The months started to blend together. Each day, the Duncan who went in to eat dinner at dusk could undoubtedly defeat the Duncan who rose from his bed just half a day earlier. When he first arrived in Dintarnum, he thought himself a good swordsman. Now, he knew he had been and still was nothing but a child among giants. It made him eager. Eager to rise the next day and improve beyond what he had been the day before.

  Each day, Neta and Cinder laid the groundwork for him to rise above his peers. They stopped introducing new enchanted items, instead letting him play around with different combinations of enchantments he’d already learned to use. Now, they focused almost exclusively on sword forms and sword types. Neta was a big believer that there was a sword for every fight; you just had to find it and know how to use it to win. So, she made sure Duncan knew how to use as many different swords as possible in as many different ways as possible.

  Duncan took to every lesson like a fish to water. Every form was ingrained into his body with constant repetition, and every sword eventually felt like an extension of his body. Then, he would learn to use what he’d practiced in monster hunts or spars. Every new monster hunt gave him more experience to use for the next, and each spar let him hone his new skills to an even sharper edge.

  Eventually, Cinder decided Duncan needed more variety when it came to sparring partners. Duncan needed to face different weapons and fighting styles. Not everyone used a sword, and not every sword user fought like the O’Leons.

  So, Cinder started to invite other students of Duncan’s age to come and spar with the boy. It didn’t take long to find out that neither Duncan nor the other students were gaining much from the experience. Duncan would win so fast that no one really learned anything.

  The boy was just too good in pure swordsmanship and combat instinct for anyone to beat him without a significant tier advantage or using Abilities from their Subject.

  So, Cinder decided to invite some of his friends over to see the boy fight. After they saw him fight, they wanted to fight him themselves. Despite the extreme tier difference, Cinder was proud to say Duncan could still beat some of those old monsters. Granted, they would all reduce their power down to tier one at the most and not use any of their Abilities, but these were still some of the best combatants in the City. They’d been advancing for decades.

  Duncan was just that good with a sword in his hands. That, together with Cinder and Neta’s guidance, propelled him forward faster than he could have possibly imagined. Jen often told Duncan he was even more of a protégé than Cinder was at his age.

  Jen Carston, Sonny’s mother, had apparently been trying to sneak into the estate to spar with Duncan for the better part of a year, but Cinder had been blocking her. She wore him down, though, and eventually she stood opposite Duncan in the training yard. After that, she’d practically begged Neta, her old master, to let her come back since she didn’t currently have any students of her own and was taking a break from realm delving to be there for the final years of Sonny’s own training. Neta agreed, to Cinder's disappointment and Duncan’s delight.

  Now, as the days stretched from dawn to dusk, Duncan often found himself in the company of three of the finest sword users in Dintarnum. The magnitude of this opportunity was not lost on him. Back when he was preparing to leave Earth, if someone had told him that he would be training under such masters, he would have laughed at the absurdity. Yet, here he was, living a reality that surpassed his wildest dreams.

  Even with their help, however, Duncan was by no means mastering the sword. If anything, he was learning just how impossible a task that actually was. No matter how much he trained or how many new forms and sword types he learned, he could never touch his two sparring partners, despite them reducing their physical levels to match his own. Cinder and Jen were now his ideals. They were the goal he would strive to one day surpass.

  He just needed more experience. More training. More opportunities to test himself.

  So, he trained. He learned new forms. He learned new swords. He tried new enchantment combinations. He sparred. He ate Cinder’s cooking. He slept. Then he trained some more.

  And, of course, he went on plenty of monster hunts. This was where he truly realized how much he was improving. It was hard to judge his progress when he was being thrashed by two master sword users every day, but he knew he was getting better when he started to easily handle monsters that would have given him trouble just a month earlier. And he wasn’t the only one improving.

  Phevona had grown into quite a formidable team leader, quickly and effortlessly directing her team’s tactics with both her commands and her spell casting. For Sonny, spotting him as he stalked his prey through the forests and valleys surrounding Mount Myphen was nearly impossible for anyone without a Subject.

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  Then there was DJ. He pretty much just grew. A lot. It turns out he hadn’t reached maturity yet and was still growing. Now, he was the size of a pony from Earth and would apparently keep growing until he reached tier one when he bonded with Sonny.

  Duncan was thankful he’d met some dependable people to watch his back, and the three of them had already talked about forming a team once they had gone through their Subject trials. It was obvious their masters had planned for such an eventuality when they’d put them together for their first monster hunt.

  Now, they already had half of a typical six-person team. DJ would likely become a bonded beast once Sonny got his Subject, so they would be considered one person from that point forward.

  Despite already having half a team, finding the other half … was proving to be a challenge.

  Early on, it was just Duncan, Phevona, Sonny, and DJ going on monster hunts together. Later, their masters started adding new students to their hunts to see if anyone would prove a good match. All of the new kids were competent, but their personalities often clashed with the rest of the team.

  On one hunt, an elf boy named Lucan joined them. His offensive magic had brought a lot of firepower to the team… literally. He used A LOT of fire. However, there was something else he brought to the team that was less than desirable.

  “Grandpa! You can’t expect me to walk with this foot.” Lucan liked to complain… a lot. It didn’t help that he was comfortable complaining as much as he did to master Boetin since he was the boy’s grandfather.

