Angus got up from his comfy bed and relaxed with some pushups on the matted surface of his floor, it was a rather soft material that he couldn't really place. He just hoped it wasn't made from human hair. Thirty pushups later and he left a nice drop of sweat on it, a good way to mark his territory, though he didn't know if the great beast's scent was still on him, if that was the case him marking territory was by proxy. It left a bad taste in his mouth, the idea of his territory simply being taken because he smelled like piss. A few sighs, face palms and a punch in the gut later, he stumbled out the room, a few hops later and a maze of hallways later he visited one of his scheduled classes, the classes were rather freestyle, as in you can go wherever the fuck you want, and nobody really gave a shit. The teachers attended because it made them more powerful or something, he guessed it helped them grow the grey hairs on their scalps, but mentioning something so atrocious to them would get him kicked in the neck, and likely forced into some form of corporal punishment that he didn't see the time for. What was the point anyway? You do shit, get punished by being forced to do nothing for a few hours, then do shit again because you didn't have time to study, because you were punished.
A cycle of idiocy and inefficiency he reckoned.
Entering the classroom of one of the teachers, the man didn't even look at him he just kept scribbling on the board while taking a few provocative poses towards his students. Sometimes he would bend over and if he didn't like a student he would simply fart in their faces. Discrimination was against the rules, so nobody could really argue against it. It was just a teacher relieving their flatulence after all? Different teachers seem to have different ways of making their hated students' lives hell. This one did as mentioned before, but he was quite temperate. And after a length explanation of how the assassin talent tree worked, "Going with a light dagger for instance, stacking agility so the momentum of stabs are quicker, as long as your strength is high enough to lift your weapon you can do fatal damage quite easily. You can even increase the weight of your daggers with some skills or enchantments and with one of the trees allow yourself to still wield it as normal, just with phenomenally increased penetration rates." He rambled on. Angus was quite interested in the lecture, he likely wouldn't become an assassin, but maybe some parts of it he would end up using? Or maybe not, but knowing your enemy better is a good way to protect yourself. Talent trees apparently change the more points you put into your foundational skills, you can skip on them, but later skills would be more lackluster with some effects, or you'd be forced into some strange path that nobody had ever even imagined before. Christoff, one of the Seven Swords had apparently walked this path after he had invented the [Descend] portion of the style, he then abandoned it because of his shitty foundation. He became a weird kind of sword based wind artillery, where he would slash around in the air like an idiot and have the swords fall down, different sword styles had different ways of manipulating the angle of impact or even the trajectory, and with the natural curve and weight of the sword, the strikes are more linear, there would be an initial curve, then the sword attack would go straight, depending on the swordsman, Christoff's current stance. His stances would also generate more sword attacks, so he would just end up juggling, and with the strange way they traveled, straight rather than parabolic, he would have to predict his enemy's faster dodges rather than slow movements you'd normally expect with artillery. Essentially he would do some strange sword dance, look like an idiot and wave around all the time, sword attacks would oscillate in the air and maybe hit his target.
Just the idea of that being his future made Angus almost feel dread. He wanted his own path, but he didn't want a lackluster one.
The teacher finally acknowledged his existence, he hoped he wouldn't get a fart in the face, but the teacher didn't seem to mind his tiny transgressions, you know? Breathing, not paying 120% attention, and not writing notes, whilst writing notes at the same time, contradictory yes, but expectations nonetheless. "Why are you writing down while I'm talking?!" Fart, cough, tears. "Why are you not writing down what I'm saying?" Fart, cough, tears. This repeated itself whenever the teacher seemed to have a slight build of flatulence. Beans were quite a big part of his diet and it seemed to be so purely for his sadistic pleasures. Angus got through the lecture without being traumatized more than the normal student in this teacher's class. 'Talents seemed to be quite important, when should I focus more on them than stats?' he thought, before raising his hand and asking. "Mister Teacher" He never got the surname of his teacher, "When would one want to invest in talent, rather than stats?" The farting teacher eyed him strangely, before giving a creepy giggle. "Oh my dear student, Talent simply guides your path, when you have consolidated your history you can look into getting more talents. A good time to do so would be during an evolution when you get a point for free. I would say, take one or two tiers of the trees you want to invest in, per evolution. If higher levels give more, you can invest more into it. Just be careful not to have all the flare with none of the punch. Talents mainly guide your power, picking a weapon or spell and training it before your awakening is quite crucial, you want the most stable of foundations." The teacher finished, he randomly farted in another student's face for not paying attention and went back to scribbling on the board. Luckily for the class the teacher didn't seem specialized in genocidal chemical warfare, the windows were open.
