War God for Hire- Gladiator by David Burke (books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

to be all over the place. When he had pointed that fact out to her, she devolved into the version of herself that liked to call him names. Sometimes Kyle could have sworn that she was less Jiminy Cricket and more nagging wife.

One of the few things she admitted to not knowing was how half-elementals were formed. She theorized that they implanted a portion of their essence on unborn children, but according to her, no one knew for sure. When he asked how that could be possible for the gods to not know, he felt her staring at him even though she was just a voice inside his head. He could almost visualize her looking down her nose at him, as though to wonder what sort of idiocy was going to come out of his mouth next.

Hilde even went so far as to scoff and propose that the gods were nothing more than extremely ancient and advanced elementals. She suggested it hesitantly, and he got the feeling that it was an idea that she truly believed, but worried might deeply offend Kyle. Maybe it would have offended Krig, but whatever part of him was buried within Kyle seemed to only come out during weapons training.

As Kyle pondered his stat increases, he realized that even his Mind and Charisma traits had increased. Although they debated the reasons, Hilde and he both agreed that it was connected to his learning the common language of Verden. While Kyle was proud of the improved control of his body, Hilde chided him repeatedly about how mastery of his flesh construct was not mastery of his true self.

As much as he wanted to disagree with her, Kyle couldn’t.

He could feel that there was more to this. There was something inside of him that he wasn’t able to tap. He had failed to be able to trigger his Divine Ability, Rage Burst, since his capture at the quarry. They agreed that it was likely because at this stage, he was still only able to utilize essence if he was doing so instinctually. It wasn’t something that he could control consciously.

Kyle kept telling himself that he needed to dedicate some time to learning it, but he still believed that learning to fight was a more immediate need. So, he had dedicated himself to that. Of course, sitting cross-legged on the floor trying to connect with some invisible energy inside himself couldn’t hold a candle compared to time spent with Nyda.

One of the more surprising changes that he experienced was that Kyle found he needed far less sleep than he would have expected. Training fourteen hours a day, and then three hours for language tutoring, already left him short of his normal eight hours of sleep. In his previous life, Kyle had been radically committed to micro-managing every detail of his training regimen.

That management included counting protein grams and general calories. It controlled the time and duration of his exercise, rigid attention to detail in his lifting, not only to ensure perfect form but also to track every detail for use in formulating the next week’s routines. Sleep was but another aspect of that control.

Kyle had religiously insisted on getting eight hours of sleep every day. Since he was an early riser, that meant that, except on game nights, he was always in bed by nine. More than one girlfriend had complained about him not being willing to take her out at night. But he had never felt any loss from it.

Now, though, it became clear that this new body didn’t need anywhere near as much sleep as his old one had. He was not getting more than four hours of sleep a night. Which was a good thing, because Hilde insisted that he spend at least two hours a night in a guided meditation of sorts.

The celestial was trying to teach him how to access his essence at will. He agreed this would be useful, but it wasn’t something that seemed to be bearing fruit. Kyle was sure that he had touched on the power within him for a second or two at a time, but he could never hold it. Not even when he tried to peer into the void and see Hilde again. If getting another peek at her wasn’t enough motivation, then he couldn’t imagine what would be, short of a life and death situation.

He had been counting down the days until the end of the month since it was soon to be the beginning of the open matches. At least that was what he was expecting if Hilde’s tutorial had been correct. By his count, it was only six days away and he honestly felt more nervous than right before opening day of his first season in the majors.

This morning, when the ladder was lowered down, Kyle climbed up it quickly. He was pretty sure by this point that he could break out if he needed to. The guards seemed a bit more lax over time, but they still eyed him carefully and kept their hands on their weapons. Ironically, his training had not really included assessing other fighters yet, but he still instinctively sized them up and was confident that, even though he was unarmed, they were no match for him.

It was great to start feeling confident again.

Kyle noticed they were not headed straight to the arena floor. He also saw that there were more slaves in the hallways cleaning the walls and floors. It was easy to identify the slaves because all of them had a silver anklet similar to the manacles that had been placed on his wrists and ankles. He always noted that while some of the fighters had one on both legs, none of the others had them on both wrists and ankles, other than him. Well, and Skrug, but the half-troll could definitely be unruly.

As he paid attention to what the slaves were doing, the beehive feeling increased. It was like when his mom went on a cleaning