The chilly breeze of the morning made up for the lack of coffee in this world. If I found that damn plant you can be damn sure I was going to invent the morning pick me up I needed. I was also going to pump it full of mana to make up for all these years I missed out on.

Walking next to me were Tom and Kate, both of them had their own training to look forward to for the morning. I was going to be spending a good amount of time cleaning, and parsing all the mana that will be used by all the mages and healers.

As we arrived at the reception the guard on duty gave me a strange look.

“Tom, have you brought us a new recruit?” he said “You know we don’t start sign ups until the tenth bell.”

“Not really sir” Tom said, fidgeting slightly. “ You see, commander Grievous said he can train in the courtyard every other day if he joins the cleaning crew.”

He raised an eyebrow at “Did he now? And how exactly is he going to take part in any training since the cleaning crew are always busy all day?”

This seemed to bring my brother up short. He told me last night that he hadn't spent any time as part of the cleaning crew since they were outside hires of the guards. It seems the commander was just having some fun at my expense.

“A-Ah” Tom stuttered “I’m not sure, sir.”

“I’ll answer that one” A strong voice said from behind us.

The commander was standing there in his full metal gear yet from their reaction not one of us had heard him sneak up half a foot from us.

“It seems both of them passed my small little test” His eyes bore down on my brother, it seems Kate’s guess about the vampire’s level was spot on. “ I was half sure that a future hunter from a small village wouldn’t bother playing cleaner just to get to train in a courtyard. Have him join the cleaning crew for the morning round and the training group with the new recruits in the afternoon.”

“Yes sir” the receptionist said “what’s your name kid and how high is your vitality stat?”

“My name is Ajax, and why do you need my vitality stat?” I suddenly asked a lot more weary.

“Need to make sure the instructors know how much you can take before they have to send you to the healers tent to get patched up, some of you newly of age don’t put any points in it and we want to avoid any unfortunate accidents” he freely answered, I was clearly not the first to be skeptical of this.

“Oh, I have 18 vitality” I made sure not to mention the half point.

“That’s a bit light, make sure you get some real points in there before your apprenticeship is over, the higher you get your vitality when you are younger the longer you will live” he clearly gave some good advice.

“I know sir, I left it lower intentionally” I thought giving up some of the game will take some of the suspicion off me.

“Oh and why is that?” the commander asked.

“I’m planning to be a hunter in an out of the way village, here I have healers that will keep patching me up as part of their basic training. I thought with the apprentice trait that I could get my vitality up a few points by taking a beating here, and it’s a lot easier to raise stats when they are low.”

“There’s that merchant's greed,” the commander grinned at me. “it shows that you grew up with a future merchant for an older sister. Make sure they give his vitality a good workout will you? Good luck kid.”

I could see the receptionist scribble something down on a scroll before handing it over to someone to carry out while we walked towards the courtyard. I was very excited about the amount of gains training with the guards will net me. A part of me was also concerned with the amount of pain I just signed myself up for, but that was a problem for future me.

The morning passed by quickly. My jobs pretty much rotated in moving and leaning up targets for the mages to fling spells at. That's not to say I didn’t get anything out of it. I had definitely felt earth, wind, water, fire, and even darkness spells hit those targets with all different forms of applications.

They all mostly consisted of forming a projectile of whatever element they were planning on using and tossing it at the targets. Out of all of them, shadow seemed to be the most interesting. It wasn’t the damage it was doing since it was the weakest of them all, but rather the fact that even with my mana senses I couldn’t seem to get a feel for it the entire morning. It was barely on the last few casts that I managed to feel it in the slightest, after my [sense mana] level to 40.

All of the [cleaning] and [sense mana] did seem to gain me a whole 200 points of experience. I could clearly see how people level so quickly after the age of 10. In a day and a half I had already gained 300 experience without doing anything difficult or dangerous.

I was fixing up new targets while Tom and the rest of the guards all headed out of the field to make space for their new recruits. As I was finishing up Kate came out of the tent and passed me a few pastries that resembled cupcakes..

“You want to have quite a bit of food to draw on for when you get healed. Starting tomorrow you are going to be heaving some heavier breakfasts.” she said before she walked away.

I chowed down the tasty treats as the new recruits started to file in. One of the instructors approached me while they were all getting into position, there were only a little more than half the amount of people in the courtyard now compared to the morning. Behind him was a tall, well built, blonde man that seemed to be about my age with an odd bird sitting on his shoulder.

“Now you two wait here until I get the new recruits sorted, after that we can all get on with this” he said, clearly not being too happy about having extras join in his training.

“Hey” The other boy said to me while offering me his hand. Upon close inspection the clothes he was wearing were of very high quality. “I’m Cadmael.”

“Ajax” I said, taking the hand and feeling a strong grip.

“So, how did you end up training with guards?” he asked.

“My brother is one and the commander got me a spot as long as I clean for free in the mornings.” I had no reason to lie. “You?”

“Dad sent me and my brother here for the baron’s eldest son's wedding.” he seemed bored at the prospect. “My brother knows some people his age but I just unlocked my stats yesterday so I thought I might as well get some training. The instructors here are pretty good.”

I quickly shut my mouth and took a good long look at him now, invitation for a noble’s wedding and that expensive looking armor, this had to be a noble.

“Yeah, that's pretty much what I expected, I’m Viscount Flameheart’s youngest son” he said to fill in the awkward silence. “This here is Shifty”

“Scree”

“He’s a changeling, I’m trying to get it to bond to me. He seems to like me fine but I haven't gotten the skill just yet.”

At this the bird flapped up to his head where it changed into a puppy. The feeling of mana I got from the change was very faint. It felt like a ball of magic that had just just wirled and got a new outer layer. I felt my eyes widen at this and a smirk grew on the boy's face, clearly this was the effect he wanted from his pet.

“That’s awesome” I said, suddenly feeling more interested in making friends with him. “But how do you know you can get that skill, I thought you had to have talent in something to get a skill.”

“Bonding is one of the talentless skills, as long as you have a magic companion willing to bond with you.”

I was going to ask him more questions but the instructor made his way back over to us. “Alright you two, for today we’re just going to have you fight with whatever weapons you feel comfortable with so we can get an idea of your level. No need to hold back as me and the other two instructors have a skill to keep an eye on your health and will step in as needed.”

As he finished speaking he turned his eyes to the puppy sitting on Cadmael’s head and did a double take. “ Didn’t you come in with a bird, milord?”

“Shifty here is a changeling, I’m just waiting for the bond.” he answered as we headed towards the group.