Marcus reached the training hall on time to find everyone already present. Sawar entered a minute after Marcus. He looked at everyone present and beamed.

Sawar said, “Good. Everyone is present.”

And true to his schedule, he started with warm-up exercises. They were definitely unique according to the species and Marcus could not understand what the vampires were doing.

Marcus was made to run ten laps around the field, then push ups, squats, crunches, some jumping exercises and a few other exercises which would loosen the muscles of his body. He observed that these were majorly stamina building exercises. He finished them fast as Sawar had given him smaller sets, thinking Marcus would not be up to doing larger sets. However, Marcus felt these smaller sets were not sufficient.

Marcus could see that Sawar observed the same as Marcus was finished before anyone else.

Sawar said, “We will increase the time and numbers tomorrow. Rest for now.”

Marcus did as he was told. The others were soon finished. It took them an hour though. Marcus did nothing but stared at different warm up exercises wondering whether he could copy them.

After the warm up exercises, it was time for weapon practices. Sawar asked everyone about their preferred weapons. Nadia’s choice of weapons were chakrams. From Sawar’s reaction Marcus could tell that it was impressive. Nadia also said that she used her claws on those who got near. She elongated them from her fingers as she said that. Now, with that, Marcus was impressed.

Orin preferred a flail and a shield. He specified he preferred small shields unlike the greatshields his brethren preferred. He was very specific about his preference of shield and would have gone into further detail if Sawar would not have stopped him. Noron preferred dual wielding a short sword and a dagger. Tymon used a glaive.

Finally, it was Marcus’ turn. He simply shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”

“We know that”, came the chorus of replies.

Sawar said, “There are many weapons in this room, wooden though they may be. Pick them up. Feel them. Give a swing around. See if you are comfortable with something.”

Marcus looked at the different weapons lined up on stands. He picked a few. They just felt wrong in his hand. He started with daggers, then proceeded onto swords. He tried normal swords, curved swords, longswords and even greatswords. He was not comfortable with them. He tried dual wielding swords and daggers but rejected the idea. He tried flails and clubs. He even tried chakrams which confused him. He wondered how Nadia handled them.

He switched and thought about ranged weapons. But the idea felt wrong to him. He then started picking up weapons and testing them. They all felt wrong. He finally picked up a boxing glove, put it on and gave a short punch. He liked the feel. He punched and kicked and went through different forms. He did not know how but this felt really comfortable. This was it. He was a close range fighter.

“All right”, he said, “Let’s do this.”

The others were staring at him now. Sawar said, “I do not think that kick boxing would help you in the long run Marcus.”

“But this feels so right”, argued Marcus.

Sawar did not comment on that. He said, “Now let me see how proficient you are with these weapons. We shall fight in pairs. Nadia shall fight Noron. Orin shall fight Tymon and Marcus shall fight me. Let us see how good you all are.”

The first fight was Nadia versus Noron. Nadia took wooden chakrams from the weapon rack while Noron picked up a wooden short sword and a dagger. Both walked up to the centre of the training hall. They took their stance, waiting for Sawar to tell them to begin.

Sawar said, “Fight.”

Noron charged at Nadia. It was understandable. He was a close range fighter and would require to get close to Nadia, to hit her properly. Nadia threw her chakrams in a wide arc. Noron dodged them easily and closed the gap fast. However, before he could hit Nadia he was hit in the back by the two chakrams which then went back to Nadia’s hands.

Noron swore and tried to close the distance again. This time he was more cautious. He deflected the chakrams thrown at him and had now almost reached Nadia. Nadia slashed him with her claws and he jumped back.

Sawar said, “Nadia. I know the claws are your weapons but kindly do not use them for this fight.”

Nadia nodded and started using her chakrams in dangerous patterns. Noron was not able to get close to Nadia much. He did find two openings and struck Nadia but it was clear Nadia dominated the fight, even after not using claws.

Soon Sawar stopped the fight and declared Nadia to be the winner. Nadia was breathing hard. Noron did not seem winded but Marcus could tell that he was. He had read. Vampires do not need to breathe but they do expend energy and get tired.

Sawar gave feedback on the fight, praising both the fighters. He was impressed with Nadia’s skills and commended her well. It was then time for the next fight. It was Tymon versus Orin. Orin had his wooden flail and shield while Tymon had a wooden glaive. Marcus did not understand the purpose of a wooden glaive. It would technically be a quarterstaff.

The fight began. Orin was somehow not defensive. He charged as soon as the fight began. Tymon looked a bit surprised. He had his hood down for the fight. Tymon attacked. Orin parried the glaive with his shield as if it was nothing and hit Tymon hard, on his head. Tymon went down and did not get up. So vampires could get knocked out. But with a wooden weapon!

Sawar said, “Well, that was interesting.”

