Chapter 10

Sam was a grade school student so he could only play after school and on the weekends. In game time this meant he could only log on for about nine days out of every month.

I told him we would begin his training this weekend.

“I can teach you how to use a sword, but only on two conditions. You have to go all the way once we start, and you can’t tell anyone I taught you.”

“Huh? Why not?” he asked.

“This is my dad’s style and you are not of his dojo. If he found out I was teaching you he’d kill me.”

“Oh, ok. And thankyou very much.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I was just gonna give you some pointers but if you want real sword skill you will have to suffer for it. It’s not too late to back out now, but once we start, it is till the end. And if you quit I’ll use a super enchantment to curse you so bad you’ll have to delete your avatar and make a new one.”

The last part was said in partial jest, but considering he knew nothing  about my abilities he couldn’t just ignore the possibility either.

“Are you absolutely certin this is what you want?”

He bowed his head and said, “Please!”

“Alright, Now I can't tell you the name of this style but for now you can call it the Way of Lightning. To begin with, it's back to the curse goblin dungeon.”

He followed me but asked, “Umm, aren’t you gonna teach me first?”

I raised my shoulders, “Teach you what? I don’t know anything about you other than that you swing a sword. I need to see what you’re capable of and we’ll go from there.”

He didn’t understand what I meant at first, but he would.

When we arrived I used Enchant Dungeon, Increase monster Strength, Increase Monster speed, Increase monster Spawn, and Decrease monster experience.

The light traveled over most of the dungeon floor.

“What’s happening?”

His noticed that his health and mana were dropping. Not as fast as mine, but still pretty fast. I used mana channeler on myself to keep from having all it drain away.

I said, “I’ve made everything in this dungeon stronger except you. Defeat 100 cursed goblins and come back.We’re not leaving until you do.”

“But my health! It will drop to zero before that.”

“Not every spot in this dungeon is affected. Find a spot without my marks on the wall to regenerate your health.”

“But I don’t have a sword.”

I knew this of course, he lost it when he died and had not bought a new one. I pulled out a sword and handed it to him.

Warrior’s Long sword.

Durability 80/80

Attack 28~30

Made by a skilled blacksmith, this is one of his lesser works.

Requires:

Level 100

STR 200

“I borrowed this from a friend, he’ll want it back when we’re done.”

He took the sword and left, uncertain.

Throwing someone into the fire like this was the quickest way to determined their strengths, weaknesses, and habits. Using Enchant Dungeon to train Heroes is one of the main reasons I wanted the Firelight Enchanter class.

I’ll take this time to explain a few details about the uses of Enchant Dungeon. Effects like Increase Experience are useful for obvious reasons, but what is the purpose of effects like Increase Monster Strength? Increasing the monster’s power does not grant additional experience when the target is slain, just like if a priest cast a buff on a monster it would not yield more experience when killed. So why do it? Simply put, fighting a monster whose power and speed has increased, will yield more Skill proficiency. Also, fighting a monster whose strength and speed has been lowered, gives less skill proficiency. That means that in this dungeon, fighting to increase your level will naturally increase your skill proficiency at more than triple the rate per level.

If you could survive.

I cast Dark summon to call an Imp to follow Sam and report his progress to me. With the imp’s illusion magic it could appear invisible without me needing to alter its sprite data.

I continually cast Enchant dungeon to prevent the spell from dissipating. When I first cast it the spell spreads out with me at its center, but after it is cast I can recast it with the same effects just by touching the glowing markings anywhere and using it again. This means I can stand at the edge of its effect in a place where it wouldn’t cause my health and mana to drain and recast it with ease.

The imp told me Sam was having a very hard time but he was improving. It seemed he thought a bit on what I said about 'swing a sword' and was trying different things.

The monsters within the Enchanted zone of the Dungeon lost life and mana as well but became faster and stronger. It didn’t take them long to figure out they would be fine if they stayed around the areas without the glowing lines on the walls. I don’t receive experience if they die from having their health sucked dry, but the Enchant Dungeon spell does increase in proficiency.

The boy eventually figured out the goblin’s simple attack patterns and was able to kill them with greater ease. I said this before but I saw in his data he did have a lot of battle experience. He was naturally skilled and even his ‘just swinging a sword’ was done well. It just wasn’t enough to cover the level gap between himself and the Bandit Chief he had to defeat.

