Another month passed in the blink of an eye as Damien continued his training under Corbyn, redoubling his efforts to get stronger. His Skills quickly began to excel, and he had gotten to a point that he could weave various Skills of his into actual combat now. Thrown Weapons was the most obvious of the bunch, allowing him to quite literally throw things in people’s faces. Knives were particular favorite of his, but he had recently begun learning how to use throwing stars as well, and had even dabbled in hand axes, though he still largely preferred using knives.
Acrobatics was more subtle than that, but it allowed him to make his movements smoother and more energetic, and even pull off some unorthodox things when fighting. No flips, though. Those weren’t practical at this stage of development. Not yet, anyway.
Stealth was the most subtle of all of them, though it directly contributed the least, allowing him to time feints and counters in order to escape particularly devastating blows. It also allowed him to slip out of the notice of enemies in order to blindside them with a hidden blow while they were disoriented. The Shade Hunters were many things, but it seemed honorable fighters was not one of them. Not that Damien minded. If he did, he wouldn’t have continued to learn about this style of combat.
The Way of the Night Wolf. While it wasn’t an honorable style, it was a well-rounded one, with what seemed to be years of perfection inlaid through generations of practitioners, revisiting and rewriting the older texts into what it was today.
Damien was currently giving his all against Corbyn, who was managing to block each and every one of his attacks. A set of three lightning fast thrusts was parried single-handed by the man’s wooden longsword, followed swiftly thereafter by a low-kick. Corbyn sidestepped the kick, which allowed the Traveler to transfer that momentum into the foot that was still on the ground, springing upwards in a side flip that allowed him to impart all of that downward momentum into a single downward slash. Damien’s own wooden jian clashed with his mentor’s longsword for but a moment, his position in the air not giving him any leverage and allowing the Canis to flip him back around with a single upward motion.
Damien managed to right himself in time, his feet sliding against the padding of the room as he came to a stop. He could feel all of his Skills on the brink of a breakthrough, assisted through both the gradually revealed knowledge of the Tome and his own efforts here with Corbyn, tempered in real-world combat. And one thing that the Way of the Night Wolf had over different Martial Arts?
It was designed to have Spells weaved into your movements.
With a quick dash towards his mentor, Damien readied one of his acquired Spells that he had been experimenting with more and more over the past month, unleashing it as a single, focused attack alongside a punch.
[Shadow Blast]
Rarity: Uncommon
Spell Type: Attack
Description: Shadows are not a reflection. Shadows are a wave.
Effect: a black of Umbra-attuned Mana meant to disorient and confuse enemies, dealing low to moderate Umbra damage depending on the range.
Range: 1-2 meters
Cost: Moderate Mana
Cast Time: 1 second
Cooldown: 5 seconds
As the Spell described, the blast of Mana was at least enough for Corbyn to raise his blade in defense, but not in any way that suggested it was a serious threat to him. That was fine, since Damien was already gathering his Mana into anther Spell just behind him while he took a pair of throwing knives in hand. He launched forward with a single slash at his mentor’s ribs, which was promptly blocked by his wooden blade. Damien quickly launched forward again, reversing the grip on his own practice sword as he prepared to get in close. Corbyn didn’t make it easy, especially since his Stats were so much higher than Damien’s, but, with a few hits that would definitely start bruising later, the Traveler got into his reach.
Damien smiled as he got his mentor into a a throw lock, a position that the Canis could easily reverse if he gave this fight even a semblance of seriousness. Still, he let Damien take his legs out from under him and bodily throw him across the room with all of his thirty something Strength. He flipped about in midair, swift parrying both of the knives that Damien had thrown at him.
That was when his full plan came into fruition as his other spell launched itself at the Canis’ retreating form, aimed dead center on his chest.
[Shadow Lance]
Rarity: Rare
Spell Type: Attack
Description: Shadow is what you make of it. Even weapons cast their own form of darkness. Why not use it?
Effect: form a spear of Umbra-attuned Mana and fire it towards your opponent, dealing high Umbra damage.
Range: 50 meters
Cost: High Mana
Cast Time: 5 seconds
Cooldown: 15 seconds
This was one of Damien’s latest additions, and one that he was still getting used to, truth be told. The longer cast time and cooldown served initially as reason to turn away from it, but Corbyn had quickly shown its usefulness, and the amount of damage it could do if one timed it correctly.
Corbyn seemed to have been expected this, and prepared to dodge past the Spell entirely. That was when the final part of Damien’s plan came to fruition. A black chain suddenly sprung up from the ground like a vine, wrapping around the Arbiter’s foot and rooting him in place for a split second. And just like that, his priority went from dodge to block.
