“Your first Abilities granted by the Realms are mostly passive. That’s normal,” Neta told Duncan as they moved away from the ocean. “Those Abilities will change how you fight, but for now, you need to get used to your new body. Everyone’s body changes in different ways after ranking up, so I can’t tell you exactly what’s different. Only training can do that.”
Duncan had already felt some of the changes during his revelry on the beach. Now that his mind wasn’t as muddled from advancing, he realized the pain of his broken wrist had disappeared. “I broke my wrist during the trial,” he said as he started to twist and bend the joint. “It's perfectly fine now, though. Is that from the rank up or just the nature of being tier one?”
“The rank up,” Neta responded. “While a tier one body will heal faster than a tier zero, it’s nowhere near that fast without some help from Abilities. When your body ranks up, the Realms help it move closer to a perfect body to use whichever of your Subjects is a higher tier. As we suggested, you chose THE QUINTESSENTIAL SWORD before SWORDSMITH, so your body was ranked up with your combat Subject in mind. A broken bone doesn’t exactly help you when you’re going into battle. The same is true for smithing, but your SWORDSMITH Subject had nothing to do with your body’s rank up.”
As Neta finished her explanation, they reached the beach's edge, where a patch of reasonably even grass waited for them. Neta moved to one side while Duncan moved to the other.
Cinder, who had been following behind, sat down on one of the last rocks of the beach, a smile spread over his face. “It’s been years since I’ve seen you fight, grandmother.”
“Yes, well,” Neta went through a few quick motions with her sword before she nodded and turned her attention to Cinder. “I have my reasons, as you well know. For now, I want to test what the boy is capable of using my own blade.”
Cinder just nodded, settling in to watch the match.
“No enchantments for now,” Neta said, pointing to Duncan’s hairpin and boots. Take those off so you can truly understand how you’ve changed.”
Duncan complied. Taking off his air walk boots had no immediate effect, simply forcing him to put on the extra pair of boots Cinder tossed his way. The hairpin’s absence was immediately noticed, however. The moment he took it off, he felt like he’d put on glasses with the wrong lenses and as though his ears and nose were stuffed with cotton.
After a moment, the shock of the change receded, allowing him to focus on what had changed. The difference was significant. His new tier one natural perception was better than his boosted tier zero perception had been.
After taking some time to get used to his new baseline perception, Duncan sent his boots and hairpin into his [Quintessential Armory]. For a brief moment, he became aware of something new. He could feel the extradimensional space tied to his new Fusion Ability like it was an extension of his body. He knew everything that was in there, as well as how much storage he had available. The swords he’d already deposited into the space felt slightly different than the boots and hairpin. Where the two enchanted items felt like they had arrived just as they had been in reality, the swords he had crafted felt more like paintings on the wall. They were there; he could feel them; they just didn’t take up any of the storage.
Duncan decided to experiment a little. He summoned the last two items from his spatial ring into his hands. Because of the complexity of spatial enchantments, the ring had a very small storage space, only allowing him to store some of his favorite swords and his buckler. The only two things he’d stored in the ring that weren’t swords he’d personally crafted were his buckler and enchanted greatsword.
He willed each of them to enter his [Quintessential Armory]. Like with his boots and hairpin, they both disappeared from reality. Duncan once again felt something appear in his extradimensional space.
“How much room do you have in that armory of yours?” Cinder asked as he watched Duncan play with his new Ability.
“If I had to guess, it’s something like a cube with three-meter sides. So 27 cubic meters, maybe.” The metric system was yet another thing Corvelin had introduced to Earth from the wider Realms, for which Duncan was thankful. It would be incredibly annoying having to convert everything from one system to another.
Cinder and Neta both let out whistles of appreciation. “You usually can’t get that much space until tier three spatial enchantments, “Cinder said. “And you can put as many swords as you want in there as long as you craft them yourself. I have to admit, I’m starting to feel a little jealous.”
“Says the tier nine master swordsman whose spatial ring can probably fit the entire O’Leon main house inside of it,” Duncan scoffed.
“Don’t be daft,” Cinder chastised. Then, after a few moments said, “… It can hold way more than that. Three times that much, at least.”
After a brief moment to appreciate how many swords such a storage ring could hold, Duncan decided he was ready to spar. He turned to Neta. “So, how are we doing this?”