After about five hours he returned, exhausted both physically and mentally. However, instead of complaining, he said with a smile, “Big sis, I got stats. My strength and agility stats went up even though I didn’t get a level.”

This was another effect of using Enchant Dungeon to increase monster strength and speed. Defeating them increased your own. Within Royal Road there are many systems in place that can give a User bonus stats. Eventually Enchant dungeon would also give Change Monster Defense and Change Monster Magic Defense. Fighting them while either of these was increased would also increase stats.

My plan was to use this system to increase his sword mastery and physical stats while drilling into him proper ways to fight.

We left the dungeon and he rested at the Inn. I used the time to return to the blacksmith and practice Mystic Enchantment on his failures again before helping him melt them back down.

When Sam’s stamina recovered I brought him back to the goblin dungeon and told him to show me what he had. He slew a few goblins which gave me a look at the base abilities I had to work with. Physical strength would be an issue in most worlds, but in this game world a child could be as strong as an adult.

“Ok, first things first. Where does the power of a sword strike come from?”

“Um, the sword?”

“Nope, a sharp sword can’t swing itself, try again.”

“My arm?”

“Incorrect, does your arm hold itself up? Keep trying.”

“Umm... my ... torso?”

“Wrong again, does that torso float about the floor? It gets its power from somewhere.”

“My legs?”

“Almost there, what are you standing on?”

“The ground.”

“Yes! Striking power comes from the ground. In this game technique has more of an effect on damage than a sword’s attack. The power of a strong sword technique comes from the ground, but you have barely been using it, so your strikes are weak.

He didn’t seem to understand, so I broke it down for him.

“Try hitting the wall with your sword.”

He swiped it at the rock making a clinking sound

“Ok, now start from the contact point and move backwards.”

It took him a second to realize what I meant, but he set his sword on the wall, and pulled it back.

“Ok, now do that again, but really slowly.”

He did so. I pointed to his arm and said, “Right now the weight is in your arm and wrist.”

When he moved a bit further out, I said, “Now the weight is being supported by your wrist, arm, and upper body.”

When he reached the point where one would start a sword swing I said, “Now the weight is being supported by your wrist, arm, upper body, and legs. But is it the legs and feet where the power starts from. Then as you strike you channel the strength from the ground through your feet, through your torso, through your arm, through your wrist, into the sword and into the enemy's flesh.”

I went through this a few more times to make sure he got it and made him consciously aware of taking power from the earth and directing it to his sword. At first he could only do it slowly, I would not let him progress faster unless he had the movement of force down at that speed. It took a few hours but he eventually had down three moves that made the best use of this concept.

“Ok now, same thing as yesterday, Imma make the Goblins tougher, you come back when you kill 100. Use what I taught you.”

I enchanted the dungeon and made another shrouded imp follow him.

He returned again after two hours.  He had already figured out the goblin attack pattern and knew where they congregated so it was easier to complete, but he was also able to best use his sword skills to overcome the goblins. I could also see that when he returned his Sword Mastery had reached beginner level 8.

After teaching him where power came from, it was time to teach him speed.

“Ok. Now duck as fast as you can.”

“Duck?”

I threw a rock at him forcing him to get down. “Duck.”

The rock hit him in the head. This was not my first time doing this sort of thing, and I was quite accurate.

“Next lesson, speed. Try ducking again, as fast as you can.”

I threw another rock and he ducked, but it still hit him.

“Ow.”

“Hehe, I’d use a rubber ball if this was my  dad’s dojo, but I don’t have any on me in the game. Now, show me how you duck slowly.”

He saw where this was going and slowly ducked his body and got back up.”

“Quiz time. What can you do to move faster?”

“Train?”

“That would work, but only to a certain point. In this world without leveling up or in the real world there is a limit to how much training can accomplish. Let’s assume you were a person who had trained his muscles to the limit and more training would not make your muscles faster. How could you move faster then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Use more muscles.”

“Aren’t I already using all  my muscles?”

“Your ducking uses the muscles in your neck and legs to bend your head down and lower your body. You have other muscles too. You have muscles in your gut that let you bend over, you have arms that if you move them up quickly will cause your torso to move down a bit. There are muscles in your butt that can pull your legs up. What if you ducked using all of that at the same time?”

I made him practice just that for about fifteen minutes, then I threw a rock at him.  He ducked the way he normally did.

