The physical training arsenal was in the Academy's western wing, where the security was heavier than other areas.
The higher class was brought to this space that felt relatively novel to them. Maren Solke was the one who led them, in the afternoon.
The interior was smaller than expected. Not cramped, but the proportions of a room were built for storage rather than occupancy, the walls lined with mounted brackets holding weapons in organized rows.
Maren stood at the room's center.
"You heard this many times. The Kingdom is at war."
She looked across the sixteen students, as she said with the flat delivery of someone stating a fact.
"You have heard about the disruptions in mineral supply chains that produce quality steel and alloy since last autumn or so. The rumor is true. The reserves are at the point of depletion, and soon, there will be a shock in a variety of sectors. In that sense…"
She turned. Moved along the wall. The students followed her by gaze.
"The fact that we managed to secure weapons for the higher class—you must realize the extent of expectations that the Kingdom have for you."
She looked at the rows.
"The Academy managed to secure exactly sixteen weapons, reserved only for the higher class students. There are four of each type. No more. Should your status as the higher class student be revoked, so would your right for these weapons."
Where she stopped, there were four steel bins.
"Bow and arrow are not represented. Arrow production requires continuous material expenditure that wartime supply chains cannot sustain, and ranged skill application replaces the bow's function adequately in a mana-capable combatant." She paused. "Axes and heavy blades require steel volume that the current allocation cannot support. They also dull quickly in field conditions—blood, bone, compressed earth. A weapon that becomes unreliable mid-engagement is a liability, not a tool. The current King, Demetrius Aetherion, once said, 'War is boring.'"
She turned to face them.
"Four types of weapons remain. Four knives. Four long swords. Four spears. Four staves." She looked across the sixteen students. "These are supporting tools. Your skill is your primary means of combat. The weapon extends your range, fills the gap when skill output requires recovery time, and provides options your skill cannot produce alone. Nothing more."
Then, Randal raised his hand, stained in callouses and draped around muscles.
"A question, professor."
"Go ahead."
"Won't it be more efficient to distribute these tools to the soldiers with lower skill ranks? It would alleviate the disadvantages that possessing a low-ranked skill would bring."
Maren, in silence, stared at him for a moment. Then, she replied, "And look where that brought us. Weapon shortages."
Randal closed his mouth.
Shifting her gaze away from him, Maren resumed.
"You will pick weapons one by one, in the order of the ranking from the previous assignment."
Isaac noticed that she was now looking at him.
"Starting from Isaac Nameless."
It was a prompt. Isaac walked up to the steel bins.
He looked at the weapons.
The staves were the first thing that entered his sight, poking out from the bin due to their lengths. Extended reach, two-handed operation, the specific utility of a weapon designed to create and maintain distance. However, it was designed to smash, not to cut. It was heavy enough to impede movement depending on circumstances.
A staff was clearly a weapon designed for particular skills such as [Reinforcement]. It was for someone whose skill enhanced their physical output and who needed the weapon to deliver that output at range.
Not his application.
He turned to the spears, which also poked out of the bin just like the staves. Long reach, point-accurate, beginner-friendly. The style of its sharpened tip suggested that it was made to stab, to maintain distance.
A weapon of this sort would work great when coordinated with others, in a tight formation that didn't allow enemies to circle around. Problem was that battlefield tended to get chaotic.
Not his optimal choice.
Next came the long swords. The heaviest of the four types, the most demanding in terms of trained technique, the weapon that was fabled to be used by heroes and champions. Every boys fawned upon the idea of swinging long swords to make their name. It required an expertise of another level, and a failure to meet that requirement would render this tool into a liability rather than an advantage.
Of course, he could learn it, if he were to dedicate himself. However, he had other uses for several months. Unless one's skills were support types such as Lyra Aetherion's [Clairvoyance], he didn't see the point.
Naturally, that left him with one remaining option. He looked into the bin.
