“Well then that’s the last one done,” Kyle sighed placing a silvery implement that most closely resembled a pen next to a small knife that had several runes that glowed with a faint red light. This was an Inscription Tool; an item specifically created to decrease the chances of damaging the item that you were Inscribing. It was of course possible to make Inscriptions without one of these tools, but it wasn’t recommended. This particular Inscription Tool was one given to him as a gift by Patty the Sun Elf woman that he had treated during the siege which had occurred three weeks ago now.
Patty had been quite pleased when he had dropped in to check on her at her store which had only been slightly damaged during the siege. She had immediately dropped what she was doing and had shown him around the shop which was filled with Inscribed goods. However, to her surprise the things that Kyle was most interested in weren’t the Stat boosting Accessories but the Inscribing Tools that she sold on the side and were actually some of the cheapest items in the store.
Seeing her confusion Kyle had quickly explained that he had recently unlocked the Inscriptions Skill himself and he knew how useful an Inscribing Tool was for someone who was just starting to learn how to Inscribe items. Hearing this Patty immediately offered him one of the Inscribing Tools as well as a book which explained how to use it as well as instructions how to make several Inscriptions which could provide boosts to the Stats of anyone equipping them.
However, unlike the ones that he simply learned from increasing his Enchantment Spells until he unlocked the next rank of spells, learning these Inscriptions required him to study until he could perfectly form all of the runes that made up one Inscriptions before he could unlock the Sub-skill which was called Basic Inscriptions. Zerah had been teaching them to make the same Inscriptions in class ever since he had arrived and also handed them out a similar book to the one that he had been given by Patty, but the students weren’t allowed to leave the classroom with them which made it difficult to study outside of class. In fact during the entire time at the Adventurer’s School he had barely managed to completely memorise 4 of the 8 Basic Inscriptions, which according to Zerah was still quite impressive.
Still that didn’t stop him from training his Inscriptions Skill by Inscribing as many weapons that he could get his hands on with a Minor Flame Inscription. Both for the purposes of training and making money. Just today alone he had Inscribed 10 daggers with this Inscription which was quite popular among low-levelled Adventurers. He didn’t even have to use any of his own Soul Stones because he could simply get them on loan from the school which would then take a small portion of the profits to pay for the Soul Stones that he used. Hal also supplied the weapons that Kyle Inscribed which meant that even when they split the profits between them, they were easily able to pay for the materials that they used and make a decent amount of money. He didn’t feel that he was ready to Inscribe any of his own gear yet, of course he wouldn’t be allowed to use anything Inscribed with a Minor Flame Inscription anyway in any of his classes so it didn’t really matter just yet.
Picking up the daggers he had just finished Inscribing Kyle walked up to the front of the class to present them to Zerah for inspection. Once she was done checking the daggers for any loss of Durability she smiled happily at her student.
“Well done Kyle,’ she told him. “Of all of these, 3 are completely undamaged and only one had lost more than one maximum Durability. You’re definitely improving.”
“Yeah according to my Inscriptions Skill has almost reached Level 5,” Kyle replied with a smile and Fi nodded in agreement from her usual spot wrapped around his shoulders.
No one was more impressed with his level of growth with this Skill than Fi, but she also knew that it was the product of a massive amount of work. In the past three weeks most of the students had been given the opportunity to help the Adventurers hunt down the monsters that remained in the area surrounding Greenhearth. Normally this wouldn’t be allowed but then this was a very special situation as there had been quite a few Adventurers who had sadly lost their lives when they had been ambushed by monsters while they had been out patrolling the ancient city where the Dungeon had formed to make sure it was safe for that students when they had passed through on their way to the Dungeon itself and of course even more lives had been lost in the siege itself. Some of the Adventurers had also been requested to help rebuild the town which had left the Guild even more undermanned.
As such Galdon had reluctantly agreed to allow the students to hunt down the stragglers, as long as they had a qualified Adventurer along with them. However, because he had already reached Level 4 Kyle had decided against going hunting and instead was helping out around town by clearing away rubble in his spare time or running simple errands when asked. He had also been asked to provide some Inscribed weapons -mostly arrows- to replace the ones that had been used or damaged in the siege.
Kyle had asked that they wait until he had increased his Skill Level a bit more and the people in charge of that sort of thing had reluctantly agreed when Zerah had explained that he had only unlocked the Skill recently and had yet to unlock the Mass Inscription Sub-Skill that allowed him to Inscribe multiple small items for a slightly increased Soul Point cost over Inscribing them all individually. This Sub-skill only worked when the items in question were similar enough (like arrows) at a time. He had been working hard ever since on unlocking this Sub-skill but so far had failed to do so.
