Outran the boulder. Out-jumped the fish. This time I even managed to get to one of the miniature islands. Two. Three. Look at that! I was a natural! It seemed like today would be the day I managed to get past the fish tria-

Crunch.

You have failed a class trial!

When I left my room in the morning, I found myself staring at a giant note on the opposite wall. And by “on the wall,” I meant on the wall. Suds appeared to have painted it directly onto the wooden exterior in neon yellow paint.

“Happy day 2, kiddo! Grandpa had to go into work today, but there’s a new suit in the basement. Took a while for the order to get in. Make sure to pick up before you leave. Have fun today!”

Did they not have sticky notes in Sylum?

I wondered how often Suds employed this particular manner of leaving notes, likely for the sole reason of being as exasperating as possible. Then again, it wasn’t like he needed someone else to clean it up for him -- he could probably wash it off with a thought.

In the end, I simply shrugged as I headed down to the basement. Suds’ choice of writing tools was neither my problem nor my business.

What was my business, however, was the set of armor I found waiting for me in the basement, and despite its unconventional design, I was happy to see that this set actually could be considered armor.

The helmet was perhaps the strangest part, modeled after a workman’s hard-hat and painted in an eye-catching yellow. It didn’t really feel like something which would strike fear in the hearts of my enemies, but if nothing else, it looked nice and sturdy.

The rest of the set was fairly standard plate armor, if perhaps a touch silly. The shoulders had been stylized as twin pickaxes, with the suggestion of inward-pointing handles etched into the metal, meeting and forming a cross around the sternum.

Most ridiculous of all, however -- and something I was confident Suds was currently laughing his ass off about -- was the paint job.

The entire set of plate armor had been painted to resemble overalls.

Brown legs, largely brown torso, two thin brown lines stretching up to the shoulders, some silver clasps and buttons tacked on where applicable, and the arms and upper torso painted a pale tan.

I’d gotten miner overall plate armor.

“Suds, if you’re recording this somehow… I feel obligated to say thank you for the armor, but I also hate you.”

With that, I bound the set to my empty slot of Bind Armor and headed out for the day.

“All right! Listen up! This is a dueling class. I know you’re all looking forward to getting started, so just to explain a few things and set some ground rules. The training area is loaded with anti-death enchantments -- you can go all out without fear. If you’re about to take what would be a lethal blow, you’ll just lose the match and get healed up instead.”

Similar to Drawgin. Nice, I guess, except that probably means I’ll be getting hit with a lot more painful stuff than I would otherwise.

The area we were in wasn’t that different from the training area for my weapons class, although a few circular dirt platforms dotted the space, raised slightly above the ground level.

The instructor, a scarred and stubbled older guy, looked exactly like I’d expect a dueling instructor to look like. I wondered if he’d looked like that before he’d got the job, or if he’d eventually decided to lean into it.

“Now! Ground rules. Enchants will heal up the loser after a fight ends, but can’t take care of everything. No mental attacks without prior approval. No soul attacks. Rot and disease only if cleared with me. Nothing that prevents someone from being able to yield. No pain for pain’s sake skills. You may duel for experience if you’d both like to, but if someone beats you and puts you into an experience debt, you may not seek them out outside of this class to recoup it.”

Well, it was nice no one would be messing with my head or my soul at least? The experience debt part was a bit more novel to me, but not altogether unfamiliar. The first time I’d ever won a fight against a person -- Temrin, a thief back in Ftheran -- the notification I’d gotten had been different from the rest. God’s Mind easily brought the wording back to me.

You have defeated Temrin! +47xp. Note, further wins against the same person will yield reduced experience. If this person beats you in the future, a portion of this experience will be returned to them.

Had I been on the losing side, I would have received something pretty similar, except notifying me that I had an experience debt to pay off. It was apparently the system’s way of keeping two people from power leveling each other just by fighting one another all day and taking turns winning.

Thankfully for my own experience, for friendly spars, the feature could be turned off completely, granting no one any experience either way. Without that provision, my many many spars with Cal and Hartha would have proved disastrous to my experience considering how badly they tended to thrash me.

“Last note before we get the boring stuff out of the way. Most of the time you’ll be fighting. The other portion of your time, you’ll be watching. Part of this class is analyzing duels and then talking about what went right and what went wrong, and we’ll start each class with a duel that we all watch. Today’s no exception!”

Nice. I’ve actually wanted a chance to see how strong everyone else is. Would be good to know how I stack up. I’d find out either way soon enough, but I’d rather not walk into it blind.

