On the fourth day, when the class on Awakened Combat finally came around, Aodhán along with all the other first-year students had their hopes crushed when, instead of announcing another simulation exercise, professor Alaric gathered them within their usual training arena, looked everyone of them in the eye, and declared that there wouldn’t be another simulation exercise for the next two weeks.
To say that the students were disappointed was an understatement. Dejected was a more appropriate term, and each one of them let out groans, curses, and cries to express their disappointment.
Aodhán shook his head sadly, feeling both betrayed and annoyed at the fact that this action was most definitely intentional. Regardless of how bloody and disgusting the last exercise had been, Aodhán had been looking forward to this one.
“I can’t believe they’re doing this to us.” Andrew muttered sadly and sniffed as if to prevent himself from crying. “First, they ban information concerning the war, and now this? They might as well stab me in the skull and let my intestines bleed out.”
“Intestines don't spill out from skulls." Daruk replied with a weary sigh, but he soon shook his head and said. “You know what? Who cares? This is terrible news.”
Yurin hummed in agreement. “There is no longer any good in the world to look forward to.”
Aodhán didn’t quite agree with Andrew and Yurin; however, he understood how they felt. Ever since the introduction of the ASR pods, Awakened combat has become his third favorite class. Professor Alaric had given them a taste of the simulation and then snatched it away. It was evil, and from the self-satisfied smirk professor Alaric currently wore, it was obvious he knew it too.
“What are we going to do then?” someone asked from the front, and professor Alaric grinned as if he’d been expecting that particular question and was fully prepared to answer it.
“We shall write notes and study.” He answered with a slight flourish, and the class erupted in another round of groans and shouts.
Even Aodhán couldn’t hold himself back. To take away an interesting exercise and replace it with more books? Surely, the world couldn’t be that cruel.
Despite their obvious distaste for the idea, professor Alaric’s grin only widened, and when they calmed down a little, he said to them. “We may not have as many texts and theories to memorize compared to AAT; however, we still have to study and memorize the little that we have.”
“Noooo.” Aodhán and Andrew booed along with the other students, firmly in rejection of Professor Alaric’s words. They were already reading too many books from Awakened Advancement Theory and understanding elemental affinities combined. The study of awakened plants also had more than its own fair share of textbooks, and although runic theory was more of a practical course, there was still a lot to read and memorize. Awakened combat was the only course that hadn’t required the study of any textbooks or theories, and frankly, what did they even need to read about on the subject?
“This is not what I signed up for.” Aodhán groaned while the other students complained loudly. Yurin shook his head again, distressed by the whole thing, and although Daruk gave no outward expression, it was obvious that he was just as disappointed as they were.
Professor Alaric laughed at their predicament, shook his head, and raised his hands to placate them. “Okay, I was kidding about the textbooks. This is after all a practical class, so I won’t torture you with theory; however, there are a few books I’ll recommend by the end of the class that I believe will aid your understanding of combat to a great degree. Also, the reason I cancelled the simulation for this week and the next is because there are other essential aspects of combat that we have to cover aside from simulation combat. One of such aspects is weapon mastery, and that is what we shall be practicing today.” His grin faded and was replaced by a glare that conveyed a distaste for his next words. “There are some among you who dislike weapons and have chosen to rely solely on their skills. As foolish as I think that is, I will not counter it. However, for those who fight melee or have no qualms using weapons, be it a sword or a hairpin, this class is for you. Those who aren’t interested in the use of weapons can move to the back of the hall.”
At first no one moved, but a moment later, Telula Ziegler stepped out of the circle of students, followed by half a dozen others, most of whom were commoners.
Professor Alaric raised an eyebrow, seemingly surprised at their small number. He repeated himself again, as if expecting more people to leave, but when no other person stepped out, he frowned. “Weird. Usually, there are a bunch of goody two shoes scrambling away at the chance, but I'm glad you lot have chosen to stay. I must inform you though that using a weapon requires you to get more intimate with your target. Slashing a man’s throat is a lot more personal than blowing him up with a fireball, so I’ll repeat myself for the last time; if you do not want that, this is a chance for you to leave and stick to your beliefs and long-range attacks.”
Aodhán grimaced at the mental image the slashing of a man’s throat conjured. His eyes twitched as he imagined the spraying blood, which in turn caused the images from a certain nightmare to flash across his mind.
