If Tomás had one real for each time he was transported to a wide space inside his mind, he would have two reals, what is not much, but is weird that it happened twice and in such a short span of time. It was just this morning that he woke up to the Guide telling him about his insignificance and the secrets of the universe. But this time, it was much different.

  "THAT.", said a disembodied woman's voice.

  The infinite space contracted, not being so infinite anymore. The starry space got compressed, with the infinity of stars and nebulas becoming dimmer and dimmer.

  "WAS.", said the voice, again.

  The floor, which didn't exist, now was made from white marble tiles, but there were no walls to delimit the end of said floor, so, as Tomás looked around, the place had become a desert of reflective stone. A gravity started pulling Tomás down until he touched the newly build solid ground.

  "FUCKING."

  Walls made from stone bricks rose from beneath the marble floor, forming a long rectangle room with no doors or windows. A high roof trespassed by wood supports also appeared, making the structure resemble a palace hall, but made from memory by someone that didn't understand a single thing about architecture. The invisible light source that illuminated everything now took shape as a crude iron chandelier hanging from the roof, with brasiers on the walls separated by uniforms intervals to illuminate the place even further.

  "AWESOME!!"

  A throne appeared, as well as an incredible amount of weapon supports full of the most varied types of melee weapons Tomás had ever seen. One of the technical courses Tomás concluded was Metallurgy, which raised inside him a curiosity about medieval forging and the many tools a blacksmith could make. With his not so vast knowledge, he recognized lucernes, war hammers, claymores, Zwei handers, picks, spears, halberds, and everything he saw on his European style forging books, as well as exotic Asian and African weapons, such as hasarigamas, Yaris, naginatas, patas, Talwars, khopeshs, shotels, Nguni, and many others he never saw before or knew existed.

  As Tomás was mesmerized by the incredible arsenal of weapons, a figure appeared next to the throne. Tomás got out of his amazement and turned to look. Clad in full plate armor and with a closed helmet, with no features to show, not even the eyes, the figure was easily more than two meters tall, towering over the human by a wide margin. It was a hulking being, apparently made only by well-polished steel. It stood there; its arms open wide in a friendly manner.

  “I watched your fight human, and, let me tell you, I loved your courage.”, the figure said. “Tomás, right? Call me Atena, to make matters simpler. I am the Warrior.”

  “You are what now? With all due respect, of course.”, said Tomás, taking all the information in.

  “I am Atena, aspect of war, the Warrior for short. Never heard of me?”, Atena said.

  “Atena is the Greek god of wisdom and strategic war, right? Wasn’t Ares the god of war?”, said Tomás.

  “I had many names throughout history, and many times got mixed together, but remember that almost all gods of war in many mythologies are me. Mortals just get confused every time they went for war. The horrors of war and all that. I can be very merciful and very scary at the same time.”, Atena said, dumping a lot of information.

  “Are you alright? You are talking really fast and I can’t catch up with all that you are saying.”, said a confused Tomás.

  “Sorry, it is just that I don’t talk with anyone in a very long time. Oh, what am I saying, we shouldn’t waste time. Let’s get to the main point of you being here.”, she said.

  “Which is…?”

  “I want a sparring partner, because I don’t fight anyone in ages! I don’t want to be laughed at by other gods, don’t you agree mortal?”, she said. Tomás shrugged. “And for that, you my little willing punch bag, is the right choice for the job.”

  “Wait, what?”, said Tomás, stepping back from the goddess.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you.”, she paused. “Probably. Come on, don’t be shy, I don’t bite. Usually.”, she said, pulling the ground beneath Tomás and dragging him closer to her.

  She manifested a mannequin beside her with a full set of full plate armor. As Tomás got closer, she held him in place and started strapping the armor on him like a mother would do to a very small child. Tomás couldn’t do anything and just stood there, waiting.

  “Consider this a reward for your efforts and me using your comatose state as advantage.”, Atena said, strapping the chest plate in place. “It is not every day that a god of war give you fighting advice. Between you and me, you lack a lot when it comes to proper fighting techniques.”

  “Wait, what did you just said? I am in a coma!?”, said an incredulous Tomás.

  “Induced coma, but yes. You will be fine. That girl with you will take care of everything. I say you only be comatose for just three days, at best.”

