Max had reviewed the class roster and was oddly relieved that he didn't have any repeat students. It saved him the time it would take to break a bunch of bad habits. Because while Slacking had been a relatively relaxed class, even though he took the subject seriously, Max had a very different approach to teaching the blade. The relatively small class size was also likely to give him more time to spend one-on-one with his students, and he was hoping that turned out to be more of an advantage than not.

As the students arrived at the Danger Shop where they had handwavily been told to meet the first thing they were likely to notice was the ridiculously extensive collection of blades. Max apparently had everything from Swiss stilettos to Japanese naganaki to Javanese kris. The second thing they might notice was that their instructor was wearing Roman-style legionary armor. A steel breastplate, a studded leather armored skirt, and steel greaves and bracers. He also had a short sword strapped to his waist. Max didn't wait for any stragglers, as soon as class was scheduled to begin he started.

"All right, listen up!" he barked. "You are here because you wanted to learn about swords, someone else wanted you to learn about swords, or the universe itself conspired to make you learn about swords. I don't care what your reasons are because regardless you're going to learn about swords." He looked around to see if anyone had any problems with that. And if they did he planned to ignore them. "All sorts of people draw distinctions between swords and other weapons in all sorts of places, but for the purposes of this course we will consider a sword to be any hand weapon which is a blade for more than half its length." He nodded at the rack to illustrate.

"We've only got seven weeks and there's a lot for you to learn, so we're going to get straight into it. Each of you will step up to the front and select a weapon, or two if you prefer. You will then explain to the class why you selected the one you did. There is no wrong reason to select a blade. If it looks pretty, that's fine. If it feels good in your hand, that's fine. If you're familiar with it already, that's fine. Once you've made your selection we'll do a quick practice match in which you'll, hopefully, learn some of the strengths and weaknesses of your selected weapon."

His eyes narrowed suddenly. "The safety systems here will not allow any injuries today, but don't even think about using that as an excuse to be sloppy. Treat every potential hit as a real one, and don't take a strike just because it won't leave you bleeding."

"You!" Max snapped as he pointed to a random student. "You're first!"