“The martial arts are a wide and varied field of work. Almost as old as ethersmithing, the path of integrating physical attacks into one’s shroud to amplify their power is a distinguished and respected profession. Unfortunately, the very nature of shrouds limits the ability to pass such teachings from one shrouded to another. This conundrum has turned true martial masters into feared figures of legend and no small amount of speculation.” Excerpt from ‘Myths and Tales of Ancient Times.’

Today began Caeden’s weapon training classes. He was interested to see what he could learn as a complete layman. Caeden's knowledge as far as weapons went was entirely wrapped up in how to make them. Obviously, he could swing a sword as well as anyone else could, but actual technique on any level was beyond him. He had zero expectations for what he would actually be learning.

Honestly, Caeden had some misgivings about the number of classes he was devoting solely to learning how to use all the weapons Forged Infinity could become. Every time he had that thought, another part of him screamed that not learning how to use every aspect of his shrouded weapon would be a waste. Forged Infinity's ability to shift between different weapons in live combat was such a massive advantage. Still, eight classes was a lot.

Funnily enough, His class order was almost exactly the same as Forged Infinity’s weapons. The order from 1 to 8 on the dial went blade, shield, dagger, spear, gauntlets, axe, hammer, and sword. His classes were dagger, spear, gauntlets, physical conditioning, lunch, hammer, axe, and sword. There was no class for shields specifically. Caeden had no idea why Forged Infinity split single-edged weapons from doubled-edged into blades and swords, but it did. He planned on learning both in his swordsmanship class.

The consciousness in his weapon was chomping at the bit. Caeden was never particularly sure what it was aware of, but it definitely knew he was going to be using it a lot today. He could feel bloodthirsty joy radiating off it from where it hung from his robes. Using Forged Infinity as his hammer yesterday had been interesting, considering its unique properties. Its spirit had been the calmest Caeden had ever felt, responding to the rhythm of his blows like a lullaby.

Now it was very much awake and raring to go. The level of disappointment Caeden had felt from Forged Infinity when he refused to fight Juliette Ursine’s giant armored bear form was equivalent to telling a small child they couldn’t have a birthday party. Just absolute dejection. Caeden was sure if the weapon could cry, it would have. He wasn’t sure how he felt about having such an overwhelmingly bloodthirsty weapon, but he was pretty much stuck with what he had. Forged Infinity was just too overwhelmingly powerful compared to anything he could make for himself.

Fortunately, Caeden knew his first teacher. Major Aiden Bludrichte had been helpful back on orientation day when Caeden had bothered him about school rules and expressed an interest in teaching him. Now Caeden was ready to fulfill that promise. His schedule today had him running all over campus, and he wouldn’t see any of his friends until he saw Lily for sword practice. So a friendly face in his first class sounded especially nice.

When Caeden got to the location of his small blades class, he wasn't sure if he had come to the right place. Or what he was looking at in general. Before him was a stone arch inlaid with strange designs rendered in ether crystals. The interior of the arch was strangely shadowed so that he could not see through it, though by all rights, it should only be a few feet to the other side. There was no building attached, only the arch. With a shrug, Caeden walked through.

He exited onto a dirt training field with a low stone fence running around it. He could see green hills with small groups of trees past the fence. It was a completely different scenery than what the arch should have led to. Obviously, some form of ethertech was at work here, but Caeden had no idea what. He doubted it was some kind of teleportation. If it were, etherships would be out of business.

Standing in the training field was the Major. A tall, slim man with skin the same color as Caeden’s. He stood with his hands folded behind his back while staring into the distance. Caeden wasn’t surprised he was here alone; it was a bit before class was supposed to start.

“Hello again, student Caeden. I am glad to see that you did decide to take up small blades.” Aiden spoke without turning or even moving.

“I’m glad to be here, Major.” Caeden couldn’t contain his curiosity. “If you don’t mind, could you tell me what exactly this place is?”

“An excellent question.” Major Aiden turned to look at him, a smile on his face. “This place is one among many. They are training grounds built for that purpose. In here, no one can die, as this is not our reality. Think of it as more akin to a dream or illusion. It allows us to train students with deadly weapons without needless loss of life.”

“Why wouldn’t the school use this for ranking days then?” It seemed reckless if they had something like this.

“Ahh, to instill an understanding of life and death.” Aiden’s smile shifted to contain a trace of sadness. “To fight inside the illusions of a Gateway is to know that you are ultimately safe, no matter what happens. The lack of consequences could cause people to do some truly stupid things once they are exposed to real danger. We attempt to palace that with the ranking days, which expose students to real danger. It is not perfect, obviously. Still, it is better than the alternatives.”

“So what actually happens in here when you get injured?” Caeden wasn't sure he fully accepted the logic of ranking days, but he couldn’t really change it, so he moved on.

