Card Fighter: A Deckbuilding Progression Fantasy, page 17
Chapter twenty-six
Mira showed Dax a hard, flat punch that came straight from his shoulder. He practiced it over and over again, with Mira correcting his stance, the position of his head, the angle between his arm and his torso, even how he made his fist, forcing him to focus on every aspect of the move.
She had him throw the punch quickly, and she had him throw it achingly slowly, during which time she corrected him even more minutely.
For the first several hundred throws, it was easy. But after that, Dax’s arms began to feel increasingly heavy, and even though he didn’t think a single punch was too demanding, he soon found himself struggling, the muscles in his arm and side starting to shake.
Even then, she wasn’t done. Instead of having him punch nothing but air, she held up her hand as a target. And when he forgot everything he’d learned about the form of that particular punch simply because he was no longer aiming at nothing, she corrected him all over again.
Finally, she allowed him a two-minute break, during which time he sank down to the mat and just breathed, amazed that such a simple task could become so difficult.
Then she bade him stand up again, and this time, when they practiced, she began moving her hand up and down, left and right, making him bend at the knees, or take half a step so he could maintain the same form.
Eventually, with sweat forming on his brow and dripping from the end of his nose, Mira declared that part of the day’s training was done.
Immediately, she moved to the Face of the Fortress, teaching him the most basic block with his elbow.
If she’d tried to make him use the arm that was still shaking from the previous effort, he might not have been able to do much at all. Fortunately, she focused on his left arm rather than his right.
So he raised his arm in defense again and again, first against imaginary strikes, and then against Mira’s attacks, using her hands, elbows, and feet, but never landing a blow heavier than a light touch.
Even so, it took Dax considerable effort to train himself not to flinch, and if not for Mira’s control, he was sure that his left arm would have quickly turned to mush.
As he trained, he reflected on what he was doing. Both of these techniques, the punch and the block, were simple, yet on their own, they would be powerful weapons. Delivered correctly, that flat punch could prove decisive, and the block might well save him from significant injury.
If, of course, it came from the left side.
Despite Dax’s increasing fatigue, that thought made him grin.
It was a mistake. Mira asked him what he was smiling about, and when he told her, she raised an eyebrow and had him repeat the block training with his right hand as well.
Dax hadn’t known how long Mira’s training would last. She kept at him as the third bell rang out over the city, then the fourth bell, and the fifth as well.
Finally, as the afternoon turned into evening, it seemed they were done. From Dax’s point of view, that was a good thing. He was almost out on his feet. His arms felt like wet noodles, and he knew he would struggle to climb back up to his quiet corner.
But Mira seemed pleased. She nodded to him as if in approval.
“I’m surprised,” she admitted. “I thought you might give up within the first hour. A lot of those who seek to join the Guardsmen do so. It seems I underestimated you. Maybe you are worth my time after all,” she remarked, then offered her characteristic faint smirk. “Although I guess you now understand why it is that this training is so often paired with strength training.”
Dax gave a low chuckle. “I understand,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “If you’re up to it, meet me back here tomorrow, at the same time, and we will continue.”
She must have seen the doubt in Dax’s face because her smirk grew noticeably broader. “Remember, Card wielders recover faster than those without Cards. You should be okay by morning. And if not, we didn’t even work on your legs this afternoon. So we can focus on them.”
With that, Mira took her leave. She bid him goodbye and walked away, leaving Dax on the roof in a puddle of exhaustion.
For long minutes, he stayed as he was, resting with his back to the low wall. For a while, he considered just closing his eyes and sleeping there that night. However, after perhaps half an hour, when the sun began to set, Dax felt the first rumblings of hunger in his stomach.
Given that he’d had a good breakfast and had eaten again on his way to meet Mira, he was surprised that he was hungry again. Seldom did he eat more than two meals a day, and even if that wasn’t necessarily always by choice, he’d thought his body had grown accustomed to it.
But this training session with Mira — Dax could run for an hour straight and still not use as much energy.
His body was demanding to have the energy replaced.
With a groan, Dax hauled himself upright. He shook his arms in an effort to bring them back to life, and perhaps surprisingly, he found there was a little strength left in them.
Encouraged, he made his way down to the ground. With every step, even though he’d used only his arms, he could feel the muscles in his torso, back, and even his legs.
It felt as if he’d been beaten all over, and at first, he staggered more than he walked. But as his stomach growled ever more loudly, his stride became steadier, and he started to feel stronger again.
