“Can I get another bucket?” Jack asked the servant that waited on the far side of the privacy curtain. His stunt with the Fireball had resulted in a literal shower of gore that, unfortunately, required thorough scrubbing to remove. He still had rat guts in his hair and was torn with the decision to just call it a lost cause and shave it off or try to get it off with good old soap, water, and elbow grease. The soap was probably his least favorite part of the experience. The bar of lye was rough and hard to use compared to modern varieties.

“Here is the bucket,” The servant responded.

The sturdy wooden bucket was passed through the curtain and, after a quick three count, unceremoniously dumped on his shivering form. The cold water made his skin tingle in a strange way that just felt...wrong. Maybe he should cut his hair after all.

Some time later, Jack stumbled out of this worlds equivalent of a locker room to find his guard standing vigil at the entrance. He had been given a threadbare robe to wear as the attendant had thrown his uniform in the incinerator.

“Did you enjoy your ablutions?” He asked stiffly.

“I don’t even know what that means, which makes me wonder if you’re making fun of me; Because you can go ahead and laugh now.”

“I wouldn’t presume to so dishonor my charge in such a vulgar manner.” Virtus replied again, only his voice was strained.

“Uh huh, go ahead and let it out. I know you want to.”

Virtus proceeded to do just that. Deep chuckles burst out of him a bit too long before he regained his composure and straightened. He wiped a tear and straightened up to look at Jack’s ragged appearance in his borrowed robe. Then the bastard had the temerity to laugh again.

Jack was willing to deal with the insult to his pride once, but this crossed the line. With all the imperiousness of a jilted teenager, he stomped off towards his dorm. His newfound independence only lasted a few paces, as Virtus materialized next to him in a burst of inhuman speed. “I apologize for my indiscretions.” Virtus said.

“Don’t be! You are entitled to your own sense of humor. Even if it’s at my expense. Was my fight with the giant rat so outrageous?”

“Outrageous? Maybe. Most contestants, I mean students, are content to slay the beast in a variety of traditional means. Hacking, slashing, smashing, and spell casting are expected but not the only means one may use to succeed. Your method of inserting an offensive spell into the vulnerable insides of your opponent was novel as few had thought to use such a tactic.”

“I don’t recommend it. It’s...messy.”

“Indeed. Do not expect others to follow your example unless they are desperate. Then your precedent may just save their lives.”

“I’m so glad to be of service. So how did I really do?”

“Professor Graves was unimpressed with your initial performance but was impressed that you were able to recover quickly and both notice them take advantage of your situation so quickly. The end actually made him smile.”

“That’s creepy.” Jack cringed at the thought of someone enjoying the sight of him covered in rat guts. “It wasn’t enough though. I need to get stronger.”

“We will continue practicing with the sword and shield every morning. You didn’t use your shield even once during the fight, so we will focus on that tomorrow.”

“And magic, don’t I need new combat spells as well?” Jack asked.

“With a combat spell that powerful, why would you. Practice and familiarity will bring down the casting time to a fraction of your current five seconds. That is when the true value of such a spell will come to fruition. Have you considered a defensive spell instead of another offensive one?”

“A defensive spell?” Jack asked, intrigued.

“Yes, you were using the corrosive effect of your blood to create enough distance for you to bring your spell to bear. That is an advantage that you should not rely upon lightly. The moment you are injured is the same moment you become vulnerable. A defensive spell like Flame Shroud that burns any that come within your vicinity has the same effect without harm befalling you.”

“I see. While I don’t feel pain anymore, getting hurt is still unpleasant. I will look into it tonight.”

They had reached the dorm by this point, at which Jack’s bare feet flew up the stairs to his room. He slammed the door behind him and yanked the crappy robe off with a single motion. The garment smacked into a corner with more force than was really warranted. Finally, now that he was alone, Jack indulged in a good scratch. His whole body itched, bad. Why did he have to lose a vital sense like pain, yet keep this terrible, horrible feeling? He would trade out feeling pain with itchiness in a heartbeat if he had the choice.

There was a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” Jack yelled.

“It is I,” Virtus responded. “Do you require assistance. I heard something...strange.”

“No, no don’t come in. I will be ready in a bit. Go ahead and pop down to the mess hall for a bite. I will meet you down there.”

“Understood. One should avoid certain overdoing certain activities. You might go blind.” Then the sound of his footsteps sounded out in the direction of the stairs. He was gone.

“Might go blind my butt. What does he think I’m doing?” Then he shook his head vigorously when his subconscious began putting certain images in his thoughts. Bad brain!

...

Dinner was already served by the time Jack made it down, textbook in hand. His plate consisted of an entire roast pheasant the size of a dove, a small salad, and a slice of hard, crumbly cheese. A mug of something dark sat to the side, inviting him to quench his thirst. He sat down at the setting the madam, a plump lady in a stained apron, led him to and took a big swallow from the mug. He immediately regretted his actions, the brew was earthy and nutty yet bitter at the same time. He managed to lean over just in time to avoid spewing over another one of his fellow diners.

“Ugh, what was that?” He asked the universe.

“That, my friend, is lager,” Nathaniel explained in the place of the universe.

“Lager? I’m not old enough to have lag—wait, what’s the age limit on alcohol?”