“I’d ask for volunteers, but that just gets us starting off with two show-offs, so… You!” He picked out a hapless guy decked out in an ornate, padded vest with a rapier at his side. Curious to see what sort of fight we’d be getting to watch, I gave him a quick scan.

Daymon’Larin: Level 13 Exceptional Duelist, 220/220hp

Rare class. Guess it was to be expected from people in the academy. Kind of funny that he was literally a duelist though -- I felt bad for whoever was paired up against him in a duel.

“And you!” The finger of judgment pointed ramrod straight directly at-

Oh.

I felt bad for me. It was me that I felt bad for.

I wanted to take a second to curse, to whine about the chances of me being picked on my first day out of dozens and dozens of students surrounding me. Then again, I kind of got it. I was still very visibly not from around here, meaning no matter how much I tried to hide, I stuck out like a sore thumb.

It didn’t help that there were other reasons that blending in was hard. Namely, my company.

“Hah! A stroke of great luck! I have been looking forward to seeing you in action in earnest, PPG!” Alara slapped my back, doing enough damage that I might as well have been dueling her instead. While not quite as popular as Dungeon Delving, the dueling course was also pretty packed, and most of the familiar faces -- Alara included -- were present.

In light of more pressing concerns, I chose to ignore the fact that she’d turned my nickname into an acronym.

“No dawdling. Come on. Get up here. If you’re not ready to be dueling, you shouldn’t be here.” The instructor beckoned Daymon and I forward, and I sensed there’d be no getting out of this for me.

In moments, we were properly set up, facing one another on opposite ends of one of the platforms with a few light cheers to get us pepped up.

“Daymon’Larin,” the man said with a bow. “Chamber of Nobility, and when I graduate and become an officer, I’ll be Chamber of Peace as well. I will, of course, opt to fight for experience, but understand if you lack the resolve to do so.”

Okay. So an ass. And who talks about their future job like that? It’s like putting “eventual engineer” on your LinkedIn while you’re still in college. Lame.

He was clearly egging me on, but I let him. I had some sort of image to maintain for Suds or whatever, and this class was supposed to be part of that.

“Tess. Uh. Tess’Astorius,” I corrected. “Commons. I’m fine fighting for experience.”

There was a good bit more mumbling at that than I expected. Apparently my “debut” as Suds’ grandkid hadn’t fully gotten around. Hopefully I wouldn’t disgrace the old bastard too much with the upcoming fight.

That didn’t mean Suds wasn’t going to disgrace me. The chamber head had been quite clear that if I was going to sell my fake class, I was only supposed to use the profession-based weapons and armor he’d given me. For now, that meant no spears, and no bows. Worse than that, though, it meant-

A moment of silence, and then the expected chuckles as a few dozen of my peers stared up at me, decked out in plate mail with overalls painted on.

I figured it was less embarrassing than the battle apron.

“Is she- is that… a pickaxe she’s holding?” I caught a whisper of disbelief from a kid in the back.

You’d think this would be normal for them by now. They’re not the ones who were born in a world where this stuff doesn’t happen.

Pheh. Whatever. I’d chatted with gods; I could handle looking a bit silly for a few minutes.

“All right, enough chit-chat. On the count of three!” The instructor led the class in a countdown, which they all enthusiastically joined in on.

Then, as the countdown ended, the fight began.

Daymon’Larin, perhaps in a bid to win quickly and decisively, rushed forward, sword out.

Unfortunately for me, he was fast. My Perception and Intelligence allowed me to easily track his movement and have time to process his approach, but that didn’t mean I could actually outmaneuver him. It was clear that Dexterity was his main stat, and he was almost certainly past the first threshold by now. On the flip side, Dexterity was tied with Charisma as my lowest stat right now.

Thankfully, I wasn’t completely without options. Yes, I’d promised Suds to use his ridiculous equipment, but movement skills were still fair game. The explosiveness of jet step wasn’t quite called for here, but a quick flaring of light mana into my boots activated flash feet instead.

As my class trial had reminded me, the skill could be a bit of a mana hog, but that was in a space where my Wisdom and Intelligence were artificially set back to 10. Without any super flashy spell attacks as of yet, mana was unlikely to be a major concern.

All that to say: He lunged; I dodged.

By a hair’s margin, my movement skill kept me from receiving the pointy end of the rapier, but to say that we were evenly matched would be a joke. I swatted ineffectually with pickaxe, but unlike with my feet, I had no skill to speed up my strikes. Especially with the cumbersome weapon and my low skill in Axes, Daymon had no trouble slipping between my attacks.