  After almost an hour of constant complaints about his slightly sprained ankle and the team's incompetence for letting him get injured, Duncan wasn’t the only one at the end of his patience. It was only his respect for Boetin that kept him from putting Lucan in his place. He didn’t have to bother with it in the end, as Boetin himself rounded on the boy.

  “Lucan. I will hear no more of this from you.” Boetin was red with rage up to the tips of his pointed ears.

  “But grandpa,” Lucan whined back. “If it weren’t for that mutt letting one of those earth elementals through…”

  “Phevona clearly explained when she went over the plan that Duncan and DJ were not to hold a defensive position. Neither of them could hold ground against something as physically strong as a rock elemental, despite Duncan’s courageous effort to do so when you failed to retreat in time.”

  Lucan had just looked back at his grandfather stubbornly. “Retreat. We were winning. Why would I retreat? I’m not a coward.”

  Boetin smacked the back of his grandson’s head. “You were winning because the plan was working.” The older elf just sighed to himself before continuing. “What was the name of Phevona’s plan, Lucan?”

  “Why does it matter what the name of the plan was?”

  “The plan, which was a solid one for this group against a rockslide of earth elementals, required the team to retreat in order and attack targets of opportunity when Phevona’s control spells separated single elementals from the group. Strategic retreat was literally the name of the battle plan. Unlike the others, you didn’t have to retreat to begin with because you started so far from the front line.” The master support mage had just shaken his head in resignation at the idiocy of his grandson.

  Phevona hadn’t been able to refrain from adding in an aside with Duncan and Sonny, “Maybe if he weren’t so lazy growing up, he would have been fast enough to stay ahead of a rock that moves slower than DJ after one of my dad’s all-you-can-eat family meals.” The three friends didn’t stop laughing until they arrived back in the city.

  Thankfully, that was the first and last hunt they went on with Lucan. Sometimes, others would be added to the group, and sometimes, only one or two of them would go out together. They also went on multiple solo hunts to get used to fighting alone as they would need to for their Subject trials. However, for Duncan, it was always the best when it was he, Phevona, Sonny, and DJ against the world.

  ***

  Five months after Duncan’s first monster hunt, it was once again time for the Choosing. Luckily, he wouldn’t have to participate this time. What he did have to do, however, was take the day off from training with his masters since Cinder, Neta, and Jen would all be at the Choosing looking for potential new students.

  Duncan had been in Dintarnum for a year now, and in all that time, he’d never spent a day without training or going on a monster hunt. To put it simply, he didn’t know what to do.

  “Let’s go into the city,” Phevona suggested when Duncan told her his plans to stay around the estate and train all day. “Come on. You’ve never had the chance to explore the city. There has to be something you are interested in seeing or doing. Maybe you can look into some potential non-combat Subjects. I always love going to the alchemy shops to get ideas for potions and elixirs.”

  “Neta and your dad refuse to let me even think about a non-combat Subject until I’m further along in my training. They say a combat Subject will keep you alive while a non-combat Subject will give you a break from the fighting. They want me to worry about staying alive first.”

  “Well, then, how about we go shopping? You still only ever wear those plain training clothes that great-grandmother gave you.”

  Duncan looked down at the dark grey trousers and long-sleeve tunic he was wearing. The dark leather and fur-lined jacket he wore to protect against the cold winter was hanging on the other side of the main room of the apprentice quarters.

  “All I’ve done is train and fight monsters for the past year. Where exactly would I go that would require me to wear anything other than training clothes… or my new armor?” A few days prior, Cinder had presented Duncan with a basic set of armor, a mix of leather and tier zero steel. It wasn’t anything close to full plate armor, focusing more on speed and flexibility than full protection, but it was still more than Duncan was used to wearing. As soon as he’d received it, Neta had told him to wear it from then on while training, so he could get used to fighting while armored. Apparently, heavier variants were in the works for him to experience a wide variety of armor styles.

  “Plus, I don’t have any money. I don’t even know how money works here.”

  Phevona looked at Duncan, stunned. “You’ve been here for a year, and you trained to come to this realm for most of your life, and you don’t know how money works?”

  “They only focused on basic Corvelin history and combat training at the Academy, at least for those of us in the combat division. And since I got here, I’ve done nothing but train and hang around your family’s estate. I haven’t needed to use money at all.”

  “But what about your share of the money we’ve earned by completing monster hunts for the Guild and selling off monster parts?”

  “What money? We get paid to go on monster hunts?”

  Phevona stared at him, incredulous. Then she sighed. “Sometimes I forget you grew up in a weird, manaless realm. Of course, we get paid. The monsters we’ve been fighting are all monsters the Adventurers’ Guild pays for upon proof of death. I’ve been getting my cut of the money from Master Boetin every month since we started.

  Duncan couldn’t believe it. Where was his money?

  “I’ll bet Dad completely forgot to pick up your share from the Guild this whole time. Come on, let’s go ask him before he has to leave for the Choosing.” Before Duncan could respond, she was out the front door of the apprentice quarters and heading for the main house.

  “Wait. Phevona! I still don’t know how money works! Phevona!”