Loremaster - A Progression Fantasy Adventure, page 28
“Need an opponent?”
Turning, Rowan looked to see a familiar face. Wreathed by slightly mussed blonde hair, Tianna Caleigh regarded him with a kind smile that did not reach her eyes. Rowan suppressed a grimace. Tianna was not on the same level as Morgana, but she was strong. That was okay, though. Fighting against the strong just meant that he would improve that much faster.
In the end, he tilted his head forward. “Please.”
With a nod, Tianna took up a position opposite him, her sword held casually in her left hand as they waited for Egil to shout start.
“Start!”
The moment Egil’s voice cut through the air, Tianna leapt forward. The girl might have been more concerned with how she looked than how she fought, but her skill was undeniable. However, Rowan was not the novice swordsman he had once been either.
Lifting his blade, he caught Tianna’s overhead slash, angling his sword to allow her strike’s momentum to dissipate along its edge. His hands numbed slightly at the impact, but he successfully dealt with her attack. Then it was his turn.
A single step backward took him out of range of Tianna’s follow-up slice, a favorite move of hers that she had leaned on since arriving at the academy, and then he advanced, thrusting his blade forward in a sharp stab.
Plain as the attack may be, it was one of the most practiced moves amongst swordsmen for a reason. Tianna was forced to abandon her offensive in order to deal with it, dodging gracefully as Rowan repeated the stab two more times, her blonde hair sparkling in the morning sunlight.
Rowan’s nose twitched as her golden locks flew past him. He could smell perfume. This girl had actually woken up even earlier just to doll herself up before Combat class. In fairness, it could almost be considered an offensive technique. Distracted by the realization, Rowan barely managed to get his sword up in time to block Tianna’s crescent slash. Forcing himself to focus, he batted her sword aside and launched another stab.
Tianna’s mouth quirked, her eyes flashing. Rather than dodge, she chose to block the stab, positioning the flat of her blade to catch the thrust in a show of pure skill. Undeterred, Rowan withdrew his blade and stabbed forward again. Now Tianna was starting to look angry. Another stab caused that anger to solidify.
“Don’t you know any other tricks?” she snapped.
Rowan’s response was another stab. Batting it aside, Tianna angrily advanced, swinging her sword with skilled abandon. For a few moments, Rowan weathered the storm, seeking his chance to counterattack. The moment he found it, he launched another stab.
Tianna’s eyes flashed, a promise that she was going to deliver a righteous beatdown upon him for daring to insult her like this. He was no mind reader, but Rowan did not find it hard to imagine what was going on in the fae girl’s head right now. This was meant to be sparring practice, not a second go at the training dummies. However, he had a plan in mind, one that was about to take form.
In front of him, Tianna stepped back, clearly looking for a chance to get away from his incessant stabbing in order to gain the room necessary for one of the large sweeping slashes she was so fond of. Rather than give it to her, Rowan advanced, pulling his hand back in preparation for yet another stab.
The entire fight had been leading up to this moment. As he began to perform the first movements of the all-too-familiar stabbing motion, Rowan altered the position of his hand, and Tianna prepared to contemptuously counter what she believed was his eighth straight thrust in a row.
The moment he saw her step forward and lift her sword with one hand, Rowan knew he had her. Halfway towards her body, his sword twisted, transforming from a stab into a two-handed overhead strike. With her lazy parry and forward momentum, there was no way Tianna would be able to block or dodge this. He had her.
Letting out a little shout, Rowan brought his sword down with both hands, feeling the air part in front of his blade as it thundered towards Tianna. Defiantly, she lifted her sword, her reflexes fast enough to easily get it into position for a block. But it was still a one-handed block, and that was not going to be enough to stop his blade.
With a loud thwock, wood met wood, Rowan’s blade losing all momentum as Tianna met force with force. Dumbfounded, Rowan stared at her, doing his best to push their deadlocked blades down and into her chest, but they would not budge.
Staring back at him, Tianna began to push upwards, slowly lifting his blade away from her until they were level. Then, she began to drive them back towards him, still only using one hand as she steadily forced him backwards.
For a moment, Rowan’s mind went blank. Theoretically, what she was doing right now was impossible. Or at least, it was supposed to be. But the burning sensation in his arms didn’t lie. He was being pushed back. But how?
If they were of the same strength, no one could push away a two-handed strike inches from their face with only one hand. But she had done it, which could only mean one thing. She had used her real power—the power granted to her through mana absorption.
For the vast majority of humanoid creatures in Medanas, their strength was at the most basic level. This was the bottom of the scale, the low-Brass-tier level. This had been taught to him by the Frost Blades, and then that understanding had been improved upon by Kanna, after his third dungeon run.
Kanna had been holding a folding fan while explaining this, and she had used it to push down on Rowan, increasing her strength as she gave him a taste of the power higher tiers held. His legs had buckled the moment she hit the low-Silver-tier, and he had been forced to give up after mid-Silver. But it had been an effective way to demonstrate physically the power held by those who’d worked hard to absorb mana.