Corbyn still shattered the Shadow lance on his sword, the remnants of the Spell dissolving into the air in motes of violet light. Damien knelt down on the ground, panting and heaving, leaning all of his body weight against his sword in order to keep from collapsing completely. And yet, he smiled. Because Corbyn had used both hands to block that last attack. And that fact made him immense proud. Though not quite as proud as the slew of notifications that came shortly afterwards.
NOTICE! Skill [Adept Swordsmanship (Uncommon)] has evolved to [Advanced Swordsmanship (Rare)]
NOTICE! Skill [Adept Unarmed Combat (Uncommon)} has evolved to [Advanced Unarmed Combat (Rare)]
NOTICE! Skill [Acrobatics (Uncommon)] has evolved to [Advanced Acrobatics (Rare)]
NOTICE! Skill [Thrown Weapons (Uncommon)] has evolved into [Advanced Thrown Weapons (Rare)]
NOTICE! Skill [Steath (Uncommon)] has evolved to [Advanced Stealth (Rare)]
Damien smiled at the visible proof of his progress. He still had a long way to go before he was anywhere near on the level of someone like Corbyn, but he could feel himself getting slowly closer and closer every single day.
His mentor gave him a genuine smile as the spar ended. “That was good. Actually made me use both hands there. You seem to be starting to grasp the fullness of the style. You’ve got a ways to go, but you’re starting to get there.”
“Yeah… finally… made some… progress…” Damien said between lungfuls of air. A good thing too, since the Adventurer Trials were in about four and a half months. Corbyn had said he wouldn’t let Damien take them until he’d gotten all of his Martial Skills up to the third tier of mastery, but he had been confident that the young Traveler would be able to do it. His confidence had not been misplaced. Unable to help himself, Damien pulled up his Status, skimming through the screen after another month of work.
[Status]
Name: Damien Sinclair
Race: Traveler of Umbra (Male)
Age: 19
Class: Shade Hunter
Level: 9
XP: 3,600/9,000
Profession: Runesmith
Affinity: Umbra
Stats:
Strength: 32
Dexterity: 90
Intelligence: 90
Constitution: 50
Endurance: 50
Wisdom: 60
Vitality: 56
Vigor: 50
Willpower: 60
Reaction: 120
Stat Points: 0
[Spells]
| Shadowbolt (Common) | Shadow Blast (Uncommon) | Imbue Spell (Rare) | Shadow Lance (Rare) | Invocation (Epic) | Shadow of the Night Wolf (Ancient) | Chains of Tartarus (Unique)
[Abilities]
| Shade Sense (Uncommon) | Shade Strike (Uncommon) | Shade Stitch (Uncommon) | Imbue Ability (Rare) | Bloodcasting (Epic)
[Skills]
| Identify (Common) | Mediation (Uncommon) | Mana Control (Rare) | Engraving (Rare) | Runic Script (Rare) | Imbue Mana (Rare) | Imbue Stamina (Rare) | Advanced Swordsmanship (Rare) | Advanced Unarmed Combat (Rare) | Advanced Acrobatics (Rare) | Advanced Thrown Weapons (Rare) | Advanced Stealth (Rare)
His hunts with Leon had been more than fruitful, especially what with all of the Camori they earned for selling monster parts. It would still be a while before he would be able to Level up again, but in the meantime, he had some more Spells and Abilities to acquire. With his mentor’s guidance, of course.
“Alright. You’re at Level nine now, right?”
“Yup.”
“Good. Now that you’re there, I’m gonna ask you and Leon to stop going out on huts, at least for now.”
Damien looked up at his mentor with genuine confusion. The Canis just laughed at his expression, seeming to find it cute. “Don’t worry, you’re not being punished. I want to keep you there so that you’ll at least start facing some kind of challenge, once the Trials come around.”
“Uh… I guess that makes sense,” Damien said.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“It will, given enough time. Plus, I really wanted to give you the chance to dig deeper into the style itself. Now that you have most of the basics down, you’ll eventually be able to start piecing together the Techniques you’ll be learning from here on out.”
“Don’t I already know a bunch of those?” Damien asked, confusion clear on his face as his mind went through several of the motions that he had learned over the past few months.
“Not what I meant,” Corbyn said. “There’s a difference between technique as applied to general movements and Technique as applied to specific moves with your weapon. Sit, this might take a little while.”