“You will experience the pain and debilitation of an injury as if it really happened, all the way up to death. Injuries disappear as soon as you admit defeat or are incapacitated. It will help you develop an understanding of what types of attacks hurt the most and in what ways. The problem is that many grow numb to the pain and begin to ignore their injuries in the real world.”

“Yeah, I can see how that would work.” Caeden nodded. Dying would be scary the first few times, but what about the tenth or hundredth? After a while of no consequences, you stop expecting them.

“If you don’t mind me asking, could I see your weapon once more?” Aiden suddenly asked.

“Sure.” Caeden wasn’t all that surprised. The Major had found Forged Infinity interesting the first time he had seen it too. Caeden unclipped it from the sash of his robe and held it out. “Go ahead.”

“My thanks.” Aiden picked the hilt out of Caeden’s hand carefully. He ran his long, skinny fingers over the golden spine, pressing on the purple buttons. Seeing as the weapon was completely bound to Caeden and transformed using his shrouds, whenever the Major clicked one, nothing happened. “How strange. It very much resembles ethertech but is also obviously a shrouded weapon. Dual-shrouded, if I’m not mistaken. Which should be impossible. How did you come by it?” Aiden handed the hilt back.

“That’s a bit of a story if you don’t mind listening.” Caeden took his shrouded weapon back.

“No, please. We have a bit of time before I expect your fellow students to appear.” Aiden gestured for him to continue.

Caeden spent half an hour giving his teacher an abbreviated run-through of his and Erik’s adventure in the ancient structure, culminating with the creation of Forged Infinity. “Ultimately, I don't know how it happened. It was all pretty scary throughout, and I had no idea what was happening at the end. Honestly, it would be borderline impossible to recreate all the conditions that went into creating Forged Infinity. I’m sure someone will figure it all out eventually, but I’m not holding my breath.”

Aiden nodded along, stroking his clean-shaven chin. “How interesting. I was aware of some of the broad strokes of your escapade, but hearing it from the individual in question was enlightening. Thank you for sharing with me. Would you mind showing me the form you will be working with today?”

Caeden activated the hilt, watching the dial roll to 003 as a pure red blade roughly the length of the hilt itself unfolded out of the top. It was a plain double-edged straight dagger with no real distinctive characteristics to the blade itself. As it unfolded, the hilt itself shrunk ever so slightly into a more compact form.

“Hmm, I think you might struggle with a single dagger. Small blades excel as both dual-wielded and thrown weapons.” Aiden frowned.

“No problem.” Caeden clicked another button, and the dagger blade folded into the hilt, only for several more blades to fold out on a fan, hilt first as the dial rolled to 032. Caeden pulled one of the throwing knives off the fan and tossed it on the ground before clicking the same button he had before. Instantly, the blade sprang off the ground and flew back into its former place in the blade fan. Another clack, and the dial rolled to 031. The throwing knives disappeared back into the hilt, only for it to split in two as Forged infinity duplicated into identical copies of 003. Caeden now had two daggers.

“Well, that’s immensely convenient.” Aiden chuckled.

“You’re telling me,” Caeden laughed, “I haven’t tested every number, not even close. I have so many options. Any configuration you can think of is probably in here in some form or another.”

A few students filed in soon after, so Caeden readied himself for class, which ended up being a painful and wholly humiliating experience. To be fair, Caeden was sure most of the class felt the same way he did, as most of the class involved being repeatedly and violently shown how incompetent they were. The Major started by showing them a proper fighting posture, which involved crouching ever so slightly to lower the center of mass and increase stability. Then he went around the training yard and knocked every single student on their ass before showing them how they were standing wrong.

The next part involved learning how to fall correctly. At this point, no one was even holding a weapon yet. They spent an even longer time being shown how to fall to avoid stabbing themselves or losing their grip on their weapon. Only once Aiden was satisfied would you be allowed to actually hold a knife, at which point he would knock you over again. Several people did end up stabbing themselves, including one guy who stabbed himself in the groin.

By the end, Caeden felt both glad that he had taken the class and thoroughly disheartened. There was much more to using a weapon than he would have initially guessed, and he wanted to go up against family kids with years of training to back them up. It was going to be an uphill battle.

The day rolled on with Caeden visiting other Gateways and going through similar experiences. Most of the basics for each of his weapons were the same. Stand so you don’t fall over, and fall so you don’t stab yourself. There wasn’t much else to it, but the simplicity of the task didn’t indicate how hard it was. Keeping your weight centered and being aware of your weapon as you fell over was difficult, and Caeden ended up smacking himself in the face with his spear and nearly cutting off a chunk of his foot while using his axe.

Some of the problem probably stemmed from his taking so many classes in one day. He would find himself accidentally gripping his axe like a dagger or dropping his hammer because he was thinking of his gauntlets. It was confusing. Unfortunately, Caeden was sure that this situation would only be compounded when he tried to use different forms of Forged Infinity in live combat. The only real answer was to suck it up and get better.

Still, he was thrilled to see Lily’s friendly face for swordsmanship. At least he would have someone to commiserate with after.