Chapter 12 Elemental Swordsman

Most people, when given the chance to create a melee skill, would probably try and create a finishing move, like an incredible sword combo that would slay their enemy as soon as it was used.

Kiro, however, choose his Iai Strike skill after careful (for him) consideration. His reason was as follows:

He had, for several weeks, trained his sword and dagger masteries. Yet, during all that time, he had never, ever created a skill such as diagonal strike, or trust or any other blow he had delivered with his sword, even after repeating them hundreds of times. It had never bothered him, as he fought using his own abilities, regardless of whether or not the system turned them into skills. But this made him curious as to how skills were learned.

Looking at his own skills, he had Critical Strike and Bleed (*Note: that I should have introduced last chapter but forgot.), which was a skill passive which caused a little bleeding with every strike that Kiro had gotten when blade mastery reached intermediate. These two skills came from his blade mastery. After that, every skill except Identification Kiro had learned at a Training Center. That clearly showed that there were three ways to gain skills: through proficiencies, special circumstances or skill books.

Skill books were rare, and some had restrictions on level, class, stats, etc… so if Kiro even managed to find a skill book with a skill he wanted, he might not be able to use it.

Special circumstances, like training at a Training Center, which is how Kiro got most of his skills, were hard to come by. The chances that Kiro could find a quest or a special Training Center that taught other types of skills than the Training Centers Kiro already knew about was next to nil.

Getting skills through proficiencies, or classes as they were a type of proficiency, was a little more reliable but only some proficiencies seemed to yield skills.

To be completely honest, there was only one type of skill Kiro wanted to learn: Magical Skills. This is a game world where magic is possible. Who wouldn’t want to learn it?

Skills from warrior type classes, rogue type classes or even crafter type classes didn’t interest him that much, as he was pretty sure that with some real world knowledge and some practice he could learn them.

But magic doesn’t exist in the real world. So learning magic in this world was going to be extremely difficult. He could try to learn how to use magic from books, but he wasn’t sure how effective that would be. Books could turn out to be useless.

Fortunately, what happened in the Training Center gave him a good idea as to how he could learn it.

The system assist can actually be useful. Using it and activating a skill shows you how to do that skill yourself.

Therefore, as long as Kiro can gain a magic skill, he could use this method to understand how magic works.

The only problem that remained was how to gain a magical skill. There was the obvious method of gaining a mage class, but Kiro enjoyed his current fighting style and it felt stupid to gain a mage class if he was going to keep on fighting as a melee weapon user.

That was where his curiosity about how to acquire skills came from.

He already had an idea, he had thought of a way that he could possibly gain a new skill. To test that, his Iai Strike would be vital.

*****

For the next several days, along with Kiro’s general training, he spent a lot of time leveling up the new skills he learned, his Iai Strike, Sneak and Sensing Presence. As he did not rely on the Combat Assist, his skills rose very fast. After 18 days, he was able to sneak even while running.

He decided it was time for the decisive test.

He spent some time searching for the perfect target, and found it: a gigantic ape-like monster, alone in a clearing.

Equipping the two daggers he had gotten at the Beginner Training Center, he activated sneak, and crept along the edges of the clearing until he was directly behind the creature. He activated Intense Pace, still moving as silently as possible. He rushed towards the creature. At the last second, he jumped into the air. Activating his Iai Strike, he attacked the ape with two slashes at the same spot on its neck.

GRRAHHbleurg herg…. The monster tried to cry out in surprised outrage, but choked on the fountain of blood erupting from the deep gashes on its neck. It stumbled, fell to its knees and then face down on the ground, dead. Just now, Kiro’s attack had benefited from the bonus of Intense Pace, from Iai Strike, from the two critical hits he had delivered as well as from the bonus from his Consecutive Single Point Strike skill because he had striked at the same place with both daggers. In addition, he had benefited from an increase to damage from running and jumping before hitting. With all those bonuses, it was no wonder he had one-shoted the ape.

Ding!

Game Message

Through the use of different skills, you have created a skill chain: Assassin’s Rush.

