Emma was still outside his room, this time sweeping the walls for dust, “Emma, has anyone called for me?”
“No, young master, the Lady asked of your whereabouts but that was about it,” Emma responded.
“Ok, I am going to the courtyard to train with the garrison,” Nikola said.
“Ok, would you like me to follow?” Emma asked.
“Sure.” Nikola was not fussed.
They reached the courtyard where the garrison commander was drilling the troops. To the side were the recruits going through the basic combat training, even Isabella was there, she started practising with the sword a week ago. ‘everybody gets baptised here, I wonder if everyone has these tattoos… most of them are wearing long-sleeved shirts so I can’t tell, and the ones with shorter sleeves are wearing leather straps seeming to hide them.’
While he was thinking to himself, the commander came over, “good morning young Lord, came for more sword training?”
‘Although the skill says basic blade training, the training I have is with a sword, can this tattoo not distinguish between different types of bladed weapons, “em, I wish to learn some shield and sword training.”
“Em, sure, but nobles would usually wield greatswords in a full plate or on horseback,” the commander said.
“With my status at best I would be a captain of an infantry or skirmisher regiment, while I can keep my hopes up to be placed in a knight squad, I must still be realistic,” Nikola said.
“Very Well, we will start with the easiest one, sword and shield, as a matter of fact, the recruits are being trained in that as well so you will have a good time sparing.” The commander nodded.
Nikola nodded and walked over to where the recruits were, he picked up a wooden sword and shield and began practising. At first, it was drilling, they were spaced out in a neat rank and file where they would do two strikes in the air then put their guard up with the shield, they did this for one and a half hours, then they sparred for the next half an hour, where they would practice what they had learned on each other.
At the end of it, Nikola got another notification on his tattoo,
+20 exp,
Exp 30/84 Level 1/5
Gain basic shield skill, 1/5 75% complete +0.10 Pow, Den, End per level
Gain Basic Sword skill 1/5 75% complete. +0.10 Pow, Dex, Spe per level
Pow 5.00 -> 5.20 [5.25]
Den 5.00 -> 5.10 [5.15]
Dex 5.00 -> 5.10 [5.15]
Spe 5.00 -> 5.10 [5.15]
End 6.00 -> 6.10 [6.16]
When these notifications came upon his right hand, the skills and class would disappear, but once he had taken in the information, it will resort back to the skills and class list.
When he looked around, he noticed the other recruits were showing each other their arms, they seem to be bragging about the increase in stats they had. No one seemed to be paying attention to him. he quickly hid his arms and walked over to hear them better.
“Ha, I’m finally maxed out on both my blade and shield training,” Matt said, he was the loudest of the group and saw himself as some sort of leader. He was tall and big, not quite a muscle, not quite fat. Nikola was tall for his age, and a bit built, at least for a 7-year-old, but Matt was still bigger.
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“Damn it, I still need 30% more,” a skinny guy moaned, his name was Will.
The others chimed in with their progress, Nikola managed to hear their stats as well, it seems like they are in the high fourteens with their favoured stat, while the rest of their stats were in the tenths mark. Nikola remembered that the last baptism was last year, it was done annually.
The group didn’t seem to notice his presence or didn’t care, Nikola wasn’t trying to get their attention anyway and was just trying to source information. He left a short while later and went and had lunch with his mother and sister.
“Did you have fun at training today?” His mother spoke, it was just the three of them, for some reason she had dismissed the maids today.
“Yes, Mother, it was enlightening,” Nikola said in a half neutral tone. While Nikola liked his mother’s company, he found it quite difficult to express emotions that well.
“Yes mother, the commander said I had talent in the sword,” Isabella puffed up her chest in pride.
“That’s great honey.” Her mother praised her.
“Talent just means you get a better result from training, you still have to train, and it’s efficient to train harder,” Nikola said.
“well said,” His mother agreed.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be the best swordswoman in the world,” she raised her fist to the sky, this caused Catherine and Nikola to start laughing.
The table was a rectangle, and she was seated to his left, taking the head position while Isabella was across from him.
“The priest says you are doing well with your studies.” His mother stated.
“Is that so, I find maths easy, but the literature is difficult,” Nikola replied.
“Yes, he told me about the differences. But he said you shouldn’t worry, the nature of literacy and numeracy are at odds, the more one excels at one of them, the more he struggles with the other, or so he said.” His mother reassured him.
“But I will still work hard at it, but would he be able to teach me scripture,” Nikola asked.
“Em… It’s a bit hard, at your age, but Scripture is considered the maths of literature, it’s designed to be the pinnacle of logic, as it’s used for runic enchantments. But we should be able to start you on something easy.”
After dinner, the priest stopped by for the usual lessons.
Only this time, he was asked to teach Nikola scripture as well.
“Right then, Nikola, I’ll teach you the concept of scripture first. The idea is to write a set of instructions for mana to follow. To do this, we use a mineral called caeruleus lapis, we are able to create them into what we call pencils for drawing.” The priest revealed one, although he called it a pencil, it would be better to call it a blue crayon.
“Then, to connect the symbols together we need to draw way-lines, or wires, or conduits, well, it goes by many names, but if you say one of those three words, people who practice scripture will understand you. And this is done using a Rubrum Lapis pencil.” This time he revealed a red crayon.
“So first, I’ll show you the symbol for the ten primary elements. These are always drawn in the caeruleus lapis, or blue pencil.” He took a piece of paper and drew the 10 symbols in a row in the centre of a piece of paper. After he drew each one, a fluctuation of mana could be felt.
“Right, and now I’ll show you two more runes, that are just as useful if not more, depending on who you ask.” Then he drew another symbol at the top and a different symbol at the bottom. “The top symbol says input, and the second symbol says output. Now let’s have some fun.”
He drew a symbol between the row of elemental runes and the output rune.
“This is called a combination rune, or some people call it an ‘and’ rune. Now I will take the red pencil and connect them.”
He drew a circle around the ‘input’ rune, a circle around the ‘water’ rune, a circle around the ‘fire’ rune and a circle around the ‘and’ and ‘output’ rune, he then drew two lines from the ‘input’ rune, one to the ‘fire’ and one to the ‘water’ then a line each from the two elements, to the ‘and’ rune and then a line to the output rune.
“Now, to make sure it doesn’t backfire, we need to take the blue pencil and draw a triangle over the lines with the tip facing the direction you want the mana to travel, and then a line across the red line at the tip of the triangle, telling the mana not to come back this way.”
He drew this in many places, from the ‘input to the two elements, then the two elements to the ‘and’ rune and then from the ‘and’ rune to the ‘output’ rune. He moved the paper to the middle of the table with the input facing himself.
“Right then, sit back, let’s start.” He placed his finger in the middle of the input rune and started channelling mana into it. The blue and red pencil markings started glowing as the mana moved down through it until it reached the output rune, where steam started to rise from it. Like it was a boiling kettle.
This lasted for a few seconds before the paper burst into purple flames and turned to ash. The priest, predicting this had moved his hand away in time. Nikola flinched at this, which was a rarity for him.
“This isn’t proper paper for such a task, so it combusted down back into mana.” The priest said, “Now, first we will use normal pencils for your first tries.” He took a piece of paper and drew the ten elements at the top in a row.
Handing the piece of paper to Nikola he said. “First things first, copy the rune below it. And keep copying until you finish the page, and I will have a look after.”
Nikola took the page and started copying the runes, he spent the better part of the even copying them. Once he was finished, he felt his tattoos starting to move.
“Well then, I will see you tomorrow. You did good work today. A fast learner.” The priest complimented.