“Pfft,” Natalia snorted, “if you are tall enough to reach the bar then you are old enough to drink. What kind of barbaric land did you come from anyways?”

“We don’t drink legally till we reach twenty-one in my homeland.”

“Then what do your people drink?”

“Water—maybe some juice.”

“Water? Are your people so primitive? Aren’t they worried about disease?”

“Our water is clean. Has been for a hundred years. So, I take it that clean water is rare.”

“You could say that. Only Water magi and rain barrels produce it in any affordable way. The water from the aqueducts is almost drinkable, but you still have to boil it, just in case.” Nathaniel interjected before his sister could follow up with another rude question. “That is partly why we were able to pay our tuition cost by digging wells. Not all ground water is sanitary, it takes a magi to test it for magical traces or disease. Each village paid the collected dividends of five, or more, harvests for the service, and we asked for less than half of the regular fee.”

“Wow, that is the best rationalization for drinking beer that I have ever heard. You would have made millions on my home world.”

“Millions of what?”

Sigh! “Never mind.” Jack braced himself and took another sip of the dark brew. It tasted just as overwhelming as the first time, he was pretty sure beer wasn’t supposed to taste like this. The Old Man practically lived off of ‘good old American beer’, which only served to make Jack swear off the stuff forever, but things were different now. Part of it was that it smelled completely different than bud, and another part was that he was sitting at a table with a bunch of wizards drinking out of the little sister of a tankard.

A bottle with a dark red liquid appeared on the table in front of him with a familiar metal glove hovering next to it. “Never mind what you have. Drink this instead. It will be more effective at helping you hydrate and recover from your wounds.” Virtus declared. He had sat down while Jack was having his stare down with the beer mug and didn’t seem very impressed with his charges decisions.

“What is it?”

“Posca, it is a drink that was developed for soldiers on duty millennia ago. It is a mix of red wine, vinegar, and several magical herbs that assist in filling your stomach and healing your wounds. A man can live on posca alone indefinitely if he so desired.”

Jack took up the bottle in his hand, the glass was cool to the touch for a second before he felt something snap. It wasn’t a physical sensation like a rubber band being released nor was it the shattering of something precious, rather it was something more elusive. He had been relatively unaware of the sense that been slowly developing at the edge of his consciousness. It was unlike anything he had the vocabulary to even begin categorizing, which made it difficult to put into a safe mental box.

A cool sensation, similar to that moment when the first chills hits after stepping out into a snowstorm travelled up his arm and into his core. The sensation faded quickly but his arm felt different. He focused on the aforementioned appendage, trying to direct his magical thingamabob, technical term, to investigate. It worked, kind-of; the information popped up like a random fun fact in his thoughts. It was almost as if he had always known it

The bottle had been enchanted with a preservation enchantment of the Ice element, as such, Jack had undone the effect and absorbed the energy that powered it. All that Ice mana went up his mana channels until it interacted with the Fire mana in his blood stream. The end result was a magical reaction that had resulted in stressing his arm, then healing it several times over the period of a few seconds. It was like an extremely compressed exercise routine where his whole arm went through months of tempering in a very short period of time. It would of left him rolling on the floor in agony if he felt pain, instead it now itched like nobodies business, and a crack formed down the bottle in a zigzag pattern when he flexed the hand experimentally.

“Jack, can you hear me?”

Startled, he swiveled to address the person waving a hand in his face. “Stop that!” He countered the motion with his own, which allowed him to see the perpetrator. Natalia was leaning over the table with a worried expression on her face.

“Where did you go?” She asked.

“Nowhere, I’m right here.”

“You know what I meant. You were giving the thousand meter stare, it was creepy.”

“Oh, it was nothing, sorry.” Jack put the matter of his recent Uber workout to the side and focused on the bottle in front of him. He raised it to his lips and took a tentative sip. The over whelming flavor of grapes and basalmic vinegar overwhelmed his pallet, intermixed with other more subtle hints of mint, dill, and something spicy. It was the most peculiar thing he had ever tasted. It was very acidic, yet also settled his stomach at the same time. His chest started to warm up, then his limbs, and finally the rest of him. It felt wonderful.

“Wow, Virtus, this stuff is great!”

The stern guardsman returned Jack’s big grin with a small raise of his lips that meant he was pleased. “If it was that effective with a single swallow, then you must be more fatigued than you realized. Just because you can’t feel pain, does not mean you are immune to harm. Be more wary after receiving injuries in the future. Drink up, you will need it.”

And drink he did. It only took him a few minutes to finish the bottle, vigor, that he hadn’t noticed fade, flooded his system like a shot of adrenaline. Sitting still became a challenge, doomed to failure as he started to squirm in his chair and fidget with his dining ware. Using sustenance as an excuse, he dug into his food heartily, while bantering over the dinner table with his new companions. Virus had hit it off with the twins, his shared experience in the legions served as a segway with Nathaniel. They reminisced on better days, in better places while Natalia butted into the conversation randomly to feel included.

Jack let the conversation go for a while until it became a diatribe from his two male companions, who had drunk far too much, no, he didn’t care that the lager was watered down. At that point, Jack brought his growing circle to the common room to while away the hours in front of the fire in comfort. Virus excused himself after the meal to head off to his own lodgings but several other students finally became confident enough to introduce themselves and join in on the fun.