He banished the images with a thorough shake of his head and focused on Professor Alaric's words. Considering the nature of his affinity, Aodhán considered himself a long-range fighter. With sufficient strength, he could destroy an army from the sky like Az’marthon had done in the first vision. In fact, almost all of his skills were long-range except for {Lightning Surge} and {Create Construct}, which, now that he thought about it, was more of a mid-range skill than short-range. However, in nearly every battle he had been in, Aodhán had found himself in melee range, with the IceDrake being the most recent example.
The memory of his time within the Drake’s stomach flashed across his mind, and Aodhán grimaced. It would be an understatement to call his battle with the IceDrake a melee battle, as he'd literally been inside the creature. The point was that a battle was never predictable. Remaining a long-range fighter with no knowledge of short-range or close combat tactics was a terrible idea to him.
When no one else stepped out of the circle, professor Alaric grinned and began moving towards the exit of the training hall. “Come on then. Since you are so eager to start spilling the blood of your enemies, you might as well start learning the best way how to.”
Professor Alaric led them out of the training hall and down the hallway towards a hall they hadn’t used before. It was simply labeled [uncommon], but professor Alaric had to provide about three means of identification to access it. Aodhán had passed by the hall a dozen times before, but for some reason he hadn’t really paid much attention to it. Aodhán thought it was weird as he usually was very perceptive of his surroundings, especially with core sense constantly activated; however, when he realized that he wasn’t the only one who had casually dismissed the hall as uninteresting, it became obvious that their minds had been manipulated to ignore the building.
That alone made it obvious that the hall was an important one, so Aodhán subconsciously prepared himself to be impressed. When the massive doors finally swung open, though, Aodhán was unprepared for the sight that greeted him.
The hall was vast, much larger than the exterior suggested, and filled with a dense haze of silver metallic essence that both electrified his senses and filled him with a slight sense of danger. The walls were made of solid stone adorned with ancient-looking runes, and shafts of sunlight filtered through the windows, casting vibrant hues of crimson and gold on the polished marble floor.
The hall was beautiful, but what captured Aodhán’s attention wasn’t the ancient runes or the vibrant hues, but the grand array of uncommon-ranked weapons that covered the walls.
Every single weapon he could think of was present, and even some he’d never seen or heard of before. Swords of various sizes, colors, lengths, and even weights filled one section of the wall. The second section was covered in bows and arrows, the third was filled with daggers, knives, and darts, the fourth with round disc-like weapons that he vaguely identified as a chakram, the fifth with hammers of various sizes, the sixth with spears, and the seventh with what seemed to be metallic ropes.
It just kept going and going without end, and the fact that it was only uncommon-ranked weapons didn’t detract from the awe-inspiring scene one bit. The sheer amount of weapons in this room alone was enough to equip an army. Aodhán turned around, mouth agape, as he walked slowly into the hall, each step forward reveling more and more weapons in a never-ending cascade of shock and awe.
“Holy smokes. What is this place?” Someone finally broke the silence, and the professor grinned. “This is a repository of uncommon-ranked weapons. Every single weapon in this hall was forged by past students from the very first year the academy was created. You will find many weapons with names on them, even mine. This hall houses the legacy of so many powerful individuals, and I hope you realize what a privilege it is for you to even set foot on this ground.”
Aodhán was barely listening. In fact, he had stopped listening the moment professor Alaric had said these weapons had been forged by students. It was astounding that students had created weapons this beautiful and for so many years.
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Aodhán walked around, moving from one section to the other as he took in each weapon. A part of him regretted not having stayed in the forge mastery class, but he knew he wouldn’t have survived the course had he stayed. Professor Alaric gave them a few minutes to admire the weapons before asking them to gather in a semicircle around a large dueling ring at the center of the hall, after which he began teaching. “I’ll start by asking a very simple question. What is a weapon?”
Aodhán had definitely not been expecting that question, and although the answer seemed so simple at first, Aodhán soon found himself frowning in confusion. What was a weapon, truly? If this had been a random question from a random person, Aodhán would have simply replied that a weapon was an instrument of attack or defense used in combat. However, this was professor Alaric asking, and the way the question was phrased made Aodhán suspect that there was perhaps more to the question.
Aodhán’s frown deepened as he ruminated on the question. Perhaps, to the unawakened, a weapon referred to a sword, knife, an arrow, or even a staff, and although it wasn’t the wrong definition, it seemed insufficient.
Most Awakeneds went to battle without a single weapon in hand, and yet they attacked, defended, and fought without trouble. With that in mind, it was only appropriate to say that awakeneds were their own weapons. Their bodies, skills, and cores were all weapons they could utilize to attack and defend.
Aodhán was still organizing his thoughts when Cyrus raised a hand and answered the question, saying. “I am my own weapon.”