More than that, he wasn’t one of the students I’d seen in the beginner’s weapon class. The guy had clearly been working with the sword for a long time, as evidenced by his Duelist class in the first place. Explosive bursts of speed and flicks of his wrist sent me backpedaling, kept me from circling, and didn’t let me dare consider advancing.

And so, at last, my mad mana-fueled scramble failed me. The sword came rushing forward, I braced myself for the pain, and-

Clink.

I froze. Likely the worst possible thing to do in a battle, but Daymon didn’t capitalize on my mistake, as he was similarly motionless. Staring down at where he’d struck me I saw… nothing?

“Huh, that thing doesn’t really pack a punch, does it? I’m feeling kind of silly now. I don’t know, I kind of just figured you had some sort of armor penetration skill or something.” Plus, I just wasn’t really used to fighting in plate armor. I hadn’t had armor this strong since I’d stolen that guard’s uniform back in Ftheran.

Feels good though. Not nearly as clunky or heavy. Probably better made. Plus, I was much, much stronger than I’d been back then.

For Daymon’s part, I could see as the tips of his ears grew red, and if I’d had some sort of heat vision-

Wait, I do! I do have heat vision! Scratch that thought.

For Daymon’s part, I could see as the tips of his ears grew red, and after sending some fire mana to my eyes, I could confirm that his face was rapidly heating up.

“Of course I have an armor penetrating skill! I was simply starting off with an exchange of weapons to get a grasp on our respective skill levels! Plus, one does not generally layer themselves in such thick steel for a gentleman’s duel.”

Well, I had no compunctions about wearing armor or needing to feel “gentlemanly.” Plus, I wasn’t sure I was buying the whole “secret penetrative skill,” he was boasting about either.

Except, as if to make me eat my thoughts, Daymon actually pulled back. I could see as the mana started to coalesce about the tip of his rapier, and if he was telling the truth, for all I knew it would slide through me like a hot rapier through butter.

Now I see why Overload Armor might actually be worth getting one of these days. I cursed myself for never picking the class skill up, at the same time rushing earth mana into my armor.

A faint rocky crust formed from the metal, adding an extra layer to my defenses on top of the plate and the standard bonus from Arcane Armory. It would have to be enough.

Daymon shouted out as he lunged forward, his face twisted into a red hot sneer. “Penetrative Thrust!”

I tried to move, but as connected by a thread, the rapier moved smoothly towards my heart. My pickaxe came swooping in in an attempt to bat the weapon away, but it was no use. I was too slow. At last the skill-charged weapon met my armor, and-

Clink.

In a repeat to our earlier performance, we froze. I looked down, noting the rapier which sat on my armor.

“Wow. Nothing? Sorry. Guess I just haven’t really internalized how well protected I am.” I had fully upgraded Arcane Armory, hadn’t I? The skill made it so whenever I enhanced my armor, it added physical protection to whatever I was wearing on par with plate armor. That meant I was effectively wearing two sets of plate, plus the earth enhancement.

Wild. Guess it just hasn’t come into play much? The added armor wasn’t that useful for immaterial shades, kaiju-level snakes, or mind-bending Protagonists. Now that I stopped and thought about it though, I was kind of hard to hit with anything physical.

“Before we continue, can we back up a second? Did you just shout ‘Penetrative Thrust’ before that? That’s not like… that’s not like an activation requirement is it? You actually chose to say that? And is that actually the name of your skill? Because-”

A thunderous clap interrupted me as the instructor piped in. “This isn’t the theater, you two! Fight!”

Well, fine. In any case, I didn’t want to be too mean to the guy. Some battle smack-talk was one thing, but I’d already embarrassed him enough. As it was, most guys were probably pretty sensitive when someone called their penetrative thrusting skills into question, I guess.

“This- This isn’t over yet!” he shouted. A quick heat vision check confirmed his face was a furnace.

To his credit, though, it kind of wasn’t over. With my newfound knowledge that I had nothing to fear from the rapier, I lashed out with my pickaxe, but the guy was still fast. Swipe after swipe after swipe missed, until with a triumphant shout, Daymon countered.

“Flourishing Disarm!” The rapier flew about in a captivating motion before sliding under the head of my pickaxe and yanking it out of my grip. “I may not be able to best your coward’s defense, but let’s see you harm me without your wea-”

I dismissed the pickaxe before resummoning the soulbound weapon.

It reappeared in my hands even as he was speaking.

“Oh, come on!”

