Teldo was standing in front of the classroom, while Nakala was nowhere to be seen. The big burly man kept his silence, waiting, it was like there’s a rock statue with the shape of a man in the class. Pressurized by his rock-like demeanor, the other trainees didn't speak, they even breathing softly. After the clock hit the time for class Teldo begun to speak.
“Follow me to the field.”
Teldo simply said so and left, a few seconds passed before the trainees started to follow him to the field. They lined up on the field while Teldo continued today's lesson.
“Today I will teach you about how to use your Victa. Now that you all managed to become a level 0 Path-seeker, you all can start learning to mold that Victa into something more useful, for battle or daily life... but mostly for battle.”
“We call it — Arte.”
“Arte is a skill, a technique, a phenomenon, observe...”
Teldo conjured a sword made of stone from his hand.
“A simple earth type Arte, stone sword. Should you needed a weapon while you brought none, simply conjure it. This sword looks ordinary but since a level 2 Path-seeker made it, this can cleave an ordinary steel sword easily.”
Teldo body glowed greenish-yellow for a split second before his appearance changed greatly, his skin was craggy and stone-like, even his hair looked as if made of stone.
“Arte, craggy stone skin. When this Arte is active, even if a rhino charged at me, I won't suffer any injury.”
Next, the dirt on the ground rose up and condense gathering at one point, Teldo created a big round stone, one meter in length and width. At first, it was floating above his head but it moved quickly tens of meters forward then it rushed straight down hitting the ground with a loud sound, the force of the impact could be felt from the trainees' feet.
“Arte, stone blast, an elementary attack Arte for earth-types.”
“The effectiveness of Arte is just as you saw earlier, it could be stronger or weaker depending on the user’s Intio level and expertise so the strength of an Arte varies for everyone.”
Teldo’s stone body was returning to normal, the other kids looked excited and eager to learn. Viers was analyzing what he saw.
Arte… The old man from the storm battle said Authority, so I thought the killer moves or secret techniques were called Authority in this world but it seems I was wrong. Authority should be higher tier than Arte, or another kind entirely, more data required.
That being said… Arte seems pretty standard, game-like effects and skills, nothing overwhelming or overly new. It would be foolish of me to think that was all Teldo, a level 2 Path-seeker, was capable of. Looking at it objectively, I won't stand a chance in a straight fight against someone with level 2, a level 1 Path-seekers ability still remains to be seen before I can pass my verdict.
Arte… it's Latin for art or skill if I'm not wrong. Is it a coincidence? I also played a series of games about tales that use the word Arte, great games.
Teldo continued speaking while Viers was lost in thought.
“There are two ways of learning Arte, the simplest one is you create them yourselves. As long as the technique is powered by your Victa, you can call it an Arte. You can lift a pebble with your Victa and throw it at your enemy and brag about it as an Arte of your creation, no one will stop you. Bear in mind that if you died because of that same Arte, no one will stop you.
“Or you can learn it from other sources, recreate Artes already created in the past. For hundreds of years, innumerable people created many, many Artes and while some of them are lost in history, a great deal of them are passed on to others. Families, friends, clans, descendants, disciples, or simply those they deemed worthy to learn their Artes.”
“The next users refined the Arte of their predecessors, added their insights and improved said Arte into a better version than the first time they learned it. Some of them created new Arte on top of that to be passed on to the next generation, and so the cycle continues. In time, better and better Artes are created.”
“Nakala must’ve told you that there is no strongest elemental type, correct? This is one of the reasons for that statement. The rarer attribute you have means your Artes also rarer. Your enemy will be less experienced dealing with the effects of your attacks, harder for them to see through the effects of your techniques, and less likely to form countermeasures.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“On the other hand, rare attribute users have difficulty finding Artes from their predecessors. Therefore most of them must create their own Artes, and you will soon learn how hard it is to create a decent Arte... of course, there are exceptions of this but no need to delve on this topic for now.”
“If your attribute is very common, like the four basic elements, it means there are users of said element on all corners of the world. The Artes will be more developed than other elements, because many people use and improve it, so there are plus and minus in everything.”
“Not all Arte is for attacking your opponent, like the stone skin you saw earlier, there are Artes for strengthening defense. Arte to make you punch harder, enhancing your body capabilities or senses. Arte to bind monsters to your will so it can fight on your behalf. Arte to change the terrain to be advantageous to you, Arte for healing injuries or inflict ailments to your enemies. If you prefer simplicity, you can simply use an Arte to reduce your enemy to smithereens. Use your imagination to create or learn an Arte suitable for you.”
