Christopher was in a rather foul mood as he made his way to Netello Brave for his training. Thick dark clouds hung high above, sending torrents of rain down on the wooden roofs and walkways of Lumen. It brought an unending sound of pattering, drowning out almost all other sound.

Something was different as he arrived at practice grounds of the noble’s estate. Two new people were present in the courtyard, one of them a familiar face. It was Zalla, the aloof girl that had recommended these very lessons to him.

The other person present was wearing the uniform of the Lumen Forces. The man stood erect, giving no sign that the weather bothered him. Christopher was now able to tell ranks, and the emblem on his uniform indicated that the man was a lieutenant. The frills and the detail on his hat and uniform would have been another hint. The man was tall and broad shouldered. The Lieutenant was bald, but was sporting a rather distinct hanging black moustache. Christopher could already guess why this person was here.

In the last loop, Sin’s class had been enlisted a few days from now. This might suggest that the schedule of forming the platoons had been sped up by a few days, which certainly seemed a positive change. A few more days of training with the platoons would be sure to improve preparedness.

Netello Brave introduced the Lieutenant as soon as they all stood ready.

“This is Lieutenant Marrow, here to represent the Lumen Forces, please give him your undivided attention.”

Christopher listened as the officer rattled off the somewhat familiar themes from the last recruitment. The man had a powerful voice that carried easily over the rain. The Lieutenant talked about their duty to protect the people of Lumen. This was followed by a long-winded speech about the holy mission against the Blight, emphasizing the role that they had to play in this battle. One of the trainees nodded enthusiastically, but all the other trainees simply looked on with acceptance.

Christopher wondered where he would be stationed this time. Not that it mattered all that much, not in the chaos that was to come. He had no need to actually show up there. There would only be consequences for not showing up if they somehow succeeded in the defense.

After the speech, Lietenant Marrow presented them with their postings, which did in fact surprise him He was not stationed at the wall this time, but at the central command of Lumen. All of them would stay together and meet with their platoon in three days at Swift Keep, which was the seat of government and the residence of Earl Eugenius Swift in the center of the city.

It was only after the session that he gleaned from the others that he had been placed there due to political wrangling. Nobody really expected that the Blight would ever penetrate all the way to Swift Keep in significant numbers. This class consisted mostly out of the sons and daughters from rather influential people, whom had used their influence to get their children a safe spot. Christopher was just placed with them by happenstance, collateral to their schemes.

Christopher did not mind, since this would give him a chance to observe the command center of the Lumen Forces. It would probably also be a decent place in which to experience the attack. He could always consider going there after he succeeded in raising the Soul Alarm a few minutes early.

Soon the Lieutenant went on his way again, and their attention turned back to Zalla and Netello Brave. Christopher was rather curious why Zalla was here.

Netello Brave did not bother raising his voice, so Christopher had to carefully listen to hear the noble over the gusting rain.

“At the start of the training, I promised to teach you a Soul technique for battle if you successfully completed the program. I have decided to accelerate that program. I believe that all of you should be able to learn the first step to some extent in the next several weeks.”

That was like music to Christopher’s ears, he had been rightfully worried that he would not progress quickly enough to ever cash in on that promise. He had figured that the opportunity would present itself on a subsequent loop, but it seemed that he could start learning early.

Netello Brave looked sternly at the listening trainees, before looking at Zalla to his left.

“This is my granddaughter, Zalla. She will be assisting you in your training. I expect you to follow her commands.” He said sternly.

‘What the hell, Netello Brave is her grandfather!’ Christopher was not sure how to feel about that. It made him wonder whether Zalla had recommended these lessons to him in Christopher’s best interest, or in the interest of her grandfather.

Zalla just stood there totally indifferent to both the weather and the trainees, not reacting to her grandfather’s words. She was just staring vacantly towards the gardens.

“Before the start of every training session, she will help you with developing this technique. This will be an extension of your time here and will not cut into our normal training session. You will be expected thirty minutes earlier next time and beyond. You will also stay an additional thirty minutes to practice after each lesson, starting today. Zalla has the uncanny ability to see exactly where someone is struggling when it comes to using their Soul Force. You will do as she says and refrain from asking any inane questions.”

” Yes Master” all but a few of them immediately responded.

Apparently, Zalla was much more skilled than Christopher had expected if she was to teach them. Christopher was glad for the opportunity since he was not yet allowed this type of tutoring at the Lumen Academy.

The training proceeded much as it always had. The only difference was that Zalla was there observing, although it could hardly be called observing. She seemed to just be looking at whatever sparked her interest. Not that Christopher could afford to spare many glances away from his own platform.

For Christopher, it had started becoming easier to maintain his stability on the wooden platforms, but today the dreadful weather negated all that progress. Christopher was subjected to the horror of the Soul Suckers eleven times in the training session, and all his classmates joined him in his suffering.

He doubted that he would ever get used to the Soul Suckers latching on and extracting some of his Soul Force reserve. He hated the creatures to his very core. The fact that he scrambled back to the wooden platform time and time again attested to his rising insanity. Unlike the creatures of the Blight, these were apparently still creatures of creation, with their own inherent Soul Force. ‘These creatures almost make the Blight’s cause seem just’ Christopher thought wryly. A part of him would not mind seeing Some entropy unleashed on these creatures at least.

After the training at the pond and with the bow, it was finally time to join Zalla for the first Soul Technique lesson. Netello Brave had mentioned something about infusing their weapons, but he was unclear what form the lesson would take. The sky was still filled with dark clouds, but the rain had finally let up.

