Chapter 155: Counter the Known

Nara awoke from her chamber bed at the same time as the final five.

“That was fun,” Nara said.

“You were playing around with us, at the end,” A student said, almost teary. “You let us teleport you.”

Nara felt like she had become a bit of a bully.

“My teleport was disabled,” Nara said reasonably, trying to calm the student. “It’s not like I could avoid it.”

(That was a lie, she could’ve avoided it with Phase Shift.)

“Now, now students. Let’s be gracious in defeat,” Adelina said, clapping her hands together. “Well done, all of you.”

“You don’t think that,” Francis said, eyes down. Who seemed, as Adelina intended, suitably humbled (and equal parts frustrated). “We did terribly.”

“Oh, you did,” Adelina said cheerfully. “I was being nice, but you’ve gone and mentioned it. Let’s sit down with Nara here and go over your mistakes. She so kindly pointed out a few of them in battle. Had thoughts to spare, did you?”

“Oh. Um, yeah, I guess. I sort of got into the whole ‘teaching’ thing.”

“Here,” Adelina passed out sheets, “These are her abilities. I got them from your friend John.”

“John, you betrayer! I’ll remember this.” Nara didn’t really mind. She had served them a taste of her abilities on a blood-soaked platter. Even if they didn’t know their details, they would recognize them.

“I haven’t heard of a few of these.”

“Miss Nara here has a few undiscovered abilities. Exciting, isn’t it? None of those though are what defeated you all, are they?”

““…No,”” The students chorused.

It was a combination of Adelina pointing out their mistakes, as well as the students offering their own. They were good kids despite their initial attitude, studious and earnest.

“We should’ve mixed up our shield timings, and mitigated damage other ways.”

“That’s right. Not all of her attacks are instantly lethal, though she is very scary. The initial attack set the tone and put you all on edge. It was a smart tactic.”

Francis looked away; she may have traumatized the poor kid.

“A lot of attacks were unnecessarily shielded,” Adelina continued, “Were you counting the shields?”

“I was.” Nara felt like she was admitting to counting cards.

“Matt’s death at the beginning was unavoidable,” Adelina said, “So I will not fault Matt for that, although it will be prudent to remember that there are those that specialize in stealth and instantaneous attacks. Miss Nara here knew that someone had to die, immediately die, and took the shortest path at random. But you all lost your composure when your teammate was killed and jumped into battle immediately instead of reformulating a strategy while defending.”

“She would’ve chased us though.”

“She would’ve,” Adelina said. “But it is better than being where the enemy wants you. You should not fight on the enemy’s terms, on their battlefield. Not if you can help it. If you can’t help it, it’s better to retreat. That’s not an option you had today but keep it in mind.”

That was a core part of Sen’s strategy, Nara realized, choosing the battlefield. With Vallis, he had avoided the river. With Siyu, he avoided the caves and waited in the open, then set up sun lamps. Even with the pirates, he had sent Nara, Nahir and Eufemia to disrupt the enemy’s stronghold. She now understood a fragment of Sen’s tactical genius.

Nara realized Sen had not wanted Gento and Jaina just because their abilities didn’t suit him, although that was true. Sen wanted specific abilities and personalities on his team, and he grabbed his chance. He chose John and Eufemia’s abilities, in part creating his own party from scratch, and Encio helped him shape it with his own knowledge and experience.

In many ways, the team had lucked out with Sen, and not the other way around. He was the secret powerhouse of the team, the battle tactician. No wonder he was so famous for it in Sanshi.

Adelina discussed other mistakes; some Nara had not noticed. She ripped into them, sparing no fault.

The power disabler came up, and Adelina had a similar conclusion—he moved too early. Using it preemptively on a conjuration was an easy way to gain an advantage but saving it for important moments was also an important and powerful strategy. Eufemia had, in her fight with Lala, disabled the leathery wings that gave her trouble after analyzing which ability was the most troublesome to her. Adelina further pointed out that for those with inventories, it was Academy policy to have a back-up physical conjuration.

