find yours! Do you like clubbing? Slashing? Piercing?!” The way his brows wiggled, and he lowered his voice towards the end almost as if they were talking about something scandalous… “WAHAHA! What the fuck Sean!” Had him doubling over in laughter. The stress and tension from the last two days left with it. Kael had to fight to keep his balance by hanging onto Sean’s outstretched arm. A little while later, Kael managed to calm down again. The laughter felt good, very good, in fact. “Thank you, Sean. I really needed that.” And he meant it. He felt lighter already. “Good. Now that we got that out of the way, what do you want to try first?”