“Ouch!”

“You didn’t duck fast enough. Practicing all the thing’s I’m teaching you is pointless if your body won’t do it when the time comes.”

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I threw another rock at him but this time he ducked right. Using all of the possible muscles simultaneously he lifted his legs off the ground while bending down his torso while moving his arms up and bending his neck down. The rock missed and brushed by the hair on top of his head.

He looked back at me and smiled.

“Good, now we’re gonna apply that to every sword strike you have.”

His smiled vanished and died.

My teaching method is not to carve magnificent techniques into a body that makes them unstoppable in battle, it is to show them how to make those techniques themselves. Though for some of the less talented ones I did show them a thing or two.

Sam and I continued like that every day after school and over the weekend. Luckily the monsters of the dungeons proved a measuring stick for how far he came each day so he knew this was working.

“With each strike you must use every part of your body. Grab the earth and push with your toes, force yourself forward with your legs, twist your body forward with your hips, move your arms together to produce the most power with your strike without throwing your body off balance, and do all of this in the blink of an eye.”

It was that last part that was the hardest to learn. It required a lot of dedication and training to move everything in the right order at once.

Sometimes he would mess up the order without even noticing it and I had to reprimand him. “Wrong. Think of your attacks like a Rocket ship. Rockets have several stages when they blast off. If the wrong stage goes off in the wrong order, the whole things explodes, but if they do it right, they can break free of the earth and sail into the stars.”

This analogy is easy to use on this world as most every child knows what a rocket ship is. On worlds without such science I have to come up with a different analogy.

Gathering power from the feet with each attack to provide greater strength is not too hard to use. Using the partial movement of several muscle groups at the same time to perform one action at greater speeds is not too tricky to learn. But teaching them both and mastering them both is not easy.

I however was not planning on getting him to master it. That would take years, even within Royal Road. For now it was enough to drill the basics enough that he could use it when he needed to and continue further himself if he wanted.

We traded dungeons to a few times to get him more practice and increase his level, but I used my Enchant Dungeon to strengthen the monsters while lowering experience. Even in this state he got to level 180, and his sword mastery reached Intermediate level 6.

“Ok Sam, you have officially graduated from novice to student. So my work is done.”

“You’re done? But you haven’t taught me any skills yet.”

“You know the basics, you can make up your own skills. As long as you practice them after thinking them up, you’ll be able to use them.”

He looked pretty sad about it.

“Tell you what, make up and master three moves and I’ll teach you a forth move. You’ll need a parry and counter move, a dodge and counter move, and a fake out and counter move. Make up, practice and become able to use those three moves that use what I’ve taught you, and I’ll teach you a super secret move that my dad forbid I teach anyone.”

This got him excited so he hurried to start. I had previously explained what each of those types of moves were and I told him a few ways to do each so he had enough to make his own.

It took him three weeks but he got down the basics for his moves.  

The parry and counter move rotated his wrist with his shoulder while twisting his hips forward to produce a powerful side striking revolution of his sword that would knock away an opponent’s sword before reversing all of those muscles to produce a strike that used the sudden reversal of the muscles to store more energy to use a stronger strike.

The dodge and counter move would dodge a normal slash while moving to the opponent’s blind side and delivering a critical blow.

The feint and attack was a duck that would make his opponent block with his sword then duck under the sword and stab up, through the opponent’s head. This movement would actually not be possible for an adult but it was ideal for a child and seemed to use everything I taught him about ducking to its fullest advantage.

I showed him a few pointers on his moves and helped him get used to them. During which he received a notification that his moves had been turned into skills.

Often if a player did something repeatedly within the game it would turn into a skill. That being said, I helped the system along a bit on that part and made it recognize his movements as skills a fair amount of time before it would do so naturally.

“Ok, the secret skill I’m going to show you is actually a move that can be used with all of your other moves. When used together, it makes them much stronger. Are you ready to learn?”

“Yes! Please!”

I smiled, “Ok, I’m going to demonstrate it. I’ll  use to to strengthen a punch, so hold out your hand.”

He did so and I punched it using everything I taught him. Although my avatar is weak and no damage would be done, the force of the punch still threw his hand back.

“That was a normal punch,  here is a punch while using the secret technique.”

He held out his hand again in anticipation.

