Jonathan smiled. He only had a few more ranks to go before he could gain his second combination skill. Knowing the way such skills worked, he was anticipating it eagerly.

With the corpses safely delivered to the Ash Heaps, and all of his notifications read, Jonathan was ready to continue training. He had another day to burn before he could return to Tartarus, and he wanted to further his mastery of his Pathway skills. All he needed to do was to upgrade Club Mastery, Mace Mastery and Runic Augmentation to Journeyman, and he would be able to complete the first part of his Heroic ranked quest.

“Are any of you willing to spar?” He asked the Uthraki, knowing that Edgar knew little about melee battle, save for the bit of spear mastery that Eva had taught him.

“We are always willing, lord,” Bordeg said. “Which of us do you wish to fight?”

“What about all of you at once? It should be a greater boon to my Pathway skill than normal.”

“Are you sure?” Hushar asked. “We might be weaker than you, but we are all still Tier 3s. It would be a great dishonor for us to injure you.”

Jonathan grinned. “If you manage to injure me, I would be pleased rather than anything else. I need strong allies.”

“Well, if that is your wish...” Hushar replied.

The center of the small town was quickly turned into a small arena, surrounded by a wall of rock conjured by the Uthraki. The uneven ground provided a somewhat frustrating surface to fight on, but it would also help to increase weapon prowess.

Jonathan stood on one side of the hundred foot wide arena, gazing at the four Uthraki, who all clutched their weapons. While Maranta was primarily a mage, she had a good degree of mastery around conjured weapons. Jonathan smiled, and then loped forwards, his club and mace held tightly. What he was about to do would be incredibly difficult, but would provide far greater benefits than normal if he was able to master it. Besides, he already had a lot of experience dual wielding weapons with his fists. How different could this really be?

As it turned out, it was very different. As Hushar met his charge with his sword, Jonathan found himself unbalanced by his weapons, both of which were unevenly weighted. Not unbalanced because of their weight being too much, but rather because he expected them to move at the exact same rate. Instead, he found the lag between their motions to cut into his mastery.

With his high stats he was able to learn how to deal with the imbalance, and eventually found an equilibrium. The others attacked him gingerly, as if afraid to commit to a truly powerful strike. Even with his paltry mastery, he was able to parry and counter the incoming strikes. Hushar, Tukar and Bordeg pressed him from all sides, their weapons blurring. However, to Jonathan, it seemed that they were traveling in slow motion.

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“Come on, try to hit me,” he called out, a bit annoyed. There was no way that he could grow without any sort of challenge.

The Uthraki snarled, incensed by his taunt, and charged in unison. Jonathan’s eyes glinted as he beheld the challenge. This was what he was looking for. His weapons blurred as he danced around the Uthraki fighters’ strikes, and he lost himself to his martial talent. Martial Arts blended with his other skills, allowing him to draw upon the superior footwork of his Journeyman ranked skill. However, the Uthraki had been fighting with their chosen weapons for decades, and were far more skilled than he was. The only thing keeping him in the fight was his higher stats.

Jonathan forced himself to slow down, relying on his martial skills rather than his inflated stats. In doing so, he immediately found himself fighting on a far more instinctual level than before. For the first time in a while, he could appreciate how a normal fighter felt while fighting him. Without the ability to see incoming strikes in slow motion, he was hard pressed to react in time to the blurring trails of stone that were the Uthraki’s weapons. He started to take damage as massive weapons landed with devastating force upon his body, but he simply ignored them, trying to focus on not getting hit instead.

He brought both weapons up in a cross block, grunting as the impact of Hushar’s sword was hammered down by Bordeg’s club. The combination acted like a hammer and chisel, almost blowing the weapons out of his hands. He uncrossed his weapons, and whipped them around, but was stymied as the two Uthraki danced backwards, exposing him to a bolt of molten rock from Maranta’s hands. With her at such close range, Jonathan was forced to hold up his club to block. The rapidly cooling rock caused the weapon to grow heavier than before, throwing off his equilibrium. He simply smiled. All of this was fuel for his ascension to the next rank.

Watching from the sidelines, in their own training, Branth and Edgar idly inspected Jonathan’s fighting style.

“Is he always like this?” Branth asked, a small grin on his face.

“Jonathan? If you mean having more strength and drive than is healthy, then yes. He always throws himself into situations that most sane men would steer clear from. His sole saving grace is that he always emerges from them stronger than ever before.”

“How long have you two been friends?”

“For a few months. Fighting side by side does have the effect of hastening relationships. Sometimes I feel like I know him better than I do my own partner.”

“Oh? And where is this lucky woman?”

“Back in the Ash Heaps. She lagged behind us in levels, and is training to ascend. Don’t get me wrong, she is still a prodigy compared to most. Just not compared to Jonathan. Gods, nobody I’ve ever met is.”

Both men winced as Jonathan tanked a blow from Hushar’s sword straight to the face. Even through the armor, that had to hurt.

“Well, any man who can do the impossible and defeat a circle lord has my respect, no matter his personality. And in Jonathan’s case, it seems to be a boon, rather than a detriment.”