“Good news everyone!” Hanna said at the beginning of class.

This immediately put Hugo on edge. That woman didn’t give out good news, only pain.

“As of today, your daily runs to start off the class are over,” Hanna said with a smile.

Scattered applause and shouts rang out among the two hundred gathered students. Hugo didn’t join in, he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Starting today, we are going to do combat training,” she said.

There it was.

“Today, and for the foreseeable future, we are going to spend a portion of every athletics class beating each other up. Punches and kicks don’t do much to monsters, so we will be jumping right into weapons training.”

She paused for a bit, hearing a few grumbles from the crowd, “Now I know there are some idiots out in the class today. There are a few every year. They are thinking that they don’t want to fight, they want to leave killing monsters to the harvesters. Well tough shit.

“You are going to learn how to fight because that is the only way to advance ranks. You have to kill monsters. Even light domain students, even life domain students, everyone has to kill monsters. You can’t rank up just from visiting the walls anymore. You will kill some monsters to rank up soon. I am not saying you should, I am saying you will. I will ensure every one of you ranks up on schedule, no matter how much it hurts you. It is in your own best interest to try your hardest.”

Hanna started pacing in front of the assembled students, really getting into her speech, “So far, we have been training you to escape a fight you can’t win. That is what the daily runs and obstacle courses have taught you. But what about a fight you can win? That is what we will be learning next.”

“The first hundred of you to reach the athletics building can grab a maul. The rest of you will grab a shield. Then the fast ones will learn how to pound on the slow ones. I would recommend being fast, since the shield doesn’t stop bruises. Go now!”

As soon as she said that, they were off, running across campus. As they neared the building, they could see rows of weapons and armor laid out on the grass. A small metal maul was placed in front of a shield and helmet.

Hugo was one of the first to arrive, and scooped up a maul before he danced away. The crowd scrambled for a maul of their own, several minor skirmishes broke out. Soon though, all of the weapons were taken and the slower half of the class reluctantly picked up a shield. It was a round buckler, barely bigger than the length of an average forearm.

“The helmets are for the shield bearers. Strap them on tight, I don’t care if it hurts. We can fix a broken arm, but we can’t fix a smashed in head. Everyone, sort yourself by domain and line up on opposite sides of the running path. Shields on my side, mauls on the other side.”

What followed next were a series of footwork exercises. More than an hour of practice on the same few steps. Hugo felt like everyone caught on quick, but Hanna insisted on more practice. They didn’t even swing a weapon until the end of the class.

In the last few minutes of class, they put their footwork into practice, and slammed the maul onto shields. Most of them did it right and the impact was absorbed. A few shield bearers fell, and one maul flew out of someone’s hand.

Hanna chewed them out for the rest of class. Hugo stood there with a maul in hand and realized that he had overestimated the competence of his classmates. He had low expectations, but the other students were determined to slide underneath them.

Most days in formation class Rasmus had an equation written up on the board. Not today though, the board was blank. This felt noteworthy to Hugo because he had practiced an equation for a sword with Rasmus just this morning.

Hugo nudged Oskar, “Hey Mr. Popular. Anything crazy happen last night? Is Sage Rasmus repairing defenses again?”

Oskar shook his head morosely, “I am not popular. Besides, we are in all the same classes, when would I hear something you wouldn’t?”

“You are popular, I see you going out three nights a week. I bet you know all kinds of things I don’t,” Hugo said.

“I’m not though. I wish I was more popular, it’s important to get friends during your first year. My dad said he is still friends with his chums from school. But no one wants to be my friend.”

“Hey, what am I? Pig snout?”

Oskar put his hand on Hugo’s shoulder and said, “You are a real friend. I am lucky to have you. I was talking more about connections, the sons of nobles and businessmen. I can’t seem to make the right connections, nothing is working.”

“Well, maybe if you started thinking of them as people instead of connections.”

It turned out that Hugo’s worries were unfounded, Sage Rasmus walked into class right on time. He jumped right into the lesson.

“I believe you had your first lesson in weapons training today, correct?” he said.

When everyone nodded, he continued, “Then I guess that it is high time you created a weapon, isn’t it? Today we will be discussing weapon designs. On Fifthday each of you will create your own weapon, one designed by you specifically for yourself. So, as we discuss weapons, think about your own personal style, what kind of weapon would fit you.”

“The first weapon type we will be discussing is swords. I want to try and convince you not to make one. I know some of you choose the formation domain specifically to emulate one of the great swordsmen in our city. And let’s be honest, swords are a very effective weapon. They can slash and pierce. They are versatile in attack forms and some defense.

“But! Swords take practice. A lot of practice. If you haven’t already had a few years of sword training at this point, a sword would be more hindrance than help. The difference between an effective slash and a glancing blow is a minute difference in angle.”

