After finishing lunch, Emily quickly drops off her notebook in her room and makes her way to the training hall. Finding the door to the hall already open, she walks in and sees a wide-open space with racks of ons on the walls and packed dirt on the floor. In the tre of the room, she sees a dozen students standing together in a group, looking at the most intimidating woman Emily has ever seen.

  She is tall, at least a head taller than Emily, with short spikey brown hair, shaved at the sides. She’s wearing tight browher trousers with boots ing up to her knees. Over her white linen shirt is a leather harness holding a rge greatsword to her back, and underh Emily notices a set e, barely cealed muscles.

  As she turns to look at her, Emily sees a rough scar across the woman’s closed right eye. Her remaining eye is a fierce green, the intense light in it matched only by her manic grin.

  “Ah, our new recruit!” she calls out in a riing voice.

  “Sorry, am I te?” Emily asks, certain she arrived on time.

  “Not really, I just like everyoo be here slightly early so we start on time. Now e over here. What’s your name?”

  “I’m Emily Coldstone,” she answers while approag the rge woman.

  “o meet you, Emily. I’m Agnes Olea, third circle. Just call me Aghough, I don’t like formality in my css,” Agnes says while Emily her hand.

  Emily gives a firm handshake, whily seems to make Agnes’ smile grow.

  “Have you received any martial training before?”

  “No, but I have a little experience fighting with my fists and knives.”

  “I see.” Agurns to face the rest of the css she was ign, and Emily notices Jeremy and Kyle standing amongst the group gring at her with excited grins on their faces.

  I guess they think this will be a ce to beat me up.

  A malevolent smile forms on Emily’s face.

  Well, they try.

  “I want all of you to warm up then pair off and practice the grappling drills I was teag you st week. Remember, this is a test of teique, not strength. I don’t care how much strohan your oppo you may be, trol yourselves so everyos adequate practice!”

  “Yes, Miss!” the whole css calls out at once, before dispersing and following her instrus.

  “Now as for you, I’d like to test your starting level, so I know what to teach you. Get rid of your robes and warm up, then we’ll spar a little.”

  Emily nods and drops her robes on the floor behihearts moving around to get warmed up. As she does, she looks around the room ahe students have moved a fair distance away to give her and Agnes space.

  I wonder if they’re being siderate, or if they’re scared of her.

  Once warmed up, Emily looks over to Agnes and sees her standing with her arms crossed, watg her expetly.

  “Ready? I want you to try and nd a hit o doesn’t matter how. just try with everything you have to strike me. Uood?”

  Emily nods and raises her fist before her while spreading her feet into aance.

  “Good, begin!”

  The moment she hears the signal, Emily springs forward, quickly closing the gap between her and Agnes. Stepping into arm's reach, she pnts her front foot and lowers her body as she pivots forward and throws a twisting punch towards Agnes’ gut. As her right fist stretches forward, Emily feels a small burst of strength and speed from her melee bat skill activating, accelerating her punch slightly.

  Agnes lets out a small excmation as she takes a step bad sweeps her left arm down, sending Emily’s punch off wide. Emily uses the momentum to spin around and leans down further, reag for the ground with her left hand as she sends her right foot towards Agnes’ . Agnes smoothly catches her ankle and pushes it back to send her off bance. Pnting her right hand down as well, Emily cartwheels back tht and pushes fain.

  With her carefree attitude gone, Agnes raises her open hands before her with her legs spread apart, ready to intercept Emily’s charge. Just as she steps within range, Emily tosses a handful of dirt into Agnes’ fad steps forward to deliver a strong straight kick tut. Raising one hand to guard her eye, Agnes shoots her other hand down to catch Emily’s kick. Before her hand ects, Emily retracts her leg and twists, sending it curving down into Agnes’ shin. However, Agnes reacts in time and leans onto her back leg, lifting her froo meet Emily’s. Hookioes around Emily’s ankle, she catches the kid then flicks her leg out with enough force to send Emily tumbling to the floor.

  Rolling away, Emily quickly gets back to her feet. She starts cirg Agnes, with her fists still raised, slowly moving closer. Once agaiing close enough, Emily moves her left hand as if to throw more dirt. However, the moment Agnes raises her hand to guard her eye, Emily retracts her empty left hand and throws her right fist straight towards Agnes’ exposed chest. As Agnes realises her feint and starts moving her free hand to defend her chest, Emily opens up her right hand and catches Agnes’ arm while swinging her left fist down towards Agnes’ front leg.

  Her fist ects with Aghigh just as Agnes’ foot ects with her chest, knog her ft on her back, coughing. As Emily catches her breath, Ageps forward and offers her a hand up with a grin.

  “Well dohat was a very good use of feints and your enviro. Not many people would have the guts to throw dirt in their first spar,” Agnes says as she pulls Emily up with ease.

  Emily blushes slightly while quickly defending herself.

  “You did say to use everything I had to strike you.”

  “Haha, that I did. And you even mao succeed, just at the cost of taking a hit yourself,” Agnes ughs as she steps bad takes off her harness, pg it, along with the heavy sword, at the edge of their space. “You clearly think very well in a fight. Aiming for my stoma both your first es worked well for making me slightly slower to react when you went for my leg ohird. Your use of feints to try and draw me into your pace was very good too and would probably have worked on a physically equal oppo. You also did a great job using the momentum of your failed attacks to keep up the pressure. However, you tunnel-visiooo mu nding your own attacks and didn’t notice when I started hitting back. I’m sure you could have avoided that kick since I matched your speed with it. Let’s try again, but this time remember to watch for any terattacks.”