The guy really wasn’t having the best day right now.

Even so, this isn’t cutting it. I needed speed and precision, neither of which my current getup lent me.

And so, I switched.

Right after a heavy swing brought me closer to the duelist, I activated Bind Weapon and Bind Armor in tandem, swapping out my equipment. Where a second before I’d had a pickaxe and plate, now twin knives graced my hands along with a less clunky apron.

Well, I used earth enhancement for the miner armor. Might as well stay thematic.

Fire flared out all over my armor as I swapped my enhancement, hopefully making the entire thing look badass instead of like a woman with poor knife-handling skills wearing an apron.

Should I say something? Like… “Now we’re cooking with fire!”

I mentally shook my head. I feel kind of dirty for even thinking that, honestly.

Instead, I decided to swing my knives into Daymon, at last landing the first real strike of the match. A thin line of red graced his arm.

“Wha-” His words were cut off as I continued to cut at him, capitalizing on my moment of sort-of-hard-won confusion to tear up his fancy vest. As close as I was, the flames licked at him as well, far hotter than his previously flushed face.

Even still, that wasn’t the end of it. With a burst of speed so inhuman, I was fairly sure it was some sort of disengagement skill, he hopped back. Then, he grinned.

Daymon dashed back in, confident his swordsmanship was a level up from my knife-play. With my plate armor no longer a factor, things were looking up for him. After easily deflecting two of my attacks, he lashed out.

Only for the rapier to bounce off harmlessly.

Hey, the apron wasn’t doing much for me, but like I’d said -- Arcane Armory was on par with plate armor now. Maybe I wasn’t wearing two sets of plate armor anymore, but one was plenty.

All right. Starting to actually feel bad now. Who would have thought this would go so well?

I only had one real skill that could help bridge the gaps in our speed, so as his sword strike bounced off of me, I channeled some fire mana into my feet. At the same time, I flooded my knives with mana, activating Overload Weapon.

Twin jets hit the ground, propelling me forward. Twin knives found their mark. More than enough to stab through the “gentlemanly” amount of armor Daymon wore, they plunged deep into the man’s chest. Not bothering to manually pull them out, I dismissed them instead.

Evidently without any further tricks to pull, the would-be officer noble slumped to the ground, defeated.

You have defeated Daymon’Larin! +81xp. Note, further wins against the same person will yield reduced experience. If this person beats you in the future, a portion of this experience will be returned to them.

And just like that, I won the first duel in the class.

Character Sheet:

Name: Tess

Age: 26

Race: Human

Class: Arcane Arsenal

Level: 11

Prestige: 1222

Health: 300/300

Mana: 325/325

Stamina: 240/240

Constitution: 28 (+2)

Strength: 26

Endurance: 26

Dexterity: 21 (+1)

Intelligence: 31 (+2)

Wisdom: 27 (+2)

Perception: 28

Charisma: 21

Luck: 27

Skills:

Skills

Weapon & Armor

Archery: 10

Spears: 10

Medium Armor: 5

Small Blades: 5

Swords: 3

Axes: 3

Hammers: 2

Staffs: 2

Unarmed Combat: 2

Heavy Armor: 1

Movement

Dodge: 3

Magic

Fire Magic: 10

Water Magic: 8

Life Magic: 6

Light Magic: 6

Dark Magic: 3

Mental Magic: 3

Earth Magic: 1

Ritual Magic: 1

Demonic Summoning: 2

Spells

Conjure Water: 10

Flameploof: 10

Minor Healing: 7

Illumination: 7

Darken Small Object: 3

Sense Minds: 2

Summon Pebble: 1

Resistances

Trauma Suppression: 13

Mental Resistance: 7

Poison Resistance: 6

Bleed Resistance: 4

Pain Resistance: 4

Heat Resistance: 2

Detection

God's Eye: 8

Detect Trap: 7

Detect Secret: 6

Craft

Construction: 6

Woodworking: 7

Jewelry Making: 5

Mining: 5

Alchemy: 1

Social

Conversation: 5

Etiquette: 5

Trade: 3

Flirt: 2

Dancing: 2

Deception: 2

General

Drinking: 7 (+5)

Reading: 3

Gambling: 1

Writing: 1

Class Skills

Weaponmaster

Bind Weapon: 3/5

Arcane Armament: 2/5

Overload Weapon: 1/5

Armorist

Bind Armor: 3/5

Arcane Armory: 5/5

Resist Magic: 2/5

Augmenter

Mana Feet: 1/1

Arcane Vision: 1/1