The previous four days all followed a set pattern: get up, eat breakfast, go to the guard compound from morning till evening, return home, eat dinner with Kate, Tom, Judy and Alana, sleep. That is not to say that there wasn’t variety. The routine was the same but the time spent at the compound was interesting, entertaining and diverse.

The mornings all saw me work targets for the mages to practice on. I thought the main gain there would be just watching and analysing the spells the mages threw to get new ideas for my own magic. On my second day I also noticed that I could examine the used targets with [Residue Recognition]. This was a great boon as I could see how certain elements did their damage.

The first thing I learnt about magical residue, at least at the level I could analise, is that you can’t track the person that used it. With [Sense Mana] and I am told [Detect Mana] you can identify each person's unique mana when they are using it. The magical residue on the other hand seems to depend on the spell and not the person. A fireball will leave the same magical signature no matter who casts it.

The other thing that interested me was how the different elements did damage, fire and earth were pretty straight forward, water wasn’t all that hard to figure out either, though some people seemed to be launching ice cold water in hopes of causing hypothermia. Air on the other hand seemed to be the most versatile. The pressurised cutting style I used, the dense gust for pushing power. The most interesting was a spell that seemed to concentrate most of the oxygen in an area in a point, after which a spark could cause a small explosion.

How they figured out oxygen I didn’t know and I wasn’t asking, after all to know it was done using an air spell and not a fire one would give away that I could sense mana. All this information left me with a lot to [Meditate] on at night, finding the skill was useful in focusing on past experiences.

“Hey Ajax.” Cadmael said to me as he came in for his lesson.

“Hi Cad, Shifty” I said, giving a small nod to the changeling.

“Cheep” the small bird greeted me back.

“We did swords, shields, spears and knives so far, what do you think today is axes or hammers?” I said starting the conversation.

The past few days had seen all the guards mostly stick to their own. Nobody wanted to make friends with the low-statted hunter that would be gone in a month or two. By a similar view nobody wanted to risk offending the son of viscount so they also gave Cadmael a pretty wide breath. This led to us becoming more friendly. Cadmael was pretty down to earth and seemed to want to be my friend .

“I don’t think so, both hammers and axes are weapons the guard doesn’t encourage,” he said.

“Why not?” I was surprised to hear this. “They take a lot less practice to be efficient with.”

“Because they also lead to heavy wounds. Guards mostly keep the peace, a sword, spear or knife will leave a cut, but as long as you survive the blood loss there is not much to mend. Axes and hammers are much worse to heal and can leave unnoticed wounds that may be fatal if untreated.”

“Line up everyone” The instructor called out.

As most of the recruits had arrived for the training we all lined up and waited to see what today's lesson would be. The eager grins from the older recruits who had been here for more than a month, combined with the quick glances at me and the other two low stats high skill boys left me a bit worried.

“Today’s the final day before you get a 2 day break from training, so today we will be working with the final essential guard combat technique. For those of you new here, one of you has already demonstrated it two days ago” He said while looking pointedly in my direction.

This is all it took for it to click into place. Two days ago, when we were being taught the spear, one of the stronger recruits managed to knock the spear out of my hand with brute strength, he also left himself wide open for me to brutalise with my fists, his own spear doing more to hinder than help at that close range.

“Today you will learn how to fight with nothing but your fists and your legs, as guard you won’t always have your weapons at the ready, not to mention when dealing with small nuisances it would be best to debilitate them without needing a trip to the healer after.”

The rest of the afternoon continued much like the previous days, the instructors would have all of us space out and demonstrate very basic techniques, the same ones my brother taught me three years ago. After doing this for a few hours, each of us would get a bit of practice in with an instructor before heading to the live combat part against each other.

For once I didn’t seem to be getting healed far more than the rest of the class.Unarmed combat led to the loser, and often the winner, needing to be patched up. The instructors also put up far less with the abuse of stat differences. Whereas with weapons they had let the higher statted people lean into their advantage, now they were actively stopping any bull rush tactics that someone slower and weaker could do nothing against to enforce actual learning.

Because of the limitations imposed I had one of my best results in the end of the day practice, winning about one third of my fights. This was also picked up on by the healers.

“Did you grow bored with us?” one of them asked me “You seem to be coming by a lot less often today.”

“Having to come here to sit with you so often was good motivation for me to get better, it’s starting to pay off.” I said back. From all the time I spent getting myself healed up I got to know the healers a lot better than the guard recruits.

“Alright everyone, one final fight” the instructor announced.

The final fight had me going up against Cadmael, not something I looked forward to considering he dwarfed me in stats and, despite not being all that skilled in combat he had been trained by experts and knew what to look for. We were the last group to get in position as I was coming back from getting my nose straightened for the fourth time today. Something about me seemed to make my opponents want to put their fist through my face.

The fight went as predicted, with Cadmael landing one blow in three. Against someone like me he focused on speed more than power and it wasn’t more than a minute before I was down on the floor with my fifth broken nose of the day and 10 health left.

“That’s it for today, recruits do remember that you have your classes with Professor Lupus tomorrow morning. A word of advice, any beating you took today will look like a childish game compared to what he will do to those who are late. I suggest an early bedtime tonight.”

His warning didn’t mean much to me as I wasn’t attending the lecture parts of guard training, though by a few grimaces I saw on the faces of some of the older recruits it was not an empty threat.

“About the day aft- “ Cadmael started to say while offering me a hand to pick myself off the ground.

“Cadmael, get moving. We are expected at the pre-wedding party tonight.” A boy resembling Cadmael, a bit more severe looking, called out.

I figured this to be the oldest of the viscounts children, the odd looking Lenford staying by his side. I took the offered arm and got myself back to my feet. It took me a few seconds to gain my balance before I went to respond but by that time Cadmael was already a few steps away.

“I’ll see you in two days” he picked up the pace and joined his brother as they left the compound.

I slowly made my way to the healing tent. There I got myself patched up in short order but I was given a stern warning.

“Make sure to take it easy. Oh, and have a good meal tonight. We might have fixed up your injuries but unlike the last few days you lost quite a bit of blood today, most of it through your nose, and the spells we used don’t work on bloodloss.”

That at least explained why I still felt a little dizzy. I took a look at the descending sun and started to hurry back home. There had been two missing reports filed in the past few days, this made me a bit paranoid about the potential vampire. I could only hope that he would think twice about grabbing a half empty juice box with all my blood loss.

I was the last one to make it home this time. I quickly washed my hands before taking a seat at the table.

“Ajax, are you feeling ok? You look a little pale.” Kate quickly picked up on my haggard state.

“I’m fine.” I said.

“You don’t look fine, did you not visit the healers tent after the last bout?” Tom asked.

“No, I did.”

“ Who did such a poor job?” Alana said, she seemed torn between concern for me and outrage at the healer.

“They did fine. It was unarmed combat day. I had quite a bit of blood loss. For some reason they seemed to always end up putting a fist through my face”

“ Having grown up with you I can’t say the urge is foreign.” Judy said with a smirk.

“ I have the next two days off, I was thinking of going out in the forest to try out all the spells I picked up.”

“Not alone you’re not, I can come with you tomorrow but you better give up on going the day after.” Tom cut me off.

I simply nodded at that. “Thanks for taking the time.”