The flame started with my strike. It sputtered and went out. I had it, but then I got too excited and lost the hold I had on the power. It was just like everything else I did; I had to keep focus. So I went back to work. I was almost there. It was just a matter of time before I was able to complete the strike.

I was so tired after my workout, as I’d gone on longer than normal, that I took a break and rested in the water, letting my mind wander. I knew that I had combined my combat skills with a spell using the ritualistic casting to do so. That meant there were still things that I could work out, perhaps change. I might even be getting new spells this way. There were also skills that I’d not been working on that I had from the earth that might still give me some sort of advantage here that I just didn’t know about.

Expanding my combat skills and gaining a new power might just let me become strong enough to defend myself. I was even more sure now that seeking out skills that I once had was the way to go about a thing. I might even be able to start using some earth thinking to tip the scales in my favor.

I needed to work on my breathing and on my meditation. I’d been so focused on getting the skills I had higher that I forgot to expand what I knew. One of the few kata that my ju-jitsu instructor had taught me was Tensho.

I had not been working on it because it wasn’t a direct combat kata. It focused more on my breathing and focus. I always liked it, but it hadn’t seemed as directly piratical until now. If I was able to use a combat kata to tie into fire, then I might be able to use a breathing one to boost something else.

Ki wasn’t something that I put a whole lot of stock in on earth, but here it might be tied to mana which was something. Which meant the Ki skills I’d been taught might work here, and so I’d some things I needed to figure out.

I also needed to make myself a swimming pool so that I could start getting back into that. Using the stone to dirt, I should be able to carve out a deep enough lane that I could swim in. I also need to start doing math in the sand just to see if I could get that to trigger.

If I could build a dugout, then I could also see if that would give me a boating skill since I used to go paddling. I also used to practice using various weapons when I took martial arts. I did Iaido for about 4 years, never learned any of those fancy dances, just how to draw and cut and sheath over and over again.

I had picked up how to use nunchaku in the double circle Chinese way. I played with Escrima, so I figured that I could use them a little, but I used them more for Ju-jitsu and less for hitting. I could throw a knife with mixed results getting a half or single rotation before impact, and shoot a bow with enough skill to hit a target; it might not be in the middle, but I could hit. I even knew how to fish with a cane pole, and I’d been cast netting once or twice, so I should be able to do that if I had the right stuff.

I’d completely forgotten what I knew and what I could do from earth and had only been focused on the skills that I had gotten here. So I spent the rest of the day dancing near the river, cutting a swimming lane from the rock. I needed it far enough away from the river that it wouldn’t flood on its own but close enough that I could let the water in once I was done.

My goal was to do three large castings of stone to dirt and then do a single small casting. I’d do that last casting right on the edge of the river so that I could direct water in and let it flush out all the dirt. At least that was the hope.

The truth of the matter was that I got everything in place, and the water didn’t feel like all rushing in like I wanted. So I then had to wade into the river and build a stone and wood wall to help divert the water.

While it might seem like a waste to spend time working on non-combat skills, I wanted to get my swimming leveled because of how close to the water I was. If I could get swimming leveled, I might could do something like work on breath control as well. Being able to move in and out of the water with ease could be the difference between winning and losing. I just didn’t know enough right now.

After I had the dirt working on getting flushed out, I started in on my other skills that I could do. I spent a while just doing math in the sand. Drawing out problems of kinds that I remembered. From Adding and subtraction to multiplication and division, I wrote out the formulas that I could remember for circles and angles and area, and then I threw in some simple algebra as well. Examples of all the math that I could remember, my hope was that if I could do something a little bit, this world would unlock the skill for me, and then I could do more of it.

I took the time to work on Tensho kata, which I hadn’t done in a while, so it was a hard walk-through. I also grabbed a pair of short sticks and started in on the little bit of stick fighting I knew. I’d have to make a pair of nunchaku which would be a test of some other skills, before I was able to try those. I tried to find a branch the right length for a bokken, but I figured this was another thing I’d need to end up making.

That night when I went to sleep, I found something very odd.

I ended up picking up my old skills that I thought about even if I didn’t practice them. They also came in at levels kind of reflected my earth life. Escrima (level 2), Iaido (level 9), Nunchaku (level 5), Ki focus (level 2), swimming (level 6), pole fishing (level 2), net fishing (level 2), Mathematics (level 18) Throwing knife (level 3) Paddling (level 9) Archery (level 4) Ju-jitsu (Level 12) Fire fist (level 1) There were no surprises with how the skills worked when I pulled them up. The spell was a huge surprise; it was both a spell and a ritualistic spell.

Fire Fist

Fire Spell

Level

Mana usage

Fire fist

1

2-20

This is a fire spell.

This spell will cause the caster’s hand to burst into flame. This flame is magical and doesn't harm the caster but can cause things to catch on fire on contact. Also this flame will do magical damage to the target.

Damage is based on how much mana is used when casting. This mana is used at the point of casting but will not discharge until the fire fist makes contact.

Maximum duration of spell is 30 seconds

Damage is 1/2 mana used

Ritualistic

Level

Mana usage

Fire fist

1

2-20

This is a Shaman ritualistic spell.

This spell will cause the caster’s hand to burst into flame. This flame is magical and doesn't harm the caster but can cause things to catch on fire on contact. Also this flame will do magical damage to the target.

This is used with combat ritualistic dance.

Small casting 1 damage

Medium casting 4 damage

Large casting 10 damage

I hated myself as I closed my eyes to go to sleep. I'd asked how long a year was. It wasn't that I didn't want to know the answer it was that as I was falling asleep after such a good day I would end up in that hell of a study.

Sam’s office was always the same, never the same. Some nights were better than others, but the punishment that he would put me through was pronounced. I knew that the plan he had was to drive me insane. He wanted me to leave him alone; he was doing the same thing that call center workers would do to people who called in all the time. Only his calls weren’t recorded for training and monitoring purposes. He was living the dream of everyone who ever answered the phone, and I got to be the guy asking the dumb question that kids should know, but I didn’t.

Tonight was no exception, sadly. Sam had me standing, always standing. I was looking at one of the potted plants in his office. It was a palm fern-like I had seen in so many office buildings in my life. However, unlike the ones that I had seen working in call centers, this one had bugs.

Not just any bug but spiders. There are good spiders in the world, and I get that; they eat other bugs that I hate and don’t mess with me. However, there are spiders that just scare me, and these were the scary ones.

The one closest to me took my non-movement as an invite to jump its half-dollar-sized body over to me and start to make a web between the fern and me. Once it was done with that, which was amazing to watch, the others started to come over.

I got a good look at them. They were jet black on the bottom and leg, with little red eyes. The caprice had little red spikes coming off the sides, and between them was a bone-white marking that looked like a skull. As they moved over the web bridge, I could see that they each had a giant egg sac on their back.

It didn’t take too long for the spiders to hang the sacs in front of my eyes. Then the hundreds of sacs burst open, and the little spiders started to grow as they climbed all over me. I felt webbing getting made around me as they climbed over me.

Then Sam spoke. I was happy to hear him; that meant this was almost over. He always waited till near the end to speak.

“Arn, even someone as dimwitted as you should know that a year is the amount of time that the planet takes to travel around the star it orbits.”

Sam, in his petty nature, didn’t do what I thought he would do. No, he had set me up for a time like this. His answer was at less than the halfway mark in my time. Plenty of time for the spiders to feel that going up my nose and in my mouth was the best thing they could do.