The strength behind Tianna’s sword right now was at least high-Brass-tier, if not low-Silver, and she completely overwhelmed him with it. Despite the dungeons he had been delving into every weekend, Rowan’s current power was only at the beginning of the mid-Brass stage, far from being enough to compete with someone at the gates of Silver-tier. With gritted teeth, he felt his body begin to buckle, his supporting leg now forced to bear the pressure of two bodies pushing down on it.
With a soft cry, Rowan’s back leg collapsed, unable to bear the strain anymore. Collapsing into the dirt, he exhaled, his arms falling uselessly to his side. Opening his eyes, he focused on a point floating two inches in front of him: the wooden tip of Tianna’s training sword.
He had lost. Using only a single arm, Tianna had reversed the situation and defeated him. Of course, in order to do so, she had been forced to cheat, which made her victory a hollow one at best. But if this had been a real fight, he would be dead right now.
Staring down at him, Tianna flashed him a broad smile, her eyes awash with delight. “Nice try. But you can’t beat a noble that easily, commoner.”
Rowan chafed at the words. One of the key tenets of sparring was that they were not supposed to use any extra power granted through the absorption of mana. Sparring was meant to be a place to refine technique, not a contest of power. Using her high Brass-tier strength to prevent herself from losing was against the rules, and Tianna knew it. One word to Egil and she would be reprimanded, forced to run laps or some other arbitrary punishment for her transgression.
For a moment, Rowan considered doing just that. It was only fair after all. She had broken the rules, and now she deserved to be punished.
But that was hardly a real punishment, and it would only harm him in the long run. Tianna had defeated him, but that was nothing new. He was used to losing in spars by now. Running to the professor here would be no different than running to the guards back in Taureen. It was an act that instantly marked one as an outsider, and the moment word got out, there would be a target on his back.
Tianna was annoying. But so far, she had not troubled herself to do anything more than not-so-subtle jabs at his ancestry. That would definitely change if he told Egil what she had done. So Rowan did not slap her hand aside and stalk off to see justice dealt. No, instead he nodded and offered his opponent a wry smile.
“Well fought,” he said, lying through his teeth as he got up and dusted himself off. “Again?”
Rowan did not win the next exchange, or the one after that. Then it was time to switch partners, and he saw Tianna off, happy to see her go. What he was not happy about was who replaced her. Opposite him, Morgana Lunythe glared in his direction, lifting her sword by way of greeting.
Morgana did not hold back, and she very quickly proved to Rowan that his assumption back during the Test of Combat had been wrong. Even if he had closed the distance between them before she had managed to cast a spell, she would have defeated him.
Parry. Riposte. Counterthrust. With simple movements and motions, Morgana dismantled him. Every defense Rowan tried, every feint he attempted, they were nothing in the face of years of experience tempered by talent. By the end of their five minutes together, he had accumulated more bruises than he would have from an entire dungeon run, and Morgana’s contemptuous glare had only deepened.
“Try harder next time. I don’t appreciate people wasting my time.”
With that last jab, she moved away, off in search of someone who would actually pose a challenge, not that there were many of those in their year. Arrogant as she may be, Morgana certainly possessed the skills to back her words up. Not that that made Rowan want to punch her face in any less.
Still fuming, he fought against a student from Hafgufa and actually scored some hits, turning his anger into violence that took his opponent by surprise. His final round was against Reinne Westmarch, a friend of Tianna’s who was surprisingly good with a sword. Unlike the other two fae ladies he had fought, Reinne did not belittle him, nor did she seek to embarrass him. Instead, she gave him pointers as they fought, calling out when his form slipped, and generally treating their spar like what it was: a training session.
“Time!” Egil called out. “Put your training swords away and hit the showers. I’ll see you back here tomorrow.”
At these words, Reinne offered him a small smile and walked away, off to rejoin her friends. Without any reason to remain angry, and his earlier rage now dissipated after his much more friendly fight with Reinne, Rowan found himself standing alone.
And thus the class finished in a way that was much more a whimper than a bang. But losing to Tianna had firmed his resolve, and he watched patiently for a chance to speak to Egil. Not about Tianna, but about himself.
Keeping one eye on the professor, Rowan busied himself with returning the training sword to its barrel, wiping the sweat from his brow as he did. Although the morning was chilly, the feeling had quickly faded after class had begun, and it was only now that the sweat coating him had started to cool that Rowan realized he was cold.
Hurry up, Rowan urged the students, mentally commanding them to depart so that he could approach the teacher before the chill really began to sink in. Obviously, no one heeded his plea, completely silent and ineffectual as it was, and Rowan was forced to wait as they slowly dispersed.
Finally.
“Professor,” Rowan called out as the last of the Hafgufans surrounding Egil faded away.
“Rowan,” Egil responded evenly, turning his attention towards him.
This was by no means the first time that Rowan had approached the Combat instructor after class, though he did so far less often than he did with his other professors. The lessons Egil taught were much more straightforward and obvious in their applications than Professor Dahlren’s history lessons, or Kanna’s magical equations. Swing sharp thing, hurt enemies. Easy.