They joined Zalla on the pink moss matt, which was still strangely dry. They were all curious about learning this technique, and there was some quiet speculation on what they would learn. At least untill Netello Brave swiftly put a stop to the conversation. He loomed in the background, observing with hawkish eyes.

Zalla started speaking with a high but monotonous voice.

“Tell me in detail what you can currently do with your Soul Force” Zalla pointed to the Mina, the tall girl who was leaning on the matt in front of Christopher “You can start.”

‘Not exactly the clearest of questions.’ Mina seemed unsure how to answer. Netello Brave cleared his throat after a few seconds, looking slightly embarrassed.

“Please just state the different Soul Arts that you mastered, the size of your reserve, and your skill with manipulating Soul Force.” Zalla nodded at the further clarification provided from her grandfather.

Christopher listened to the abilities of the others with interest, it gave him some idea of what other people could do at this point in their life. They were all rather impressive, although he suspected that this group was not a representative sample size of the average person in Lumen at their age. They surely had more schooling and opportunities than the average person.

Most knew more Soul Arts than Christopher did, but they had only one or two that had the same level of mastery than Christopher’s Soul Heat and Soul Frost. Apparently not an easy feat to accomplish. Vila was somewhat behind the rest. She had learned Soul Heat and was not working on Soul Flow. Mina was surprisingly skilled. Although she was pretty much in last with the stances, she knew a whopping nine Soul Arts, which showed that not all had the same talents.

His own achievements seemed pretty average when he told Zalla about his current abilities, which was fine with him. Contrary to many of the others, Christopher did not have any licenses on this turn, so his abilities sounded weaker than they were. He might have been a little modest in sharing his level as well. All in all, Christopher thought he was doing pretty well considering his late start with developing his Soul Force.

“Alright, I need to know how well you can control your Soul Force when imbuing a weapon, give me a demonstration by using this simple iron staff. Please refrain from adding any Soul Art.”

Christopher wondered what she could learn from watching their directionless Soul Force.

All of them imbued their Soul Force one by one, Christopher himself could not yet really tell any individual differences with the others. This raw imbuing was something that Christopher had some practice with during this loop so he was glad that he did not come into this as a complete beginner. He refrained from using [Soul Sense] to improve his control, worried that it would only worsen his effort at this point. After each trainee infused the iron staff, Zalla took the iron staff from the trainees, apparently inspecting it in some way. Soon they had all completed the task, but Zalla had given no indication of how well any of them had done, only showing a look of utter concentration.

Zalla spoke slowly and clearly. “I will explain the lesson. The Blight is very vulnerable against Soul Force and the resulting Soul Arts. Soul Force conflicts with their very existence. In our lessons you will add raw Soul Force to your quarterstaff. Raw Soul Force is very inefficient when infusing and quickly dissipates without the addition of a Soul Art. However, it is also much easier and quicker than using a Soul Art, which might save you in a live and death situation.” Zalla paused, gathering her thoughts. “For you, a full Soul Art battle technique would be too advanced to learn at your level, but my grandfather had decided that you might be ready to learn this more basic battle infusion technique.”

A good twenty seconds passed before Zalla spoke again.

“Please note that this technique will deplete even the most impressive Soul Force reserve in under a minute. However, by infusing at only the exact time of your strike you can limit your expenditure. This is challenging, requiring a lot of training. This is what we will be working on.”

Those were more words than Christopher had heard in total so far from Zalla. Christopher was pretty excited though; This technique would be a useful tool to have. And he was pretty sure that he had already used this very technique once. At the start of the turn, he had imbued his Adeline dagger with Soul Force to kill his Goblin nemesis to great effect, slicing through its neck with minimal resistance.

Zalla continued speaking. “I have assessed your current level and where you need to improve. I will now advise you on what you should practice in order to develop this ability.”

They quickly got to work. Zalla had somehow gleaned a lot of information from their earlier infusion attempts. All of them received some personal guidance on what they had to work on. Vila and many of the others were directed to work more on their control before they could proceed further. Beteb was directed to train on increasing the speed with which he imbued the iron staff. Soon it was Christopher’s turn.

“Your control is not bad and should be passable for this. The speed of your infusions is acceptable as well. I would like you to practice imbuing your Soul Force into your weapon at the exact moment that it connects with the practice dummy. Make that moment as short and precise as possible. It is all about the perfect timing, keeping the waste to a minimum. Too early would be a massive waste, although to late would obviously be worse. You can simultaneously work on the other aspects while you do this training.

Christopher nodded, it seemed that he might have progressed slightly further than the others this time. He was pretty sure that none of the others had fought the Blight yet though. Christopher was allowed to practice with the Iron staff. He used the motions of the stances and tried to infuse the staff at the perfect moment while hitting the durable dummies. This proved to be really difficult. It required a momentous amount of concentration to infuse at the exact moment of his strikes and lunges. He did feel that he could probably manage with enough time and practice so that made him determined. The practice of the others was a lot less flashy but they seemed focused on their tasks as well. Christopher’s Soul Force had been topped off but his practicing soon left him empty.

Christopher was still somewhat taken aback by how capable Zalla was. She was quite young to have advanced to such a level. He imagined that it could not be easy to glean this much about another person’s abilities with one observation. The woman was so wistful and frail that he would never have guessed that she possessed such skill.

Zalla urged them all to practice more in their own time as well. Christopher left rather pleased; He was glad that he was finally able to learn something that would combine his weapon training with his growing Soul Force capabilities.