Noron rolled his eyes and went up to Tymon. He said, “Get up idiot. You forgot the rules of the game world do not apply till we actually get on the field. You will get knocked out, you know.”

Marcus did not understand what Noron was saying but after a few moments Tymon got up. He seemed dazed. He signed something to Noron to which Noron replied, “Yes it hurts like a bitch. I know.”

Then Noron turned to Sawar and said, “Do we have a healer?”

Sawar called one. It seemed that the training hall had few healers ready at site in case of emergencies. The healer simply cast a healing spell, examined Tymon, declared him okay and left.

Marcus asked Sawar, “What does Noron mean? What rules of the game world?”

Sawar explained, “In your status menu you would have noticed your health right?” Marcus nodded. Sawar continued, “In the game world, when you get hit, your health reduces. A hit to the head would normally be a critical hit. It would daze you but you would not fall unconscious. However, you have not started your journey as adventurers. So, getting hit on the head on any other critical hit spots would be, well, for the lack of a better word, not good. It would not be fatal as we train with wooden weapons but it still hurts. That is why there are healers present in the training hall. For emergency healing. There are many injuries because the training adventurers forget that they are not in the game world part of Una yet.”

Marcus nodded at the explanation. It somehow made sense to him. It was his fight next with Sawar. He put on his boxing gloves and went to the centre of the training hall. Sawar followed him. Marcus could see that Sawar was grinning for some reason. Sawar picked up a mace and a large shield from the weapon rack. They were both wooden but Marcus still gulped. It looked like it would hurt a lot if he got hit.

Sawar took a defensive pose and told Marcus to begin. Marcus took a deep breath. He hoped that something would help him here. He knew that fighting with his hands and legs felt right but he had no idea how to do it. He walked forwards. As he walked something triggered in him. He put his arms up and his walk changed. He could not explain how he did it but he was now slowly skipping forwards ready for a fight.

Marcus closed in, looking for an opening. He threw a test jab which Sawar immediately tried to block with his shield. Marcus jumped back a bit and swore. The shield was going to be a problem. He had to get Sawar to attack. He started taunting Sawar with jabs and kicks. They were weak and most of them did not even connect. Marcus saw Sawar frown for a bit and then Sawar smiled. It seemed that he had figured out Marcus’ strategy.

Marcus wondered how his fight looked from the outside. He was jumping around while Sawar was simply holding his ground. It would have looked boring. Sawar now advanced. He swung the mace and Marcus dodged the attack. An opening. However, something stopped him from charging. An instinct. He was right. He dodged at the last moment as the mace swung again. The opening was a trap. Sawar had been feinting.

Marcus saw the slight look of surprise on Sawar’s face before it melded back to the poker face as before. Sawar started to test him, attacking him, giving him openings and Marcus reacted to each of them. Soon he realized that he was mostly reacting to Sawar’s attacks rather than taking the initiative.

He changed his pace. Soon he did push Sawar back on the defensive but it was still tough getting an attack in. The shield was still frustrating. Marcus soon saw another opening. It was definitely another trap from Sawar but he took it, not in a way Sawar would expect. He rolled under the shield, stood up and pushed Sawar back with one hand. With the other, he punched Sawar’s shield arm, hard, disabling it. Then he turned away from Sawar, pulling the shield while doing so. He pried the shield free from Sawar’s arm, even with his gloves on, which was a feat. Sawar staggered forwards and Marcus hit him on the head with his own shield.

Sawar fell hard on his back. He started to laugh. He got up. Marcus could see Sawar’s nose was bleeding.

“I yield”, Sawar said, “Call a healer someone.”

The same healer as last time came and healed Sawar’s nose. Then he left as fast as he had come.

“Well, that was interesting”, said Sawar, “You fight well.”

“So does that mean I can use my fists to attack my enemies?” asked Marcus.

“That depends. What is your physical attack without weapons?”

“It is ten.”

“That is not bad. When you attack with your fists, the damage is basically your physical attack. So, if your physical attack is ten, you will hit your enemy with ten points of damage. Moreover, about half the damage that you deal is reflected back rounding off to the higher denomination. That would mean that you would be taking five points of damage too.”

“That is fucking stupid.”

“That is how the game world works. There are rules and if you are an adventurer, you would be following these rules by default. No other options.”

Marcus pondered on what Sawar had said. He was not happy. He finally said, “That would mean I would need to learn how to use a weapon.”

“Yes”, said Sawar, “Do not worry though. We have a month. I can make you decently proficient with a weapon by the end of it. We may need extra classes though. You will not be as good as the others”, he pointed at the rest of the class, “But you would be able to hold out on your own.”

Marcus nodded and said, “So what weapon do you think I should choose?”

Sawar shrugged and replied, “Depends on you. Think about it for now. I will not work with others on how to improve their fighting style. We shall work with fake enemies tomorrow. Select your weapon till then. You have the day off for that.”