I punched it again, using every muscle almost simultaneously, but at the same time I shouted, starting the shout at the beginning and having it reach its peak the instant I made contact with his hand. His wrist flew back again, but the pain in it would be a bit different. Besides being hurt, there would also be a stinging sensation.

He looked at his hand and looked back up in disappointment. I answered with, “Ha, I bet you are thinking, ‘That’s it?’ Well, I have news for you. Forcing all the air out of your lungs when you strike increases the pressure on your body and powers up outward movement. A master’s sword strike take less time than the shout lasts, so for the whole moment of the shout, the body is more powerful. When a true master uses this, his strike become up to a third stronger, just from shouting.”

He still looked like he didn’t believe me. I smiled and said, “Hey, you don’t have to learn it if you don’t want to. My dad doesn’t teach it to his students so that even if the strongest challenges him, he can become a third stronger with each strike and defeat his students. Without knowing this skill, none of the students will ever surpass my dad. He’s kind of a jerk like that.”

This made Sam break out smiling and laughing.

I spent the rest of the day teaching him the proper timing for shouting and eventually he felt the difference.

Later we parted ways. I bought him a sword from the blacksmith, (I couldn’t increase it since the blacksmith didn’t sell things that could be increased by me) for a graduation present and he added me to his friend list.

I logged out and watched him for a while after that. He returned to the Bandit’s cave and was able to beat the level 200 bandits within. Thanks in no small part to his new skills and the many stats he acquired from training.

He stayed in the cave for a while and increased his level. Eventually he hit level 212 and challenged the Bandit Chief. The fight was impressive but the kid had the edge in speed. In the final moment Sam rushed to slash the Chief but when the Bandit moved to block, Sam disappeared from his field of vision. Due to the height difference between Sam and the Chief, when Sam was right up next to him and ducked faster than the blink of an eye it looked like he vanished. From this ducking position he thrust up his sword with a shout and pierced through the bandit chiefs head. After which he obtained the chief’s loot and acquired the Grass sword.

I logged back in and sent a whisper.

-Hey Sam, how’d that bandit thing go?

He told me about it so it was not surprising I knew.

-Hey big sis, I did it, I beat the Bandit Chief and got the Grass sword. I couldn’t have done it without you.

I smiled. He would make a good hero

-Nice, so you got a good sword now.

-Yea, it looked like it was in a locked state, but when I got it some abilities appeared. I guess because I completed the quest.

I already knew what abilities the sword had, it was a good sword. And I may have snuck into the bandit’s cave while an Imp used an illusion spell to make us invisible and altered the sword a bit.

-Very nice, so what are you going to do now?”

-Well, I’m gonna sell it on an online auction.

What?

-Huh? Why? You worked so hard to get it.

-Yea, but it is probably worth a lot of money and I need money more than I need the sword.

-I see. For what?

-My mom, she’s sick.

-Ahh. Well I hope you get a good price on the sword then. Good luck.

-Thanks big sis.

Afterwards I logged back out and hacked into some files on the internet. It seemed the User registered as Sam had a mother in the hospital.

I let out a small sigh. He could still become a good hero, but I was counting on that sword to make him a great one. Oh well.

A few days later I heard back from Sam

-Big Sis, you’ll never believe this. I got enough money for the sword to help my mom out. With it she’ll get better.

-Ha! Remember what I told you about karma? It always comes back, the bad, and the good.

-Yeah, it’s just. Thank you soo much.

I could hear the tears in his voice

-Hey, you killed the bandit chief with skills you made up. I just pointed you in the right direction.

-Still, thankyou. Really.

I smiled a bit as I walked away from the city’s auction house. This one was run by users who managed online transactions. I had just bought something off one such site and came by to pick it up. I told you before but I can’t let objects I’ve altered back into the world. In the past when I gave a hero a powerful weapon and he sold it, I always made sure to get it back.

Still, I may have overpaid for the sword to get Sam enough money to pay for the operation his mom needed.

Now, what am I going to do with this?

Grass Sword

Durability 45/120

Attack 78~90

A sword used by the noble Threpe Household, but when the last descendant died, the sword sealed away its own powers. Recently it has awakened and its abilities can be used by anyone, weak or strong that lacks a wicked heart.

Requirements

Good or Neutral Alignment

Equips:

Grass Blade ability

Sword can extend like grass and retract just as quickly

This sword cannot break, only bend.

Chapter 11

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