Bishop Silverwood chuckled at Kintas’ eager nature to start. “I think you should take it easy for a few days, just get used to your body. I recommend refraining from doing anything with high emotional impact.” He put some strange tone to the latter part of his explanation.

The way he raised his eyebrow as he made the emotional comment made Kintas think for a moment, though he was confused for a short second he realised what he meant, or at least assumed he meant the more intimate actions.

“... Has... has that caused problems before?” Kintas couldn’t stop himself from asking. He put the same odd tone to things, though he didn’t have a problem talking about the subject, they were in the presence of a young girl.

“I won’t, and can’t, go into detail, but there have been broken bones and worse. You will get used to this strength fast enough, but in the past, some have instantly wanted to try out things and... I understand that accidents happen, but let’s not risk anything.” The Bishop seemed slightly uncomfortable about this subject, Kintas was not sure if it was because of Ylere in the room or just the subject itself.

“That’s fine, I didn’t intend to do anything like it. I have broken enough cups to know that would be a bad idea.” Kintas honestly didn’t consider a brothel to be the first time to go in this situation, however now that the warning was given he couldn’t stop imagining the potential damage that could be done, the best was just to change focus.

“Good. Good, in that case, go have fun. Sleep, fight, read or do whatever you want, just be aware that you are much stronger and faster than before. So if you are involving anyone else make sure they are another Inquisitor or at least aware of your situation.” He clearly knew what he was talking about, given his silver-grey hair odds were that he had been doing this for a while.

“I also suggest that instead of praying less, in your situation it might be worth praying more. There have been other Iniqusitors who gain other Prayers suddenly, after all.”

Kintas was given his first mission, of sorts. Though it was a bit mundane and seemingly boring it was important to take care of yourself. Kintas had already decided what he would be doing the rest of the day, drinking from glassware!

“I’ll take it easy, do small things to get used to things, I think I’ll get hold of some other Inquisitor for some sparring later.” He was feeling eager to find out what he could do, but starting simple was probably the best idea.

Silverwood nodded, agreeing with Kintas’ short plan. “In that case, I think we’re done here for now. If you have any questions let me know and I’ll try to help. Let’s have a short chat after morning mass in the coming days, I can check on your progress then.” He smiled at Kintas as he turned his focus to Ylere.

“You make sure to keep him out of trouble, now.” He had a slight humorous undertone to his voice, but at the same time had a more energetic tone to it, clearly he was not unaccustomed to speaking with children.

The talk came to an end, Kintas and Ylere left the room and were told to leave the door open all the way. Silverwood liked to be approachable unless he was busy with someone.

“Should we go for lunch?” Kintas asked his young companion who was struggling not to skip through the hallways.

Ylere nodded rapidly at the idea. “You can train with glasses at the same time!” Exclaiming that he could mix food and this training at the same time like it was her idea, at least confirming that she was paying attention in the little meeting with Silverwood.

Kintas chuckled, there was still a lot of his life he didn’t remember yet, but he had vivid memories of his time with Ylere. After he picked her up from the remains of her village they became a close pair. Though he didn’t adopt her, officially or unofficially, looking at them from the side it could be hard to guess otherwise.

“That’s a good idea!” Kintas replied, playing along it being entirely her idea. “You’ll heal me if I cut myself on crushed glass, right?”

Though he didn’t have any doubt he’d handle the glassware fine, he was going to focus on it for testing reasons, after all. But her rapid and happy nodding still seemed to make her feel important.

*******

The tests during lunchtime were luckily going well. Lunch itself was served in a large mess-hall room with many tables spread about. Each table had a few chairs around it letting people sit wherever they wanted. It was highly encouraged to sit with people you didn’t know, to get better used to each other and perhaps make new friends. However, people still tended to naturally end up sitting with the same people anyway. The walls were adorned with the brass disc that everything, and everyone, else in the Grand Cathedral was somewhat branded with.

“See, I can even use glassware now!” Kintas bragged to Ylere, though it wasn’t exactly anything amazing he toned it like it was almost a miracle of the Lord himself! Strangely his entire transformation was indeed a miracle of the Lord, the Ritual and all that, but that was not what he was angling it as.

Ylere smiled. “That’s good! Maybe you can stop bending your fork.” She nodded towards his eating hand.

First after being made aware of it, he realised that the metal fork in his right hand was quite bent, he was so focused on the glass that he used what felt like normal pressure in his fork hand.

“... Fuck...” He felt happy about the glass but it was clear that the concept of normal pressure would have to be redefined.

Ylere couldn’t stop herself from giggling at Kintas’ struggles.

*******

“Are you sure?” The red-haired woman Kintas had approached asked, not as much unsure as just a confirmation. “I have the time so I’m fine with it but I won’t hold back, you know.”

