Over the following weeks I slowly got used to my schedule. I wake up in the morning, eat a small breakfast, and pack myself a filling lunch of different grilled meat sandwiches with cheese. After trying out different meats to see if they would progress my Hunger Skill, we discovered that unless I personally killed the beast it wouldn’t count and give me options. Luckily for me, eating meat in general has kept the Skill relatively happy so I don’t have to worry about losing health or sanity to it.

  After getting all of my cheap training leathers on, Ivy changes into a frog and we head out to the training yard. From there, I proceed to work myself to the point of exhaustion while targeting that day’s muscle groups in between rounds of gaining new bruises and lessons on how to fight effectively.

  When training is over for the day, around three or four in the afternoon, we all separate and I head to class. Ivy slowly heals away any absolute exhaustion and bruising or injuries while I hobble my way out of the yard and head down to the teaching halls. Faroth and I share two classes a week with them being Soulspace development and Affinity theory and my final class of the week is shared with Raffa in Evolution guidance.

  Upon reaching critical mass of knowledge stuffed into my gray matter, I head over to my work position to earn a bit of an income by helping to sort the different guild requests into their required ranks. Because the city of Fren is located in a primarily Beastfolk area, with a healthy sprinkling of all the other races, they use their danger ranking chart. The danger rating system from least to most dangerous is Feather, Fang, Claw, Scale, Wing, and Eye. Feather and Fang are allowed to be covered by most bronze rank adventurers, Claw and Scale are for silver and above, Wing is for gold and above, and Eye is for the upper echelon in the nebula rank.

  Adventurer rankings were required to be standardized across the world long ago so that these classifications could be put in place safely. Each separate rank has five tiers within them that you have to surpass to be able to make it into the next tier or rank. The majority of adventurers end their careers, one way or another, in the early to middle tiers of silver. After looking through the different threats and learning where they were to be classified, I get a better understanding of just how dangerous each separate danger rating is. Feather can be minor gathering quests in the local area or fighting dangerous wild animals like boars. They are relatively safe unless an anomalous beast appears. Fang grows to encompass further traveling for gathering and bigger beasts like bears.

  Claw is where the first intelligent monsters become tenable with the majority of them being goblins or other small, but smart foes. Scale is saved for larger hoards of goblins, orcs, ogres, and other bigger, harder monsters that could threaten smaller cities or settlements.

  Wing is for anomalous monsters with some variance to them that the others don’t have, like undying, flare skinned, cursed creatures, and other sorts that could threaten cities and disrupt trading routes easily. These monsters usually require specific counters to their anomalous traits along with a very strong party to back up that counter.

  Eye-level threats haven’t been seen in many years, but the last one to appear was a dragon that had grown a vampiric mutation and required the head of each church and their paladins to take down. The beast’s regeneration alone required its brain and heart to be separated from the body, sealed by holy and light affinity spells, and then destroyed by a weapon that was blessed by Vaelorym himself. It had wiped entire civilizations in the immediate area off the map before they were able to gather ten nebula-level paladins to fend off the threat. The corpse of that dragon had so much latent magic that it eventually grew into the Death Affinity Dungeon nearby that people still delve into today.

  I finish up my work for the night and continue my normal routine then go and have dinner and turn in for the night. This same schedule of wake-up and eat breakfast, go to training, work past the breaking point, learn information about the new world I’m in, go to my part-time gig for the guild, and then go home and eat and go to bed continues on for weeks on end. Progress is slow in the beginning until I get used to the rigorous training. My muscle mass starts shooting up exponentially and I end the day with less and less bruising as I learn how to dodge and block incoming attacks.

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  Eventually Aeros comes up to our little group and gives us an offer.

  “Looks like you’ve beaten them into decent shape Neves. How are their combat skills?” Aeros asks upon stepping into the training yard after a few months.

  “Stable. Could use some real combat experience, but they’re ready for an assessment,” Neves responds after pressing Faroth to the ground to finish their combat time.

  “How about we put them up against an adventurer party that’s been running their mouths a little too much lately about guild favoritism? They aren’t formerly trained or anything like that, but they claim that since they belong to families from the churches that they deserve to be given free instruction and preferential treatment for quests,” Aeros ponders while rubbing his temples.

  “Wouldn’t that potentially prove them right?” Faroth chokes out after rolling out from under Neves’ boot.

  “Nah, they’ve been a thorn in my side since day one. They failed to do an entry-level Feather quest to gather five different herbs. The herbs grow in the fields outside the gates Neves! How hard is it to look at the handout flier, discern what plant to grab, and then come back inside?! They picked nine different types of weeds that are completely useless…”, Aeros groans while pinching the bridge of his nose.

  “That level of incompetence is impressive. If only it weren’t also extremely deadly later on,” Raffa says while making a hissing sound that we have come to know is a snarky laugh.

  “Right?!” Aeros responds without opening his eyes or removing his hand from his nose.

  “I’ll go grab them then. Neves do a rudimentary team breakdown for your group here. Also, I’d recommend getting used to working together since you all have the same level of training so you know your party mates will be at least as competent as you,” Aeros mischievously retorts.

  Aeros leaves the training yard and Neves starts going over our beginning tactics. Raffa is to try and stay hidden behind Faroth and sneak around into good positions while I rush for an opening volley of blows. Faroth is to supply covering fire with his lightning spells to create muscle spasms for Raffa to punish with stealth attacks at either range or quick dagger dashes. Neves tells us that we don’t need to worry about causing damage as all the weapons we are using are either blunted and weakened by enchantments to be training weapons, or are our own bodies.

  After practicing attacking Neves for around an hour to try and get used to capitalizing on each other’s strengths and helping cover our weaknesses, the other party finally arrives. They waltz in wearing luxuriant armor, smug sneers, and rippling muscles that came from a lifetime of training or abusing enhancer drugs.

  “Is this really all we need to do to be promoted to tier four? This is the easiest promotion ever! Finally, you’re following orders like the good little puppets you are,” the man in the middle laughs while slowly unsheathing his large claymore.

  “No need to use your daddy’s enchanted blades whelp. We aren’t barbarians. Use the training weapons,” Neves interrupts with a glare.

  “What a shame. Well, I guess we’ll just have to bruise them into submission with these pieces of wood,” the smug adventurer responds while picking up a large, wooden sword and detaching his own gear.

  Everyone follows suit and detaches all their armor and weapons and approaches the racks of wooden gear and light, leather armor. I slip into some dark, leather armor while Raffa gracefully slides up and dons the same set. He grabs a hand-crossbow that is fitted for blunted wooden bolts, a few small, wooden daggers, and tosses a wooden quarterstaff to Faroth.

  “Less talking and more action,” he hisses at the broad shouldered leader that rebukes by spitting in his direction.

  After we all get geared up, we head into the arena with a few guild officials to document everything, Neves to give us training points, and Aeros to laugh at the outcome.

  “The fight will begin after the illusory wall dissipates from the middle. There will be no killing or maiming beyond repair. Other than that, feel free to use whatever methods you can to make the other team submit. Any questions?” a guild official with long gray hair, round glasses, a deep purple robe, and a clipboard asks.

  Nobody responds and a black, misty wall appears between our parties. Raffa immediately disappears into Faroth’s shadow, I get into a rush stance, and Faroth channels a Frost blessing to cover me in a light shell armor of ice. I steel myself and slow my breathing to calm my beating heart. Suddenly, the mist starts dissipating and falls to the ground and action breaks out everywhere.