“Take them out, fight stance.”

I invoked a pair of daggers, still nowhere near the level of ability that Yaasir had demonstrated. One of the two was a recent addition, rusty junk from a corner of some shack. My new teacher had wanted to see how good I was at drawing and restoring, and I obliged. I held one in front of my chest, slightly to the left, and the other a bit to the right of my waist. His head shook with a mixture of shame, desperation, and exhaustion.

“No!” He quickly positioned himself next to me and kicked the back of my right knee, making me lower my position as a reflex action. His other knee stopped me short of bending into a fully crouching position. His foot pushed against my left foot, forcing me to move my leg until it was further in front. “For fucks…” he cursed, “can’t you even feel it? Are you comfortable like this?”

Honestly, I had no clue what he meant with that, which made him promptly empty another quarter of the bottle he had been holding all along. It hadn’t been even five minutes, and he had already downed three-fourths. At least now, I understood that whenever my answers weren’t appropriate, he would drink faster.

“Your right foot, face it to the right,” he finished the sentence with a burp.

I corrected my position and immediately felt the improvements. My center of gravity was lower, and my footing was more stable; I could definitely see myself keeping my balance even during a fight. However… “My arms feel awkward.”

“Of course they do!” He complained but didn’t drink. “Your left elbow, align it with your left knee. That blade, unless you are a complete moron, it should be facing your enemy, not you.” I hastily obeyed, keeping an eye to that last fourth of beer remaining.

“Not everyone would agree,” he continued, “but if you are to learn under me, you will. Your right hand should be next to your torso, just above the waist, the blade facing the exterior.” I moved my arm and hand until I saw him nodding. “You won’t be stabbing unless you clearly know you can kill your opponent; this stance favors rapid and lethal slashes.”

For a whole week there was no other training than that. Position, balance, stability. He would ask me to take my stance, and then he would proceed to push, kick, punch, or any other method he could think of to make me fall. And he did make me fall, more times than I can remember. Each harder than the previous.

I was all bruises, each of them testament to my inappropriate stance. The strain from holding that position was as exhausting as the kicks themselves. And still, by the end of that week, I was smiling. The improvement was real. Far from that of an experienced fighter, but it was there. Certainly, enough to get started with some mock fights against Yaasir.

It was a long hour of being shouted at and ridiculed. “No! Your feet can’t leave the ground!” Then how I’m supposed to move! “What was that!? Did you try to kill me out of laugh?” he said once, when I tripped over myself. “Again!” He mercilessly ordered after kicking me to the ground. “And again!” He knocked me down while trying to get up.

I would lie if I said I saw the effects of the alcohol on him during any of those fights. His eyes were as focused as they were when we started, and albeit he didn’t have to move much, when he did, he sported a fluidity a drunk wouldn’t have. In the end, after having bested me for what seemed the hundredth time, he drank the last drop.

“Tomorrow try not to kill me,” he was once again turning, in the process of leaving, so he didn’t get to see my confused face. I haven’t even come close to tou- “Bring me some better beer.” -of course, my shoulders dropped, and I crumbled to the ground. I was worn out, my arms barely lifted from my sides. I would have liked to say something cunning, but if I didn’t have the energy to come up with it, even less to word it out loud.

After two weeks of adjusting to the new physical demands and bearing with a body that hurt everywhere I touched, my days entered a routine. Morning practice with the daggers, afternoon sessions with Ink. I reached the perfect balance; by night, my mind was so tired that my drawings simply flowed without me being able to overthink them too much.

My combat abilities were, paraphrasing the mostly drunk idiot I took for a teacher, non-existent. One would think that after a few months of constant training, I would have been able to hit the inebriated body of someone who had drunk two or three bottles of the strongest alcohol. A parry became a swing that fainted into a sidestep and followed with a punch to my ribs. His head wobbled and dodged all my movements. The only constant was his feet, always firmly set on the ground.

What daunted me, however, was that he hadn’t felt the need to show off his mastery of Ink. From that first day when he demonstrated what he considered the bare minimum for his students, I had yet to see him invoke Ink again. I was not even worth that much; he could handle me with just some sidesteps and a swing, without any Ink surprises whatsoever.

My first hit came after six months of failures. I initially, and wrongly so, attributed it to my accumulated experience. All the physical training had bore its fruits; my pose was correct, my movements nimble and with a low mass center, and my attacks were fast and well-aimed. But that was not true.

“Stop!” I heard Yaasir announce as soon as my dagger found its target. “You are finally starting to get it.”

I could not help but blankly stare at him. How could I not? I had been training non-stop every morning. My physical condition was far from the unhealthy boy that I had once been when Spare found me. It was only natural that I eventually managed to get him. If only because he wasn’t really trying, but I still counted it as a win.