He did so, groaning slightly as he rubbed at his foot, which had started cramping a few seconds ago. Corbyn sat just in front of him in his usual cross-legged position, his practice sword nowhere to be seen. Likely stored in his Inventory Ring, for the moment.
“Techniques are not like Spells or Abilities, although they are similar in nature,” Corbyn began, his tone turning to that of a lecturer. “Though Spell and Abilities can have different classifications and can even be pretty flexible in their applications, Techniques are about one thing and one thing only: sheer combat potential. They don’t have cooldowns, and they can use Mana, Stamina, or even both at once.
“However, one thing that sets Techniques apart in another regard is Mastery, which is a measurement of how well you personally understand the Technique in question, and therefore how effective said Technique will be. At the lower percentages, you’ve only just begun to get the motions down, and you can follow it with your eyes and recognize when it’s done in front of you. Once you get higher and higher in mastery and you start understanding the technique, it will become more and more effective until, eventually, you can make it a regular part of your entire fighting style.”
Damien nodded at Corbyn, his eyes starting to glisten with wonder at his words. “So, how do you get Techniques then? Since they’re so specific, I’m guessing that you can only get them in a specific way?”
“Indeed. The only way that anyone has been able to learn Techniques is through an associated Martial Art. Luckily, we already have that base covered, in your case.”
“I mean, yeah, but I haven’t really felt any inklings of a Technique or anything like it. Is something supposed to happen before then?”
“Yes, actually. When you eventually rise to the next tier of mastery, all of your related Skills will coalesce into a new category that will show up on your Status. It’s a bit on the nose, but I think ‘Martial Art’ works well enough, yeah? Besides, that’s what it all shows up as in your Status, once you get to that point.”
“Okay. Is there any way to get it there any faster than what we’re already doing?”
“A simple answer for a simple question, my young apprentice. Practice.”
----------------------------------------
A few days later, Damien had another spar with Dove, which he, of course, lost by a not inconsiderable margin, especially since she was allowed to use magic of her own this time around. That, and the first of her own Martial Arts Techniques. Damien had been caught so off guard by the motion that it hadn’t even been a challenge for her to knock him on her ass. He still managed to trip her up with a chain in their next fight, but that was about it. He was still getting the hang of controlling his chains manually. Although he could summon a lot more of them than he was at the moment, it also strained him a lot more mentally to guide them into doing complex patterns, and it helped when he could do that without having to focus on all the other ones at the same time. Simple stuff like trapping people worked just fine, though, especially since that was half the purpose of a chain in the first place.
“Gotta say, that Spell of yours is annoying to deal with, Rook,” Dove said, sitting down next to where Damien was sprawled out on the floor, panting in lungfuls of air. “Trips me up at the worst times.”
“Good. Means… it’s working,” Damien said, a grin on his face despite all of his losses. Anya and Corbyn were both discussing something on the other side of the room, trusting their apprentices enough to leave them to their own devices while they recovered.
“Gotta admit… you don’t fight like you’re only Level nine, dude,” Dove said, the white glint of her mask catching some of the mana lamps from overhead.
“Oh? How do you mean?”
“I mean… well, you’re certainly not weak, but you shouldn’t be able to keep up with me this well. You’re fighting like someone who’s at least a few Levels higher than you. Like you’ve already gotten past your first Evolution or something.”
“… Evolution?”
“Yeah, y’know, capital ‘E’ Evolutions. You don’t know what those are?”
“I had… something of a piecemeal education, growing up,” Damien admitted.
“That’s… huh. Wasn’t expecting that,” Dove said, clearly thinking over something before she shook her head of those thoughts. “Anyway, Evolution is what happens when you’ve gotten to a Level Cap, which tends to happen about once every fifty Levels or so. Once you hit that, you need to perform a Ceremony of Evolution, which will both raise your cap by another fifty Levels and evolve your race to deepen your connection to your own Affinity.”
Damien thought back to his own, nearly failed Awakening, when that ex-Arbiter Eric Forsythe had tried to kill him for petty revenge against his mentor. If it hadn’t been for Noctis’ interference that day, he wouldn’t be here. And, as tended to happen when the Primordial Spirits interfered, there were… side effects. His race had evolved as a consequence of it, and though it had helped him a lot since then, he had never really thought about it since. Was he really that much stronger than the average person, the way he was right now? It would make sense. Fourteen spare Stat Points per Level didn’t seem very normal, especially in addition to the other ten from his Race that got distributed automatically. He should probably talk to Corbyn about this. But speaking of the Canis…
“Why didn’t my mentor tell me about any of this?”
