With that, their first session truly began. Ben noticed Sarah participating in the drills and Tracy slowly walking around, correcting mistakes, but then he focused on himself, trying to keep up with the stances and triangle stepping— forward, backward, diagonally —that Barry had them attempt after the second hour.

  At one point Ben chuckled internally. If I’m one of the strongest people on the planet, why does this hurt so much? The rooted stance, in particular, activated muscles he had clearly neglected.

  When a few participants needed a break, Barry reminded them, "Without a stance, you have nowhere strike from, and nowhere to return to. It’s the basis of everything."

  That evening, despite his exhaustion, Ben returned to the very first dungeon he had cleared. He had asked his mother to give him more than his fair share of watch shifts and dungeon runs—assuming nobody else wanted the slot—as he felt he hadn’t done enough of the 'grunt work' compared to his time exploring new things.

  His emotions were in turmoil as he walked down the forest path. So much had happened since he’d stumbled into this place just a little over a week ago. He almost felt like a different person. No longer needing the exoskeleton. Building the Protectorate. Not being alone, but surrounded by family. He had to catch his breath at a sudden surge of… happiness.

  He observed the feeling in himself. He had felt the pressure of responsibility, the sadness of Serge’s loss, the relief of surviving life-and-death situations. But this was the first time he could see a path to happiness, if they could overcome their challenges.

  Knowing what to expect made a world of difference. He felt more in control. While fighting the large snake halfway through the dungeon, he thought about Barry’s third question: What is an axe?

  As he swung at the exposed side of the snake, he noticed how different his fighting style looked from swordplay in popular media. It felt less nimble or elegant, and more savage, more direct.

  He chided himself for losing focus. He wasn’t strong enough yet to take any fight lightly. He wouldn’t tell Barry he’d gotten distracted.

  He left the dungeon soon after, with three cores and some herbs for Luz that he had collected.

  Back in his cabin, he fell asleep within seconds.

  During the morning fitness session, he laughed as Adam struggled to move at all. Muscle soreness from the previous day had clearly hit him hard.

  "This serves you right for leaving before the stretching exercises at the end!"

  "Oh bugger off. Not everyone can have a body like a young Adonis," his childhood friend complained.

  In fairness, Ben was surprised that he didn’t feel sore at all. His [Resilient Body] perk apparently had a powerful side effect, allowing him to push himself even harder. Ben was determined to make the most of that boon.

  At breakfast, he sat beside Deepika. "Good morning. How are you feeling after all the training?"

  "Like I am my own grandmother. There’s not a single muscle that doesn’t hurt. I curse every day—or rather, every month—that I didn’t exercise." She laughed. "But I must say, I’m deeply impressed by Tracy and Barry. If I’d had a fitness instructor like Tracy, it would’ve been much easier to go through this torture."

  "Yeah, she’s really good. It’ll be interesting to see what impact her [Instructor] perk has."

  "Indeed. And Barry. Amazing. The depth of his knowledge and the coherence of his philosophy is truly impressive. We’re fortunate to have both of them."

  "Absolutely. To be honest, I was a bit surprised to see you at Protector training yesterday. Is that the path you want to follow—to use Barry’s words?" Ben looked at her curiously.

  "The truth is, I don’t know." She paused. "It’s a big leap from physicist to magical fighter deep in a forest." Her eyes twinkled at the absurdity. "Maybe there’ll be other opportunities, but I don’t think you have much use for a physicist right now. I want to feel useful. Even if I don’t end up as a full Protector, I want to be better prepared to help on the walls and protect my family."

  Ben nodded. That made sense. "Sure. You’re more than welcome, and our value of ‘Growth - ever forward' doesn’t mean there can’t be any detours." He winked. "We’re all very happy to have you and your family with us."

  After breakfast, his mother caught up with him. "I talked with Julia." She wiggled her eyebrows. "She’s calmed down a bit. You know how she is. I think the reality of life here is very different from that first week in the city, when not much had actually changed. Now, without electricity, life down there is probably hellish, but she hadn’t experienced that. And she admits it.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  "She also understands that being safe up here requires us to defend ourselves. She just hates the 'militaristic bullshit.'" Allison laughed.

  "Anyway, give her some time. At the end of the day, you’re her big brother, and she loves you very much.”

  “Today, I want to talk with you about the first mantra. We’ll discuss it with the full group, but there are some aspects of it that I find especially relevant for you.” Barry waited for Ben to nod before he continued.

  He stood up, impatiently motioned for Ben to do so as well, and then got very close to him—shoulders back, eyes open, jaw clenched.

  Abruptly, he stepped back. The tension seemed to leave him, replaced by a cocky smile as he sauntered around Ben, looking him up and down from all sides.

  He stopped in front of Ben, a couple of meters back, shoulders down, left arm slightly raised in a defensive posture.