Angus kept his breath up until the wind passed then breathed a bit, he noted down some of the important bits while the teacher wasn't explaining. There seemed to be a pattern one could follow in order to not meet the ghastly winds of death, he followed it to an F. Following it to a T isn't enough.
After a few coughs, sobs, despair and yelling the class ended. He had learned quite a lot on the aspect of the different trees. They all started similarly, but they had their own identity forged into them. They all in one way or another gave access to weapon mastery to different extents, at least the ones he heard of. He wasn't so sure of the guardian class though. He had some plans to go through to make sure his evolution was perfect. He was torn between axe and sword fighting, both interested him quite well. His primal affinities resonate more with his axe than his sword, it's a more primal weapon after all, but a sword is a very good conduit. He would have to look into combining them in some way, maybe with a sword the summons an axe sometimes? He laughed a bit externally. Traveling the long hallways itself was quite the exercise. He was on his way to meet Kayle, also an elf, he hoped he wouldn't be forced to get pointy ears, or any strange ears for that matter when he evolved. He was certain it was a choice or something. Kayle soon came into view and Angus walked up behind the man After coming closer, he leaned over and whispered into Kayle's ear, "Daddy's here." Kayle almost fell over from the freight. He turned around, both looking at each other in embarrassment. Then both started laughing before giving each other a quick one armed hug and a few claps on the shoulder.
"You got me good." Kayle said. He had brown hair that complimented his eyes. "Naturally, I need to practice my assassination skills, especially the mental ones." He giggled before bursting into laughter. "Lunch tomorrow and some sparring?" Kayle asked, Angus nodded and both stood up and gave each other a handshake, already knowing who the other is. Their play date had been scheduled by the principle so it was quite easy to draw conclusions.
After a short break, another class block opened and he entered into an already busy class. 'They were supposed to start in thirty minutes, the fuck?' The teacher, a man with short hair on the left side of his head, with a combover with the long hair on the right side of his head spoke, "Why are you late?" He had a rather moderate tone, like he was asking about the weather. "I'm not late, you're early." Angus spoke, trying to keep himself calm. That appeared to be the wrong thing to say, the teacher squinted his eyes at him before swinging the door at him. He had to hop back before it slapped, sending splinters of wood in his direction. They didn't hurt, but the door slam might've broken his nose. This was one of two classes Angus found that would allow him to learn swordsmanship, this was the highest rated one, the top review on the board was, "Best teacher ever, taught me lots." With lots of x's, whatever the fuck that meant. It appeared this teacher held the student hostage or some shit. Angus turned right and walked five steps until he was in front of the other class. After about fifteen minutes, a rather fat man walked over. His demeanor and aura was a lot different compared to the other teacher. Why were there only two classes for swordsmanship in this school? Well, most students practiced the Seven Fall sword-style, and they had dedicated classes, normal aspiring swordsmen also went with that, leaving the rather normal sword classes vacant. The fat man looked oddly at Angus,
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"Why are you here?" he asked. "For swordsmanship." Angus answered. He went around Angus, not spotting the hatchet that Angus left in his room on his back, seemingly admiring the standard brown clothing the student is wearing. "The first style class is a few hallways away from here, it seems you got lost." Angus shook his head, "I want to learn traditional swordsmanship and have it guide my abilities." His words made the fat man's eyes sparkle. He immediately went to his door and simply opened it with a key before leading Angus in. He was the only student in this class. The inside of the class had a wooden tiled floor, with tiny blocks being the composition of the tiling. The roof was simply planks and was quite high up, around 6 Meters, give or take. There were dummies, desks, papers, shelves, books. A dojo seemingly combined with a normal desk based education. The teacher looked lovingly at the room and spoke,"I love