She was a slender woman, but like all Inquisitors she was deceptively strong; Kintas himself was a decent example of this.

He had approached her in the Inquisitor training hall, compared to the other places for normal people this was reinforced with stronger materials as well as barriers to keep everything from breaking. It was nothing short of a large rectangular room without many features, almost like it was expected to take some damage and left as plain as possible as a result. There was one hallway leading into it which had a 90-degree turn just before entering the room acting as a barrier to the outside, the exit door was placed after this bend at the start of the hallway. Just outside this door was another door to the side, into a simple armoury with most kinds of weapons, both metal and wooden, as well as some armour of different weight classes.

“Yes, I need to get used to things anyway, and it feels like a good way to find out what weapon feels natural.” Kintas smiled back. He had approached an Inquisitor with spare time for some sparring. Though he wasn’t used to his body just yet a whole day of testing and trying to change habits had gone surprisingly well.

“Besides, I bring my own healer!” He gestured to Ylere who proudly puffed her chest with a wide smile.

“Well, in that case, I can beat you up until you find your weapon.” She smiled with sadistic glee.

Kintas didn’t waste time and went into the little armoury outside of the main door, inside was quite the selection of weapons. The more common ones like long- and shortswords were in the barrel fulls. Other more specialized weapons like bows and crossbows, whips and flails, were still a few to choose from but they were either standing alone on a small stand or hung on some hooks from the walls.

Wanting to test things and find his niche, Kintas took one of each he could find. Swords, clubs, daggers, flails. Everything that didn’t rely on ammunition; so no bows or crossbows.

Walking back and forth to the main room a few times to get it all ready. Test-swinging every weapon as he put them down he immediately found some that just felt wrong like the spear and several clubs. He ended up taking out the classic longsword for starters. Swinging it around a little more, just getting the hang of the weight and balance. “I suppose I’m ready when you are?” He sounded a little unsure of himself. Given that this was his first post-settling fight he didn’t exactly know what to expect.

Not only did he want to spar for the fight and to get used to his body in that situation, but he also wanted to try out the Prayer now that he knew the words and feeling behind it.

His opponent smiled as she drew her Inquisitor weapon. It was a long and slender obsidian-looking blade, it had an ethereal crimson glow to it, an air of heat around it even without the energy crystal socketed. In the same movement as the sword leaving its sheath, she put a small teal crystal into the pommel, and immediately a barely noticeable teal field covered most of the sword.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“I’ll at least be nice enough to dull my edge.” Her sadistic smirk hadn’t left her lips yet.

Kintas didn’t know what powers her sword had, he could guess a little based on a lot of factors but most of her skills were unknown to him. All he knew was that every single Inquisitor weapon have the same Base Activation for Aether, an always present element in the weapons. That was a magical field around the weapon that the Inquisitor could manipulate, you could make a hammer cut, a sword dull, and everything in between. The field also had some practical side-effects like being able to interact with magic like a physical object, but in this case, she used it to make sure she didn’t cut him to pieces. Though it was going to hurt he still appreciated it.

Ylere had taken the sidelines, it was a bad idea being too close for something like this, she looked eager and uncertain, something Kintas couldn’t help but share.

First, he intended to go without using the Speed Prayer and only activate it later once he has a grasp on the normal level of his body.

“Let’s get st-” Kintas wanted to start the fight, but his opponent had already reacted. His sentence was cut short as he had to put everything into focusing on parrying the incoming attack. He barely moved the sword in time to deflect the incoming blade aimed at his throat.

The redirection of force gave him a tiny opening, swinging his blunted sword towards her gut, however, in a single graceful movement, she stepped in closer removing herself from the danger zone of the longsword, using the closer range and already moving sword to pommel-strike Kintas in the face.

Stepping backwards, both to get some distance and as a reaction to getting struck in the face, he tried again to strike at her, somewhat expecting to be parried or dodged he looked for ways to take advantage of the movement to step into the next movement. She deftly parried, dodged and punished him for all of his attacks. He realised that there was something odd about the sword and called for a timeout by holding his hand up, palm facing her.

“Hold on, wait. This doesn’t feel right.” he commented mainly to himself as he looked at the sword. “It feels like it’s dragging behind?” This was an odd feeling to him. He hadn’t remembered everything from his life yet but he knew that he was not unskilled with swords. But this felt weird, it was like he wanted to swing with it but its momentum made it hard for him to do so. He was stronger than before, so the weight shouldn’t be an issue, was it his increased speed that caused this?

“Yeah, I think you’re right. I see your movements, they aren’t that bad, to be honest. It seems like you’re not able to move like you try to. Try a lighter weapon, I think the short sword might fit you better.” Though she was having fun battering and bashing him in the fight, she also seemed like she wanted to help him.