“Enough talking, time to practice.”
Teldo created a humanoid doll made of earth beside him.
“Everyone shall take turns to attack this doll, you can use any kind of attack as long as it is powered by your Victa. You use attack similar to the stone blast you saw earlier, you can coat your fist with your Victa to pummel the doll, it's up to you. You in the front, go.”
Teldo was pointing his finger to a trainee, he slowly walked forward.
“The basic of Arte creation is imagination, imagine what kind of phenomenon or power you want to create. The next step is to control it to achieve the intended effect. Go.”
The trainee put his hands on the air, he closed his eyes and winds started to converge in the shape of a ball above him. Wind and air are invisible but there was a greenish ball the size of a tennis ball could be seen. He was sweating and appear to be struggling, he let out a shout and the ball of wind surged to the target. But it veered midway and missed the target, the wind ball dissipated after flew a few meters more.
Some kids snickered or simply laugh out loud, the wind kid was ashamed.
“Quiet! As you can see, it won't be that easy to completely control your Arte. You, go.”
Teldo chose a trainee who laughs earlier. This kid element was fire and he was starting to coat his arm with fire, but he let out a yelp of pain shortly after he was getting started. The fire on his arm went out like smoke and his arm's skin was a bit burned. No one was laughing this time.
“Insufficient mastery of your Arte could inflict injury to the caster. Don’t mess with Arte above your caliber or you could pay dearly for your lack of vision and ability. You, go.”
Teldo pointed his finger at Farley, she created a spear made of water. Despite being made of water, she held it like it was solid, she charged and thrust her spear at the doll. The attack made a little stab wound, about two centimeters deep before the water spear broke apart to its liquid form.
“Need more control. Conjuring an object means you must have the ability to maintain that object's form. You, go.”
Mirella step forward, she created a wind blade in front of her. After amassing the air for a few seconds, the wind blade surged with incredible speed, it hit the doll and created a big slashing mark at its torso.
“Barely passable, not enough power. You, go.”
Max’s turn, he created a simple fireball, but it was steady and quite big. Max let it loose and it hit the doll straight in the chest, the damage was substantial. When Viers saw that, it reminded him of the bandit mage’s fireball, both were almost similar in size and power.
“Decent. You, go.”
Viers put his hand forward and make a gun shape with his fingers, a small water ball the size of a ping pong ball was floating in front of his finger. He shaped the ball into the shape of a bullet, he split his mind three ways. He focused on the penetration power of the attack, maintaining the water bullet’s shape integrity, and keeping the bullet flew in a straight line. He shot the water bullet, he vividly imagined he was shooting from a real gun. The bullet speed was quite fast and it traveled straight, the bullet hit the doll’s head but no damage could be seen.
“Too much multitasking, the Victa was spread too thin, resulting in not enough power. Either you should use more Victa to fuel your Arte or specialized its characteristics. That attack was not even an attack, terrible. You, go.”
While other trainees were trying their Arte, Viers was contemplating his earlier experience.
That was harder than I thought, I didn't use my Victa much since the day I created my Intio so maybe I can improve that shameful technique by practicing more with my Victa. But that means my Victa will be used in great amount, with the amount I saved up all this time, I reckon I could only do that water bullet thingy twenty-thirty times before I ran out of Victa…
Mmmmm, this is quite a problem. Need Victa to improve my super senses, need Victa to practice Arte, and I need Victa to experiment with my life-force… by the way, that water bullet thingy wasn't an Arte, I refuse to accept that the first Arte I created in this magical world is a dud water gun. That was just an idea popped in my head, something I thought on the fly. Maybe I can turn it into a real killer move in the future but for now, it's not an Arte. The real, effective, decent Arte should cost a greater amount of Victa to cast than my water bullet... this is really worrying.
The first Arte testing went on, Viers saw the initial ability and talent of his classmates, only a few of them had worse results than Viers. He deduced that most of the class had higher talent than him. After all the trainees got their turn, Teldo spoke again.
“Most of you are terribly inept, as you experienced, a great amount of practice would be needed before your Arte reached an acceptable level. From now on you can enter the library inside the adventurers guild building. There are books that you can browse to learn about the Artes written there, you need to ask the guild receptionist for permission before you can enter. Damaging the book shall result in a heavy fine. Class is over, you can practice until your Victa ran out or do your own thing.”
Teldo left after creating twenty humanoid dolls, all the trainees started hitting the dolls with various attacks, Viers also kept practicing.