“You’re thinking that it’s your training with the daggers, aren't you? Why don’t you re-evaluate your thought-process during that fight?”

I blinked twice and furrowed my eyebrows. My thought process, has it been any different from my previous fights? It all boiled down to striking when I saw an opening, fainting and fading when I did not. It was not a fight-style that revolved around parrying or acting on the defence. If I had to say, it was more of a hit and run strategy.

I replayed the short exchange on my mind. My left arm sprang into action from my side, darting towards the undefended leg of my opponent. It had enough strength behind to pierce if it hit, but I immediately noticed that it would not reach in time; Yaasir was already bringing down his own dagger to intercept it. Faint into barrel kick! My reaction was absolute, without doubt or hesitation. I used the impulse from my arm to rotate into a crouching position, left leg rapidly extending.

Yes! I felt it as my shin kicked his ankle. Low, fast, and straight to a weak point. Yet all it found was a rock solid foundation, an immovable mountain that wouldn’t budge against an ant. I saw it from the corner of my eye, his sword was coming straight down for my head.

Opening! I was in a bad position, my leg was tied up against his and my body was exposed to his swing. But that was not the opening I was thinking about. Rather, his armpit was unprotected, waiting for my blade to strike.

I raised my left arm above my head, making sure my dagger would intercept his. My body spun in the opposite direction, counteracting my barrel kick and forcing me to face him again. It's now or never! I brough my right hand up, pouring in all my strength and disregarding any counterattack Yaasir might have thought of.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

After all, a dead person wouldn't be able to counter. His left hand was out position, suffering from his attempt to block my first attack. Now, with his right hand coming down, it was impossible for either of the daggers to cover my strike. I have never been so sure of an-

“I had never been so sure of anything in my life.” I repeated out loud, surprised of the absolute certainty of that thought. “Actually, the whole fight, why was I so confident?”

Yaasir didn't answer. Unlike Spare, who liked provoking thoughts with active questioning, Yaasir used silence to give me space to elaborate on my own. And it worked, honestly.

“I was not confident,” I said while bringing my arm up and staring with disbelief at my dagger. “But, how?”

“This will probably not come as a surprise, or rather, the underlying concept won't.” He took an unusually serious posture, losing his slur in the process. “You have the ability to commune with the Ink.”

Surely, that didn't sound familiar at all. But, what he said next cleared any doubt I might have had.

“Ink can communicate with you, and you might some day do so in return. Spare suspected it since your first incident with Ink Formations, and your La’er just reaffirmed it.”

“Can you also?” I couldn't resist the temptation to ask.

“Yes, and so can Spare. I was his teacher, he knows what happens to people who can commune but are not trained to do so. It’s not even about Empire laws, it boils down to understanding your power and not being consumed by it. He knew I wouldn’t turn you down. But now,” he suddenly looked straight at me, “now that you know, we have to establish some rules.”

The first rule was as simple as it could get, and it was not a novelty. I could not speak of the matter, Ink communion, with anyone. It stemmed from the old ways, so it incurred the same fatal fate for anyone who inadvertently announced it to the world.

And second, I could not trust it.

“When you tattooed those daggers, you focused on death tools, killing, battle, blood, to name a few. And, without proper experience and control, that's exactly what you'll get out of it. ”

In drawing them, I had transfer my intent along with the image I had in my mind. The dagger, or the Ink for that matter, was not alive; it lacked any resemblance to a mind or consciousness. It just knew of its surroundings, that it had to kill and what was needed to accomplish its goal. Whatsoever the old ways were, I had involuntary tapped into them to confer this power beyond my imagination.

Then, my La’er… I shivered from the thought. If a pair or rusty daggers to which I barely dropped some attention can do this, what would happen if I wield La’er?

It took an impressive amount of willpower not to invoke it there and then. I was dying to see what it would be like to let it guide me in combat, and I only refrained from doing it out of respect for my teacher. That was a catastrophic decision, for I could never have foreseen the consequences of the day I eventually took it out. I had hold it on my hands before, but never with the intention to fight, and when I did…

That day, however, had yet to come. It would still be a year and some months until I would finally wield it to battle. The near future was filled with another kind of problem; frustration. Replicating the feeling of communing was harder than Yaasir explained. It was slippery at best and the more I focused on it, the blurrier it became. I had to go against my nature, against the instincts of being alert on the fight.

I usually had to order my extremities to move; I had to account for their initial position, trajectory, speed, purpose, and even where they had to go next. That feeling, however, required giving in, being guided by some intuition that you could not really pinpoint. It transcended me; it felt close to the experience Ink produced when drawing. You just know where it wants to go.

