The next two weeks were a blur of constant activity. Working out with Davi in the mornings seemed to lighten the big guy’s mood. The bags under his eyes disappeared and he became much more cheerful, although he still complained about the frustrating [Bard] lessons every chance he got.

About four days in he dropped his weights with a surprised look on his face, as if he’d just come to a profound realization. “I can be a [Bard] and still be strong.”

“Yeah, obviously. You’ll still be strong no matter what Class you take,” Brin responded.

Davi just shook his head like Brin didn’t get it, which maybe he didn’t.

That day he asked to join in on Brin’s spear lessons. Hogg responded by saying “No way,” and then handing Davi a stick nearly identical to Brin’s spear shaft. “A quarterstaff is the weapon for you.”

Then Davi joined right in. He moved through the spear forms with Brin, and then Hogg went through another set of forms just for him while Brin practiced a perfect thrust over and over.

The workouts with Hogg were grueling. He practiced with a black iron spear-shaft enchanted with weight to build the right muscles in the right places. After the morning weight training it pushed him right to the end of his endurance, and then past it. Brin might not have been able to use mana potions, but Hogg had a supply of stamina rejuvenators that kept him going, courtesy of poor overworked Calisto. He was also pretty sure that [Scarred, but Healing] was doing some heavy lifting repairing his sore muscles, so that they’d be ready for more punishment every day. The Skill increased, quietly going up from 160% to 180%, but whether that was from the training or older injuries from the undead finally healing, he didn't know.

If that wasn’t enough, Hogg ended every lesson with a short spar and didn’t take it easy on him at all. Every single bout ended with Brin taking a new bruise or welt.

“If it doesn’t hurt you’ll stop being afraid of getting hit,” he explained.

After Davi joined in, he got a second sparring match with Davi, although only once a day. He didn’t take it easy on Davi in the slightest, but Davi had been on and off training with the quarterstaff his whole life with his dad and he flattened Brin every single time.

It wasn’t without benefits though. He earned two Dexterity, two Will, four Vitality, and two Strength from training. The incredible attribute gains were a reminder of how ahead he would be if Hogg had been in his corner from the beginning, but he had no intentions of bringing that up again.

Despite all that, the lessons with Chamylla were even worse. The Language was opaque and elusive. Every time he thought he was beginning to wrap his head around it, some new contradiction arose to blow it all to pieces. Chamylla claimed he was making progress, despite how it felt. She claimed that while his mind might never really grasp the Language, his soul was gaining familiarity with it. All he knew was that it scraped his brain raw and left him with a stinging headache, though never as bad as that first day.

He didn’t get another point in Magic from learning the Language, but he did get four points in Mental Control.

The glassblowing with Ademir was a sweet relief. Ademir’s calm, cheerful disposition, and the interesting but low-intensity work were the perfect break. Although Ademir frowned more than once at the way his exhausted arms sometimes trembled. Glass blowing was very precise work, and a single tremor could leave a wave or a bubble in otherwise perfectly flat glass.

Brin kept making bottles, and over time he started to feel certain his bottles were just as good as Ademir’s, even though he still worked about a third as quickly. The white cloudiness of the glass was still an issue, but Ademir claimed all glass was like that and Brin’s steadily upgrading [Shape Glass] would soon fix it. He had made slight success with changing the color. His bottles were more likely to turn black than blue when he tried it, but he was starting to get a hang of putting just enough mana into the bottle to make it change color but not explode into disgusting black bubbles.

He gained levels at a reasonable pace, until after fifteen days of the same routine, he made a breakthrough.

Alert! [Shape Glass] leveled up! 6 -> 7