“Francis, all of you, but especially you Francis,” Adelina said. “You dodge far too closely against essence users with unknown abilities. You’ve gotten complacent fighting against your classmates, where you know all of their ability ranges. Remember that you will fight those with unknown abilities for the rest of your life. Unless you want to live as a competitive mirage chamber fighter. That sort of complacent avoidance is acceptable there, where you’re just fighting coworkers.”

“No, we want to be adventurers!” he responded hurriedly.

“Then fight like one. Don’t fight like it’s a sport. Fight like your lives are on the line. At iron rank and bronze rank, your bodies are still delicate. Do not dodge by a hair’s breadth, not like Nara does.”

“Hey?”

“Nara here has multiple abilities that allow her to do so. It’s not something many others should do. If you’re missing by just a hair against her, it’s because she directed you to. You do have that level of control with your spatial manipulation ability, right? That’s impressive.”

“I do,” Nara said proudly, “ended up fighting myself in an astral space and worked it out.”

Adelina frowned, “That sounds dangerous. Encio didn’t tell me about that.”

“Oops. Sorry, Encio.”

Adelina leaned in, intimidating, “You’ll tell me all about it, won’t you.”

“Uh…” Nara squeaked, “It’s really not that big of a deal!”

Her voice deepened along with a mother’s aura of intimidation.

“Won’t. You?”

*****

“Hey Encio. You’re next right?”

“Yeah, next up.”

“You’ll have a harder fight. Whoever went first had an advantage, right? Good luck.”

He smirked. “I won’t need luck.”

“Uh…so your mom may have found out about the mimic thing. I didn’t say anything specific.”

There was some apprehension now, his previous levity fading just a bit. “…What did you say?”

“That she should ask you about it? Why haven’t you told her about it? This is about living in your grandfather’s shadow, is it?”

He shook his head. “It’s not. After Celina died…my mother became overprotective. Partially, I stayed in those unassuming teams to reassure her. That I wouldn’t do anything dangerous, and I’d stay safe. But I felt stifled.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Hence your sabbatical from adventuring.”

“For a while, my mother thought her teachings had failed. That she failed as an educator. Father, grandmother, and some of my other relatives managed the school while she took a break. It’s good to see my mother teaching again.”

It must’ve been difficult to be an educator and a mother and have your student and daughter die while adventuring. Adventuring families all knew the risks, however…

A section of the seating had been roped off for Nara and her team members, and for some reason her competitors followed her, like obedient chicks. Adelina was behind, shepherding the last stragglers. Francis had shifty eyes, like he wanted to talk to her but couldn’t work up the courage. He had spoken big before battle and got beat down afterwards. He inched towards her, until he claimed a spot to her right. Adelina chose to sit on her left, also for unknown reasons.

Adelina held some sort of curiosity about Nara, that much she could tell from her actions. Nara could no more read Adelina’s aura than Adelina could read hers. Her aura had always been had to grasp, and the increase in strength and Laius training compounded that. Part of Adelina’s curiosity arose from her inability to read a bronze ranker’s aura, when no bronze rankers should be blocked off from her.

“It’s starting,” she hummed happily. “I wonder how my son’s fighting has changed?”

To her surprise, his competitors had chosen a rich forest and Encio accepted.

“Open spaces are usually his forte…” Nara said, “Why did he agree?”

“Since his opponents know his abilities,” Adelina said, analyzing the fight. “He must adopt a non-standard tactic.”

The two sides spawned on different ends of the forest. Encio didn’t have the opportunity to get a quick kill, and dashed off into the trees, disappearing from the iron rankers’ perceptions.

“Eight to kill,” Nara said. “How’s he going to handle this? He doesn’t have the advantages I had.”

She soon found the answer to her question. Encio adopted a hit and run strategy, unloading all of his damage on one vestige iron ranker, annihilating any shields that tried to block. He didn’t charge to full, instead, charging only as much as needed. Since his opponents were lower rank, it was a tactic he could adopt. It was a tactic he often used against weaker swarms as well.

“I forgot that was an option.”

“Blowing past our shields?” Francis said, finally speaking up to insert himself into their conversation.