His response was short and without flair, yet it summed up Aodhán’s thought nicely. Professor Alaric nodded sagely, and after allocating ten points to Cyrus, he turned his gaze to the rest of the class and continued. “As awakeneds, our skills are our weapons. We do not need swords, arrows, daggers, or spears to win battles. However, these weapons are not entirely useless to us, as they lend combat a particular ferocity that magic just cannot replicate.
This is not to say that our skills lack ferocity; in fact, our skills are far more deadly; however, there is something to be said for the feel of a weapon in one's hands as you cut, stab, or smash a person’s head to pieces.”
Aodhán blinked as gory images flashed across his mind again and Daruk muttered quietly. “Were those gory visuals necessary?”
Andrew, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying the visuals Professor Alaric created with his words and was even taking notes. What he was jotting down, Aodhán didn’t understand, but it sure seemed important.
“Today, we will discuss our choice of weapons, fighting style, and techniques that best complement your affinity. This is a practical class, so I’ll be dividing you all into pairs so we can gain the most from this exercise. Before that though, I’d like to do a demonstration on weapon choice.” He scanned the group of gathered students and eventually pointed at Lupin. “Miss Cavanaugh, please come forward.”
Lupin didn’t even seem surprised that she’d been called, just disappointed that she hadn’t been left to brood in peace. She walked forward lazily, her black dress making a slight shuffling noise with each movement. She moved to stand beside Professor Alaric and turned around to face them, her gaze sliding past Aodhán without pause.
It hurt. Aodhán wanted to pretend like he was fine, or like the fact that Lupin had cut him off from her life so thoroughly didn’t rip his heart to pieces. Knowing her, she was probably doing it for his sake or some other noble reason, but it still hurt. Would it kill her to actually look at him?
His thoughts were cut off when Professor Alaric moved to stand behind Lupin and asked. “Miss Cavanaugh is a cloak awakened, an affinity most suited to infiltration, espionage, and assassination tactics. Knowing that? What sort of weapon would you consider most suitable for her fighting style and why?”
This time, Marcellus professor Alaric first called. “Daggers, I suppose.” Marcellus responded. “It fits the whole assassin image, and it’s light weight, which fits her small stature.”
Professor Alaric scrunched his face in thought for a moment before shaking his head. “Not quite as eloquent as I’d like, so I’ll give you five points. Anyone else?”
A few more people responded, their answers varying between short swords, actual swords, and daggers. The reasons for their choices hinged mostly on Lupin’s supposed fighting style and stature.
Aodhán agreed with most of them, and even the ones he didn’t agree with, he could still understand the logic behind their reasoning. However, when he imagined himself with Lupin’s affinity, he frowned.
With the ability to conceal and cloak himself from the senses of people, the dagger seemed the most appropriate. Light, quick, and efficient. However, against someone with the ability to sense the cores of those around him, the dagger was severely inefficient.
Aodhán would sense the assassin’s core long before they got within striking range. That rendered the daggers as ineffective, but after a few seconds, a solution soon presented itself: distance.
Aodhán raised his hand after Aida Simms finished highlighting the advantages of a short blade, and when professor Alaric gestured for him to speak, he stood up and answered. “I would suggest throwing knives or darts. Daggers are great and would probably take care of most situations in which the assassin might find themselves; however, there are special situations that render such short-ranged weapons useless. In such cases, a throwing knife or dart would be more effective.”
His response was a little cryptic, and although most of his classmates didn’t seem to understand, professor Alaric grinned. “Very good, Aodhán. Ten points.” He nudged Lupin gently and gestured for her to return to her seat before he continued speaking. “From that little demonstration, the importance of an appropriate weapon is conveyed. Now if Miss Cavanaugh was a spear or hammer wielder, her effectiveness in a battle will definitely drop as she wouldn’t be fighting in alignment with the nature of her affinity. This brings up an important question that helps when choosing a weapon. How would your affinity fight?”
“Studying and knowing the nature of your affinity is very important to increase your effectiveness in a battle. Those with seals must have begun noticing some subtle alterations to their fighting style, an aid of sorts as their minds are subtly twisted to match the nature of their affinities.” He pointed to Gwendolyn Tideborn, and smiled. “Miss Tideborn, for instance, is a water awakened, which means if she’s fighting according to the nature of her element, she would be adaptable, fluid, hard to pin down, and deceptive. An earth awakened , on the other hand, would be more rooted, hard to move, seemingly unshakeable and unbothered.