Marcus nodded and said, “Can I at least stay here?”

“Only if you promise not to disturb anyone.”

Marcus agreed to that. He observed the rest of the training in silence. He also started to research different weapons that would agree to his style of close range fighting. There were fist weapons but they all had high strength requirements. His dexterity and intelligence was high. He needed weapons based on those two attributes. However, this was confusing as intelligence based weapons were mostly ranged while dexterity based weapons were mostly sharp and melee. There were bows and crossbows but Marcus was not interested in them.

He understood Nadia’s use of chakrams. Chakrams were a dexterity intelligence hybrid weapon. Marcus thought about those and rejected them. Somehow he did not imagine himself fit to use them. He liked the idea of rapiers but the int stat bothered him. He read more and found that he could enchant his weapons as he levelled up, letting his weapon have a hybrid of two stats.

There was a magic enchantment which was a strength intelligence and dexterity intelligence hybrid. There were also other magic based enchantments like fire, frost, dark, lightning and holy. It all primarily required good intelligence to enchant and with a high strength or dexterity, their physical attacks would be good too.

However, Marcus had a difficult time finding a weapon which would be a dexterity intelligence hybrid by default rather than using an enchantment. Then an article held his interest. It talked about using a one hand weapon in the dominant hand and casting with the other hand. The main hand weapon would depend on dexterity while the casting would depend on intelligence. Playing with such a combination would be dangerous as the damage from both the stats would not live up to their full potential but the adventurer would have high mobility and flexibility. Marcus read that such a combination also required high agility for dodging and wisdom was not a major contributor, nor was strength. The Constitution would depend upon the choice of the adventurer.

This felt like a tailor made adventuring guide for Marcus and he was immediately suspicious about it. He searched for the user who had set up this guide and found him immediately. Marcus decided to visit him. He lived as a non-adventurer and was now in Solaris itself. This was too much of a coincidence for Marcus. What did this mean?

He excused himself from the training hall and called Krona. Krona gave him directions to the ex-adventurer’s location. The name of the ex-adventurer was Dumas Lispitt. He was an elf. He was currently living in an inn about two kilometres from the NAIF facility. That was not far. Marcus reached the inn, The Whistling Wind, in about twenty minutes.

He inquired about Dumas and was told by the innkeeper to wait in the common room. Marcus sat at one of the tables. Here he was on Una, a land of magic and advanced technology, yet the place of resting for visitors was still medieval. He could see the touch of magic and advanced technology but the ambience was that of what one may find in a medieval inn on Earth.

“I get the feeling I was a hoarder of knowledge on Earth”, muttered Marcus to himself, “The most useless of information is being filtered through my amnesia, I fucking swear to God.”

He waited for ten minutes before he was approached by an elf. For a moment Marcus was stunned by his ethereal beauty before he composed himself.

Marcus stood up and said, “Mr Lispitt I presume?”

The elf grinned and shook his hand, “You are correct. However, I do not have the pleasure of knowing your name, Mr.?”

“Oh! I am Blank. Marcus Blank”, Marcus spluttered. Somehow he was still being impacted by the ethereal beauty of the elf.

“You must be new to Una.”

“What do you mean?”

“You are clearly human and your face shows the sign of not seeing too many elves. You are almost drooling.”

Marcus bristled at that. He immediately stood straighter and fixed the expression on his face. Dumas laughed at that. He had a lovely laugh. Marcus shook his head.

Dumas said, “Follow me. Let us talk in private shall we?”

Dumas led Marcus to a private booth. The private booths were beside the common room. There were five small rooms, big enough to sit four people on a circular sofa. It was not uncomfortable but it was not luxurious either. There was a table in the centre with a fancy lamp hanging overhead. As they entered, Dumas closed the door behind them and it hummed with some energy for a moment.

“What was that?” asked Marcus

“It is a spell”, said Dumas, “Ensures complete privacy.”

“Handy.”

“So”, said Dumas as he sat down, “I assume that you have come to talk about how to be a good adventurer with a high dexterity intelligence combination.”

“All right. That’s it”, Marcus was now shouting, “Who put you up to this? I want some fucking answers. Don’t think you can mess with me because I have amnesia. I will fucking gut you. I swear.”

“Dude”, said Dumas, “What the fuck?”

Marcus was calm the next second. He said, “Did not work, eh? It was my intimidating technique. You sir are not a pushover. That is good.”

“Are you all right?”

“No.”

Dumas looked highly confused as to what was happening at that moment. He said, “So are you here to talk about the combination or not? I was told by Silas that a new adventurer may need my help.”

Marcus said, “Aha! I knew it. The guide I found online was too good to be true. And Silas did call you here. You are not here just by coincidence. See, I was right.”

