Chapter 20 – A Training Accord (Patreon)

The trial administrator in an angel’s body nodded slowly in response to his request. She raised a hand and clicked her fingers right in front of his eyes.

Involuntarily, he blinked, and, even before his eyes reopened, he knew he was elsewhere. The temperature was slightly higher, there was a buzz of background conversation and the strong smell of coffee. He was not a fan of the drink, but even he had to admit the aroma smelt delicious.

The ceiling lights were also brighter than the room he had come from. It was not blinding as such - it was more a sign of how dim his bedroom had actually been.

Rather than being perched on the bed, he had been moved to a cushioned bench which, when he stretched, he found to have a great back support.

He blinked again and glanced around curiously. This was nothing like what he had expected. The angel was across from him, separated from him by a high-quality plastic fake wooden table. They each had a coffee cup in front of them, steaming as though a waitress had just put it down. He was sitting upon a comfortable bench, and she upon a stool - which, given her wings, was probably the most relaxing way for her to sit.

The place he found himself in was a full-on earth café with a modern open-floor plan. There were multiple tables, and, while none close to them were occupied, the ones further away were full. It was difficult to focus on his fellow patrons. They were human, some dressed in suits, others in smart casual, but he had a sense that they were closer to a replay of a video in three dimensions than real. They were there for background ambience and couldn’t be interacted with.

If he was willing not to question reality too much, it felt like he was back on Earth. The angel had a smug expression on her face.

He tapped the table, and the sound it produced matched its looks. It was plastic, and this was a made-up space. She could have included the finest of wooden furniture, if she wished. He sniffed and shook his head incredulously:

“What’s this?”

“A café. You wanted a place to talk. I believe this is the traditional setting.”

Tom stared at her. This place was not from his memories.

“What? You’re not the first kid I’ve had this conversation with. You reincarnators like it here, and, to be honest, the ritual itself is a good one too.” She chuckled. “Much better than meeting in a dank cave and chatting over ritual sacrifice.”

His eyes widened in response. “Is that…”

“True?” she laughed harder. “Probably, but not something I’ve done. But this,” the angel waved her hand. “This routine is nice.”

“You find it… wait… It doesn’t matter,” he waved the thought away. “I used to be an apprentice builder. I’ve never done a sit-down coffee before.”

“Ah… well, if that’s the case, let me explain how this works. The white vessel in front of you is a cup and the black liquid is called coffee. You sip it while we chat. Why are you glaring at me?”

He snorted in amusement despite everything:

“You know why?”

“Because you prefer tea?”

He groaned, and she just grinned:

“Relax and enjoy yourself. Personally, I find this to be pleasant. It’s a neutral environment, and, if there’s an awkward pause in the conversation, you can sip the coffee to break it.”

She said nothing, and time stretched uncomfortably and then pointedly she lifted the cup for a delicate sip of her own coffee:

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

He took a deep breath, and then realised he had been procrastinating:

“I wanted to apologise.”

Her carefree, relaxed manner changed, and for a moment, she looked more serious than usual:

“Apologise? Nope, you’ve nothing to apologise for.”

“No, I do.” He interrupted. “When I was fighting the progression of lizard-dogs, I had time to think.”

“It’s not a lizard-dog. It has almost nothing anatomically consistent with either of those species. It’s called a cotada.”

“When I was fighting the cotada,” he corrected. “I had time to think properly, and I concluded that I reacted poorly. I can blame the stress of the reincarnation, or you springing the knowledge of the title on me, or the fear of the assassins hunting me, but these would be just excuses. So, sorry. I’ve been rude.”

She laughed:

“Don’t be silly. I was testing you with that introduction. It was deliberately done to unsettle you, and you reacted better than some.”

“I have my own standards, and I should have done a lot better. Especially after you gave that oath. Being rude after that was unforgivable.”

“There’s no need for this,” she waved his protestations aside. “There’s no reason to apologise or be concerned. I’ve dealt with reincarnators before, and the future of your entire species is on the line. You’re allowed to act out that stress.”

“No. It was wrong. I should have done better. Can we do a restart?”

She took a pointed sip of coffee with her eyes on him the entire time as she assessed the pros and cons of the offer:

“That sounds like a wonderful idea. Let’s restart.”

“First, do you have a preferred name?”

She stuck out her tongue at him:

 “Are you sure you want to ask that?”