He created a sword to demonstrate, and showed them several ways that an untrained student could fail to use a sword correctly.

“A mace is a fine weapon. It is simple to learn, and quite deadly. You don’t have to learn any fancy sword forms, or ensure that your angles are just right. You just look at the monster and swing away.”

Another short demonstration followed.

“However, the mace and sword both have the same weak point.” Rasmus pointed to his wrist and said, “This point right here. They say a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and your wrist is the weakest link in that equation. If you want to exert enough power to pierce a iqunge’s hide, then your wrist has to be able to handle that pressure. At rank four, most of you can’t do that.”

“Which brings us to our third category of weapons, spears. A spear doesn’t have the same weakness as the other two. You can use your whole body with each thrust, even a rank two could kill a igunge with a good spear. And the reach that a spear provides will put you out of range of a monster’s counter attack. I would recommend spears and glaives to everyone, if it weren’t for their main drawback. A spear is just shitty if the monster gets in close.”

He moved on to talk about bows, war hammers, daggers, and axes, covering their strengths and weaknesses for beginners.

“That’s the end of today’s lesson. To reiterate, your homework for today is to calculate out a design for your own personal weapon. It can be anything you want to use. When you turn it on on Fifthday I will offer advice and you will create that weapon in class tomorrow.

“I haven’t been strict on the parameters, but please be practical,” Rasmus said with a sigh, “I am going to send you out on a culling with this weapon. You will have to leave the city and actually kill a monster with this. Don’t choose a weapon just because it sounds cool. If any of you come to class on Fifthday with the design for an Urumi, it is an automatic fail.”

He dismissed them and the room erupted into conversation.

Oskar said, “I still kind of want to make a sword.”

“Not me. Even if I had training, aluminum would make a terrible sword. Too light, won’t hold an edge, all that,” Hugo said.

“Still, you have many options I do not,” Lenna said.

“That’s right. What are you going to make?” Hugo asked Lenna.

“I am not sure. Spider silk does make things difficult,” she said thoughtfully, “I had been planning on doing a rope javelin, but Sage Rasmus’s comment about training is making me reconsider. I have read about rope javelins but I have never used one. I think I will have to do additional research. I might end up purchasing a weapon from the commissary.”

“Can you do that? Oskar asked, “I thought we had to make it ourselves.”

“No, I knew this might be an issue and asked him about it before. He mentioned that as long as we make part of the weapon, that is sufficient,” said Lenna.

“I didn’t know they sold weapons in the commissary,” Hugo said.

Lenna nodded, “Yes, they do. The light and life domains must arm themselves somehow after all. Even the more combat oriented like ritual and rune domains can’t make the weapon themselves.”

The three of them decided to peruse the options at the commissary. Maybe it would help them get an idea of what they wanted to make. There were a wide variety of options, at least one of every design that Sage Rasmus had mentioned.

The prices were listed on each student made design. The prices were high, but students were buying. They could purchase a weapon and just add it to their school tab. The thought of the school tab totally derailed Hugo.

He couldn’t stop thinking about his own debt. He didn’t want to carelessly add to his tab and end up with an extra year of indentureship. He went to the front office to get an update on his school debt. If he was going to pay it off in a reasonable time frame, he had to keep on top of it. He was less pleased when he saw the total. It was much higher than he had been expecting. Of course there were the tuition and housing fees, but the other charges were out of hand.

All the little things added up. Hugo had gotten into a habit of getting a snack every day, but that wasn’t included in his daily allowance, and he paid dearly for it. He had to buy several things from the school commissary, like toiletries and extra paper and writing implements. Every little bit added to his debt.

He needed to do something about it now, otherwise he would be stuck paying back his debt for the rest of his life. He would have loved to get a part time job, but there weren’t any to be had. He couldn’t leave campus and what few jobs there were to be had were taken by upperclassmen.

Then his thoughts came back to the commissary. Maybe he could sell something there. The weapons category seemed full, so that was out. Maybe he could create a household item. His sewing kit he bought last week was made by another formation domain student.

He started wracking his mind trying to come up with a product that he could sell to his fellow students. It had to be made of aluminum, of course. It couldn’t be too big, he never had much spare mana in a day. But it also had to be something that people would clearly want. He didn’t want to be like the clueless runic student that put her fire starting tabs up for sale. No one on campus needed to start a fire. There were no wood burning stoves on campus, and pipe smoking was forbidden.

He needed to come at this from a unique direction. For example the upper classman with the rubber element didn’t make bouncy balls, he made prophylactics. Hugo guessed that product sold very well.

The next few days were spent musing over the possibilities. He briefly considered selling tent poles, disposable cutlery, and sunglasses before deciding he didn’t need to pick just one thing. He could create a few different products and see what sold the best. It would make the math much harder for him, but it would be good practice. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do late at night. He was never going to one of those parties again.