  They repeat the same exercise half a dozen times, stopping every time Emily takes a hit fo give her feedback. After the first attempt, Emily fails to nd another hit and begins to get frustrated.

  Lying on her back panting again, Emily looks over at Agnes her a hand up.

  “You got reckless on that st one, let's call it there for today.”

  Emily starts to object, but Agnes cuts her off.

  “Don’t get me wrong, you did great. No one else in here could give me that much trouble now, let alone on their first lesson. I’m just stronger, faster, and have a lot of experience. Catch your breath, I’ll go grab you a parto talk you through the grappling drills we were doing st week.”

  Patting her on the shoulder, Agnes walks off as Emily checks oamina.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Stamina:] 132/175

  _____

  Hmm, sparring was a higher drain than my workouts. Is it affected by both the level of exertion and focus throughout? Would that make seh it not draining from mentally strenuous tasks though? Maybe I’m using muscle groups I missed with my workouts.

  Emily ends her mental questioning as Agnes returns with someone. He’s a thin boy around Emily’s height, with long blonde hair tied up in a bun, crystal blue eyes, and a fident smile pstered on his face.

  “This is Oscar Salvia, he’s one of my best students so I think he’d make a good sparring partner for you.” The smug look on his faly grows as Agnes speaks. “Oscar, as I said before, teach Emily here the basics I went over st time and have a few spars before I get you all to switch partners. Good luck.”

  With that, Agnes collects her sword and leaves to go ihe rest of her css, leaving Emily and Oscar alone.

  “o meet you, Emily. I’m Oscar Salvia, heir to the Salvia household. You haven’t received formal training before, correct?”

  His family wasn’t on Jenny’s list, but he seems like a prick.

  “Yes, all,” Emily responds dryly.

  “I see, in that case, I will start by expining what grappling is. Grappling is the act of using throws, trips and sweeps t your oppoo the ground, then using submission holds to take trol of your oppo's body and limit their movement. For example, say I was going to punch you, how would you react.”

  As Emily rolls her eyes at his long expnation, he suddenly springs forward, releasing a right jab towards her face. Reag quickly, Emily steps forward and to the left, narrowly sliding past his ining fist as she lowers her body. Hooking her right arm up and around his chest, she sweeps his front leg out from under him and sms him down into the dirt. Following him down to the ground, Emily quickly pulls his arm bad s her legs across his front, holding him fast in a solid armbar.

  “I don’t know, I think I’d probably do something like that,” Emily responds smugly as Oscar struggles to escape.

  After a few moments of failing to release himself, Oscar taps Emily in surrender. However, failing to uand his i, Emily holds fast until she feels him starting to go limp. The moment she releases him, he scrambles away and gasps for breath. Standing up while massaging his red throat, Oscar looks at Emily sheepishly, his smug grin repced by a look of aowledgement and a hint of caution.

  “Sorry for that. Agold me to try attag you the moment we began when I asked if I really o be the oo teach you,” he quickly apologises, before muttering under his breath: “Though, I would prefer if you accepted my surrender sooner.”

  Wait, that’s what the tappi?

  Emily ughs at his embarrassed response and to cover up her own blunder.

  “Well, am I worth teag now?”

  “Yes, that was a great takedown. Have you really not had any training?” Oscar asks while rubbing his right shoulder, clearly still slightly in pain.

  “Nope, I have fought quite a lot though, and submissions are a great way of getting someoo give up something they’ve taken.”

  “I see, that should make this easy then. In our st lesson, we went over…”

  Oscar proceeds to expin all the tent the css covered in their previous lesson, with short breaks iween to test the moves as both the aggressor and defender. By the time Agnes asks everyoo switch partners, Emily has a solid grasp of what to do and says goodbye to Osicable terms, fiving him for his earlier aggression.

  After a few partner switches between students Emily has never met before, Agnes calls everyone back to gather in the tre of the room.

  “Good work today everyone, most of you are showing great improvement. week’s lesson will be on daggers so remember to wear clothes you don’t care about. Dismissed!”

  As she’s leaving the with the rest of the students, Oscar approaches Emily.

  “Hey Emily, if you ever want to spar, give me a shout. I’m in dorm A19 so just e knoy door, and if I’m not in, leave a note or something on the door.”

  Gng at his chest, Emily sees a tall gold-stemmed purple flower on his crest.

  So that’s what he meant by the heir of the Salvia household.

  “Sure, I’m in dorm B53, e knoy door whenever you want your ass kicked.”

  “Haha, will do,” Oscar chuckles as he walks off towards the private training rooms.

  Wow, he’s diligent. I want a shower after that lesson, not more training.

  Praising Oscar internally, Emily heads back to her room. After a nice long shower to soothe her ag muscles, she leaves her room with her notebook and knocks on Juliana’s door. Juliana quickly opens it and greets Emily with surprise.

  “Hey!” she says, throwing her arms around Emily and pulling her into a hug. “What are you doing here, it’s not like you to e see me before dinner.”

  Wing slightly and tapping Juliana’s shoulder to ask to be released, Emily responds:

  “I just got doh my hand-to-hand bat css and didn’t want to sit alone again. I e do my work in here?”

  “Sure, you’re wele in my room whenever!” Juliana says happily while stepping aside to let Emily in.