“By the way Fi,” Kyle said to his companion who already knew what he was going to ask her and shook her head with a sigh.
“Sorry Kyle you still haven’t unlocked Mass Inscription,” Fi replied to his unasked question. “You must be getting close though.”
“Part of the problem might be that the daggers that Hal has been giving you aren’t quite similar enough,” Zerah pointed out. Hal was an excellent student and a skilled blacksmith for his age, but she had noticed that there were still some irregularities in the items that he had given Kyle to Inscribe. “Maybe you should try Inscribing some arrows from a store in town?”
“I might give that a try,” Kyle agreed. He was sure that Hal would understand the reasoning. He might not be happy about it, but he would understand it. “Anywhere specific that I should try?”
“Leonie’s Hunting Goods have a good stock from what I’ve heard,” Zerah replied after considering his question for a few seconds. “But you won’t be able to sell them back to her. Flaming arrows aren’t that useful when you’re hunting in a forest.”
“Yeah that makes sense,” Kyle agreed recalling the times he had used his Minor Flame Enchantment in the Zone with a wince. Even if the spell had been pretty weak, he had been lucky not to set anything on fire back then. “Well I guess I’d better head to the next class.”
“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Zerah replied.
Kyle nodded as he turned to walk out the door. His next class was his Warrior’s class with Reginald who had finished recovering from the overuse of his Berserker Skill in only two days and had been impressed to hear about what Hal and Kyle had done after he had lost consciousness. He had been even more pleased with how much Kyle’s Chain Fighting Skill had increased as well as his other abilities. Combined with his higher Level, Kyle could now usually beat most of the other students in the class without having to resort to using his magic or Mental Energy Skills. Naturally the other students had Levelled Up as well, both during the siege and while hunting afterwards. However, Kyle’s Class still gave him more Stats than their own did and only recently had Gloria finally reached Level 4 but even then Kyle’s movement and attack speeds were so much faster than her own and his ability to attack from range allowed him to beat the much slower Gloria quite often despite her more focussed Stats and higher average Skill Levels much to her dismay. Her natural toughness always made it a difficult fight for Kyle which along with her higher Endurance allowed her to sometimes outlast his fast but overall weak attacks at range and get in close when he wore himself out. Sasha was also an opponent that he had some difficulty fighting due to her preternatural dodging capabilities and ability to use her flexible body to absorb some of the impact of Kyle’s attacks.
However, that was only when he wasn’t using his magic or Mental Energy Skills which made him such a formidable opponent that the only one who was tough enough to last more than a few minutes against him on their own was Reginald. Gloria was certainly tough against physical attacks, but Mental Energy Skills were very effective on her because she had been neglecting to increase her Willpower opting instead to increase her Strength and Endurance Stats making them both highest in the class. Similar could be said of Sasha but she had recently unlocked Mana Manipulation after seeing how effective Kyle’s combination of physical and magical attacks had been. She had unlocked the Water School of magic which could both be used for healing and attacking, she wasn’t yet skilled enough to put up much of a fight in the magic department alone, but it did give her a method of closing the gap between them a bit.
When Kyle and the others got to class Reginald immediately broke them up into groups for sparring practice leaving a very confused Kyle standing alone.
“Come here Kyle, you’ll be fighting me today,” Reginald told Kyle who nodded. Ever since the siege of Greenhearth Reginald had been getting Kyle to fight him more and more often so that the young man got used to fighting at his full strength instead of being forced to hold back against his fellow students.
As the other students started their own fights Reginald activated two Sub-skills of his Mentor Skill. The first was called Level Scaling and dropped his Stats down to what they would be if he was at Level 4, essentially putting him on a similar level to Kyle. The second was his Skill Limiter Sub-skill which allowed him to temporarily decrease his Skill Levels. He usually decreased most of his Skills down to Level 10 but there were also a few defensive Skills that he decreased further so that Kyle was actually able to deal damage to him. He also completely blocked off his Mana Manipulation Skill because his air magic gave him a large advantage in terms of mobility as well as attack and defensive potential that Kyle simply couldn’t keep up with, even with his improved skills.
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Once he had done this Reginald opened his eyes to see Kyle waiting patiently for him with one chain crackling with red lightning and white frost covering the other. These were of course Kyle’s Minor Vampiric and Ice Enchantments which were the two Enchantment spells that he had decided to work on now that he had managed to upgrade his Minor Flame Enchantment to the more powerful version Flame Enchantment. These two spells had also been increased to the next Level over the past few weeks, but they had yet to be upgraded. His Minor Frost Enchantment was close now but wasn’t quite there.