“We’ll start off with no Abilities.” At Duncan’s slightly disappointed look, Neta elaborated. “You really only have one Ability to try out at the moment. Your [Zenith] Ability is excellent, but it says it improves your combat and Fusion Abilities when using an effective sword and sword form. You don’t have any combat Abilities for it to improve, and your Fusion Ability is limited until you can craft more swords.”
“So how do I get some combat Abilities then?” Duncan asked. “I’ve heard about something called a Slip before. My cellmate in prison two years ago said something about bonding one and getting a new Ability.”
“He was referring to Ability Slips,” Neta explained as she summoned something to her hand. From where Duncan stood, it looked like a small slip of light blue paper. “Some people just call them Slips. Other than Realm Coins, they are likely the most important resource in the Realms. They help unlock, upgrade, and remove Abilities.”
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She sent the Ability Slip back into her storage device. “I’ll explain more later. For now, just do your best.” Neta’s last words and wicked grin were the only warnings Duncan received before she was racing toward him. It was all he could do to summon and raise his arming sword and buckler before she was there.
The following five minutes were the most exhilarating and eye-opening in Duncan’s 19 years of life. In his first couple of spars with Cinder, he’d experienced something similar, but this was on a whole different scale.
Neta’s form was perfect. More perfect than Duncan had thought possible. Every strike, parry, and step were precisely where they needed to be. She took advantage of every opening, simply tapping him with the blunt face of the sword when she made it through his defenses. She flowed from form to form, forcing him to do the same. He was tempted to use his [Quintessential Armory] multiple times to switch sword styles but refrained from doing so. Instead, he relied on his new body to combine sword and shield forms in ways he’d never been able to as a tier zero.
He used a combination of the aggressive shield bashes of the brawling buckler form and the responsive parries and dodges common to the parting river form. He tried to take advantage of his improved speed and reflexes by guarding his body with his buckler and attacking with the quick, precise stabs of the striking manticore form.
He tried this and many other combinations. Nothing got through Neta’s guard, and she continued to make it through his. She had reduced her power to tier one, but it made no real difference. She could finish him any time she wanted to. He was still a hatchling before a dragon.
Well, maybe a little more than a hatchling. As they continued to trade blows and dance around the impromptu arena of grass, Duncan stopped thinking about Neta and started to pay more attention to his new tier one body. Every move he made, every slash, dodge, and step, was different. His sword moved faster because of his increased strength. His movements were more fluid due to his enhanced balance. Every aspect of his swordsmanship was changed, along with the vessel with which he fought.
While he could feel his strength, balance, perception, and other attributes giving him almost 50 percent more than they would have before the Subject Trial, his speed and quickness showed the greatest improvement. Every step and reaction was taken with twice the speed he’d been capable of as a tier zero.
“You’re much faster,” Neta observed after five minutes of nonstop back and forth. “The Realms seem to have heightened your speed above your other attributes.” She stepped back, giving Duncan some time to catch his breath. Her long sword had left large dents in Duncan’s buckler, and it was apparent his sword was close to breaking with the number of dents and chips covering its blade. On the other hand, Neta's sword was just as it had been at the start of their bout. Duncan expected no less from a battle between Neta’s smithing and his own.
Duncan sent both his sword and buckler into his [Quintessential Armory]. Despite his enhanced endurance, the events of the day and the short but furious spar with Neta had left him exhausted. There was something else, though. Something new that he hadn’t noticed up until now. It was like another reservoir of energy was flowing through his body. He tried to tap into it, harness it, and wash away his exhaustion, but he couldn’t control it. It just continued to flow through his body like the blood in his veins.
“I think I feel my mana,” Duncan said after he realized what the energy was. “It almost feels as if it's flowing through my body like blood, but I can actually feel it if I concentrate.”
“It’s similar,” Cinder said from his spot on the beach. “Your new body grew something called mana channels during your rank up. It’s how you’re able to circulate, regenerate, and activate your mana throughout your body. No one has them until tier one. One of the reasons the power jump from tier zero to tier one is so much smaller than other rank-ups is because the Realms have to use some of the mana allocated for the rank-up to add something completely new to your body instead of just enhancing what is already there.”