She glanced at him but answered. “Yup. I would’ve had to play the long game, building up my boons, but at some point, I would’ve had enough disruptive-force damage to shatter the shield and boost through it. That tactic would’ve been a bit iffy though, with eight people. Encio can do it with ease, but I’m not suited for burst damage, and my afflictions only apply if I hit the enemy with an attack. It does nothing to help me shatter shields.”

“Long-term battles are your strong suit,” Adelina said. “You would have still won.”

“Being hard to pin down or kill is a specialty of mine.”

The first kill was easy, but the students smartened up, teleporting each other out of the way if they couldn’t react fast enough.

“No Inescapable to help him.” Nara nodded sagely. “Movement abilities are busted.”

Nara’s played enough video games to know that any sort of movement or positioning ability was powerful. Encio had his own share of movement abilities, but not as many ways to restrict them. Instead, his attacks were blisteringly fast.

“The students will lose if they stay the course,” Adelina said. “They can’t avoid him that way forever.”

As if prophecy, another student died. Encio’s familiar, Ardor, sent out a false attack. The students fell for it, activating a teleport to save their companion. The real God-Sundering Slash, sent out a moment behind, hit a different student, instantly killing them.

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Ability: [Spirit Avatar]

Familiar (summoning, ritual, illusion)

Awakening Stone: Avatar

Cost: Extreme mana and extreme stamina

Cooldown: None

Effect (Iron): Summons a [Spirit Avatar], Ardor, to serve as your familiar.

* Incorporeal and takes on the summoner’s form.

* Can replicate your abilities, attributes, and aura, but inflicts no damage or non-damage effects.

* You can switch teleport with Ardor for a low stamina and mana cost. This effect has a 30 second cooldown.

* Can be subsumed in the summoner’s aura, increasing resistance to aura suppression.

Effect (Bronze):

* Can replicate abilities and attacks without the summoner performing them. This inflicts no damage or non-damage effects.

* When the [Spirit Avatar] replicates abilities and attacks that the summoner performs, the replicated attacks deal a small portion of the original damage type as disruptive-force damage.

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“That will mess with them,” Adelina observed.

“They didn’t know the familiar’s new bronze rank effect.”

“How are they even supposed to counter that!” Francis exclaimed, chilled by the simple yet effective tactic. He leaned forward, as if to glean more from the viewing screens.

Nara frowned, “I have good aura senses, but the problem with Encio is that his attacks are too fast. You don’t have enough time to determine whether his attacks are real or illusions. They may have had a better shot in a plain arena. Less distractions.”

Adelina smiled, a little sly. “They focused too much on his iron rank anti-group capabilities. It was a known tactic of his, and one they could have countered.”

“By placing themselves in a forest, Encio’s attacks are harder to see. They hyper-focused on his strength and created a new weakness for themselves.”

“He’s managed to brilliantly make use of the fact his abilities were known and predict what the obvious counter was.”

The students tried to chase him through the trees, but chasing a speed-oriented bronze ranker without control abilities or some way to counter it was folly. Encio had high resistance to hostile dimension effects thanks to Chronometer.

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Ability: [Chronometer]

Essence: Balance

Awakening Stone: None

Special Ability (boon, magic, recovery)

Cost: None

Cooldown: None

Effect (Iron): After first inflicting damage on an enemy, begin gradually accumulating instances of [Time Count], one instance per second, regardless of the speed of your personal time stream. Instances of [Time Count] can be expended to recover stamina, mana, or health. Instance limit determined by the [Spirit] attribute. [Time Count] accumulation stops when no enemies are within your aura range.

* [Time Count] (boon, magic, stacking): Increases resistance to hostile dimension effects. Abilities have increased ability to bypass effect resistance. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.

Effect (Bronze): [Time Count] accumulates at a rate of one per half second. Instances of [Time Count] can be expended to reduce the cooldown of your own or ally abilities. Instances are consumed at a 2:1 ratio per second reduced.

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It was a boon he rarely kept it around normally, constantly expending it to replenish stamina or mana. For this fight, he kept it at maximum stacks, only spending instances as Time Count reached its relatively low instance limit. According to Encio, it hit its instance limit at around 5 minutes at bronze rank. At bronze rank, he also no longer needed to inflict damage to start the ability’s accumulation, which meant he always had full stacks at the start of a battle.