“If I didn’t want to know I wouldn’t have asked”

“It’s your funeral. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. My name is.”

There was the impression of joy at conversation, excitement at helping people get skills and age beyond what he could imagine, along with weird floors that had strange patterns on them that looked like runes.

He stared at her blankly, his mind hurting from an overload of information. She smirked in response. 

“I don’t think I can pronounce that.”

She laughed and took thirty seconds to calm down:

“No, I can’t imagine you managing it. You can call me April instead.”

“Nice to meet you, April. So, I guess this isn’t the first trial you’ve administrated.”

She shook her head:

 “It’s not. This is my fifth, but I like it more than my previous assignments.”

“Why?”

“Because you guys get lonely and need to talk. In my previous ones, the challengers rarely chatted, and when they did, it was always about business. It was absolutely exhausting. I also prefer the structure of this setup. The others were rigid tests, and if they were successful, I awarded those who passed them a skill. Sometimes a tailored one, which could be fun, but usually generic. Here, I am helping you to learn something new, or to master an ability you already have. I am teaching knowledge as opposed to inserting it, and that, for me, is much more satisfying.

Tom remembered her true name and tried to reflect on it:

“Is that why your name was...” He focused and projected what he could recall.

Ancient presence who enjoys conversation and happiness at teaching new stuff on a floor covered in runes.

Across from him the angel’s face transformed, and then she broke down howling. She slapped the table hard enough to spill the coffee:

 “That was a horrible attempt. It’s like me calling you T D Bullshit. I can’t believe you mangled it that bad. Don’t ever try that again.”

Redness filled his cheek:

“Sorry. I thought I should at least try.”

“I appreciate it. But yeah, that attempt was terrible. I thought you were the pinnacle of your species…”

“That’s not where my skills lie.”

That response set off another round of table slapping. “You said…

Ancient presence who enjoys conversation and happiness at teaching new stuff on a floor covered in runes.

“When I’m, actually…”

Joy at conversation, excitement at helping people get skills and age beyond what he could imagine, along with weird floors with strange patterns on them that looked like runes.

Side by side, the differences were an ocean. It wasn’t just the bit that he had said wrong - it was a lack of depth in the presentation. It was a stick-figure sketch of a proud four-year-old versus a full-length feature film kind of difference.

He could see why she would find it funny. After a moment he joined her, laughing at his own ridiculous attempt:

“Sorry, April, I’ll use your humanised name.”

She wiped the tears from her eyes:

“Thank you. I needed the laugh. Now, asking my name and apologising can’t be all that you want to talk to me about.”

Tom knew there were things bothering him:

 “The training I’m undergoing. Can you explain?”

“Stop,” she smiled to take the sting off her rebuking tone. “I can’t comment on that. I believe explaining it to you will have undesirable consequences.”

He hesitated and tried to read between the lines:

 “How about I propose what I think, and if I’m wrong, then you can… you know, do something…”

Her eyes hardened, but she said nothing.

Tom took that as assent to talk:

 “My goal is to gain the spear mastery skill, and the scenario and creatures I fight are designed to create the environment to achieve that.” She remained silent. “You change the situation up when I do something perfect…”

Her eye twitched. She was a trial administer in the body of an angel. That was not the sort of creature to have an eye tic.

He swallowed and corrected his statement on the fly:

 “You obviously can’t tell if I do a motion perfectly,” she smiled, not agreeing, but to Tom she might as well have done so. “But if I do it close to perfect a certain number of times, it’s likely one is perfect according to the system, and then you’ll switch the arrangement of monsters to develop a different form.” He finished in a rush.

She said nothing for a moment.

“I think there might be a light misunderstanding. I’m not here to help you acquire Skills. My purpose is to support your improvement. Sometimes that will be trying to aid you in a Skill acquisition, but not at the expense of your survival chances or future growth.”

“Good. That means you’ll keep testing me on old skills to make sure I don’t get rusty?”

“Agreed. I’ll be throwing dynamic scenarios that will demand the use of all your technical skills. It’ll stretch and develop you even if it gets you no closer to getting a reward from the system.”

Tom nodded at that as he absorbed what she was saying. It made a lot of sense. He knew that it was possible he had not mastered the impaling thrust yet. His accomplishments so far could be as simple as having polished the move to the point of lizard dogs becoming no longer suitable for training; he was a long way from mastering anything.   More training would let him polish the other forms, and it was possible that ultimately his perfect execution would only occur in a dynamic situation where he was forced to use a move by instinct.

