Grayson decided not to bring Fera with him to apologize to Jarid. He didn't want to try and explain to her that he'd technically killed himself and fallen off the pegasus. It's not like rebuilding his brain was likely to happen again, but it would worry her in a way she didn't need right now. Instead he asked her to speak with whoever ran the Crusader's equipment stores about a uniform tabard. If he was being honest, he wasn't sure it would be appropriate to wear the uniform of Perimis considering he might become a Crusader of multiple gods. At least he knew he wasn't the first, so they probably had something worked out already.

  Grayson stepped out of the temple and walked down the street to the knight's compound. It was mid-late afternoon and he hoped Jarid was still around. Wavec had said to return today, but he would have no idea if they had been sent back to the village earlier in the day. Asking the knights standing guard at the gates, he was directed to a two-story building deeper into the compound that served as dormitories. There, he asked again about Jarid and Wavec. He found their room on the second floor, but nobody answered when he knocked.

  Fortunately their neighbor was home and sent Grayson off to the training yards. Thanking the third person who'd given him directions, Grayson found the training yards and got help finding the exact one that Jarid and Wavec were training in. There were four other knights there, all wearing armor and training with dull practice swords. Grayson waited for them to stop before stepping on to the field to talk to Jarid.

  "Good evening. I'm sorry I'm here so late, it's been a busy day." Grayson started tentatively.

  "It's not like I was sitting on my hands waiting for you. I heard about this morning. Did it have anything to do with last night?" Jarid was certainly calmer than the night before. Time and having heard that the person he was angry at had almost died simply from ambient magic he'd absorbed had done a lot to soothe him. That didn't mean he was happy to see Grayson. Grayson winced at the question.

  "Yeah, it did. Look, you deserve the full explanation, as much as I can give anyway, but it's personal. There's details that I shouldn't even be telling you, much less anyone who isn't really involved. You'll understand when I tell you, but can we go somewhere private? Wavec can come too." Jarid raised an eyebrow at the request and nodded slowly, a clear scowl on his face.

  He led Grayson and Wavec into a small storage room beside the training field. It was full of cleaning supplies and the three of them barely fit. Jarid rested his back on a crate and crossed his arms with a clink.

  "Alright, what is it?" Grayson took a deep breath.

  "On the back of your pegasus, I did something very foolish," he started.

  "No shit," muttered Jarid.

  "I rebuilt my brain."

  "Really?" Jarid made it abundantly clear how little he believed him. Grayson nodded.

  "That's what I did. For a second I was dead, my soul in the lap of Nerim. When I came back, it was a few seconds before I woke up. When I did, I was already off the pegasus." Jarid snorted at the story.

  "And you expect me to believe that? Do you have any idea how insane you sound? Nobody can just rebuild their brain like that, not even advanced healers." Jarid said scornfully.

  "I did. Look in to my eyes." Grayson said seriously. Jarid hesitated, then looked into Grayson's eyes, certain he knew what was coming next.

  "By my connection to Perimis, what I did on the back of your pegasus that caused me to fall was destroy and reconstruct my brain. May she remove her blessings if I am lying," Grayson swore. Jarid sat down heavily, staring into space. Wavec stood, eyes wide.

  "Your entire brain?" he whispered. Grayson nodded.

  "Is it even the same you?" asked Wavec.

  "I have it on the best authority that my soul is back in my body," Grayson said. Jarid was shaking his head.

  "But how does that have anything to do with this morning?" Jarid asked, not even trying to guess.

  "When I rebuilt my brain, it was to make it more conductive to mana," Grayson started. Wavec interrupted him.

  "WHAT?" he shouted, then shushed himself and whispered. "Do you have any idea how much people would pay for that? Or even for the secret of how you did it? Or for your body to dissect you?"

  "Yes," hissed Grayson, "that's why we're in this closet!" Wavec stopped and blinked.

  "Oh." he said.

  "Yes." said Grayson. Jarid seemed to have recovered from his shock. He started nodding thoughtfully.

  "So that caused you to fall off the pegasus. Did you have to do it then?" he asked.

  "I was about three seconds from having my brain cook itself." Grayson said. Jarid blinked.

  "Okay... that's a pretty good reason. And that mana conductivity helped? And then the additional mana absorption caused you to overload this morning and start purging?" Jarid asked.

  "Not exactly. After I rebuilt my brain, I took the precaution of rebuilding my entire nervous system. I did something to make sure I wouldn't fall off again when I did that." Grayson said. Jarid shook his head.

  "At least you didn't fall off again. You must have learned something," he mumbled. Grayson nodded.

  "The real problem was that when I was in bed, I rebuilt every cell in my body the same way." Jarid and Wavec stared at him.

  "You're entire body is super mana conductive?" asked Wavec.

  "You really rebuilt your entire body to be some kind of prodigal mage?" asked Jarid.

  "Yes, and yes." Grayson said, seriously. "Look, this is why I said that I shouldn't be telling you this."

  "I almost wish you hadn't..." said Jarid.

