Andre left Arthur in the gardens they had walked through previously. A few gnome villagers picked ripe fruit from the trees or harvested vegetables. They gave him glancing looks as he walked through. Before he was about to exit he was stopped by a little gnome girl in a yellow dress.

“Hey, Metal Man.” She said timidly stopping before him, but not quite in his way. “I hear you are training to become a strong warrior. Can you show me some magic?” The girl asked eagerly.

Arthur looked to his side as saw the other gnomes in the garden. Most of them had looked up wondering what would happen. The others focused in on their tasks and pretended he wasn’t there. Arthur paused for another moment before answering.

“I’m not very strong yet little one.” He looked down at her and crouched down to meet her eyes. “Many people of your outpost are much stronger than I am, but I am working on matching their strength soon enough. Here is that magic you were looking for. Watch. [Plant Growth].”

Arthur cast the spell on a nearby flower patch which caused the flowers to grow a little taller and immediately blossom. The girl looked in awe and smiled in awe.

“Would you look at that? The flowers petals match your dress.”

“Thank you, Metal Man.”

“You’re welcome and you can call me Arthur from now on.”

“Thanks, Arthur,” she mumbled quietly.

“Now I should get going, but I’m sure I’ll stop by here another time.”

Arthur stood back up and patted the girl on the head softly. The girl looked up at him and smiled once more before running off through the garden. Arthur watched her go for a moment before walking back towards the cellar.

When he returned to the cellar he found Lucas inside.

“Oh, hey Arthur. How was your magic practice?”

“It was the same as always. I need to try something else. I can become a catalog of all of the magical spells you show me, but it doesn’t really test me very much. Could you show me some sword moves? I know it was something I would learn eventually, and I want to learn it now.”

“Um. I can do that yeah. Moving you into a magic swordsman role will help our combat group in the long term and experience with a sword is something you should start earlier rather than later. Let me go find a sword for you. Wait here and I will go find one suited for you.”

“I will wait here then.”

Lucas returned carrying a gnome longsword that was made with simple iron. Arthur thanked him and took up the sword. With his size, the sword was a decent length, and it didn’t weigh very much in his hands. It was not a great sword by Arthur’s inspection, but it would be a good enough training sword for him. If he were to continue on with the sword he would need to have one custom made for his size and one that could take advantage of his stronger physique.

Stolen story; please report.

“We will go over basic sword forms first, but you must remember this first. When in a battle your ability of reach and timing are the most essential parts of fighting. Speed plays a small role as well, but a good swordsman can overcome what little advantage that brings to their opponent.

“Let’s start with footwork. One foot in front of the other like this. You want to avoid presenting too much of your body to your opponent, but in your case, it will be a bit harder. Next, adjust your grip and do a forward thrust.”

Arthur began working through all of the sword moves and with his memorization abilities, he learned the basics. Some of the sword moves included forward strike, slashes, jabs, parrying, a few types of blocks.

Once Lucas showed him those moves he went over movements to connect attacks how he should fight with a sword to effectively flow in combat. This part of swords did not come to Arthur as quickly due to its sometimes-unintuitive nature. Once Lucas felt that Arthur was ready they sparred in short bouts while Lucas critiqued and helped Arthur adjust his movements.

Much of what Lucas showed him was suited to his own short stature and not to Arthur’s larger and taller frame. It also didn’t help that Arthur was generally less graceful than Lucas due to his weight. With each attack, Arthur used up additional mana to fight at Lucas’s speed.

“Let’s pause for now and I can show you some spells that you can use with your sword simultaneously. Not many fighters use magic and traditional weaponry at the same time, but luckily you have me. The first spell is [Sharpness] it increases the blade’s piercing ability and helps cut into stronger beasts' hides. The next is [Astral Blade] which increases the sword’s length by an additional foot artificially. It really helps if, for example, I was to face you who has a longer reach. The last is [Blur] which obscures your arms and makes your attacks harder to break.

“I don’t want you using that last one in our spars, but you can try it out while hunting for now. There are of course many more spells, for example, elemental sheath spells that coat the blade in specific elemental types, but I don’t know any of them.”

Lucas unsheathed his blade once more and began going through each of the spells. Arthur memorized them all and went through each of the spells in his mind like he had with the spells he had learned from Andre. He also noticed that he had already started categorizing all of the spells he had learned today and previously depending on their use case and other factors that had come up while using them. It took a few minutes for Arthur to cast all of them successfully. Lucas stood and watched as he went through each of the spells.

‘This Golem is a monster at everything it tries. We could give it a catalog of all of the spells ever cast and it would learn them all over a weekend. Depending on what spells it learns next it will be ready soon. It won’t need amazing combat knowledge if it can just brute force its way through every fight. Maybe I should find a spellbook to give it just to see what happens. Its curiosity and thirst for knowledge were boosted crazy high. I will have to ask Zoe if we can deny some of its wants for a bit and test how it will react.’

“I have learned all of the spells and have successfully cast each of them twice,” said Arthur.

Lucas looked up and put away his thoughts.

“Good. I’m glad that you could understand the spells I have shown you quickly. Let’s resume sparring for a few more rounds. You’ll need one of the elves to come in probably next week because I won’t be able to challenge you for much longer with your reach.”

“You need not worry about that coming soon because you will always be my first sword teacher.”