Assassin’s Rush

Skill Chain

Sneak + Intense Pace + Iai Strike + Critical Strike + Consecutive Single Point Strike + Bleed

Rushing silently towards your unsuspecting target, you attempt to deal a finishing blow with your first, devastating attack.

-If Sneak is cancelled before the strike, the chain skill will end in failure.

-Automatic Critical Hit.

-A successful hit will cause bleeding, confusion and stun effects.

-Deals 330% more damage.

-Consumes an additional 100 stamina.

Current level: Beginner lvl 4 – 30.12%

Kiro grinned happily. His idea had worked even better than expected. By different skills together, he was able to create a new skill. What was even better, is that by using a rogue technique, Sneak, he was able to create an even better rogue technique, even if he combined it with mostly warrior skills. Therefore, if he got a single magical skill, Kiro felt confident that he could create even more magical skills.

****

Now then, next item on the menu, Kiro thought.

Master Destrio’s words had convinced him that he had to get much, much stronger to clear the next Training Centers. So Kiro decided to invent a new and improved training menu.

The first thing he needed to improve was his Sensing Presence skill. It was incredibly handy in combat.

Of course the training for that was obvious. He just needed to keep fighting multiple monster for a long time. That would allow him to improve his skill.

Fighting would also help raise a lot of his other combat related skills and proficiencies. So he definitely had to use much of his time for that.

But he still wanted to increase his other proficiencies. And raise his stats. So after a while, he came up with a new training method, which resembled a lot the one he had used previously. The log method.

Basically, what he’d do is take a big log and jump, run and climb with it. He’d also use it as a training sword. A log was big, unwieldy and heavy. Trying to swing it around would take monstrous strength and dexterity, while running with it would do wonders to train his balance. Besides, he would be able to change logs as soon as he got used to the one he currently had, so his stats would keep rising.

Finally, he would also continue reading, solving exercises and meditating, since he wanted to raise his other stats as well.

Kiro started his training. Running with a log in your hands wasn’t too difficult with his high balance… unless you swung it around at the same time, which he did. Also, holding on to it while he was jumping made his landing more difficult. But the situation that the log was the most awkward for was climbing. Having to juggle with a huge piece of wood while climbing a tree or rock made for some interesting challenges.

He had also carved a handhold into every log so he could swing them like swords. It put a huge strain on his wrists and it was hard to keep it raised, but that was the point. It reinforced his arms splendidly.

Every day he did his log parkour training for two or three hours. He then spent one or two hours swinging his log-sword around then did log-assisted flexes, push-ups, sit-ups, etc… Of course, he also had bags filled with small stones tied to his body for both trainings to increase the burden.

At that point he hunted and killed a monster and cooked its meat for brunch, before starting the really exciting part of his training.

And that was, of course, fighting! He would Sneak around the forest, memorizing the location of every mob in the area he was in. Then he would chose a mob, and target one of the monsters with Assassin’s Rush. That would effectively aggro the rest of the mob, which would chase after him as he ran around to attract the attention of the other monsters of the area. When Kiro judged he had enough monsters, he’d stop running away from them and focus on blocking, parrying, countering, dodging and, sometimes, absorbing the blows, which hurt, but because of his high endurance even the blows from one of the immensely strong apes felt only as strong as when he took hits while fighting in the dojo.

There were several reasons why he choose to fight so many monsters at a time. The first one was that by gathering them all in one place, it was easy to run away from them and hide in the now safe surroundings when he got tired, before rushing to attack them again after a short break.

Furthermore, more enemies meant many more attacks, which made responding to each blow much more difficult. So his proficiencies in that area rose rapidly. Of course, his ability to respond to such blows came in part from all the training he did the year before on his kinetic vision.

Training it was also one of the reasons he was doing this type of training. During the last year he had trained it to a point where he could clearly see every move the monsters around him did. But even if he saw it, if he couldn’t understand what was going on, what was the point? There was so much going on that at first Kiro couldn’t process what his eyes saw. But, as he kept on fighting many monsters, he slowly adjusted.