  "But you deserved the full explanation. Look, I was literally seconds from dying and did the first thing that came into my head to stop it. You were a victim of that in a small way, so you at least deserve to know what it was." Grayson stopped and looked at Wavec. "And I included you because keeping secrets alone is hard, so now you both have someone to talk to about it. Now, before we leave this room, I have to ask for your oath that you won't repeat a word of what I told you outside the brief summary I just gave."

  Jarid and Wavec looked at each other, then back at Grayson. Wavec spoke first.

  "I understand why you want the oath. This is important and could cause you immense difficulty..." Jarid interrupted him.

  "We'll give it, Grayson. You shared this secret with us without forcing the oath. I respect that. In the name of future friendship and cooperation, in the name of the lives you'll save working with the knight orders, I vow never to repeat the details of last night." Jarid saluted as he gave his oath. Wavec followed suit.

  "In the name of my honor as a knight, and on the lives of those in danger, I vow never to repeat what you told us today." he said. Grayson nodded solemnly at the pair, then clasped each of them by the forearm.

  The three left the storage room, laughing at a joke Grayson told to lighten the mood. They promised to meet for lunch on the following day, then the knights returned to their training. Grayson thanked the others for giving the trio privacy and invited them to join his friends for lunch, meeting outside the gate of the knight's courtyard next to the temples of Oris and Marrati. They all agreed to meet at noon before Grayson left, glad at the way things had turned out.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Grayson returned to the temple of Perimis, meeting up with Fera, who had a tabard for him. Unlike the uniform tabards of the other Crusaders, it was grey. It held the Icon of Perimis in the center of his chest like the uniform tabards, but around it were clear spaces, obviously intended to the icons of the other Gods. They ate dinner together and discussed plans for the next day.

  Fera accepted an invitation from Grayson to visit the temples of Oris and Marrati with him in the morning, return to the temple to give Mertaba Grayson's proposed training schedule, then spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the city. Fera was excited to show Grayson around. She had spent the latter part of her time as an acolyte in Gravistone, spending a fair amount of time out in the city with other acolytes. She talked through the evening of all the places she wanted to show Grayson, including places where they could pick up saddlebags for Grayson and luxuries to fill them.

  That night, they tried sleeping in separate rooms. Them sleeping together wasn't considered "appropriate" for an unmarried couple. It wasn't long before nightmares brought them back together, the mental wounds of Fera's ordeal still raw. Other than that, they managed to enjoy a night's uninterrupted sleep. Waking up, they prepared for an eventful day.

  Their first trip was to the temple of Marrati, Goddess of Fighters. Grayson was presented at the gates as a new Crusader of Perimis, in his grey tabard. He was met with minor skepticism before a priestess of Marrati came to welcome him in. Her name was Harren, and she was a tall, dark skinned woman with dark hair, wearing clothes similar to a tight gi, but with additional padding around the waist and torso to better mitigate strikes. She agreed to teach Grayson each morning for the first five days each week until she was satisfied with his skill. She warned him that she would be a strict teacher and lateness would not be tolerated. Thanking her, Grayson silently vowed to learn the actual days of the week in this world. He'd been here for four days, but hadn't heard the name of a single week day.

  They did a brief period of instruction to gauge Grayson's skills as Fera watched from the side, policing a tray of refreshments. Both used longswords as Grayson's chosen weapon. Grayson didn't rely on his bodily advantages, reducing his strength and speed to match that of his teacher. Doing that, he found his skills sorely lacking as the tall woman thrashed him again and again. Getting up from the sand of the training field, Grayson rubbed his knee where Harren's kick had collapsed his leg before she had choke slammed him onto the ground with her practice sword. They took a brief pause where Harren simply stepped back looking confused. Grayson walked over to Fera and her refreshments, stretching his knee and neck as he did so.

  "I heard the story of you fighting the bandits from one of the knights in training yesterday." Harren began. "They said it was confirmed that you killed one hundred men. With the skills you've demonstrated today, I'm surprised you killed ten. Either you are divinely favored to a point beyond what's been seen in years, or something else is happening. After this break, fight me with everything you have. While I and my Lady respect your commitment to learning skills instead of relying on power, we should learn your strength in order to instruct you properly."

  Grayson nodded, taking a drink of a bright red fruit juice before stepping back onto the sand. He raised his practice blade and focused himself. His neural network responded to his will, but his secondary computing still didn't seem to have any active connections. It was still doing something but he couldn't consciously control it. Alright, he wouldn't be able to respond in a nanosecond timeframe, but he should still be fast enough. Grayson did notice Harren's eyes begin to glow blood red.

  "Come Grayson, show me what you can do!" came the twin voices of Harren and Marrati as they lunged forward. She was moving far faster than before, fast enough to be barely more than a blur for Fera.

  Grayson stepped into the attack, moving fast enough to deflect the thrust safely with his bare wrist on the flat of Harren's blade. The pair stopped moving before half a second had passed, Harren's sword diverted to the side and Grayson's at Harren's throat. Harren staggered back from the exchange, keeping her feet, but in a clear state of shock. Fera had seen Grayson fight before, but he had been running around in the dark and it was hard to tell exactly how fast he'd been moving. Fera sighed happily. No wonder he'd been able to dodge fireballs.

