As Karan was once again walking through the streets of the kingdom, his armor shapeshifted into the same white shirt and beige pants he had yesterday, he looked around some shops in the merchant district.
While looking around some stores, he came across a small tent shop, run by an old man in his 70s. He was relatively small in comparison to Karan, so he had to look down quite a bit to look at him.
He then looked down to see what the old man was selling and saw a certain wristband. It was made out of silver with some red crystals on it. He sensed magical energy inside of it and decided to ask the old man, "Excuse me, but what exactly does this wristband do?"
"Ah, you have a good eye, young man. This is a wristband made out of silver and on it, there are healing crystals. In those crystals is blood of rare creature from the Giora Kingdom. That creature is a Geran Fox, whose blood can is used for high-class healing items. Would you like to buy it?" The old man asked, looking up at Karan.
"I am interested, yes. How much would it be?" He asked, taking a small pouch out of his pocket.
"Well, on this band, there are seven crystals on it, which means that you can use the ability seven times. Together with the silver band, it would make about 10 gold coins." The old man said and took it out of the box it was in.
"Then I wouldn't have any money left though... But this wristband seems really useful..."
As he thought about it, the old man said- "You know what, you get the most day-to-day things for less than 5 silver coins in this city, so let's make it 8 Gold Coins and 50 Silver Coins. You will surely get more soon, so I would say that this is a good price. So, how about it?"
After a short time of thinking it through, "Alright, I'll take it. Thank you for your generosity." Karan said as he gave him the money.
"Then here you go, young man. It's a pleasure." He said as he took the money and gave him the wristband.
Karan smiled proudly before walking off to not be late.
When he was gone from his sight, the old man started cackling quietly and thought, 'That idiot! Those were just ordinary crystals, painted red! That shitty wristband is worth nothing more than 40 Silver Coins! Now, let's quickly get out of here before he notices it.' As he said that, he packed up his things and went on his way, never to be seen again.
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As Karan continued on his way, he once again bought breakfast from the same stand as yesterday. The same bacon and egg sandwich for the same price.
When he arrived at the guild hall once again after finishing his sandwich, Heretta was waiting for him outside and greeted him respectfully with a slight bow.
"Good morning to you, Sir Karan The guildmaster is already waiting in the training area. Let me show you the way." Heretta started walking around the guild hall, where a giant field popped up. It was like a tracking field, but instead it was on hard, sandy ground and it was surrounded by large, white magic crystals.
"Holy crap, this is huge! And this is all just for me?" He asked Heretta with his mouth wide open.
"Not only for you, but you have it for yourself on the days where you train. Now let's go to the guildmaster. It seems your instructor has also arrived." She said and walked towards the guildmaster's position.
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"Ah! There he is! Sierra, this is Karan. Karan, this is your new instructor Sierra. She also happens to be a good friend of mine." As he introduced them to each other, Karan took a good look at her.
She was a well built, relatively tall woman around 1.86m (6'1), had hazelnut brown skin, toned muscles, abs, also long blonde hair that went to the half of her back, and blue/gray-ish eyes. She wore light clothing, such as a black top that was a bit torn here and there, a black and white slipper that looked more like a bikini bottom, and flat brown shoes. Even though the clothing looked very worn out, you could feel its power. It wasn't the same tier as Karan's clothes, but it was not too far behind.
As he stared at her for a bit too long, he slightly flinched when he heard her, "Mornin', my name's Sierra. You can either call me by my name or call me teacher or whatever, I don't really care. Nice to meet ya." She held out her hand to him.
"Nice to meet you too, Sierra. I'm Karan and I'll be in your care from now on, I guess." He said as he firmly shook her hand.
"Nice grip. You're pretty strong. Anyways, when the other two leave, I'll teach you the basics of Pugilism. Then we need to find out how much the darkness affects your way of fighting." She said as she let go of his hand.
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"Well, we will be going now, then. See you tomorrow, Karan." The guildmaster said and left together with Heretta.
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"Now, let's start with the basic stances and that stuff." She said and got into a stance. Her right hand was in front of her mouth, while the left hand was a bit further forward, in front of her belly, slightly tilted towards the left side.
"Try to hit me. Just a straightforward punch. Not with your full power, otherwise we would need to activate the barrier."