  Tomás looked down, thoughtfully. Was she referring to Silvia and her healing Magic? Will he really be alright? How were things at the Base? Were the folks Silva, Gustavo, Olivia, the civilians, alright? How was the reception from the brass? Any reprimands? Any punishments? The knowledge about Presence, Aura, Mana, was it being used? The doubts plagued Tomás’ mind, making him worry a lot.

  “It’s done, let’s start. Pick a weapon.”, Atena said, breaking Tomás out of his thoughts. He noticed that he was now clad in full plate armor, just like Atena. She handed him a helmet, he picked it up and put it on, noticing the constriction of his field of view.

  “Strap it on.”, said the goddess.

  “What?”, asked Tomás.

  “The straps beneath your chin, lock them. You don’t want your helmet falling off, don’t you?”, she said.

  “No, absolutely not.”, said Tomás, locking the helmet in place. “Isn’t there a gorget, a neckpiece, also?”

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  “We won’t need it, I assure you.”, the goddess said. “Come on, pick a weapon.”

  “I don’t get a choice in this, do I?”, Tomás said, walking towards one of the stands.

  “No, unfortunately. It Is good that you understand.”, said the goddess, something in her voice suggesting that she was getting impatient.

  Tomás weighted the options in front of him, analyzing all the weapons at his disposal. Choosing by familiarity, he picked a huge battleaxe with a single faced edge. With a one and a half meters long haft that reached his chest, the weapon suggested to Tomás being of Chinese origin, with its intricates but humble decorations that surprisingly didn’t affect the weapon’s balance. It was somewhat comical for him to be clad in European armor and wield a Chinese weapon, but Tomás didn’t argue, he was in the Goddess of War domain after all.

  “Okay, let us begin.”, said the goddess, summoning a huge great sword, probably a claymore, from thin air. “Step in the middle of the room.”

  Tomás did as he was told, moving in front of the huge armored dreadnought in front him. He didn’t like his chances against an atemporal being that probably embodied the concept of war, but he simply raised his weapon and got ready.

  “Ready?”, she asked. Tomás nodded. “Then here I go.”

  It happened too fast for Tomás. When the goddess got on, cracking the marble floor she stepped over, she didn’t move like a normal person would. Tomás knew that a tall person moved faster because of the size of their legs, but the being in front of him was in a whole other level, striding ahead like concepts such as inertia and drag didn’t exist. She motioned her sword sideways to the right when she was beginning to move, a wasteful act, thought Tomás, but the strike connected so fast that it didn’t made sense.

  The sword cut Tomás in two and he became a fog of his own Presence. While he reformed himself, Tomás turned to see the Warrior, some twenty meters away from him, raising her sword and getting ready to strike again.

  “Was that too fast?”, Tomás nodded, dumbfounded. “Let’s try again.”

  This time, the goddess moved a little slower than before. With another sideways slash to the right, she went at Tomás in a straight line, cracking the marble floor with each step. The sword, hovering very close to the ground, dragged pieces of the floor as it moved, destroying the path the goddess crossed.

  Tomás prepared to dodge, moving his body and weapon out of the way of the advancing Warrior. This time, Tomás was able to move out just I time, albeit just slight: he got his left arm torn off together with his shoulder, his Presence seeping out from the wound. Using how close he was from the goddess, he traded an insignificant blow with her, striking at her exposed shoulder while she destroyed his being. If she wasn’t an immortal being, the strike would have cut a deep gash on the upper part of her back, but, because she was an immortal being, the strike simply bounced off.

  Tomás went to the ground, his body reforming all the while. He noticed that he didn’t tire from the effort and that he felt no pain from the otherwise life ending wounds. Using his weapon for support, he stood up and faced the Warrior, who was now calmly walking towards him.

  “Nice strike. Not many can sacrifice themselves just for a single attempt at an enemy’s life, but you did it without hesitation, although it turned out to be fruitless.”, Atena said.

  With his arm now reformed, Tomás took the initiative. Assuming a stance similar to the one Atena made when charging him, Tomás moved with his axe to the side. Atena didn’t even moved herself, simply standing there, waiting for him to reach her. When Tomás got close to her, he brought his axe up to perform a vertical slash, paying dear attention to not commit to the strike until the last moment. Extremely fast, Atena simply took one of her hands from the grip of the sword and grabbed the haft of the axe, making Tomás and the weapon stop. Trying to force the weapon down, Tomás stood there, his arms raised to reach the taller opponent, facing the uncaring blackness of the helmet’s eye slits. The goddess grunted and simply punched Tomás so hand on the chest that he went flying to the other end of the room.