“Probably because it isn’t all that relevant to your immediate situation. Can’t say I blame the stance. If you get so caught up in the pursuit of Levels in the hopes of an Evolution, you’re going to neglect learning and mastering things along the way, and that could compromise your progress in ways you can’t recover from.”
Damien nodded at her line of logic. It made sense, in its own way. He already had enough going on with all of his preparations for the Adventurer Trials at the end of the year and all of his training in his Profession that he needed to catch up on. Regina seemed a bit annoyed that he had yet to gain Stamina Manipulation as a Skill, which would make Imbue Ability work much better and much more efficiently than it did at the moment, but accepted it as a tradeoff for his natural talent with Mana. She did expect him to get better, though, and he would do his damndest to make her proud.
“So, uh… do you have any tips for Martial Arts in general? I know our styles are pretty different, but since we’re both Hunters, it might be prudent to find similarities and differences in them,” he asked, hoping to gain some kind of clarity.
“Well, I can help you in the broad strokes, but your understanding of your Martial Art has to be your own. There’s no secret shortcut here. But as for significant differences, there are a few. My style, the Way of the Radiant Seraphim, is almost entirely focused on offense. Our first solution to a monster problem is to kill it as fast as possible. It’s been adapted to several kinds of weapons over the years, but swords are an old favorite of ours. Your style is a bit more… well-rounded, I suppose. It was the last of the old styles to be made, and was made with the experiences of the masters of all of those that came before it. It also…”
Dove hesitated here, seeming legitimately uncomfortable for the first time in the entire conversation. But she forged ahead anyway. “It was also made as a kind of… failsafe. In case the Hunter Orders ever stayed from their primary cause: defending people from monster in all their myriad forms. It was made to have perfect counters to every other Hunter Order Martial Art, with each Technique, when mastered, showing the exact key to defeating another style with opposing Affinities. Hiding the secrets to their downfall by aligning each Affinity with their natural weakness. Thematic, really.”
Damien just nodded, happy that his mask was able to hide his look of sheer shock. He’d had no clue that his own Martial Art had such potential. Corbyn hadn’t told him of it as of yet, probably because, again, it wasn’t relevant to his current situation, but still…
“Damn. I’m guessing the Order of the Night Wolf is something of a boogeyman, if what you’re telling me is anything to go by?”
“For most of us, yeah. And I’m not even fully initiated yet. But they’re also the smallest of all the Hunter Orders. The fact that that Umbra is by far the rarest Affinity certainly doesn’t help with them swelling their ranks.”
“Yeah. Still, why did they put in place at all?”
“Because some zealot got to the head of the Order of the Radiant Seraphim a few thousand years ago and caused the split between the Hunter Orders and the Churches. After the head of the Order of the Night Wolf at the time lopped off his head, he left behind your style as a warning to the others to never step out of line. And it was basically a guarantee that his Order would stay true to that, since there were so few of them.”
“Isn’t that a little presumptuous? What if the population of people who could use Umbra skyrocketed? Then you’d have the reverse problem.”
Dove chuckled at his concerns good naturedly, as though she already had an answer in mind. “There’s a good reason that the Hunter Orders aren’t as influential as they used to be. We’re a lot less focused on quantity and more focused on quality. Makes for less Hunters, but it’s also less likely we’d be able pull a Fracture War all over again.”
“That’s what that’s called?”
“Yup. Catchy, huh?”
“I guess,” Damien acquiesced. He had to admit, this conversation with Dove was enlightening on a number of topics. And it also lessened the pressure from his shoulders. He’d seen a lot of rapid progress in recent months, but that was no reason to get too greedy. He would get stronger with time, and, eventually, he would come to an understanding of his own Martial Art. He just had to be patient with himself. For now.
“Anyway, how do the mechanics around that Spell work?” Dove asked, sounding curious once more as she steered the topic back to what had caused her slip up in the fight. “Is it a manual thing, or more of an automatic response?”
Damien was taken slightly aback, but quickly found his balance once more. He really shouldn’t have been surprised that she would find that topic of conversation particularly interesting. After all, Unique Spells were Unique for a reason.
“It’s mostly manual,” Damien said, summoning one of his chains from the ground to demonstrate. “It’s weird. When I move them around, it’s almost like they’re extensions of my body. But also… not. Like it’s part object, part… me. Does that make sense?”
“Uh… no, not really,” Dove admitted with a shrug. “Maybe that’s part of the difference with Unique Spells? They actually feel more like a part of you than something that you just learned from a book or from someone else.”