His Sensing Presence skill also improved, because of the amount of monsters, and because of the fact that they were surrounding him, forcing him to rely on it to deal with the attacks aimed at his back and sides. His ability grew almost by the hour, until he could not only distinguish individual monsters and their attacks, but the exact timing and direction of it. His range also increased until he could sense enemies that were 15, 20 meters away.

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Unlike before, he wasn’t fighting mobs of only one type of monsters, which would’ve been too easy: the same type of monsters attacked in the same predictable patterns, so it wasn’t even a challenge to take on any number of them. But by taking on several type of monsters, with different type of patterns, it was more challenging.

He never bothered checking the level of the monsters, but they were all easily 40, 50 levels above his own. Because of that, his fighting spirit stat rose as well.

He was fighting using his wooden weapons, because ordinary weapons wouldn’t last long seeing how he was using them. As he had done before, he counter-attacked the monsters that tried hitting him. His sword only aimed for vulnerable points like the throat, joints, thighs or forearms. Again, because his weapons did no damage, he was able to improve his Consecutive Single Point Strike skill fairly rapidly.

His blades did no damage, so he couldn’t stun his targets, even using Intense Pace. But, during the long hours he was fighting, he came up with a way to get the same effect. He would aim his strike for the moment the monster in front of him was about to launch its own attack. A monster that had all its attention and energy concentrated into its next strike was extremely vulnerable. Kiro’s blow, which connected at that momentary weakness, would shatter its concentration and put it off balance, if only for a second. It did no damage, as Kiro was still using wooden blades, but seeing his enemy immobilised for an instant was rewarding enough to make Kiro experiment different techniques to induce the same effect.

He started using his feet, kicking the legs, pushing, or pulling on their arms as they tried to strike of the monsters he was fighting to put them off balance. Then he’d use Judo techniques he had learned to make them fall to the ground.

When Kiro got tired, or when his health was low, he’d run away and hide to recover his health and stamina. However, that was a little hard to do when you were surrounded by hordes of monsters. So the first few times Kiro escaped from the mobs, he did it with less than 10% health. But because of that, he learned that surviving after going down to 10% health several times actually increased the Master of Death proficiency.

After a few near deaths, however, Kiro became more skilled at making his escape. He learned how to navigate hordes of monsters. It wasn’t just about being able to deal with any and all attacks, but to deal with an attack in a way to hinder future attempts. It was about attacking a monster based on the effect on the entire group, not just the monster himself.

More generally, Kiro learned to choose every action he made based on the effect it would have on the entire group of monsters immediately and in the future. If he dodged, he didn’t just dodge an attack, he also dodged to make himself self from subsequent blows. If he attacked a monster, or made it trip, it was to use it as a shield against other incoming monsters. If he wanted to go out, he’d take every step, do every move, every block, every attack to get closer to the edge of the mob.

At first, he could only fight in this way for about 15 minutes before needing a break, but through weeks and weeks of practice that time stretched to 30 minutes, an hour, two, until he could fight like this all afternoon without losing his concentration. Somewhere along the way, he even got a new proficiency:

Battle Regeneration

Battle is a way of life for you. You live for battle. The thrill of it keeps you going longer than possible for a normal human.

-Small boost to health, stamina and mana regeneration (0.1%/sec)

Current level: Beginner lvl 1 – 80.23%

After receiving that proficiency, Kiro could even battle for even longer period of times.

In the evenings, he would spend his time reading the textbooks he had and solving exercises. He had already advanced past the curriculum for a first year high schooler. If someone had once told him he’d voluntarily study material past his grade, he would have laughed in their face, but here, in this world, where he could clearly see his improvement, he had no trouble finding the motivation to do so.

After that, he’d meditate until he decided to go to sleep. To continue his training the next day.

*****

As the days, then the weeks, passed, he gradually moved through the forest in the general direction he knew he’d find an Intermediate Training Center.

He had started with a log that had gradually increased in size until he now ran around with a medium-sized tree trunk. He now also carried a veritable little hill of stones with him.