  After a few seconds, he sat back down and motioned for Ben to do the same.

  “Now, that was of course very exaggerated. But at the heart of the mantra is the insight that everything leading up to, during, and after a fight is a form of communication. Every move says something—confidence, desperation, weakness. Learning to read your opponents may even allow you to prevent a fight altogether. Eventually, you'll be able to identify tells during a fight that will reveal openings.”

  Ben thought about this. “So by reading my opponents, I can ‘write my fate,’ meaning shape the outcome of a fight. Yes, that makes sense.”

  “Well, the ‘write your fate’ part actually refers to the second half of the insight. You don’t want to send signals to your opponent unconsciously. Instead, you need to be aware of the message you convey and shape that with intent. All of us can do this during a fight—for example, by seemingly having a tell that traps your opponent.

  “For you specifically, there’s a larger message. From what you’ve told me, you currently protect others by jumping in front of them and taking blows. There may be situations where that’s needed, but don’t forget—you can also protect others by what you represent. By the threat that you pose.”

  This was a perspective that was new to Ben. It hadn’t been relevant when fighting dungeon monsters—at least, he didn’t believe he could intimidate those into not attacking. But he was, unfortunately, sure that eventually they would get into conflicts with other humans, and in those interactions, the persona he presented could be critical.

  “I’m not saying this so that you change from being your kind self to becoming a bully. I’m saying this so that you actively analyze situations and choose your approach with intent.”

  Ben stared at the small field in the southwest corner of the settlement that Adam had given to Zack and Liz to experiment with growing food.

  He wasn’t an expert, but it looked like a lot of progress had been made in the few days since the couple had started. There were three rows of plants—tomatoes, carrots, lettuce. In each row, progress varied greatly between individual plants. The furthest along were a couple of tomato plants that, while still small, already carried a few green tomatoes.

  “This looks very promising. How is it going?”

  Adam gave a thumbs-up and invited the two biologists to respond.

  Liz grinned. “It’s great fun, I have to say, and we’re seeing real progress.”

  “Indeed,” Zack chimed in. “As you can see, the experiments we’re running are hugely meaningful and, if taken to their logical conclusion, will have a significant impact on humanity’s ability to feed itself. Our experimental structure is based on three different plants. For each plant, we have four different modifications that we’re testing. And for each modification, we do or do not use Liz’s perks. You can see the variance in outcomes…”

  Ben raised an eyebrow. “What kind of modifications?”

  Liz took over again. “Zack’s original perk has evolved into something that allows him to adjust the plants to their environment in different ways. It’s called [Biomancer’s Touch]. The best analogy is probably gene editing—but with Energy. Our approach is a lot less sophisticated as we don’t really understand it yet; it’s mostly trial and error, but we’re making it work. I have a perk that has evolved into [Biomancer’s Growth], which lets me accelerate the development of crops—but only if they’ve been modified to fit an Energy environment.

  “We still need to test further and check whether what we grow is healthy and tasty, but if I had to guess, I’d say we should be able to double growth compared to controlled greenhouse environments—even at this early stage. That means tomatoes could grow from seed to harvest in a month.”

  Adam clapped his hands. “That’s excellent news.” He turned to Ben. “If we assume further improvements and add a system-built greenhouse—which probably also has beneficial effects—we should be able to feed a lot of people, even without huge fields. And right now, we’d struggle to protect large fields.”

  Ben nodded enthusiastically. “Indeed—awesome news. Thank you so much for working so hard on this. Your work is incredibly important for the sustainability of the Protectorate.”

  “You clearly have no idea how to stand or breathe yet,” Barry told the Protectors after another two hours of relentless training. “However, let’s make a very first attempt at ‘strike.’ For now, we will not use any weapons. First, we learn the basic principles. Then we employ weapons.”

  Ben had never really been interested in martial arts, but the practice over the last two days had felt good. Though he was working around the clock, he had the sense that he could breathe more freely for the first time in a while. Letting himself go with the flow of Barry’s training was a stark contrast to the responsibilities he’d been feeling lately.

  He tried to implement Barry’s guidance of ‘alive hands,’ but he wasn’t sure what was meant by “relax in motion, tense at impact.” Well, the second part was clear—but the first, less so.

  Barry positioned himself in front of Ben. “Go through the motion… slowly… yes, but watch your wrist. Good. Now a little bit faster. Again. And again.”

  Ben was grateful for the feedback and managed to keep up.

  “Now hit me… Don’t look at me like that—hit me.”

  Ben hesitated, then did as he was asked. Barry barely moved after being struck in the chest.

  “Where did you aim?”

  “Your chest.”

  “That’s the problem. You aimed all your strength essentially at my skin—the surface. That might be good for a nice massage, but not in a fight. A basic principle, which also holds true for fighting with weapons: you need to strike through, not at. Again.”