A Soldier's Life
chapter-2

At breakfast, the food they fed us was copious but bland. I had trouble eating as my new reality was sinking in. I listened intently to others speaking and heard familiarity in their speech but did not place it. Some words almost made sense, but the heavy accent and rapid speech made it difficult. We had no guards when I walked around the buildings. That surprised me, but I remained close to my assigned building and watched the older classes training. They worked on conditioning, fighting with various weapons, and coordinated marches and small formations of sixteen to twenty men. My stomach roiled as the muscular and fit men prepared. My stomach ponch was evident, and I was worried about what I had gotten myself into.

We waited two more days before all bunks were filled. I was given a translation amulet charged at breakfast by one of the magicians who healed injuries. His name was Damian, and I made efforts to befriend him. I thought it wise to be on friendly terms with the man who literally held your life in his hands. With the amulet, it was great to talk to others freely finally. Most of the men in our 100-person barracks were here because they, like me, had opted to be soldiers rather than laborers to pay off their crimes. Most of the crimes were not as petty as mine, though, with lots of murderers and assault cases.

The amulet only worked when it was around my neck, so I was able to take it off and start to parse the language. I spent most of my free time connecting the words and developing a vocabulary. I think the language was related to English, so I rapidly added it to my mental dictionary. I was unsure if it was because I was a foreigner, my demeanor, or that I just did not speak the language without the amulet, but I had difficulty making friends. After two days of relative freedom, our barrack was filled, and our training began.

We had seven trainers who also served as wardens. One of our group tried to escape the second night, and he was promptly put on trial and executed. The follow-up speech by Silas, the Legion commander in charge, was not pleasant: “You leave the compound without permission of an instructor, and you will be executed. Know that you can not run. Our mages,” he indicated seven men in a row, “will track you in minutes. You choose to be here to atone for your crimes.” He made a hand motion, and one of the trainers grimly slid a long, pointed dagger under the chin and up into the brain of the violator. The defiant look on his face turned to horror as he died. I promptly vomited and was not the only one.

The scene made me have second thoughts about my choice to join and erased all thoughts of escaping myself. Ten months of hard labor was probably a better alternative. The dead man’s bed was promptly filled with another recruit. There were seven barracks. Each with 100 bunks. When a barracks was full, the 7-month training began, usually on the first of the month. Each barracks had seven trainers, and a large estate building housed all the command staff. I wasn’t sure how many command staff there were, but Damian, who lived there, said it was over 100, not including attendants. There were also more than the seven mages who had been on display at the execution, but Damian said their number fluctuated between ten and fifteen.

On the first morning, we ran with weights before breakfast. Then ate a large meal. Then, we had a lecture that sounded mostly like propaganda to me. Our seven instructors schooled us in hand-to-hand combat after the lecture. We were told if you lose a tooth, save it, and the magician can heal it back in place, but that they would not waste aether in regrowing it. After hand combat, we had another meal. Then, we were schooled in sword forms. We had to learn seven sword forms, each with seven segments. We practiced with weighted swords, striving for perfect movements. If we were good, they would give us a heavier sword.

After a few hours with the sword, we spent time with one of the instructors. Each one taught another weapon, dagger, axe, crossbow, short sword, two-handed sword, spear, and polearm. They told us our goal was not to master another weapon but to learn enough to know how to fight effectively against someone with these weapons. So, we rotated every day between instructors in groups of 15. After the cross-weapon training, we did some more fitness training till sunset. Then we had a shower fed by an aqueduct, received healing if needed, and more food. We had two hours to ourselves before the sun set and darkness filled the barracks.

The first few days, I had trouble moving. My body just stopped responding to the intense fatigue. The instructors did not scream and yell at me like in the movies. Instead, they offered calmly worded threats that I would be sent to the regular army if I could not keep going. That seemed to motivate the other men, so I also forced myself to continue. Convicted men in the army were usually sent to the front lines and used as fodder. At least, that was what the instructors told us. I pushed to keep myself from that fate.

Most of us slept for our free two hours. I, however, noticed one of the only two women in our barracks of 100 practicing with a staff. Her name was Helena. I befriended her after some effort. The other woman in our group usually moved from bed to bed at night, whoring herself out for favors. Helena trusted me after a few days, and I spent my evenings gaining proficiency with the staff. Getting my abused body to do the extra training was not easy, but I was finding a mental resilience to the pain.

At night, before going to sleep, I always tried my damnedest to charge the medallion myself. If there was magic in this world and I had a wisp of it, then I could make it work for me eventually. After two weeks of this, I think I was starting to feel the aether, but I was unsure.

My body was broken repeatedly during training—literally. We had good healers to repair our injuries. Torn ligaments, broken bones, concussions, cuts, internal bleeding—all of it was repairable with magic if they got to you in time. I got healing just about every day and found myself starting to become numb to the pain—which one of the instructors told me was the point. It was a hallmark of a Legionarie, fighting on when his body was broken. At least now, I was able to function relatively normally with a broken arm.

After three weeks, we were tested on the tablet again. Fourteen of our 100 washed out after the test and were sent to the regular army training camp. Some of us were surprised, but after I talked with Damian, I found out the amount of resources needed to train members of the Legion of Lion was ten times that of the regular army. This meant Commander Silas liked to cull the groups early. He explained this allowed our instructors to focus on the more promising soldiers.

Damian, one of the dozen magicians administering the test, let me peruse my results on the tablet after my reading. Most of the other soldiers just had their results copied and sent away. Making friends with the man had been a boon for me.

