Tim introduced himself as well, and they did a bit of sparring, with Aiz holding back. Adama gave Aiz a few words of wisdom on how to improve her footwork, before agreeing to meet up for training every other morning, bright and early, starting next morning. He was sweaty and dirty, so he made use of the adventurer showers in Babel, before heading home. Hopefully Hestia would be back, and with dinner, so he could eat and cultivate some dream madra before heading back to the Dungeon tomorrow.
He was right about Hestia being back by the time he got home, and she had lived up to her title of goddess by having brought home a couple of hearty grilled steaks and vegetables for dinner. Meat had never tasted so good as he shoveled down his dinner, placating Hestia with promises that he hadn’t gone down into the Dungeon today in between mouthfuls.
Pacified, after dinner she showed him the results of her shopping.
“Your clothes were in questionable condition when we first met. Now, you look like you’ve dressed yourself by robbing homeless people.” She said, looking at him critically.
The Sage had never been one to care about his appearance, but even he had to admit that he looked a little ridiculous dressed in little but brown rags and bandages, He had gotten a few looks, which he ignored, but he would need some new clothes before he was running around naked. Fortunately, Hestia had already anticipated that need.
“This should be much better.” She commented while taking an outfit from a bag underneath the table and plunking it down for him to see.
It was a matching pair of long black shirt and pants with loose sleeves. On top of those was a set of flexible brown leather armor. Both had clearly been built with ease of movement in mind and she encouraged him to try all of it on. It fit him like a glove, of course, and he wondered idly how Hestia had known his size so well.
“Well? How do you like it?”
“Not bad.” He admitted, more pleased than he would let on with the new, well-fitting gear.
“That’s good because we are out of money again. Work hard in the Dungeon tomorrow, OK?”
“…”
The next morning, as he wandered over to the rampart to practice with Aiz, he wondered if his patron got some sort of perverse pleasure out of being poor.
His training session with Aiz proved fruitful for both of them, though. Aiz could only limit herself so much, so she was always faster and stronger than him. But he had the clear edge in skill, so they created a pleasant equilibrium. She would try to pressure him enough to break through his defenses, while limited, and he would prove an unmovable opponent that turned aside or dodged her strikes without fail. They would stay like that for a while, before taking a short break for Tim to lecture her about her movements and attacks.
“Too predictable. You’re clearly more used to fighting monsters rather than people. You’ll need to steel your resolve if you hope to survive human-on-human combat.”
“Too much wasted movement. You’re used to being the fastest on the battlefield, but you won’t always have that luxury. Instead, in this situation, try shifting your weight like this…”
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They both lost track of time as he drilled his lessons into her, and Adama saw marked improvement by the end of practice, which spoke to her considerable natural talents.
They ended the lesson at around 9:30, and, after 4 hours of sword practice, Adama made his way to the Dungeon, where it was mostly business as usual. Now, even more so than last time, the monsters of the fourth floor couldn’t touch his shadow. It wasn’t as though he was that much faster than them. In fact, he was slow in comparison to the kobolds. But rather, he always stepped exactly where he needed to be to avoid the enemy attacks. Any that got too close were turned away by a combination of substantial strength and superior leverage, and the Rippling Sword was the consummate way to thin a herd that appeared too threatening.
He even began to challenge some of the monsters on the fifth floor. Not directly, of course. They were still more than his match physically. But through ambush. The weakest enemies on the 5th floor were the frog shooters, so he decided to target them. He began hiding in one of the tunnels leading down to the fifth floor, waiting until he saw one of these monsters alone, before unleashing a full power Rippling Sword on them. If he didn’t score a critical hit and kill it immediately, he would approach it while it was writing in pain and put it down. He would quickly scoop up his spoils and retreat up to the fourth floor. Numerous frog shooters fell prey to these guerilla tactics.
After roughly 7 hours of hunting, he would emerge from the Dungeon, grab an early dinner, rest for a bit, then go back in. Hestia had given him her blessing, after some discussion, to do a bit of moonlighting, so long as he finished by midnight. Like a fish in water, Adama prowled the Dungeon during hours long after nearly every other adventurer had gone home. He only retired when the moon was high in the sky, and he did so with a content smile on his face.
He hadn’t taken as much damage on his second day of Dungeon diving, thanks in part to his new leather armor, so he was up and raring to go the next morning. Since there was no training with Aiz today, he went straight into the Dungeon to continue the party. The morning went largely without major event, though he had started to get bolder in his frog shooter ambushes. Now he would take them two at a time, releasing two Rippling Swords in the same breath and sprinting to finish them off quickly. He also took the time to verify that he didn’t need to use his sword to cast them. Simply chopping his hands would suffice to direct the magic, though it was stronger when he used a sword.
It was in the afternoon session that things finally got interesting.
He had just defeated two more frog shooters and was moving to collect their remains when his combat senses screamed out a warning. Without even looking, he whipped out a rippling sword right behind him at an angle that felt just right and heard a terrible scream. He turned in the direction of the scream and just managed to get his blade up in time to block the three bladed strike of a War Shadow.
The strongest monster on the fifth and sixth floors, the War Shadow was known as the newbie killer. A tall, pitch-black humanoid monster, it had three razor sharp claws on each hand that it used at rapid speeds and to deadly effect. This one had been skulking in the shadows and had pounced on Adama when he wasn’t looking. As the claws of its’ right hand whistled towards his neck, it seemed certain to decapitate him. Right before his no-look Rippling Sword took its arm off right at the elbow. Now, bleeding from its’ severed arm, it viciously attacked with everything it had in its’ other arm.
Adama fended of these attacks, pressured significantly but not panicking. It was stronger and faster, of course, but not much more so than Aiz during their training sessions. He danced around, ducking under an overhead sweep and turning away a diagonal slice. It was getting slower as it bled out and expended everything it had to try to open him up. Then the second thunderbolt struck.
He had just blocked another attack aimed at his face when he heard the squeal of metal that every swordsman dreads. His sword had taken the strike and been severed in half. The attack, slowed but not stopped, streaked right at his face and only a timely jerk of his head backwards saved his eyes. Instead, the tip of its middle finger scraped the bridge of his nose. Thinking fast, he threw the remains of his sword at its’ exposed midsection as it tried to pounce on him.
It dodged to its’ left, and directly into the Rippling Sword that Adama had cast with a sharp chopping motion from his hand. The monster’s left arm was partly severed at the elbow, drooping down and barely attached by a few tendons. Before the creature could get over the shock, Adama yanked off that arm and used it to decapitate the creature, ending the fight.
Breathing heavily, Adama grabbed his magic stones and beat feet in record time. He didn’t even waste time grabbing the remains of his sword, instead choosing to avoid combat, using a Rippling Sword with his hands when he couldn’t, while making his way out of the Dungeon.
By the time he was topside again, his head was spinning. He had overused his Rippling Sword and was in danger of a Mind Down, the term for when one runs out of mental energy and collapses unconscious due to magic overuse. The Guild employee raised an eyebrow when Adama staggered his way into Guild headquarters and dropped his rather meager spoils in the collection tray.
“Back so soon, sir?”
Still panting a little, Adama takes a bit of time to collect himself before looking the employee in the eye.
“I need another sword.”