She had a good point, he realised that he might have a preference for swords from what he remembers of his past, but also from the little test swings he had before he took the longsword. So the lighter sword might aid his altered style.

Walking over to the pile of weapons he fumbled through it, picking out the shortsword, it was in the same style as the longsword he just used... just shorter. Swinging it a few times in the air felt much easier to move, but he was a bit worried that the shorter blade cut down his reach too much. As he walked back to the centre of the room he kept swinging the blade around and he couldn’t get over the weird comfortable feeling of just flailing it around. He was already comfortable with the longsword, his enhanced strength meant that using it in one hand was not even an issue but if he was moving at speeds where the physics and momentum of the longer blade was a problem, perhaps this might be the way to go.

His opponent didn’t waste a moment, like before; she took the initiative just going for his chest this time. Still having to put all his focus into parrying he barely made it this time as well. Though the sword was much easier to move it didn’t change the fact that he needed to realise what to do with it. A series of blows towards his body was strangely easy to parry or dodge, the familiarity of the shortsword was calming enough for him to focus easier, the uncertainty and weird feeling of the sword not present to take his focus. Deciding to take the offensive his focus changed, he realised that this was more fun than before; so perhaps this weapon was the way to go!

Parrying one of her blows a little harder than before moved her blade slightly further than she seemed to expect, this gave an actual opening. A grin of enjoyment grew on Kintas’ face as he stepped in, faking an attack towards her open side she moved in to parry that blow. Seeing that the fake attack worked, as the blades collided he changed to a light jab towards her face. Her experience seemed to help her letting her barely dodge his punch, however, now her head was cocked to the side, so she couldn’t see his leg moving in to swipe hers.

Kintas let out a tongue-click of disapproval as she managed to jump out of range, somehow managing to sense the attack on her leg.

“Nice try, I honestly didn’t expect you to do this well just with swapping wea-” Her sentence was cut short as Kintas chose to take the offence this time.

He stepped into range as fast as he could and started delivering a flurry of stabs and swipes at different parts of her body, using the momentum of a parried attack to chain into the next attack, or swiping from the location of a dodged stab. When their swords collided he tried using his body, fists, legs and even his head to get in a blow.

Sadly for Kintas, he didn’t manage to land a single attack, however, he took great joy in the fact that he had her entirely on the defensive. It seemed like she wasn’t able to take any offensive actions without opening herself to an attempted attack she had to interrupt her attacks to defend herself. He was feeling ecstatic that he was currently fighting on par with an experienced Inquisitor, however, in that brief moment of arrogance he felt a hand grasping the back of his head, strength and weight put behind it tilted him forward until his face made a failed attempt at cracking the stone floor.

Instinctively dropping his sword to clutch his broken face he rolled around in pain, muffled yelling mixed with a burst of weird laughter had Ylere run over, her sudden reaction almost had her fall over as she did her best to rush to his aid. A short prayer from her side later had his face slowly mend itself as the pain faded.

The red-haired Inquisitor walked over to the bloodied Kintas, cocky smile had taken the place of the focused expression she had only seconds ago. “I’ll admit that you’re doing incredibly well for someone whose body settled only a day ago. But you got arrogant, thinking you had the upper hand. Sure, you almost did most of the time but that moment-” She was interrupted by Kintas completing her sentence.

“Had me lower my guard, I know.” He chuckled a little through his broken face. “I didn’t even get to test my Prayer, but this was very good.” Giving her a thumbs up as his face was about halfway mended. “I would like to try again, I have something I’d like to test.” He smiled weirdly as his nose and lips weren’t entirely fixed yet.

“Oh? And what is that?” She seemed interested more than anything else.

“I have a Prayer I’d like to test.” Kintas activated it on accident last time, he vividly remembers the words and feeling it gave him, and based on what he knows about Divine magic in general he was confident this should work, but he still needed to do this on purpose for his peace of mind’s sake.

“I don’t see a problem with that.” She shrugged with her sword in hand, seeming confident that this should work out regardless.

A few minutes later Ylere retired to the sidelines, she looked a little tired from that but his face was back to its normal state as a result of it.

Turning his focus back to his opponent he partly wondered if this would even work, however, he was also having the time of his life.

“Are you ready?” He gave her a warning which wasn’t interrupted this time.

Her smile faded into her focused expression, she looked extremely ready as she nodded. “I am.”

Kintas mentally focused on the feeling of the speed from last time, he knew this was not his own power and came from Him granting power. Putting an honest wish behind the words he hoped this would work out.

As soon as he opened his mouth to speak the words he felt that the words came on their own, like something else was driving his lips to say them. “Lord, give me speed.”

There was a pulse of energy in his body like before, he felt it rush through him alongside the warmth of adrenaline surging through his body.

His opponent’s breathing looked to be slowing, her blinks took longer than the instant they normally did. A smirk grew on Kintas’ lips.