Eventually, he made it back to his familiar haunts. He awkwardly dug into his coin pouch to pay for an end of bread stuffed with a thick mix of stewed vegetables and meat, and took that with him back to his home, stuffing as much of it into his mouth on the way.
As expected, climbing back up to his hidden corner wasn’t easy. But he managed it, even with the remnants of his bread in one hand.
He knew it was still early. But Dax didn’t care. He was done.
So he forced himself to finish his end of stewed bread, and when that was done, he went to his straw pallet and collapsed.
Chapter twenty-seven
Before her House had been dissolved and she’d escaped to the Fringe leaving all that she knew behind, Mira’s low natural mana levels hadn’t been a major problem.
She knew that come her twenty-fifth birthday, as long as she showed sufficient talent and dedication to the Faces of Combat, her family would reward her. Not only would she be granted a Card of her own, but she would be gifted either enough mana crystals to ensure she was not disadvantaged – or a potion designed to have the same effect.
But now?
She’d thought that her chances of fixing her mana level issues had dropped to near zero. That she would continue to struggle, and would forever be vulnerable to attacks like the one orchestrated by the Stone Serpents after the fight against Kragen.
That was, in part, why she agreed to meet Dax in the first place.
He wasn’t part of her House. Therefore, trust would come slowly, if at all.
But Torald had spoken simply, even as the healer tended his wounds. “You need allies,” he said. “And this stranger, this Dax, has already shown himself willing to fight on your behalf. What would have happened if he hadn’t been there?”
Mira didn’t want to admit that the old man was right, just like she hadn’t wanted to admit when her House was finished. She’d fought to the very last, as much as she was able. And if she had been a higher-ranked member of her own Household, she would have been executed along with the rest.
That sort of defeat came with hard lessons, and Mira was doing her best to learn them.
If accepting Dax’s help, if allowing him into her circle, even just a little, was part of the cost, then she would pay it.
She never thought that doing so would lead to her gaining the chance to fix her ongoing mana level issue. But there she was, holding a full mana crystal in her hand, her payment for the first lesson.
In the outer rings, such a prize was worth a small fortune. Much more, if Mira was honest, than she could have expected in return for her training.
She didn’t hesitate. She and the old man kept rooms in the same building where they’d set up the training area on the roof. They’d negotiated for the entire top floor, and while in the outer rings she wouldn’t have expected her servants to live in such squalor, here, it was the best they could do.
Mira took her crystal to the spot she’d set up for meditation and quickly positioned herself on the meditation mat, taking the Lotus position, and drawing in a deep breath to settle her mind.
This was how she’d been trying to expand her base mana levels since she and the old man had arrived in the Fringe. Meditation was the slow road to achieving her goals. She spent at least two hours a day opening herself to the world’s mana, drawing it in as best as she could.
And it was working, if slowly. Her mana levels now were noticeably better than they had been at the start, although in truth, they were still perilously low.
The mana crystal still clenched in her fist was a shortcut.
With her mind’s eye, she checked her current mana levels, just to make sure. But she hadn’t used her Card that day at all, so her mana levels registered as full.
Which meant she should get maximum benefit from the mana crystal in her hand, if she used it now.
As she’d done so many times in the past, she did her best to open herself to the mana of the world around her. She felt a sense of peace, of spiritual well-being descend, and that was enough. In that tranquil state of mind, she was aware of mana as tiny motes, like particles of dust floating in the air, attached to the walls and floor, everywhere around her.
She took the mana crystal, brought it up close to her face, and crushed it in her fist.
The crystal was brittle. It turned into powder, and the mana it contained erupted into a cloud of shining particles.
Mira didn’t hesitate. She leaned forward and breathed deep, drawing that mana deep inside her.
Immediately, she felt the power of that mana coursing through her. It was like she was breathing pure energy. It seemed to swell up inside her.
At first, the sensation was pleasant, restful and powerful at the same time, and she reveled in the sensations.
This was what she’d imagined it to be. This was all she desired.
But the feeling grew stronger, and stronger still, until the pleasantness of it all was just a memory. Now it was like she had eaten too much, and her belly was swollen to the point of discomfort.
She tried to focus on her breathing, to settle herself back down, but the forces swirling inside her made that impossible.
For a moment, she started to panic. Had she bitten off more than she could chew? What happened to those who tried to absorb more mana than they could tolerate?
She’d heard stories of people who had broken their core in the past, rendering themselves unable to use any Cards at all, and not even the best of the healers could help them.
As the power of the crystal coursed through her, raging like a typhoon within, Mira had to wonder if this had been a mistake.
Then she shook her head.
“No,” she stated.