He also fought with more and more monsters, whom also increased in levels the deeper he went into the forest. He sometimes saw traces of civilisations, small villages or cabins lost in the vastness of the woods, but he ignored them, as he didn’t need anything for them. Besides, staying in the wilderness like this made his Survival proficiencies rise up extremely quickly. He even got a title from it: Survivor. It gave a boost to fame and to his resistance to heat cold, etc…

But the biggest bonus, in Kiro’s mind, is that it replaced his old title, Suicidal Joe, due to them being incompatible.

****

One day, about four months after he left Gerendal, he came across a peculiar clearing.

Deep in the forest, surrounded by tall trees, was a perfectly circular clearing about 10 meters wide. On its edges stood 10 tall, pure-white stones that formed a circle. Another stone, much like smooth platform, had been placed in the exact middle of the circle.

It was extremely odd. The stones were too perfectly placed to seem natural, yet absolutely no traces could be seen that they had been placed there by human (or elven, dwarven, etc, etc…) hands.

The clearing was surrounded by hordes of ferocious monsters, which more than anything only screamed: “This place is important!” to anyone who came close, but Kiro’s Sneak skill was now so high leveled that they presented but a momentary annoyance.

He crept to the very edge of the clearing. He could neither see nor sense any monster in it. But from his position, he could see that something had been draw on the stones.

Taking a deep breath and readying himself to run away at the first sign of trouble, he hesitantly walked into the clearing. The green grass was lush under his foot. The many noises of the forest faded until they couldn’t be heard. Approaching one of the stones, Kiro saw that it depicted a humanoid figure, of unknown race or gender, brandishing a sword.

Surrounding the sword were 4 orbs, a blue one, a white one, a red one and a brown one. Kiro stared at it for a second, trying to understand what it depicted, but the details were too unclear, the colors too faded.

He walked to the stone next to it, then to the next one, until he had made his way to every stone. Each of them had similar pictures, but on each of them the figure, sword and orbs were in slightly different positions. He still couldn’t venture a guess as to what they represented.

On a hunch, stepped up onto the stone plate in the center of the clearing, and faced one of the pictures. He then started to rotate, moving his feet to turn his body round in round, although it gave the impression that it was the world itself that was rotating around him. The pictures came into view one after another. He accelerated, until it seemed the pictures had been drawn side by side on a single, wide stone. He accelerated again, and the pictures fused, jumping from one to the next so quickly the transition was impossible to catch. Now the drawings made sense: it was a dance, and each individual picture a particular position. Kiro accelerated yet again, and the dance became even more hectic. The surroundings faded away, leaving only the dancing figure. The colors became more vivid, the figure more lifelike, the drawing leaving the stone surface to become a three dimensional dancing figure. The four orbs, dancing around the blade of its sword, grew brighter.

Kiro suddenly understood the orbs stood for the four basic elements of nature: fire, water, wind and earth. The swordsman was controlling them, making them dance around his sword much like himself.

At that moment:

Ding!

The sudden noise shattered Kiro’s concentration, making him flounder. He stopped turning, slightly dizzy despite all his training during the past year. He looked at the message in front of him.

Game Message

By finding Elzerath’s Clearing, and understanding its secret, you have the possibility to learn a new class: Elemental Swordsman.

Elemental Swordsman

Sub-class of Magical Swordsman

Elemental Swordsman are one with nature, harnessing its power through sacred sword dances. They wield the primeval magic of the elements, which is fuelled by emotion, to cause havoc and destruction on their foes.

Do you wish to convert to this class?

Reading the message, Kiro laughed. He couldn’t stop himself. All that worrying about trying to learn magic while keeping his blades as his main weapon, and now the game offered him the solution on a silver platter. It was too good to be true!

Kiro had of course considered taking the Magical Swordsman class before, but had put the thought aside because it was a rare class that he didn’t know how to obtain. But know, luck had delivered it to him.

With a wide smile, Kiro said … To be continued.

.

..

...

Just kidding.

With a wide smile, Kiro said: “Yes!”

(*Note: Here is a new chapter, sorry it took so long, but RL (or more specifically, finals). Also, I promise that next chapter will have a status update on Kiro’s stats, as well as more information about his new class.)

Chapter 13