“I just had some questions for you, if that’s okay,” Rowan began, not bothering to beat around the bush. Unlike Typh, who liked talking about his students’ school lives, or Kanna, who was always keen to hear how he was progressing with his studies, Egil preferred to get straight to the point. Something Rowan admired on a day like today.
Egil nodded, motioning for Rowan to continue.
“Well, sir,” Rowan began, running through the question in his mind. “I was hoping to get your advice on a training regimen.”
“For yourself?”
It was Rowan’s turn to nod. “Yes, sir. I’ve been training myself independently outside of class, but I feel like I’m not catching up fast enough. I was hoping you could help me figure out what I should change in order to progress.”
Egil paused at this, his gaze fixated on Rowan as he appeared to consider the matter. As he did, Rowan was forced to stand awkwardly in front of him, unable to move as his professor contemplated the issue. Egil’s eyes were a bright gray, seeming to pierce the air from beneath a pair of heavy, brown eyebrows. His beard was the same color as his hair, with some silver mixed in, braided in the manner of northern men.
If he was my enemy, I’d be shitting myself right now, Rowan admitted to himself. Egil was one of the most intimidating men he had ever met. Shorter than most, his body was covered in muscles and scars, a testament to the rigorous training he had endured and now inflicted upon his students. With how intimidating Egil looked, it had taken Rowan nearly two weeks to gather enough courage to stay behind after class the first time and ask for some pointers. Fortunately, Egil was also one of if not the most professional of all his professors, and he had quickly and succinctly solved the problem that Rowan had faced. Since then, Rowan had made it a point to stay behind whenever a combat-related question arose, usually on the first day of the school week following a weekend of dungeon diving.
“You only received real combat training for the first time recently, correct?” Egil inquired.
Rowan nodded. “About a month before I came to the academy.”
Similar to Kanna, Egil was aware of Rowan’s background, though his knowledge was not quite as in-depth as the mage’s. As far as Rowan could tell, Egil knew that he was from a very poor commoner’s family and had received very little in the way of training of any kind before attending the academy, similar to some of the other scholarship students.
“What training are you doing on your own?”
Pausing for a moment, Rowan outlined the exercises that he had done with Tethis and continued to do to this day. As he finished talking, Egil seemed to reach an understanding.
“You’re not catching up fast enough because you’re ten years behind most of the other students,” Egil informed him. “You can’t expect to make up for a decade’s worth of experience in a single semester, no matter how hard you try.”
Upon hearing these words, Rowan deflated. Although he had known deep down that that was the case, to hear it stated so bluntly by the man responsible for training him still stung.
“With that said, I can certainly give you some exercises that will help you make up for that lost time. You have good fundamentals movement-wise, so the exercises you’ve been doing were clearly aimed at building up your strength. Whoever your teacher was, they knew what they were doing.”
Rowan felt a rush of pride at these words as Egil praised Tethis’ teachings.
“You’ll want to continue those,” Egil said, “as there’s still quite a bit of muscle-building to be done yet, but I’ll also show you a few moves you can practice that should help to bridge the gap between you and your more experienced classmates.”
Five minutes later, Rowan bid Egil goodbye, several sword drills now ingrained in his mind. The exercises Egil had shown him focused primarily on defense, a stark contrast with the offense-first style that Tethis had exhibited. Doing his best to commit them to memory, Rowan headed for the Draigwyn tower, eager to peel off his armor and rinse off the sweat that coated him before heading to History class.
Emerging from the washroom, Rowan patted his hair, the strands hanging damply across his forehead, now from moisture rather than sweat. From experience, he still had roughly twenty minutes before his next class: History.
The common room was full when Rowan returned, more than a dozen of his fellow Draigwyns clustered around the notice board on the wall next to the fireplace. Craning his head, Rowan attempted to see what it was that so enthralled his housemates, but they were standing too closely for him to make it out.
“You gonna try out?”
“I might. I’ve been doing pretty well in Combat class recently.”
“Think Thenn’s gonna make it this year?”
“No way, not while Alfrid’s on the team.”
The discussion was loud, multiple people talking at once, and more were approaching even now, replacing those that left and swelling the crowd even more. Interested, Rowan attempted to get closer, but the thicket of bodies in front of him made that difficult.
“Piss off, foreigner,” one of the bystanders snarled, pushing Rowan back as he tried to get closer to the board.
Taking the hint, Rowan backed away. Foreigner was the term that some of the Draigwyns—mostly those who followed Tianna—had taken to calling Rowan, a nickname of sorts, targeting his accent and tanned skin. All things considered, it was far from the worst thing Rowan had ever been called, and it was far from the worst thing they could have called him. Plus, it was easy enough to ignore, so he did just that, simply ducking away to grab his books from upstairs before heading out.
Resolving to find out the cause for the gathering later, Rowan departed the common room, headed for History class where he was set to receive the results of the test he had written the week before. Something he was not looking forward to in the least.
“How’d you do on the test?” Dugan asked, biting into his stuffed pastry as he did.
They were together in the cafeteria, sitting at one of the end tables that Rowan preferred. In front of them lay two papers, one of which had considerably more x-shaped marks across it than the other. With an exaggerated sigh, Rowan buried his face into his arms, eliciting a chuckle from his friend.
