Running for hours Kohn played a dangerous game of hide-and-seek with his new best friend, the Armorer. He managed to lose him when he ran through the women’s bathing room, but his friend was caught since he wasn’t fast enough to dodge their angry hands.

Standing in the bay with the other humans, he was half paying attention and half watching out for the Armorer’s appearance.

“Today you’re all going to be trained in how to react to multiple forms of combat, including surprise attacks.”

Everyone murmured at the obvious reference to the ‘dead’ Jzanna.

“Yes, yes. It came as a surprise to us as well. Apparently they aren’t dead, but are drifting through the Deep Dark in a near-death state. But that shouldn’t concern you now! Get into ranks!”

Under the instructors commands the Earthlings lined up properly in their pre-assigned groups.

Kohn found himself in a circle with two other men and three women. All of them couldn’t help snickering when they looked at his face and remembered the recordings of him being a fool.

“Eh?”

The woman directly opposite of him had noticed something behind Kohn.

“What is- WAAA!”

He started to look behind him to see what had caught her attention but suddenly felt a vice grip on his ankles before he was flipped upside down.

“GOT. YA!”

“YOU! Don’t bother me during training!”

The Armorer lifted Kohn up so that he could lean his face in close to each other. His eyes still retained that look of madness in them.

“You messed with my weapons. You escaped punishment. AND you made the women angry with me.”

“That last one isn’t even my fault! You chased after ME remember?”

When the group Instructor appeared out of nowhere when he heard the commotion from their side of the bay.

“Who’s interrupting my training?” Then he saw the man holding up Kohn. He quickly changed his tone of voice to one with more respect and fear. “ARMORER!? Why are you here sir?”

The madman spoke without even looking at him. “I’m taking this one for private tutelage.”

GULP!

His training was legendary and not something that anyone wanted. Most of his assistants suffered mentally and to this day they freeze up whenever their training is mentioned. The ones the Armorer took a special interest in would even get violent whenever they remembered it.

“What kind of training could a desk clerk like you possibly give me? Huh? The Instructors here are trained to fight monsters, you just watch over their gear!”

All of the instructors were thinking ‘Oh if you only knew. You should show a little more respect!’

The Armorer let him shout out a few more insults and obscenities before he took one hand off a leg and used it to hold Kohn’s mouth shut.

“Maybe I’ll remove your balls before we begin the lessons? Yeah. I think that would make you more complacent.”

Kohn felt real fear staring into the Armorer’s eyes. The eyes of a mad man can be pretty convincing.

He began to scream and shout as he was dragged violently out of the bay. Kohn was able to grab hold of something every once in a while but the Armorer only shook him violently from side to side, bashing him loose.

When they could no longer be seen someone dared to ask the question.

“Is he going to be okay?”

“Ye-eah. He’ll be fine.”

“That looked like he was going to be tortured.”

“No! No. The Armorer’s training is hard though. Not many receive it and those that do call it the Training of the Deep.”

The training so far had been difficult, but it was also considerably lax. When people started to compare the Armorer’s build to the other soldiers and mages they understood that the Training of the Deep was just physically intensive.

That’s all. Right?

***

THUMP!

“AGAIN!”

“I AM NOT A FIST! I AM NOT A WING! I AM NOT A WHISPER!”

Kohn was standing on top of two grates which were pushed away from each other by about 4 feet. He was bent at the waist looking straight down at a series of magic formations on the ground while he lifted two sacks hanging with rope.

Sweat didn’t drip off of him, it flowed like a river.

The Armorer was sitting in a backless chair in front of him, a bottle in one hand and a flame in the other. Every once in a while he’d take a swig from the bottle before raising the flame to his face. Then he’d spit, the liquor lighting in the fire, streaking across the magic formations before they changed into different ones.

Every time he changed the formations it was Kohn’s responsibility to analyze the patterns and figure out what they did. If he figured them out he would be told to repeat the chant. If he guessed wrong, weights were added to the sacks.

“Forward Thrust!”

“MORE!”

He guessed wrong.