Karan nodded, got closer to her, he threw a punch right to her face with his right arm. She grabbed his hand when it was in reach of her hand and then punched him in the stomache with her left hand from below.
Of course she didn't really put any power behind it, because it was just for demonstration, so Karan felt nothing.
"That is a basic stance that is very good for counterattacking when, for example, your enemy throws the first punch. If your enemy is stronger than you, you could also try to slap away his hand, or rather, adjust it's course to go somewhere else." She let go of his harm and explained to him.
"But what if you can't catch his hand or push it away?" He asked.
"There are a lot of ways to do soemthing about that, but you need speed and/or a technique or a skill to help you with that."
"Alright. Then I have no further questions about that stance, please continue." He said and then she continued to show him various stances and ways to attack, defend or counter.
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"Now, we'll experiment around a bit with your aptitude and look if you have any useful skills." She said and took out a small and thin metallic plate that she gave to him.
"This is a common thing used to know what skills you currently posses. Try to focus your darkness energy into it. If you don't know how to, imagine a small stream of water entering the plate from a big dark ball." As she said that, he did as told and suddenly, something was written on it:
Skills of Individual: Karan
Dark Wave (Lv.1)
Dark Aura (Lv.1)
Dimensional Rift (Lvl.1)
[???] (Lv.?)
"That weird... What's with the questionmarks?" As she thought about it a bit longer and looked at him, she finally said, "It doesn't matter for now, I'm sure it's some Hidden SKill or something. It wouldn't be the first one. So, let's take a look at the other ones. Dark Wave, Dark Aura... what's this? Dimensional Rift? That's an extremely rare skill, but ti shouldn't be available for people with the Darkness Attribute... You are quite mysterious, aren't you?" She said and then told him to come with her before she quickly walked over to the largest crystal out of the ones that surrounded the area and put her hand on it. After that, it started to glow and a white ray shot out of it that went to other crystals, which in turn also lit up before a thick, white barrier rose from them and connected, so it would surround the area.
When she came back, she explained, "Don't worry, this is just a barrier that protects the outer world from people like us when we use skills, or just wanna go all out. It probably wouldn't hold out an all out fight between SS-Ranks, but it should be ok for S-Ranks to use it. Now, let's test your skills."
"First, let's try to use the Dark Aura. It's a basic darkness skill that surrounds you with an aura of darkness that enhances your physical abilities and other things such as higher mana regeneration. To use it, just say the name of the skill and think about the dark water bubble exploding and surrounding your body like a wild river. It should'nt be another bubble. try it out." He nodded and followed her instructions step by step.
"
He could feel his msucles strengthen, his senses were getting sharper, and several other things.
"Seems you've succeeded. And it also looks like because your darkness attribute is so strong, it strengthened the skill itself, which is very rare. You can cancel it again by just thinking about the dark water returning into your body as a calm sphere." She said and soon after, the aura disappeared.
"That was pretty cool. Wish I could've done that sooner. It certainly would have been easier to hunt animals." He said and chuckled a bit.
"Now, let's try the Dark Wave. For this one, you have to say its name again and then you need to think of the bubble exploding and wildly pouring out of your fist, hand, or whatever. But you have to think of it as a one time release. So you can't let it continue to pour out, otherwise it'll fail. Now try."
When he once again followed the instructions, he activated the skill. "
As he punched forward in a quick motion, a black wave came out of his fist and continued forward for about 2 meters until it dispersed.
"Pretty good. Instead of shooting it out in the open, you can also shoot it inside a person's body for a stronger effect, but you would need physical contact with that person. But anyways, the wave in itself infuses dark energy into your body when infused directly, which will lead to damage to organs or other things, while the one you shoot out will be like a shield that keeps on pushing forwards and will try to press away, down or whatever anything that stands in its way. It can also shatter, or rather disperse when the target is too powerful."
"As for the Dimensional Rift spell, I have no idea how to use it, but I can ask a friend of mine and then I'll teach it to you in the next lesson." She said as she once again walked over to the large crystal and then put her hand against it, which then led to it dimming.
"Thank you very much. This will help me a lot already. It's already nearly evening, so I'll get going now. See you next time!" He said as he walked away, waving to her slightly.
"What a strange guy..." She said and chuckled a bit before suddenly disappearing.