 “The problem is my body.” He said finally. “It doesn’t match my memories, and reprogramming it is going to kill me over and over again. We’re talking about a significant amount of pain. Trust me, when those things chew on me, it’s not pleasant.”

She sighed and took a sip of her coffee:

“Ultimately, you’re responsible for choosing how to progress. I can’t and won’t force you into anything. I can design aggressive combat strategies that, in my experience, will get you the result you want faster. Alternatively, there’s low risk combat, but you’re still going to die occasionally. Or you can train with static combat dummies and never risk dying. That last option is definitely the slowest.”

Tom took a sip of his own coffee and hastily put it down. It was strong and didn’t taste very nice; he was surprised she hadn’t given him a cappuccino that he might have actually enjoyed.

“It’s a long black. You’ll grow to appreciate it soon enough.” She assured him.

“I don’t think I’ll ever drink it again.”

She laughed:

“Yes, you will. Regarding your problem, spear fighting is not just about completing combat forms, it’s about linking them in battle. Ten thousand hours on the training field will get you the skill, but you don’t have that sort of time. Two to five thousand with direct instruction from a master is another method. But I can’t give you that. However, given the orphanage infrastructure, I would assume you can probably get a trainer there. In here ,with you fighting monsters, it’s likely four hundred to a thousand hours.”

He quickly did the mathematics:

“Even with my time dilation that means it could take up to a year, and what is it? A thousand painful deaths. Or I wait and get enough experience to buy the skill within a day of turning fifteen.”

“I can’t force you to do anything,” she reminded him mildly. “But yes, it seems like a strange thing for me to push for. When you phrase it in that manner, my advice seems unwise.” She smiled wickedly at him and winked. “I swore an oath. I wonder how that is compatible with my reluctance to explain my reasonings?”

“Titles.” Tom said flatly. The answer was obvious. If someone told you how to get a title, then, even if you completed potential thousands of hours of effort to win it, you wouldn’t receive it. It was a part of the GODs no arbitrage rules.

She said nothing for a while:

“Tom, do you trust me?”

He snorted:

“With that oath, I would have to be an idiot not to.”

“I’m not explaining the reasoning, but my recommendation is to go with the hard course.”

Tom shivered. If he invested ten hours a week, it would take one to two years. Could he do twenty half-hour sessions every time he visited? Or even more, to reduce the time further?  She claimed she couldn’t explain the reasonings, but he could guess most of them. She was not an idiot. The all-out battles of the hard path would do more than just develop his spear skills. Life and death battles were messy. There would be moments where supreme spear skills would shine, but there would be other instances that would lean on acrobatic abilities, tumbling techniques, hand-to-hand combat, and probably his ability to push through pain.  She had told him that fighting here was like being trained in a safe place, but the immediate feedback of failure against monsters would force him to push himself harder than even he could manage in the training arena. That desperate struggle to survive would lead to system rewards.

“Shit,” he cursed as he imagined how many times he was about to die. “I guess I have no choice. I’ll do it.”

“That’s good.” He expected to be immediately transferred to another fight, but nothing happened.

“Finish your coffee,” she ordered and pointed to the cup that he had taken only a single sip from. She arched an eyebrow. “I thought you trusted me.”

Tom scrunched up his face at the coffee:

“It’s not very nice.” He complained, but he did as instructed, and sipped once more. It had cooled slightly, but was still bitter and unpleasant. “How does something that smells so nice taste like this?”

“Stop whinging. Personally, I like the taste. Now ask your other questions.”

“When I’m fighting for my life, my technical execution often deteriorates. How will you manage the risk of me creating bad habits?”

“For one, I’m not sure the system is so black and white. What’s perfect for one person won’t be so for another. Second, if your form deviates too much from the baseline, I’ll adjust the type of challenges you’re facing.” She grinned at him, and he shivered slightly and the inherent death and pain that correction would entail. “My main concern,” she continued more seriously. “Is the psychological impact of fighting and dying under a GOD’s shield. That can breed some terrible habits, from suicidal disregard for one’s life to being overly cautious. Both of which are horrible flaws to introduce to a competition species.”

Tom shut his eyes. A thousand plus deaths and coming back to life straight after. He could see the problem with that.