  “Bold. Very reckless, too. I don’t think a mortal can afford to be this uncaring.”, said Atena.

  Tomás picked himself up from the crack on the stone wall, as he was shoved very deep inside the thing, some two meters in, breaking the bricks like they were made from pudding. Although he was intact at the moment, Tomás would certainly die from being throw around like that, as he already experienced in the real world. Moving out of the dust cloud he created with his own body, Tomás faced the Warrior once more.

  Bringing herself very low, almost touching the floor with her chin, Atena charged again, this time preparing a strike from a very untraditional stance, one that made her look like a snake getting ready to bite or a cat preparing to pounce. Tomás kept his axe low and prepared to meet the charging Warrior with a low strike from the right, like a golf player would do when align a long shot.

  But, as the Warrior charged, something clicked inside Tomás’ mind, with him thinking “Wait, I can use Aura even here, don’t I?”. Rapidly applying the energy to his weapon, Tomás began the motion for the strike.

  When the two met themselves, Tomás was again mortally wounded, being impaled by the Warrior upwards thrust. But, as Atena brought him to her eye level, pausing like she was about to lecture him again, Tomás pointed at her shoulder. As she looked to where he was pointing, the goddess noticed his axe stuck on her pauldron with haft hanging to her back. When she turned to look at his face again, Tomás was smirking.

  “You used Aura. Very good. Now, apply that to your body.”, she simply said, throwing him across the room, killing him again when he crashed into the wall.

  Getting out of the wall again, a surprised Tomás met his axe flying in his direction, with the weapon simply housing itself gleefully on his ribcage, killing him again. Taking the weapon out of his own body, Tomás looked at the Warrior, who appeared unfazed from his previous successful strike. Now applying all of his Aura to reinforce his body and weapon, he hoped to be a better match for the goddess.

  “Is the Aura here limitless?”, he asked.

  “Prety much, since you are a guest in my domain, but you should focus on using what you can so you get better outside of this plane.”, the goddess responded. “Also, you can create a plane like this for Presence training, but that requires a lot of practice, so use this opportunity wisely.”

  Tomás nodded. Again, taking the initiative, he moved, this time much faster. He noticed his own ability getting better, with his grip and maneuverability of his weapon getting much faster and more precise than before. He wondered if it was an effect of the Warrior, with this fight improving his technique directly.

  Using the tip from the Warrior, Tomás made his body’s Aura glow orange, indicating his safe level of manipulation, but concentrated the energy on his weapon until it glowed red. While he advanced, Tomás hid his axe behind his body, attempting a feint before the strike. When he got close, bringing his axe from behind to his left side, then to above his head, Tomás motioned a downwards, slightly tilted, slash aimed to cut the Warrior in the left shoulder. Again, the Warrior blocked the strike, but this time with her sword, making Tomás’ axe shatter in a million splinters when the two weapons met.

  "Just like yourself, your weapon has a limit to the reinforcement with Aura.", the Warrior said, repeating the same punch that sent Tomás flying before. The man flew across the room again, this time, the only difference being the fact that the hole in the wall was different and that he survived. "It will break like once quenched steel if you put so much Aura on it. You must quench it again to make it flexible."

  Tomás rose from the hole on the wall with his Presence realign his broken bones and dislocated members. He increased the output of Aura to red just before colliding with wall, making so that his body somewhat resisted the absolute rag doll that the goddess throw made of him. Still holding the splintered handle of his axe haft, Tomás watched as the weapon also reformed, this time into the shape of a slightly shorter, blunter and sturdier, fire axe.

  "You are forgetting something: you can reinforce your armor too, mortal.", the goddess said, pointing her sword at Tomás. "Don't you notice me doing that?"

  Now that she said it, Tomás noticed that the Aura from the goddess came not from her body, but from her armor, a very white-hot color that made he remember of steel coming right out of the forge or industrial oven.

  "Also, let's work out your strikes. Your repertoire is too short." Atena said, moving out again when Tomás fully reformed. "Strike me from the left, your left, that's your weak point right now."

  Tomás obliged and charged.