There were four knives in the bin. He inspected them.
Two appeared to be a brand new. The other two appeared to be used and worn out.
Z. Y.
One of the used knives had initials engraved on its handle.
He took the knife.
The weight settled in his palm with the compact quality of something that had been built for precision rather than force. The blade was standard—not exceptional but functional. It also appeared that its blade was reinforced through the use of additional alloys. This meant that technically, the used blades had more metal compressed than the new ones.
Z. Y. Someone had used this before. The wear pattern was consistent with a right-hand grip, index finger positioned slightly forward of the standard hold, the posture of someone who had developed their own technique rather than following the institutional template.
Isaac made his choice.
He returned to his position.
"That…" By his side, Magnus whispered skeptically, "Are you sure about that one, Isaac? It doesn't look too good."
"What do you value in weapons, Magnus?"
"Well… its sharpness?"
"I looked for a different quality." Isaac calmly replied, as they watched Vane walking up next. "I was seeking for durability. Sharpness easily dulls in battlefield."
Magnus squinted his eyes at Isaac's knife as if trying to understand. "Hm," he said, "And how do you know that?"
"Books."
"Uh… books aren't perfect, you know?"
"Written by war veterans."
Cassiopeia, on the other side, turned rigid. Then, she turned toward them.
"Battle of Ninety-three Days by Fermund Terra?"
"An old classic."
As Isaac said, she smiled, "I accord."
Magnus looked at the two, blinking.
Vane them seemed to have chosen his weapon. He lifted a long sword from the bin with the practiced ease of someone whose hands recognized the weight. He stepped back. Set it along his forearm. Nodded once to no one in particular.
He had been trained on it. The selection was already made before he entered the room.
"Cassiopeia Terra." Maren called.
Cassiopeia went to the spear rack. She lifted one, tested the balance with a single rotation that had the economy of someone evaluating a tool rather than performing with it.
"What are you getting?" Magnus then asked Vesper, who was silent the whole time, seemingly in a deep thought. "I am thinking of a spear like her. Complements my [Raging Fire] quite well I think."
"A knife… likely." Vesper said.
"Like Isaac?"
"Other weapons get in the way of my [Shapeshift], in accordance with the simulation that I ran."
As they spoke, Cassiopeia returned with spear.
"Princess Lyra Aetherion."
Lyra's selection required three seconds. Long sword, lifted from the bracket with the specific ease of someone for whom the weight was already known. She settled it along her side and returned to her position before most students had finished watching her approach the rack.
"Vesper Bardot."
"Well," Magnus nudged him, "You are up, Vesper."
"I know." Vesper then found Isaac's gaze on him. They exchanged a chuckle with a nuance that Magnus is talkative as always.
Vesper then walked up to the bins.
…
In short time, all sixteen students found their weapons.
"How fun." Silas, in particular, snorted, "A redundant spear for the owner of [Lightning Spear]." He turned to face others, "Did you do this deliberately? It just had to be a spear of all things, didn't it?"
"Well, Silas," Replied Vane, "Spear works with you quite well, actually. Close-range [Lightning Spear] has a chance of injuring you. Spear enables the distance that you need."
"I literally trained sword for years."
"Then maybe, you shouldn't have gambled your money away."
Vane's words were spot on, and Silas grumbled as he went silent.
Turning his attention away from them, Isaac looked at Vesper and Magnus, who seemed to be content with their knife and spear. He noticed that Vesper's knife was a new one unlike the used one that he chose.
"Higher class is given an exception to the rule that forbids the possession of weapons in their dorms. Demotion to the elite class revokes this prestige."
Now, Maren looked at the completed selections with the expression of someone reading a record.
"Your weapon is your responsibility. Maintenance, condition, transport. If it is damaged through negligence, it is not replaced."
She looked across the sixteen students.
"For the next three weeks prior to the week of festival, the class will focus on an intense physical training, practical all throughout. Today, you will be introduced to your instructors responsible for the training."