Physical	Mental	Magical
Strength (+10/+0)	31/79	Intellect (+0/+0)	25/54	Aether Pool (+0/+0)	7/21
Power (+7/+0)	29/82	Reasoning (+2/+0)	35/59	Channeling (+1/+0)	3/55
Quickness (+2/+0)	18/49	Perception (+1/+0)	45/60	Aether Shaping (+1/+0)	1/8
Dexterity (+3/+0)	17/55	Insight (+1/+0)	19/48	Aether Tolerance (+0/+0)	19/50
Endurance (+11/+0)	41/87	Resilience (+0/+0)	40/71	Aether Resistance (+0/+0)	3/19
Constitution (+3/+0)	22/65	Empathy (+0/+0)	9/21	Prime Aether Affinity	Space
Coordination (+7/+0)	17/60	Fortitude (+6/+0)	30/87	Minor Aether Affinity	Time

My physical stats had made good progress. I was more curious to see my magic skills, which had barely moved, but still, they had moved! So the hour I had spent every night in bed trying to charge my amulet had done something. It gave me the motivation to continue the effort.

After the tablet reading, we had a large round of combats over three days to rank the remaining 86 members of the squad. I placed 48th in hand combat, 37th in sword combat, 77th with daggers, and 29th with sword and shield. It had been the first time we had been given a shield, so I thought I did well.

Then, in a sort of awards ceremony, the top three placers in each combat got a minor essence of strength or power for a reward. The small marble-sized balls that were dark purple or orange, which the winners eagerly consumed. What is an essence? From Damian, I found out there are two effects of essences. One that could raise your potential in stat and one that could raise your attribute without having to bust your ass in training. The bottom three performers were sent to the army camp, reducing our barracks number to 83 after just three weeks of training.

Talking to Damian, I found each minor essence costs between 1 and 20 gold coins depending on which stat. Physical stats were the cheapest, while magical stats were the most costly, and mental ones fell in between. Generally, it took between 10 and 30 minor essences to raise force a stat up one point without training. Unfortunately, minor essences usually have no effect once a stat reaches half of a person’s potential unless the individual also trained.

There were also major essences that were about an inch in diameter. These could help raise stats to about 80% of your potential without having to train. They were also ten times as effective at raising stats over minor essences, meaning you only needed to use 1 to 3 for an increase. According to Damian, major essences cost between 50 to 500 gold.

Finally, there were apex essences. They were the size of a golf ball but were very difficult to harvest, cost hundreds of gold, and could raise someone past 80% of their potential without training. More importantly, though, apex essences were the only thing that could raise your potential, the ceiling limitation of your stat. These essences were rare, expensive, and reserved for nobility. Using them on yourself was a crime unless you had permission from a noble.

I began the next three weeks of training extremely focused on improving my combat skills. The instructors noticed and gave me more attention in practice sessions. I didn’t want to fall below the imaginary line that would have me sent to the regular army. If I was going to survive in this world, I needed this training. I found my body acclimating to its new reality, and most of my body fat was gone after just six weeks.

The next tablet test, three weeks later, yielded good results for me.

Physical	Mental	Magical
Strength (+6/+0)	37/79	Intellect (+0/+0)	25/54	Aether Pool (+1/+0)	8/21
Power (+7/+0)	36/82	Reasoning (+0/+0)	35/59	Channeling (+0/+0)	3/55
Quickness (+3/+0)	21/49	Perception (+3/+0)	48/60	Aether Shaping (+0/+0)	1/8
Dexterity (+1/+0)	18/55	Insight (+1/+0)	20/48	Aether Tolerance (+0/+0)	19/50
Endurance (+6/+0)	47/87	Resilience (+1/+0)	41/71	Aether Resistance (+0/+0)	3/19
Constitution (+2/+0)	24/65	Empathy (+0/+0)	9/21	Prime Aether Affinity	Space
Coordination (+12/+0)	29/60	Fortitude (+7/+1)	37/88	Minor Aether Affinity	Time

The tester only recorded my physical and mental stats, ignoring the magic column again. I had substantial gains in my physical stats. I was benefiting from all the weapon practices. My mental fortitude potential had increased from 87 to 88. I asked the tablet testing mage about it. It wasn’t Damian this time, but my goodwill among the mages seemed to have spread.

He checked the records, “A single point in potential increase is not unheard of. The tablet’s calibration could be off, or you could have just been on the cusp between values. You shouldn’t worry about it. Don’t be surprised if it is 87 on your next reading.” I had waited to be last in line so I could review my scores, and the three mages administering the test packed up the three tablets they were using carefully and left.

Six people were expelled from our barracks after the tablet testing, bringing our number to 77. Rumor spread among us that the goal was to finish with 30 Legionnaires. The top 6 in our class would be sent to the capital to join the Royal Legion, and the remaining 24 would form a platoon under the command of a mage and be sent on missions across the Telhian Empire.

Combat testing was fairly intense this round as everyone realized they might not make it and have to go to the regular army. The army was considered fodder to hold the borders. Life expectancy was not very high. I finished 19th in sword ranking, 24th in sword and shield, 29th in dagger, and 9th in hand-to-hand. We were also tested on our marksmanship with the crossbow, and I finished 18th. Once again, prize essences were handed out to the top three for each event, and three more soldiers were cut—74 of us remained.

We, shockingly, were given a day off with our first in 6 weeks of intensive training finished.