“Your mana channels won’t be as good as a dedicated mage’s,” Neta took over as she sent her sword into her spatial storage. She walked up to Duncan, who was trying to concentrate on the feeling of mana moving throughout his body. “It’s all a matter of energy. The Realms read your intent, saw that you want to fight as a versatile melee fighter, and tried to enhance your body in a way that would let you best perform that role. Someone like Phevona doesn’t need as much strength and speed as you, but she needs plenty of mana, perception, and reaction speed. So, the Realms will have used more of the mana allocated for her rank up to give her channels that can hold more mana and regenerate it more quickly.”
Duncan turned his attention away from the mana flowing through the new channels in his body. “Is there a way to increase the amount of mana the Realms provide for these rank-ups?”
“No,” Neta responded with a shake of her head. “Each body rank up is fixed for everyone when it comes to the amount of mana the Realms will provide. If you received five hypothetical units of mana for your rank up to a tier one body, then everyone else in the Realms will also receive five mana when ranking up to tier one. Then, something like 15 mana for tier two, 40 for tier three, and so on. There’s a pattern, but no one can definitively tell what that pattern is after tier five or so because of the sheer amount of growth spread out to different areas.”
“That being said, the Realms will use the mana provided to enhance what is already there. The better the base material, the better the end result. All that physical training you put yourself through will give you an edge over most other melee fighters of your tier. Most of them will have trained, but I can’t see many of them having your level of dedication.”
Duncan decided to ask a question he’d had since he’d first learned about Subjects from Neta. “You’ve said that my body will rank up along with my highest tier Subject. How does ranking up Subjects work?”
“The more things you do related to your Subjects, the more they will progress.” Neta’s voice changed as she took on the air of an aristocrat. “Some people would tell you to be true to the spirit of your Subject or to honor your story with appropriate tales. What it really comes down to for you is fighting and smithing. To progress THE QUINTESSENTIAL SWORD, fight in battles; the more dangerous, the more rewarding. To progress SWORDSMITH, make new swords; the more challenging and well crafted, the more you will advance.”
“Ok,” Duncan said. “But how do you actually rank up? How do you know when you’re ready to advance to the next tier, and how is it actually done?”
“Ah. Well, as for how you know…” Neta thought for a couple seconds before she continued. “The more you progress through a tier, the more… full you will feel. It’s hard to explain. It’s not like a feeling of a full stomach, more like a full spirit. For those of us with two Subjects, it’s like having two spirits filling up at different rates. You’ll understand the feeling once you start progressing. Eventually, one of those spirits will be full, and that’s when you know you’re ready to rank up that Subject.”
“Then, you simply need to get the attention of the Realms. The most common way to do that for a combat Subject is to perform an impressive feat. Clear a particularly challenging temporary realm. Defeat a strong monster. Win a tournament. There are lots of ways. You’ll feel it when it happens, though, because the Realms will ask for permission before starting a rank up. For non-combat classes, rank-ups are almost always triggered by creating something impressive for your tier. There are other ways, but that is by far the most common.”
Duncan tried to take in all this new information. Rank-ups, spirits, impressing the Realms. Were the Realms alive? Was someone controlling them? He was starting to grasp how to progress from where he was, but he still wanted to know one more thing.
“What exactly does ranking up a Subject do? I know ranking up my body will enhance it; I’ve already felt that. What about the Subject itself?”
Cinder rose from his place on the beach and approached where Duncan and Neta now stood. “Our Subjects are the lens through which the Realms see us. They are the very nature of our existence as far as the Realms are concerned. Practically, however, Subjects are the driving force that determines what Abilities we unlock. So, ranking up a Subject is all about improving Abilities.”
Cinder drew a sword from his spatial storage, slashing it toward the ocean. A cut in the very fabric of reality appeared over the water 300 meters away, leaving a torrent of silver, unrelenting sword mana in a sphere with a 50-meter diameter. A rush of wind and power rippled out, colliding with the ocean water and sending the scent of salt on the wind back at the trio.
“I’ve had that Ability since I was tier one,” Cinder said. “It came from the first Slip I was ever rewarded. It started as a simple slash of sword mana, like that enchanted sheath you’ve used. Now, it does that. Not only is it more powerful, it's fundamentally changed. That’s what ranking up a Subject does. It provides Abilities with power and a chance to upgrade.”
“Speaking of Abilities,” Neta announced, drawing both her companions’ attention back to her. “I think it's time for your first gift.”