Damien shrugged. It wasn’t like it was a particularly well discussed topic, and he had scoured Regina’s library for hours trying to find reference to another Unique Spell that wasn’t dripping in hyperbole and propaganda. He had failed. Actual concrete information on the topic was obscure at best. He’d even had more luck in finding reference to that Aetheric Tether phenomenon that Noctis had spoken of so many months ago than he did Unique Spells, and even the information he’d gotten on that was less than enlightening.
“Might be. I wouldn’t know, though.”
Dove nodded, understanding his perspective. “So, how much have you experimented with it?”
“It’s been decent. I kinda made it in the middle of a fight, but I know that I can break the chains to deal damage to whatever’s being bound by them, even if it’s only moderately. And I can summon as many of them as my Intelligence allows, which is about… nine right now, I think?”
“Damn. Why didn’t you just summon all of them at once?” Dove asked, curious and a little offended at the idea that he might not be treating their spars with an appropriate amount of gravitas.
“Because the more of them I summon, the less general control I have,” Damien answered. It might not exactly be prudent to trust so much information about one of his aces to a single person, but she had proven herself more than willing to help him out, and overall friendly to boot. Plus, he had a good feeling about her. He didn’t know why, he just… did. “My soft limit right now is about four; maybe five if I really push it. After that, it all gets to be a little much, and I can only give them simple commands or use them for simple things.”
“Your brain isn’t used to processing that much information?”
“Exactly!” Damien said, happy that she understood his problem. “So, I think my way of moving forward with the Spell might not be as direct. I need to experiment a lot more before I can work out the specifics, but-”
“Have you tried wrapping them around your own body yet?”
“… what?” Damien was genuinely confused by her suggestion. Wrap his chains around his own body? That was certainly a novel concept, but he wouldn’t do that unless he wanted to bind himself to the ground, and he doubted he would run into that situation very often.
“Yeah. If you can control every movement that your chains make, why not use them to enhance yourself?”
Damien thought about it for a few moments, growing gradually more and more excited at the prospect until he stood up with a slight leap. “Do we have any more training dummies in here?”
Dove nodded, and the two quickly set it up, their mentors only briefly inquiring into their interest before moving off to continue their own conversation. The dummy was wooden, as most were, with a humanoid torso and head with several runic lines overlapping on its granular surface. Damien, ever the curious one, gave it a testing punch.
It lit up slightly at the light motion, the same purple as his Umbra Affinity, when it was in its purest form of Mana. It was interesting, and some of the runes interacted in ways that he could not fully comprehend, but that was for a different time. Instead, he activated Chains of Tartarus as Dove watched from the sidelines, feeling the bands of dark shadow coil around his arms like a living snake, stretching down his shoulder to his bicep, wrapping around his elbow and forearm until, finally, it came to his hand, wrapping around it in an ‘X’ formation and completing the circuit. Then, he began the test, and punched at the dummy.
The runes lit up as expected, with particularly intense light concentrated where he had punched the dummy in the stomach, though the light gradually faded out as it got towards parts that were further away from the direct impact site. Then, of course, something entirely unexpected happened.
The sound of an echoing, wooden crack ran through the entire room.
Damien was the most shocked of everyone, and he had just done the damn thing that had drawn all their attention. He pulled back his fist, staring at it for a few brief moments before he stared back at the dummy. A large intent the size of his fist, lined by cracks inches wide and hair thin, stood in the center of it. That was not supposed to happen. They were supposed to be a lot more durable than this. He had seen Dove make a few passes at one of them in one of their past sessions, when they’d had a break, and she hadn’t so much as scratched it.
He also let out a breath then, letting the chains quickly slide off his arm and back down into Mana. Dove checked in to see if he was alright, to which he gave a casual thumbs up.
“That… that was fucking awesome!” she exclaimed with glee, genuinely excited for him. “It doesn’t seem like you’ll be able to use it in combat without a lot of setup, but there are a lot of other uses for it than that!”
Damien concurred. And, with the clarity that his earlier conversation with her had granted him, had another idea.
“You might want to stand back a bit,” Damien said as he held out a hand, a chain gathering there like a coiled spring as he prepared to launch it forward, its end wrapped most of the way up his arm, all the way to his back. Then, he fired it off, launching the chain at an angle and managing to wrap it around one of the support beams of the training space that they had been escorted to. Then, of course, he pulled himself along, his dream of swinging around like Spider-Man finally fulfilled…
For all of three seconds before he smacked headfirst into the beam. As Dove chuckled at his failed attempt, helping him to his feet, Damien remarked to himself that he did, indeed, have much progress to make. He just hoped he would be able to get this down before the end of the year. But, for now… time to try again.