When the final day of Jay’s debt slavery came it was anticlimactic. The expected demands, attempted murders, fighting, and inevitable tears mostly failed to manifest. Instead it was just a simple parting for a time. With tears. Adam’s and Ruth’s to be specific. Jay and Martin looked at the two teary-eyed people with concern. Not concern for the emotions and pain of the crying pair, but fear that their weeping was infectious or came with an increased need for hugs and confused comforting.
Adam was particularly irritated about the crying as he didn’t actually feel all that sad. He knew the boy would be back many times, whether to visit or due to a need of assistance. Yet, no matter of knowing would help him resist the demands of a number of his skills and System Assistance. So he wept on the outside, and complained on the inside.
A final series of hugs, well wishes, and one manly handshake from an older man that was definitely not crying saw Jay on his way. Unlike his arrival, he was not escorted by guards, nor travelling in a cart. He would be walking back to Sun King City, equipped with a new short blade from Martin and a small purse from the duke. It wasn’t much money, but it would be enough to tide him over for food and such for a fair amount of time if used sparingly.
Watching him leave, Adam, while stuck with only partial control over his actions, spent some time thinking. He had been told about the destruction he had caused in Night City that sent him into debt slavery, but he was curious how much more his debt was than that of Jay’s mother. Healing wasn’t cheap, but apparently there had been a fair amount of destruction. Thinking of the destruction reminded him of the assessment he had gone through.
The woman who had been assigned to be his assessor and tutor to the magical martial arts had been less than impressed by his abilities, but quite interested in his ability to develop them. She had instructed him in the fine art of mana meditation in the hopes of helping him to gain better control of his mana. There was also the mention of it providing a number of benefits with time, practice, and patience. After all of that, she had shown him why he was practicing.
By annihilating the training dummies in the yard in an orgy of destructive power.
The woman used only elemental channeling, yet managed to out damage any of the duke’s normal guards by a large margin. Her preferred methods of destruction involved the use of multiple elements, and the interactions between them. One dummy had been engulfed in water, and then it had all been flash frozen. A number of rocks had crushed into the ice to cause cracks, and then wind blades targeted those cracks to dice the target apart after its armor had been broken. Another had a similar thing happen, being surrounded by rock before a muted explosion sounded from within. A third had water backed wind blades tossed at it, the extra weight of the water allowing the wind to cut through the armor. Rock shards that spun on the rotation of attached wind blades drilled straight through another.
Adam watched on, lamenting his inability to do anything even remotely similar. Even days later, he was still demoralized about not being able to replicate the woman’s art. He had discovered weapons that would allow him to use each of the four basic elements, yet he would never be able to use more than two at a time. Even using two would be difficult considering the unwieldy nature of the tools necessary to channel the elements. Still, he was excited to learn, and hoped to find a way to combine the elements at some time in the future. He didn’t have much hope that Mother had the necessary tools to wield the elements in such a freeform manner, but he also wasn’t planning on his class progression ending with Mother.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
In the meantime he continued with practice. Weapons practice now also included his channeling weapons, although a good half of the time dedicated to them was just mana meditation. In the few days since he had learned the practice, he had taken up filling all of his free time with it as well as just before bedtime. Recently he had started to notice very minor differences in his mana. It wasn’t at all to the point of being easier to work with, but it was beginning to feel more something to him. Or maybe it was just that he was actually able to finally feel the mana itself. Details were unclear, but he was assured that more practice would help no matter what it was.
“Normal” weapon training had evolved to the point where he fought more than one person. For the moment it was a pair of guards. They were younger than Martin, just into their evolutions, and for some reason the older man smiled maliciously every time they showed up. For the moment, Adam couldn’t beat the two of them working together, but single combat with either one normally saw him coming out on top. Martin assured him that that would change drastically as he grew more accustomed to combat, his skills, and the growth he expected to go through soon. The man would also smirk and point out that if the two guards ever actually paid attention to their own practice, there was at least a chance that he would experience change in the wrong direction.
The largest issue facing Adam wasn’t the upcoming beginning of his new responsibilities, but in the path he would take to face them. He still needed to make a number of decisions regarding his class, skills, and Specialization, but some progress was being made, slight as it was. He had found the best skill to help him actually make decisions, but he still found it awkward to work with.
“So if I’ve got this right, you’re saying that I need to figure out what it is I want out of the class I have now, and what I want in the future?”
The crone nodded, making a rolling gesture with her hand to keep him moving along. It was the communicating through pantomime that was the least difficult part in making his future plans. Mother Knows Best was obviously the best choice for planning, but it came with caveats.
The first problem was the communication, but it wasn’t actually the largest problem. No, that fell to the second problem, attitude. The crone that symbolized one of his most useful skills liked to make him work for his answers. As far as he could tell, she was a firm believer in figuring things out for oneself. She was more than happy to dump huge amounts of information into his cranium during combat to help keep him alive, or to essentially flood his mind with everything needed to raise a child, but ask one little question about where he should take his life and she clammed right up.
Boom!
The noise bounced around his head, followed by a grunting, snuffling noise as the bear was disturbed, but settled back down.
Adam sighed and focused on the crone again, trying to stem his wandering thoughts. If it happened too many more times she’d stop talking until he could focus again, something that normally required Martin, weapons, and a thorough ass kicking.
He sighed. He knew the next part of what he needed, he just didn’t like it. “I also need to decide what I am willing to sacrifice for the power necessary to do what I need to in the future. Furthermore, I need to ascertain the responsibilities that I will be assuming in the future.”
The crone’s beaming smile was a bit of a surprise to him, but not nearly as much as the feeling he had of being patted on the head while simultaneously having his cheek pinched. The surprise that she still had all of her teeth had thrown their “discussion” off for a whole two hours when she demanded that they divert to the topic of proper dental care. He wished she had just dumped the dental care information on him instead of attempting to lecture him, then giving him the information. The parts she explained later about it helping to bind the information to his mind correctly didn’t make him feel better about it. She did the same thing with that portion.