Combined with Blue Shift and his racial ability Dimension Rift, Encio was harder to teleport than Nara was.

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Ability: [Blue Shift]

Essence: Balance

Awakening Stone: Focus

Special Ability

Cost: None

Cooldown: None

Effect (Iron): Attacks and abilities that reach a speed threshold can affect incorporeal entities. While moving at speed, gain increased resistance to hostile dimension effects.

Effect (Bronze): Increased maximum [Speed] attribute. This applies to external effects, such as allied boons. Increased resistance to effects that decreases the [Speed] attribute and its corresponding qualities.

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“That’s another.” Nara said.

Encio turned to attack, and the student was again teleported. The real attack came from an entirely different direction, assassinating a third.

“They were chasing his familiar this whole time?” Francis said, agape. “When did they switch?”

“Not the whole time,” Nara said. “His familiar can switch teleport in a short range, so he probably did so at an opportune moment.”

“They lost the moment they chose a forest,” Adelina said.

“They can’t keep track of his movements since the trees keep breaking their line of sight on him.”

Nara thought Encio’s tactics resembled hers. As she learned from Encio and Sen, they had learned from her, growing their own strategies with each other’s abilities as inspiration.

Nara needed not wait for cooldowns, but his waiting time resembled as if she waited for Entropy to grow her afflictions. By spacing out his damage in bursts, he could regain some mana between skirmishes, though it was limited. He could dedicate the entirety of Chronometer overflow to restoring mana, since he didn’t need to blow through cooldowns for sustained damage. Combined with his aura, Encio could drag out the time before he needed to use Immortality to replenish.

“He’s fighting like me,” Nara said. “I beat him up once in a forest.”

“Good thing we didn’t chose a forest,” Francis muttered.

“Nara here is far stealthier, nearly undetectable. You all would have fared far worse.”

“She’s stealthier?”

“You didn’t get your chance to see her use it,” Adelina said. “But her aura strength far outstrips Encio.”

“And my robe makes me harder to detect,” Nara said. Based on Adelina’s expression, she considered that effect secondary. But hey, she and Eufemia found it extremely useful!

“Encio is fast, but he’s not undetectable.” Adelina continued. “It’s the only reason they can react at all. What did we learn from this, all of you?” She called out to the eight students around her.

“Don’t fight a bronze ranker in a forest?” A student offered.

“There are exceptions, such as essence users that rely on large weapons that may become tangled in a forest, or spell casters that require line of sight.” Adelina prefaced, “But bronze rankers are faster and have stronger and larger aura ranges. Do not allow them to leverage that for stealth. We must always use our judgement to determine what the situation calls for. Encio’s strength in an open field is known, while his strength in a forest was unknown.”

Choose to counter the known, than to be surprised by the unknown.

The fight ended when the students lost their nerve in the endless forest, forming a group with their remaining members. The students hadn’t brought essence users without powers that could withstand Encio out in the open, however, and Encio seized the chance, punishing them with Vorpal Slash charged through Eternal Moment.

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Ability: [Vorpal Slash]

Essence: Dimension

Awakening Stone: Void

Special Attack/Conjuration

Cost: Moderate stamina and high mana/ high mana per second

Cooldown: 3 minutes

Effect (Iron): Conjures a scabbard of void energy. Sheathing your blade gathers the power of the sundering void. When unsheathed, unleashes a wide ranged sword wave that inflicts a large amount of rending damage. The sword wave pierces enemies. As the duration the blade is sheathed increases, damage, size, and range traveled increases up to a maximum determined by the [Spirit] attribute. Sheathing is a channeling effect and drains high mana per second.

Effect (Bronze): Cooldown is reduced proportional to duration of sheath time. At maximum sheath duration, cooldown is reduced by half.

Ability: [Eternal Moment]

Essence: Time

Awakening Stone: Moment

Special Ability

Cost: Extreme stamina per second and mana per second

Cooldown: 1 minute

Effect (Iron): Operate at a highly accelerated speed for one second of actual time, which is extended in subjective time.

Effect (Bronze): Time increases to 2 seconds.

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Any student that managed to avoid annihilation was finished off by Encio’s sword, unable to face him alone.