She moved to the arsenal room's inner door, which opened onto a secondary corridor Isaac hadn't registered before. Through it, four figures entered.
They didn't enter the way Academy faculty entered—not with the composed authority of institutional position, not with the ledger-and-pen presentation of people whose expertise was documentation. They entered the way people entered rooms they had been in versions of before, with the patient economy of someone who had spent years in spaces where the wrong movement cost more than time.
Maren indicated the first figure.
"Master Ian. Long sword."
Ian was a man of middle age with the build of someone whose frame had been shaped by sustained physical work and had retained the architecture even after the work changed. A scar ran from his left jaw to his collarbone at the angle of something that had come from above and to the right. He looked at the long sword students stoically.
"Master Ciara. Spear."
Ciara was a middle-aged woman of smaller stature—the specific build of someone whose effectiveness had never depended on mass. She held her posture with the efficiency of someone who had learned that unnecessary tension was a resource expenditure, and her eyes moved across the spear students. Isaac noted a slight pause as her eyes found Silas.
"Master Holt. Staff."
Holt was the oldest of the four, with the specific stillness of someone who had long since stopped needing to perform composure and simply had it. His staff—not the training arsenal's issue, his own, carried at his side with the easy familiarity of something he'd had longer than most students had been alive—was plain, unadorned, and clearly functional.
"And Master Sam. Knife."
Sam was short, about the same height as Ciara. Youngest among the four, but also the most injured. His left sleeve was pinned at the shoulder, indicating that the entire arm was missing. He had the specific build of someone whose remaining arm had compensated for years, the shoulder and back of his right side developed past symmetry into something else.
He looked at the knife students. His eyes lingered longer on Isaac than the other three, which was expected given how famous he's quickly gotten after the duel against Silas.
"Introduce yourselves to the instructors," Maren said. "Your training begins tomorrow. Today you carry the weapon. Learn its weight." She closed her ledger. "Dismissed."
…
The four veterans distributed themselves toward their respective groups with the unhurried quality of people who had somewhere to be and were going there at the pace the destination warranted.
Sam stopped in front of his four students. He looked at each of them in the sequence he had looked at them before.
"Name."
"Kaif Delpyon," Answered the first member of the group.
Isaac observed the peer. Kaif Delpyon—B-rank: [Mana Blast], C-rank: [Propulsion]. The skills were of long range, but it looked like he preferred the flexibility that a knife gives over the distance that a spear provides.
"Randal Ursula," answered Randal, with his huge hand covering the entire handle of his knife.
"Vesper Bardot." Vesper stated.
Sam then looked at Isaac.
"Isaac Nameless."
All four who were listening paused upon Isaac's introduction. Vesper, in particular, seemed surprise, of the fact that Isaac himself included the word 'Nameless,' an omen of a surname, in his introduction.
Sam took out a knife of his own.
"You've held this before?" he asked. The question addressed to all four of them simultaneously.
Randal nodded once.
Vesper said, "Briefly."
Kaif said, "No."
Isaac said, "No."
Sam looked at Isaac's hand—the way it held the knife, the position of the index finger forward of the standard grip, the specific posture that had developed instinctively rather than through instruction.
"That grip," he said.
Isaac looked at the knife. At the wear pattern that matched the position of his finger. "I noticed the previous user's preference and adjusted."
Sam looked at him for a moment.
"And you haven't held a knife before."
"No."
"…Tomorrow," after a pause, he moved on, addressing to all four of them. "We'll see what you actually know."
He turned and walked toward the corridor's exit with the economical pace of someone whose movement had been refined past all unnecessary expenditure.
Isaac watched him go.
He looked at the knife in his hand.
The wear pattern at the grip. The index finger's position. Someone had held this before, had used it long enough to leave the specific record of how they worked in the material itself.
He filed this. Adjusted his grip to his own hand's natural position rather than the previous user's.