“And how do you manage that risk?” He couldn’t believe he was talking about this particular subject matter in such a detached manner. This was his life, his pain, and his suffering. 

She smiled slyly:

“Drink your coffee.”

He realised what she meant and stared at the drink. It looked perfectly normal. He took a sip. It was still bitter, and he couldn’t feel anything happening to his brain.

“You should see your face.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s nothing suspicious about the coffee. Unfortunately, it’s not magical, but a consistent routine, a debrief after every couple of deaths, will help.”

“You’re going to be my therapist.”

“Therapist? Your description, not mine. And is it so hard to believe that a million-year-old entity who has done this with your species presumably hundreds of times would be able to do that kind of role?”

“And you’re sure that fighting and dying is for the best? Even with the GOD shield issue?”

“I’ve been moderating these trials for thirty-two years. When people graduate, I ask them to come back and give me an update on performance, current levels and their titles. That gives me real data, and allows me to measure who did the best in the real world and adjust my training plans accordingly.”

“But does everyone return?”

“Of course not, but those who do tell me what they know of others. Dimitri here, for example. The caretakers in the other towns also come in once a week to update me. I’m more than aware of how my past students are doing.”

Tom thought about that:

 “At best you’ve got, what, one generation of usable data? Your approach is hardly optimised.”

The angel shook her head:

“It’s better than you think. Everyone got an individual training program. Some I pushed immediately, others when they turned ten, and some never. I have solid data on the performance of almost five thousand people. Statistically, that’s enough to give me confidence in most of my actions.”

That was way too many people. Tom’s mind rushed. There were three towns. His town had fifty per year, and from what he knew the others were similarly sized. There were only ten to twelve years of history to put into the model.

“How?” he asked. “How is there five thousand children? Even if you’re linked to the other orphanages, it doesn’t make sense.”

“The birth rate had been higher previously.”

“Higher?”

“Both the rate and the population,” she clarified. “The population was most likely the more important factor, and that resulted in four times as many babies being born each year than currently.” 

Tom didn’t press any further. He knew there were probably only a hundred thousand people left. Thirty years ago, there were over three times that number, so that drop made sense. As for the rate… He remembered how those two at the start had been talking. They had seen having kids this late in the process as being useless, and it was possible that many other people would share the same opinion.

He took another sip of the drink. The bitter taste was growing on him:

“You mentioned something about earning skills.”

“Yes, I did. I have some seed credits and access to the GOD’s auction house. That allows me to buy and sell materials without breaking the anonymity rules. Which in turn means that, provided you can achieve at least fifty percent value add, I am authorised to purchase an item on your behalf and then allow you to improve them. Once complete, I sell, and the profit is then funnelled into allowing me to teach you the tier one or zero skill of your choice. We can repeat it as many times as you have capacity for.”

Tom’s mind went blank. This couldn’t be happening.

“Wait just a moment. You want me to do crafting?”

“Yes, but that fifty percent value add requirement is a hard threshold to meet. I need to set you up with skills and materials and be confident of getting a return. It is something some people never manage, so I have rules in place. You’ve already met some of your criteria around the likely work effort; however, a minimum affinity of over fifty in at least one field is required.”

“I know my affinities. Those of Earth, Lightning, and Healing are well over fifty.”

The angel hesitated:

“I still need to check. I accept that that’s what you’ve had, but they might have changed. Usually, they only move a couple of points, but some people lose their affinities entirely, and there’s also a chance you’ve gained a new one.”

He went to argue, but Social Silence stopped him from speaking. He forced himself to take a step back and think to read between the lines. Between Social Silence and her expression, she knew something.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

A big grin crossed her face:

“There are lots of things I’m not telling you.”

“The affinities?”

“Lots of things about them, too.”

“You know a secret.” He accused.

“I do. But better you see the changes for yourself before I share it. I want to do a test. It’ll tell us your five highest affinities… and put you in debt of a thousand credits.”

“That’s all it costs?” he asked. It really wasn’t a lot at all, at least once he had access to earning experience. “How long will that take me to pay back?”

She shrugged unconcerned:

“Initially months, maybe a year. By the time you’re twelve, it’ll hopefully only be a couple of weeks’ work. Possibly even a matter of days. Do you agree?”

He hesitated.

“I advise you to accept.”

If she was recommending something, then he really didn’t have a choice.

“Well, let’s see what’s changed.”