Fighting according to the nature of your affinity might make you more predictable to some, but it comes with a massive advantage, which is a power boost. Fighting according to the nature of affinity lends your skills an impact they would otherwise lack, as you're, in essence, pleasing the origin plane of your affinity.
Aodhán frowned, seeing some sense in Professor Alaric’s words. He couldn’t say he had been fighting according to the nature of his affinity, but on rare occasions, Aodhán had felt like his skills had done more damage than usual. One of those times was when he’d launched himself at the IceDrake with nothing else but his willpower. He hadn’t even used his skills, but Aodhán had definitely felt the approval of his affinity. He imagined that the next time he was eligible for another seal, the consciousness of his origin plane would definitely approve of that memory.
Professor Alaric gave them a few minutes to ruminate on his words and determine their fighting styles while he worked on creating pairs for their exercise.
Aodhán looked down at his hands and wondered just what sort of combat style would suit him. Perhaps a better question was the one professor Alaric asked earlier. How would a storm fight?
The memory that came to his mind was the origin plane breach that attacked the Raventhorn all those months ago. The clouds had appeared with a boom of thunder, heavy rainfall, and then finally, beams of lightning. The storm had been loud and terrifying to say the least, attacking the earth and sea with an unmatched ferocity and superiority.
That breach had shaped the idea of a storm in Aodhán’s mind, and now as he replayed the memory, the words that came to mind were fierce, raging, relentless, unforgiving, and violent.
Aodhán shifted his perspective, imagining the storm from within it rather than from underneath, but that was even worse. There was no calm within the storm he imagined, only violence and chaos. Storm clouds rumbled all around him, dark and menacing, their eeriness constantly punctuated by the flashes of lightning and claps of thunder. One thing Aodhán noticed though was that the storm didn’t just appear out of nowhere; instead, it gathered steadily and surely, gathering momentum with each cloud it added to itself until it covered the entire sky in roiling black clouds.
Was this his fighting style? Aodhán asked himself as he replayed the memory. Could he fight like this? To continuously build momentum? To be relentless, loud, and unforgiving? If that was the case, then what weapon embodied that idea the most?
He turned his gaze towards the array of weapons that lined the walls and began scrutinizing them. He discarded the sword almost immediately, as he felt no resonance with the weapon at all. He discarded the glaive next, and then the daggers, as none of those weapons resonated with him at all. However, when he reached the spears, Aodhán felt a trickle of approval from his spirit. The feeling disappeared almost as soon as it came, and Aodhán suspected he knew why. The spear definitely embodied a part of the storm; however, it focused more on precision than untamed or chaotic force and overwhelming power.
He moved on from the spear, discarding the whips, bows, arrows, and chakram until his gaze settled on the axe section. This time he felt what he could call a ‘torrent’ of approval from his seal, and he could definitely see the appeal. The axe was brutal and savage, but the harsh-looking weapon intimidated Aodhán, to be honest.
Be tried to imagine himself swinging an axe about a battle field, spraying blood, and relentlessly chopping off head with abandon. The image formed quickly, but despite how much it resonated with his seal, Aodhán didn't think the axe matched his personality well.
He stared at the brutal-looking weapon for a moment before moving on to the next weapon. He skipped the gauntlets, tridents, claws, and knuckle rings, not even pausing to sense for a resonance before moving on to the next.
One by one, Aodhán discarded the weapons, searching for one that fully embodied the idea of the storm he had in his mind. He needed something that screamed rage, fury, turbulence, relentless, torrential, savage...
There were so many words that described his idea of a storm to him, and finding a weapon that encapsulated all those words seemed impossible until his gaze fell on the hammer section, more precisely a brutal looking silver hammer more than half his height.
This time, Aodhán didn’t even need to feel the flood of approval from his seal to know that he’d found the weapon he was looking for. He tried to imagine what the effect of a skill called {Storm Hammer —Rain}, would be, and it was truly devastating.
Thunder boomed in his mind as hundreds of large hammerheads smashed to the ground, creating a massive crater in the earth. There was no denying that the effect of this skill would be much greater than that of {Storm Spear—Rain}, and without conscious thought, Aodhán began working on creating the skill.
Aodhán was grinning stupidly at the hammer when professor Alaric suddenly spoke up. “Now that you’ve had some time to think about your weapon of choice and fighting style, how about we test out those ideas you’ve come up with.” He cleared his throat and flipped his note open. “The moment I call your name, please pick a weapon and gather towards the right of the hall. Alesh Vilaris vs. Eren Thornhill, Ankaz Urdania vs Cyrus Valerion, Aodhán Brystion vs. Lilith Bloodmoon…