“What in the world are you talking about?” asked Dumas, getting frustrated with Marcus. “Wait a minute! Have you read the guide online? Then why are you here? It was highly detailed and written in a way that even a dummy could understand. Did you not understand?”

Marcus muttered, “It was just too good to be true. Look from my perspective. I have amnesia. I am an anomaly. I don’t know anything about anything. I have good dexterity and intelligence at my base level. And I found a guide tailored for me. Also the person who wrote this guide is at this moment in an inn in Solaris, where I am. Do you not find this suspicious?”

Dumas was now gaping at Marcus. He tried to say something a few times but failed.

Dumas finally said, “Or, have you considered the possibility that NAIF is helping an adventurer out of his element to get acquainted with a system which will help him grow rather than stumble around like a blind person?”

Marcus thought for a moment. Then he said, “This sounds a lot like hand holding.”

“Say whatever you want but it is what it is. Now, do you want my help or not?”

“So… Is the guide correct?”

“Yes.”

“And no one is trying to deceive or manipulate me?”

“No.”

“They are just trying to help?”

“NAIF always helps adventurers. Sometimes directly or sometimes indirectly. Trust me. I used to be an adventurer before I took an arrow to the knee about eighteen years ago.”

“Is that why you were limping before?”

“No you dolt. It means I am retired now. A non-adventurer. But I do help adventurers who want to have a dexterity intelligence combination. The limp is due to the fact that I do not have the perks of an adventurer.”

Marcus was now thoughtful for some time. Then he said, “I am sorry. For some reason I was suspicious and I did not know why.”

“You could have asked someone from NAIF for help before accusing me, you know. Do you not have a point of contact?”

Marcus thought about Krona and simply nodded. Then he said, “Let’s start over then. Hi, I am Marcus Blank. I am here because I read your guide. I do not have any questions now. Your guide was really good. Although, can I ask some other questions?”

“Sure”, said Dumas, “Go ahead.”

“You retired?”

“Yes. You can retire any time you want. You become a non-adventurer leaving a mundane normal life. It is good though. Some people prefer it.”

“Okay. So when adventurers retire, they get integrated into Una's society.”

“Is that a question or a statement?”

Marcus shook his head. Then he said, “Okay. So did Silas say I would be coming for your help?”

Dumas said, “Initially I was called to help a feliur named Nadia Shortclaw. However, after she came to Una, it was discovered that she was proficient with Chakrams and had her adventurer path planned out. She did not need help. I was going to go home when Silas asked me to stick around. He said an adventurer would come for my help though. I think he intended to make this visit as a tutorial quest. However, you went and read my guide online and did not even ask for help from NAIF. You visited me on your own initiative. I am impressed.”

“Thank you.”

“You know. As a non-adventurer, I can give you experience. You have done well to deserve it. Although, I warn you, it would not be much. Would you be interested?”

“I would be fucking honored.”

“You swear at the weirdest of times”, muttered Dumas and placed a hand on Marcus’ head. There was a flash of golden light and Marcus felt something change. His utility belt also flashed blue for a bit. Then it did after five more seconds.

Dumas said, “This means you have a notification. Check your notification screen. I hope you know how to use the utility belt.”

So Marcus opened the notification screen from his utility belt. He had not opened it before and had not explored it. It made little sense to him without notifications. Now his first notification read:

You have earned 10 points of research experience

He checked his status screen to see his experience points go up

Experience 10/100

Only 90 points to go. Yay!

Marcus said to Dumas, “Thank you.”

They then discussed more on the guide. Marcus was clear but he was still conflicted on the choice of weapon. He hoped talking to Dumas might help. It did. A bit.

It was late at night when Marcus left. Tomorrow, he was going to finalize his weapon. Then his real training would start.

***

Silas had laughed so hard that his secretary had to check up on him. Silar never knew when he had fallen on the ground. His conversation with Dumas was what left him in splits. He had not been able to stop his laughter during the call and had been laughing for five minutes straight after the call.

When he had calmed down he thought in hindsight that he should not have laughed as much as he did during the call. Dumas was, after all, angry with him. It seemed that Marcus had paid Dumas a visit and had an interesting conversation with him. It had led Dumas frustrated and angry and he had called to chastise Silas. Silas, instead, had laughed at him.

“Well. Well. Well. What am I going to do with you, Marcus Blank?” muttered Silas to himself. Then he had an idea. He grinned as he called certain people to make it happen.

***

Sawar looked at the weapon Marcus had requested to be trained with.

“Are you sure?” asked Sawar, “You can change in the future but it would take time and you need to be proficient with it. The weapon you have selected is complex to learn and you are a beginner. Your martial fighting skills are good but do you think this weapon is really good for you?”

“Yes”, replied Marcus and grinned. He then gave Sawar the wooden version of the weapon from the rack. He had selected it after careful consideration and it was what he wanted to use in the long run.

It was a twinblade.