One day, after a few weeks since my first success, we were in the middle of a bout. I had just taken a step back to evade a diagonal slash, and I had a small window to counter. Typically, I would have used my right hand, the one on my back, to slash back, keeping my distance and avoiding too much exposure. That didn't happen. My right hand decided to lunge forward. My left foot, already getting into action, slid through the floor, lowering my body and dragging the other foot behind a split second after, giving me enough speed to let my arm loose. The dagger exploded with speed, converging into Yaasir’s leg and drawing blood. Superficial, barely a scratch, but that was the second time I hit him, and the first I saw red.

Celebrating right after the hit, as he made me realize, was a terrible idea. Not only did I abandon my stance, but also somehow ended up jumping in the air. A simple kick, maybe with frustration-filled strength, was enough for him to send me flying. That, however, didn’t take any of the happiness away. Even he was smiling!

These bouts kept happening every day, each time finding more naturally the balance between me guiding the battle or Ink doing so. Slowly, I began incorporating the invocation of Ink in the fight. He still only used movements and parries, and I supposedly had two main objectives to accomplish. First, invoking the daggers right into my hands when the battle started. And, after that, being able to dematerialize it during battle and then bring it back.

It was something new to me, and as such the most I achieved was making it fall to the ground right in front of me. I was so used to the sound of metal clashing on the floor, that when it didn't happen I was left awestruck for a whole 10 seconds.

“And you're dead,” Yaasir announced unamused.

My left eye twitched. I looked at the floor, nothing. I looked at my hand, empty. That happened at least three times after ignoring Yaasir's voice. The dagger had not fallen to the floor, but it was neither on my hand.

I urged to take a look at my legs, where both daggers were tattooed. I rushedly took out my pants, not stopping to evaluate if it was the place or moment. To my surprise, the drawing was still there, I could see the hilt already and then I w-

“Part of the blade is missing,” I whispered low enough that only I should have heard it.

“There's an important lesson to be learnt here,” Yaasir, seeming to have caught to my thought process or even that he knew about it beforehand, continued. “You knew that Ink degrades, specially if being materialised like we are doing now. So, why didn't you take proper care of it?”

Blood rushed to my head, surely becoming as red as a tomato. He was obviously right, I had ignored the most important part of the training. I am an Inker. And, as an Inker, I should have made sure that my tools, be it fountain pens or daggers, were in top shape.

“There will be no next time,” I replied once my mind was clear enough to make sense.

“And, if there is, you shall no longer be my student.” Harsh, but the message was clear, I could not let anything like that happen again. “Redo the drawing and meet me outside.”

I promptly redraw the dagger, leaving it intact safe from some minor details that I added here and there. I had grown a bit, and the tilt was no longer the ideal size for me, so I took the opportunity to get that sorted out. I, of course, checked every other single drawing on my body, and only stopped when I was completely sure all of them where in pristine condition. I tucked the leather bag with my drawing tools under my shirt, and finally exited the shack.

“We are moving out, are you ready?” He announced as soon as I stepped outside.

I was ready to leave, as I didn't have that many things on my name and the little I had was already packed.

“I am, but…” but I still had something nagging me. “I am running out of Ink.”

I didn't know if Yaasir knew about the Inkpot on my ankle, and I didn't care at that moment. Because, even if he knew, that wouldn't change the fact that I wouldn't even dare think of using it.

“Fuck,” I heard him cursing, which was the last answer I was expecting. “Didn't Spare get you some?”

“Not this last time. I met him and we barely spent a few hours together before meeting you. And I was trying to reach the Ga’far level, so I used most of my reserves… I can’t get any from the association, so-”

“And neither can I give you any,” Yaasir interrupted me, leaving me in a perplexed state. “Soldiers, even those at my level, are tightly monitored and restricted. Though…” he left the phrase unfinished, and only continued because I fixed my gaze on him. “There are less, traditional let's say, ways of getting Ink.”

“I’ll do it,” I almost interrupted him.

Yaasir just made a gesture for me to follow him, and I did, intrigued by the absolute silenced that reigned our stroll. I knew where we were going, as it was rather evident from the turns we took and the general direction we were walking towards.

I could not depend on Spare for everything. That has almost costed his life when that assassin attacked us, because of me. I already wanted to get strong, to be able to defend us both. I had seen what the association had to offer, but I could not expose yourself. It was time that I experienced what the best of society could offer me.

“The sewers?” I asked, only to be met with a slight nod.

We walked in silence for the rest of the way there until we stopped in front of one of the biggest entries to the underground world. We plunged into the open mouth of the beast.