Two assistants rushed to the sacks, each adding a metal bar to them. With quick fingers they undid the straps before adding the weight and closing it back up. A few more inches were added to the empty space between crates.

“GRRRRRR!”

“DON’T YOU DARE DROP THOSE!” The Armorer yelled at him.

THUMP!

He smacked the armrest with a heavy fist, the metal groaning at the impact.

“AGAIN!”

“We’ve been at this for hours!” Kohn was nearing the end of his ropes. “I don’t even understand the magic formations! At least tell me what they are?”

“Every formation starts with four points!” This was the same lesson the Armorer had yelled at him when he failed the previous lesson and was thrown up on these boxes. “The beginning. The identifier. The Choice. And the Action. Once you understand those you’ll understand all of the formations.”

“And how am I supposed to tell which those are?”

“AGAIN!”

The formation changed below him, but he half expected the dripping to sweat to wipe them clean.

‘Some kind of curved arrow. Uh, a circle. Where’s the choice?’

The Armorer was tapping the bottle against his leg. A clear sign that he was running out of patience yet again.

‘THERE! A mirror looking six. And the action is open away from the arrow so that means it is being launched-no! Emitted!’

“Forward Shields!” He cried out desperately.

“Forward shields?” The Armorer called back. Questioning him.

He had never questioned him before. But then again he had only failed before. Maybe this time he had guessed correctly?

“Forward Shields.” He responded a little more confidentially.

Nervously waiting for the Armorer to yell out for more weights he froze. Half hoping, half dreading.

“Release.” Why did he sound disappointed?

With an audible gasp of relief Kohn dropped the heavy sacks, letting them crash to the ground. He dropped in between them, letting his muscles take their first second to relax in a very long time.

“Get up.”

His whole body screamed at him, but Kohn was so exhausted that he obeyed the order nearly on instinct. Something his father had developed long ago.

CLINK-CLINK.

The nameless assistants that Kohn had started to give numbers to had attached metal cuffs to both his wrists.

“What is this?”

“Your teachers.”

“I thought you were my teacher?”

Chuckles from the Armorer sounded like coughs coming from the bottom of a mine shaft. Eerie.

“I am your master, not your teacher.”

“Is this a translation thing? How are those words not the same?”

Genuine pity filled the man’s eyes as he looked beyond Kohn. Almost as if he was feeling the pain of teachers everywhere on Earth.

“These objects are to teach you how to control your strength and your mana. A master is someone who commands you and who you obey. I will not teach you. You will obey, me!”

The angry face was back, but at least he wasn’t inches from the mad eyes again. Kohn worried that he’d actually lose his balls.

“So how are my ‘teachers’ going to teach me?” If he wasn’t so exhausted he would have used quotation fingers. Little did he know that the Armorer would have broken his fingers if he tried to do anything even remotely disrespectful

Maybe because he was happy with how exhausted Kohn was, or maybe it was because he didn’t hear backtalk, the Armorer diligently explained.

“These are called Teachers. Every one of you Earthlings is getting one today. When you wear them a magic formation will appear every 30 minutes. You have 5 minutes to determine what kind of formation it is and tell the Teacher the correct answer. For every correct answer it will reset the device.”

“And for a wrong answer?”

There were those insane eyes and that vicious smile again. The Armorer had to be a sadist.

“The Teachers will increase in weight. And if the weight increases to the point where you can’t move, I’ll attach a Teacher to your balls.”

‘EHHHHH!’

“Shouldn’t you be paying attention?”

“What do you mean?”

He pointed down at Kohn’s wrists. On both of them a blue magic formation had appeared.

‘No big deal. I did this one before.’

“Imbue.” He spoke directly at his right Teacher and the magic formation on it disappeared. “No problem.”

He was feeling confident since he solved it so easily, but when he looked up he saw the Armorer’s sadistic face again. Worried Kohn noticed a subtle increase in the weight on his left arm.

When he looked at the Teacher he noticed a red screen. On the left Teacher.

“Did I forget to mention it? You have to solve the formations on both Teachers in five minutes. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!”