"Oh. You were the one charged with the room. You lost some of the explanation but I guess it's nothing you already don't know." The advisor said, looking at how Josiah carried his sword.The advisor was even taller than Koda, though skinnier. In fact, the advisor was so tall and so skinny he almost looked like an alien humanoid. "I'm Tal..."'The name suits you.' Josiah thought."…As a newcomer in the first weeks, you are going to use weapon replicas instead. Put your garbage at the side somewhere. Get a weapon of your preference among the models over the table. We are going to train in pairs now."Advisor Tal whistled loudly and everyone began trying to find a pair to spar with.Albo approached Josiah once again."Hey, dude. You lost all the explanation. Is that okay?""I had no choice…"Albo was holding an exact copy of a morning star. From the ball to the chains and holder… Everything was perfectly made out of wood."Huh… I guess this one looks strong. So I chose this one. Are you

"Done with that already!? The day is about to end.""Koda, sir. This little rascal keeps slowing me down." "Liar! He was the one goofing off and leaving the job all for me!" Josiah shouted.Both him and Reeve were designated to cleaning duty. They had been mopping the room for the last couple of hours while the others went for physical activities. They were inside the men's room during the time they went there to get dressed for the bloodless training."You two still can't get along? I guess you're going to have to be the duo on the cleaning until you learn how to.""…""Finish that already and come to the bloodless training."Josiah felt a chill down his spine.The bloodless training was a modality where the holder didn't use the bloodbound power of his weapon at all. Aiming both for perfecting common-weapon wielding and beginning on blood control."Sir…" Josiah asked in a low voice as he went near Sergeant Koda."Say it.""I don't know how not to use my bloodbound powers."Reeve ove

The next months went by very fast. Wake up, train, clean, train, build-up, train, sleep. The routine was hard and monotone, it made the days pass too quickly. Yet the routine was rewarding. Josiah grew even stronger during the days he spent perfecting his sword-wielding style and controlling his blood to tone it down.He also learned to use the rapier's power for trivial matters, in the way Watt had taught him. Well… At least to a certain extent.Josiah's relationship with the colleagues got a little better. With time they started respecting him as a member of the team, despite his age.Even Josiah's relationship with Reeve also got better. No, they're not friends. But every time Reeve would set Josiah up, he'd answer right after, but on a more brand, less offensive way. That's the way he found of dealing with the nephew of the lieutenant. With time, causing trouble for the little kid lost its 'fun', and Reeve and Josiah just stopped talking to each other outside the matters of the arm

Reeve was hanging on the cliff, being held only by Josiah's hand."Don't let go!! Please, pull me up!!" Reeve repeatedly shouted those words in a desperate manner."You sound way less cocky when you're on the verge of your life, huh?""Argh! My arm is getting numb!""Don't you dare let go you son of a…"It was somewhat fun seeing Reeve's eyes widen that much for some reason.'Stupid aristocrat. What do you think would happen to me if they knew some nine-year-old kid killed the nephew of the lieutenant during the final exam? Technically I'm allowed to, but in practice…' Josiah thought.Still… The weight was really too much for Josiah to deal with.It's true, he had lifted huge boulders for Lenny's cave in the forest. He had lifted stone tiles for an entire morning to help with the wall… But he always distributed the wight over all the muscles of his body. He never had to lift something from such an awkward angle using only one of his arms like that before.'I know! I'm going to use the

With Watt's preparations, it was fairly easy not to miss the arrival of the examiners. Watt had brought a lot of useful equipment for the trip, unlike Josiah who had nothing but his equipment, and even on that he was missing, since he lost the dagger after throwing it at the talpig earlier.Watt had brought something whose function reminded Josiah of the 'binoculars' he had in his own world, but they were a fairly small apparatus, more like just a small lens on a cylinder. They waited, observing from the distance until they spot the men arriving and followed right after. They were the fifth and sixth people to arrive at the destination."I thought for sure we were gonna be the first ones…" Josiah said."I told you everybody would have the same idea."They waited a bit longer, close to an hour, and more participants arrived at the spot during the period. But no close to thirty. After this period of waiting the examiner finally pronounced himself:"That's it. These are the people who're