when everything is so nice and snug together." He walked over to the wall before handing Angus a wooden sword, he showed him a stance to take. "I don't like giving high intensity training, because it's pointless in the long run. Make training fun so you can do it a lot, even if it does almost nothing, as long as you consistently do it, you build yourself a foundation." His words ringing out. The fat man started executing a few stances, quite unfamiliar with Angus, he had mostly only see the Seven Fall sword style. "Fighting with a sword isn't unlike breathing, but be careful to not attach any triggers in your mind to your sword. Whether it's food, breathing or sleeping, let your sword be independent of you, but let it be very familiar." Angus soon found himself enjoying the fat man's teachings. They were slow based, no homework required, lessons lasted longer than usual giving him more time to immerse, and an hour was spent working out the kinks of his style on paper.
"Every person has their own sword-style. Following a guide is idiocy, it's why the Seven Swords of this academy failed on their path, they forced their style to blend. The principle was simply lucky that he had the path and he used them as stepping stones. I do not pity cowards." He took a breath.
"Fight with your heart, but not as your heart." He swung forward.
"Learn who you are so you can fight with everything you have" He stepped forward.
"Rely on your environment, use every tool you have." He slashed again sending a dirt wave forward.
"My name is Gama, you can just call me that, don't give me nonsense of being a teacher, I'm a swordsman and my path is to step forward and cut whatever the heavens throw at me." He didn't seem the least bit tired. He threw the sword at the rack where it perfectly clicked in. It wasn't an aimed throw, quite casual. "Each day we'll have 3 hours of sword training, and 1 hour of discussing how you will wield your sword. If anyone fucks with you, just come to me and I'll teach them a lesson." He smiled. Angus nodded he had definitely gotten a good teacher compared to that other piece of shit that almost broke his nose. It was a bit later in the day not, and only 15 minutes were left of their session. "Let's go get some food, my belly didn't get this way from starving myself." They walked to the school cafeteria, where Gama simply looked at the servant before getting served a few trays. "What would you like, uh" Gama seemed confused.
"My name is Angus, Gama." Angus answered.
"Angus right." Gama said.
"The mushroom stew with sliced potatoes on the side looks good, I think I can eat a medium portion." Angus said.
"You heard him, tab's on my rating." Gama pulled out a badge they scanned. "You know they put a ton of money on this kind of stuff, food gets wasted otherwise since we have lots of production. Supply and demand are in constant change, and at some times it can get quite cheap" Gama said, giving his expert advice.
Angus nodded and started eating his stew. It was freshly made and tasted quite delicious. Normally students only got compact food blocks, essentially just vegetables, beans and grain pressed together with mana in order to form food squares. Tasted like shit, but kept you going, everyone got four of those squares a day. He reaffirmed his decision on his choice, or rather, lack of choice of teacher. "Gama, the other sword teacher was a bit of a dick to me." Angus spoke to his new friend.
"Don't worry I'll fuck up his face real good." Gama spoke, complete confidence emanating from his statement. Angus relaxed, his pride restored.
After saying goodbye to Gama, Angus walked, or rather hopped back to his room, where he found the principle smiling smugly at him. "Angus, why don't you hop down a bit? Getting some exercise is good for you." Angus complied. When he got up, his legs burning from the effort, the principle smiled, triumphant. "Today I'm going to give you, your first assignment. There are some batlings that have traumatized me, near the forest in that direction" He pointed to his left. "Why don't you solve your school father's trauma for him?" He asked, a smug smile combined with a pleading one. Angus was angry, confused, repulsed, all emotions surging through him, the other emotions converting into anger. He immediately took a deep breath and nodded. The principle then walked over and gave him his hatchet. "You need something in order to deal with those batlings, this should work. You aren't smart enough to swing a sword around without cutting off your dick, so this should be feasible." The principle sighed and walked back to his room.