Kyle had also cast his Mana Skin to increase his defensive capabilities but had decided against casting his Minor Physical Defence Enchantment. Even though he had increased his Level by quite a bit recently he still didn’t really have enough Mana or Stamina that he could spend too much of it at once and still be able to use his magic or Skills when he really needed them. This was especially the case when he was fighting against Reginald who even with his Skill Levels and Stats decreased was much more powerful than him. To this day he had yet to actually beat his teacher in a fight, not that he expected to do so after seeing what Reginald was really capable of.
Seeing that his student was already prepared Reginald wasted no time in getting into his best range; right in Kyles’ face. Using a Sub-skill of his Footwork Skill known as Flash-step that massively increased his speed over short distances but still allowed him to control how he moved much more than similar techniques such as Charge which just allowed the user to move forward in a straight line he appeared suddenly just to Kyle’s left with a brutal punch already headed towards his students head.
Reginald was intent on driving the idea that the Footwork Skill should be the next Skill that Kyle unlocked, by force if necessary. As such he had been starting their sparring matches in ways similar to this and using as many of the Sub-skills as he possibly could to drive home the idea that Footwork was a Skill that Kyle needed.
However, as his fist hurtled towards Kyle’s head an orb of blue energy appeared in front of it causing him to curse. As his fist made contact with the orb it detonated sending Reginald flying backwards with a smoking and blackened hand.
Kyle smirked as he turned towards his opponent, he had long gotten used to the tactics Reginald was using and had also been casting his Mana Orbs spell while he was waiting for the fight to begin. This was far from the first time he had used this spell to counter Reginald’s speed, but it was the first time that he had timed it so well.
Reginald looked down at his now smoking hand with an irritated look on his face before glancing back up just in time to spot one of Kyle’s chains flying towards his face. Immediately Reginald put up his other arm to block the attack. As the chain wrapped around his arm Reginal cursed once again as frost suddenly coated his arm. Kyle was getting very good at countering his opponents’ specialties and Reginald’s superior movement and attack speed was certainly a specialty of his so using his Minor Frost Enchantment to slow Reginald down was a good idea.
Hauling on the chain he pulled Kyle off balance allowing him to lunge forwards and drive his other fist into Kyle’s stomach wincing as he did so. The breath burst from Kyles’ lungs from the impact, but he just gritted his teeth and drove his knee into Reginald’s stomach in return as the other two Mana Orbs that had been orbiting his body also detonated making Reginald stumble backwards before recovering and lashing out once again at Kyle’s face sending blood flying through the air when he broke Kyle’s nose.
This melee continued as the two fighters pummelled each other over and over again, each trying to get the upper hand on the other. Kyle knew that he would lose very quickly if he didn’t manage to get some distance between them. The problem was that Reginald was still faster than he was despite the fact that Reginald had lowered his Stats so that Kyle could fight him on a near equal footing.
His only real choice was to activate his Leap Skill flipping backwards through the air as he lashed out with both of his chains. His left chain left another splash of white frost on Reginald’s chest as it struck but Reginald deflected the other away over his shoulder which limited the effects of Kyle’s Minor Vampiric Enchantment. Despite this Kyle felt a small amount of energy fill him and he felt the blood that had been flowing from his nose lessened.
Before Reginald could close the newly created distance between them Kyle followed up with a barrage of Mana Darts. Reginald immediately started using a strange set of footwork that increased his dodging abilities to the point where he seemed to blur from one placed to the next several times in the span of a couple of seconds successfully managing to avoid the attack. With a loud snarl Kyle continued his attack with his chains, even attempting to slow his opponent down using his Entangling Coils Skill but Reginald blurred forwards as he easily dodged the vicious onslaught using the same Skill that he had used to dodge the Mana Darts. It didn’t quite last the entire distance but by the time the Skills duration ran out he was more than close enough for Kyle to use Mana Blast to knock him back once more.
This time instead of relying on his more conventional attacks Kyle lashed out with a Pain Spike which he then immediately followed up with a Lash from his right chain, this time the attack landed properly sending yet another wave of energy coursing through Kyle’s veins.
As Reginald weathered another barrage of attacks from his student he grimaced when he saw the bruises and swelling on Kyle’s face begin to fade even as more frost started creeping over his body. He was very happy with how Kyle had been fighting recently and this one might be his best yet. Kyle was a fast learner and was using everything that he had learned to give Reginald one of the best one on one fights that he had had in years. He could of course completely destroy Kyle in a single attack if he was at full power but that didn’t matter.