  Harren walked to the edge of the arena and sat down, staring at the ground for a full minute. Grayson walked over to check on her.

  "I almost couldn't see it," she muttered. "I was empowered by my Lady and I still almost couldn't see it. There was no way I could react in time..."

  Grayson squatted beside her.

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  "What? Oh. Yeah. Uh... no I won't be able to help you train to use that speed. You just tapped my blade out of the way. Like it wasn't even a threat. Heh. I guess it wasn't." Grayson looked at her worriedly. Her eyes glowed and she looked up at him.

  "We will expect you here an hour after dawn the day after tomorrow. For now, leave her. She has much to think about. Thank you for this match. It was entertaining, and I expect great things from you in the future." Marrati said through the still stunned Harren. Grayson stood and bowed, thanking the priestess and Goddess before leaving the temple.

  As they walked from the temple of Marrati, Grayson learned from Fera that the days were simply numbered. Today was the sixth day, tomorrow the seventh. From there it would return to the first. They didn't have a sabbath, per se. Instead Purin the Reformer had decreed two days of rest in each week, giving everyone a weekend that were put on the sixth and seventh days. This let people unwind and start the new week officially after being mentally rested.

  In return, Grayson taught Fera the days of his former Earth and their meanings. She was fascinated about the gods from the world without gods. Grayson gave her a brief explanation of each god with a day of the week named for them. As he finished Fera's short lesson, they reached the temple of Oris two hours before noon. They spoke briefly with Herefor before Herefor took Grayson into a training yard to check on his construct and check how stable his mana flows were.

  Concluding his examination, Herefor agreed to teach Grayson in the afternoons of each week day. Two would be held in the temple of Marrati where Herefor taught on the first and second days, and two more would be taught in the temple of Perimis on the third and fourth days. The fifth day, Grayson would be taught in the temple of Oris. Their meeting ended quickly enough for Grayson and Fera to meet Jarid, Wavec and their friends for lunch.

  Fera, anticipating that Grayson knew nothing about how to get around the city, had requested a carriage large enough for the eight of them. It showed up at the gates to the knights' compound shortly after Grayson and Fera. They weren't left waiting long before the knights walked up, all wearing casual clothes, though all seven warriors in the party had brought their swords. After brief introductions were made, they piled in to the carriage and Fera had Jarid set the destination.

  The restaurant Jarid chose was visibly one of the more expensive places in the city. Grayson and Fera had expected that, but Grayson had the money to pay for far more people to eat in the most expensive restaurant in the city, at least according to Fera. It would still cost a substantial portion of Grayson's gold, but he would be able to make that back after a few weeks of training. For now, the pair decided to actually enjoy a little luxury, using their noble knight friends as an excuse.

  The restaurant was at least tasteful instead of gaudy, not overdoing the gilding or marble and keeping a simple, if decadent color pallet of deep red and gold accenting the black and white of marble. The meal they chose was a tasting set of many courses designed by the restaurant chef. Each plate of food came with a story, and each story grew in scale. The dishes started with relatively simple village ingredients prepared excellently in dainty morsels, leading up to an incredible dragon belly steak. Jarid enthused about the steak, commenting how it was the best cut and carrying on about marbling and tenderness until Wavec shut him up by stuffing a slice into his mouth.

  Conversation turned to Grayson's training. The knights were wary, warning him that eight to ten hours of training a day would wreak havoc on his body. Jarid and Wavec stayed quiet though, knowing that it wouldn't be an issue for a man who could rebuild his brain. Their courses rounded out with a trio of desserts, a lovely sponge cake with a sweet acidic sauce that reminded Grayson of citrus, a mousse that tasted savory with a hint of spice that served as a surprisingly effective palette cleanser, and a rich fruity pudding infused with strong alcohol. Silence fell around the table as each of them ate.

  Following the meal, Grayson learned that twenty gold was the price per person for a tasting set meal. His pouch lighter by one hundred and sixty gold, the group filed out of the restaurant. The knights had training to return to, and Grayson had to return to the temple and report his new training regime to Mertaba. On the way back to the compound, Jarid and Wavec told Grayson they were going to leave the next day. The temple had chosen a replacement priest who would be sent with the pair to return to their squadron. When they arrived back at the compound, Grayson bid the pair a safe journey and a better seated passenger. Jarid laughed while Fera looked confused.

  Separating from their friends, Grayson and Fera walked the short distance to the temple of Perimis. Grayson found Mertaba in his study and reported his new training regimen. Mertaba frowned initially, but assurances from Grayson backed up by Perimis not smiting him for his outrageous statements convinced the man to allow the schedule. It was sufficient that Grayson wouldn't need to stand any gate watches, which he was grateful for. He and Fera left the temple shortly after, strolling down the street in casual clothes.

  "So, where are we headed?" Asked Grayson.

  Fera grinned.