Angus went hopping again. After finally reaching the end of east side of the school, all sides led to the familiar forest, he found a cave with batlings in them. The batlings looked like bats, but they were quite a bit bigger. Although he was quite tired and sweaty, he knew he had to get some training in. The principle had identified his axe for him, since he hadn't awakened yet. Weapon: Axe[G]-A mortal axe with no magical power whatsoever. Woodcutting, Beheading, the last bit sounded ominous, beheading? He rolled with it and stepped into the cave. Batling beheading time. It didn't take long for him to spot one, it was around the size of a dog. It swooped in and scratched his chest, before turning around and biting his shoulder, scratching him while biting. It really fucking hurt. He swung his axe, nipping the bat on the neck. It seemed to do the trick, the monsters released him. He felt quite satisfied with himself, besides the icky bat slime on his bleeding shoulder. He ran and hit it again, but the hit unluckily didn't hit a vital. The bat seemed to be a bit listless though. The bat released a cry and 6 other bats joined it. Agnus felt a chill run down his back, he hopped up and slammed the axe into the bat. It went down, it was on it's last breath, but it was looking at him with pity. How can a bat be so fucking tough? He went over and slammed his axe into it's neck, finally beheading it.
This was all he knew before he was swarmed by bats that held him, and scratched him. He noted that some of them were more tired than the others, likely due to catching prey, he concluded that only 4 of them had enough mana for another big attack. He didn't give a shit, he ran up picked the bat head up and kept running, 4 of the bats that still clung and began ravaging him again, the other bat swooped down and scratched him, drawing even more blood. Was that the name, [Ravage]? He felt like he had reached his end, blood was pooling below him and he instinctively knew that if three of them used [Ravage] on him again, that he would die. If he got hit with a few more of those scratches, they would also be the straw that broke the camel's back. Luckily the bats stopped clinging to him after he managed to run past their range. Why would they go out of their way to kill him and not protect their young from predators? Thus he escaped with his life on the line.His axe was quite chipped. Upon arriving at the receptionist she rang a bell, at that point the delirium got him and he fell. When he woke up, he was in a nice hot bath, fully healed and he saw many elven women making seductive glances at him. This fantasy didn't last though since he awoke three minutes later to see the principle with a glass bottle in his hand, which he promptly placed down. "Good job, you helped me somewhat to conquer my fear of those dastardly creatures. But I require a few more heads." He obviously wasn't afraid, Angus knew this, but he couldn't complain. He had won, something at least. Was it his history that improved? Yes. Did the principle like him even more now? Also likely yes.
After resting a while, Angus got up and visited the library. The library was quite stereotypical, but the librarian was a woman that had, had too much to drink. A keg stood behind her and she would occasionally drain some of the liquid within, from the smell of it, ale, and chug it. When he walked over he asked her for directions on books related to classes. The librarian shrugged and pointed to two shelves, he was unsure if both had applicable books, or if she was seeing double images, he went to check the left shelf first. He skimmed the books until he found Classes and You, By William Elderhand He opened it and the first page detailed the different warrior classes, swordsmen, brawlers, bruisers, offensive tanks. The rest of the book was shit talking guardians for being frustrating to kill. He sighed and put it back before returning to his room. He had learned a lot today, made a few friends, visited a cave and killed a bat thing and had impressed the principle. He had also destroyed his trusty axe, he needed a new one. Hopping up the stairs, with the last bit of energy he had, he finally couldn't take it anymore and collapsed on the tenth step.
Whilst he was sleeping, Kayle spotted him, took some charcoal and drew a penis on his face, and carried him back into his room. That's what friends are for, right?