In a lot of ways Kyle should be able to beat Reginald, they both had Skills that could significantly increase the length of time they could keep fighting but unfortunately for Kyle Reginald not only had more of these Skills (even with Kyle being able to use magic) he was still faster and much. Much more experienced. As such Reginald had specifically chosen several Skills that would give him an advantage over his student. Not a massive one, just enough that this fight would force Kyle to grow even more than he already had.
As his HP began to dip Reginald felt his rage begin to grow as his Berserk Skill activated increasing his Stats past the point that he had limited himself to. As his anger rose Reginald’s Willpower shoved it back down leaving only the increase in Stats behind. This wouldn’t last long if he kept taking damage like he was right now, so he decided to make his move before things got out of hand.
Seeing that Kyle’s Enchantments were fading out Reginald once more turned into a blur as he activated his Flash Step, reappearing directly behind Kyle with his leg held high in the air. Bringing the heel of his foot down in a powerful axe kick that would’ve sent Kyle to his knees and possibly knocked him out completely but as it turned out Kyle had once again predicted Reginald’s next move and a Mana Barrier appeared in the air above his head. Little did Reginald know that Kyle wasn’t predicting his movements but was in fact using his Detect Intent Skill every now and again so that he could figure out what Reginald was planning on doing next. It had taken him quite a long time to figure out how this Skill actually worked but with Figz helping him out he had managed to do so very recently. In fact, the last time Reginald had singled him out for a sparring match he still hadn’t managed to figure out how to use it this way.
Even now it was only something that worked every so often and sometimes he just missed the moment to use it entirely but when it did work it gave him a big advantage that Reginald would have a very difficult time countering. At least until his Stats got so high that Kyle would be unable to keep up with him. This was easily the best chance that Kyle had to finally beat Reginald in a fight.
Even the other students stopped in the middle of their own fights when Kyle managed to block Reginald’s axe kick and watched in awe as Kyle then managed to use his Mana Blast to knock Reginald back once more. He was running low of MP and his enchantments had faded mere moments ago which mean that would have to rely on his physical attacks for the majority of the damage that he could deal.
However, as they continued their fight it quickly became obvious that where Kyle was reaching his limit Reginald was only getting stronger and soon Kyle fell under the Lionman’s increasingly powerful blows.
He was only unconscious for a brief time thanks to some quick first aid from his companion unlike what had happened the first day. He was still very disappointed by the outcome of the fight. He had really thought he had Reginald on the ropes this time, but it turned out that his teacher was even tougher than he had thought that he was.
“I guess I still have some ways to go,” Kyle muttered under his breath as he rubbed the still aching parts of his body that remained.
“Not really,” chuckled his teacher who was also nursing his injuries. “You actually almost had me that time. I really wasn’t expecting you to be able to block that kick and if you had been able to capitalise on that better you could’ve knocked me out.”
“Wait, really?” Kyle asked looking at the massive man next to him in surprise. “You were that badly injured?”
“Well yeah, I’m lucky I don’t have frostbite from your Minor Frost Enchantment and those chains actually hit quite hard,” Reginald replied giving his student a grin. “You still need an attack that can finish off more powerful opponents though.”
“Yeah, I’m working on it,” Kyle sighed. “It’s not easy though.”
“No, it’s not,” Reginald chuckled. “But keep working on it. I guarantee that it’ll save your life one day. Anyway, we’d better get on with the rest of this class.”
The rest of the class was taken up by everyone going over their sparring matches and reflecting on what they could’ve done better. Every now and again Reginald also gave some advice or asked for clarification as he had also been fighting so hadn’t been able to watch any of the other sparring matches.
Once they had done that the class ended. Most of the classes Reginald took went like this. First, they would fight and then they would go over what they had all done. On occasion there would be a class where Reginald went over different Skills that were useful for fighters to know but they only happened about once a week. As such these were some of the shorter classes at the school, something that the students were quite grateful for considering how many times they ended up covered in bruises or sent to the infirmary with broken bones. Still Reginald got results and the students knew that he would stop them before anyone go too badly injured.
Another interesting thing about these classes was despite the obvious rivalries that formed no one really got too angry about what any of the others might have done to them in class. On occasion there might be the occasional fight outside of class, but they were few and far between. This did confuse Kyle a little, but he supposed that in a place like this when you would probably have to have several classes before you would fight the same person again it wasn’t healthy to hold a grudge. Rather it actually seemed to push the one who lost to train harder so that they could beat them next time. Now if only he could beat Reginald next time instead of being pounded into the floor again.
“Oh, well,” he sighed as he walked out of the hall. “I guess it’s time for lunch.”
Fi nodded her agreement and the two quickly followed their classmates down the hall towards the cafeteria. They still had several classes left to go to this afternoon but today was already shaping up to be a rough one. Not that there were many easy days at Adventurer’s School.