Mira was nothing if not determined. With an act of sheer will, she stood up to the tempest within, willing herself to hold on.
She accepted the power into herself, allowing it to do as it would, and gritting her teeth against the pain that ensued.
And painful it was. It was like every cell in her body was being pushed to its limit, the mana of the crystal battering its way in.
For the longest time, Mira experienced the worst agony of her life. It was like a million needles heated up in a fire and thrust into every part of her being, both within and without. It was like she’d been thrust into a pool of acid against which she had no defense.
Even as she sat on her meditation mat, she had no choice but to cry out, to express her pain in a scream that came from her very soul.
But she didn’t let it move her. She accepted the pain, let it wash over, and after a time that might have been measured in minutes or hours, the pain, the tempest, the howling power of the mana crystal seemed to fade.
Somehow, it grew more tolerable.
In her mind’s eye, she imagined her cells becoming bright with power. Saturated with it, much more than they had been before.
Finally, she could simply breathe once again. She’d survived it. She had taken the mana from the crystal and made it her own.
For long moments, she stayed where she was, just focusing on her breathing and regaining her equilibrium.
She felt punished. Beaten up. As if she had been fighting Kragen all over again.
But she also felt surprisingly strong. A quick check of her mana levels showed that they were still full, and there was nothing she could see that indicated one way or the other if the total had changed.
Nevertheless, she found herself smiling, as much as she ever did.
She knew in her heart that it had worked. The single crystal, the first of many, she hoped, had done what she intended.
A couple more and her mana levels ought to be approaching normal.
A couple more after that and she might well be able to turn a natural deficit into an advantage.
Chapter twenty-eight
Over the next several days, Dax fell into a pattern. If he wasn’t too sore from the previous day’s training, he would either go monster hunting on the other side of the wall and collect mana crystals. Or he would hang out with Jynn, sometimes engaging in thievery, enriching their coffers and also practicing with his Card.
In the afternoons, he invariably continued training with Mira, and sometimes with Torald as well, if the older man was there, paying the fierce woman a mana crystal every three days, as they’d agreed.
Torald was healing slowly from the injuries he’d received at the hands of the Stone Serpents. The local healers, with their herbs and tinctures, just weren’t as proficient as those in the outer rings of Jadehaven, and at first, he appeared with a cane to help him walk.
But while it was Mira who handled Dax’s training as a whole, she listened whenever Torald made a suggestion.
To Dax’s perception, the training went slowly, with Mira focusing on just one or two different techniques every session. But those techniques soon added up, and grew to include the same flat punch offered with his left hand, a move that was intended to allow him to slip around an attack, and, as promised, a series of what Mira called Steps.
The Steps started off simple: a sequence of eight different steps that allowed Dax to move backward and forward, or turn to the left or the right. Then there were eight more, covering diagonal movements. Then a selection of turns that resulted in him finishing the step facing a different direction.
At first, it seemed to Dax that the Steps were too simple and not of any particular use. But he didn’t complain, instead following Mira’s – and Torald’s – instructions to the letter, even though it meant his legs would ache the next day.
But when Mira had him put the Steps together with his punches and defensive moves, Dax began to understand the value of it all.
And when Mira followed this up with actual sparring, he began to truly appreciate the worth of her training.
As Mira so often did, she started the sparring sessions slowly, allowing Dax the time to think about his responses before his body was able to react without conscious thought.
She used a variety of kicks, punches, and other attacks, her grace and precision still apparent even at half normal speed.
At first, Dax struggled not to simply flinch out of the way. Mira helped him.
“Use your block,” she said, and he brought up his arm to block a pointed-toe kick that would have ended at his temple.
“Slip under,” she said, and Dax was able to duck beneath her next effort.
“Step left and turn, block low,” she commanded, and even though Dax hadn’t begun to understand where her next attack would end up, he found himself in exactly the right position to defend.
“You can’t defend all the time,” she said, and Dax began trying to include attacks of his own into the defense he was using.
When he was able to get close to tagging her at half speed, she ramped things up, moving faster and faster until they were sparring for real.
It wasn’t all physical training. Mira talked about the techniques she was showing him as well.
“These moves are the basics of the Face of Aggression, combined with the Fortress. All by themselves, if you master these, they should serve you well against any but the most well-trained opponent.”
“It also gives us the chance to understand your natural predilections,” Torald added from his place beside the training mats. The older man had a friendly, congenial air to him, which Dax believed to be genuine. But he didn’t forget that Torald had another, much more intimidating side. The man was very protective of his niece, as Dax had witnessed firsthand.
“When it comes time to teach you some more advanced techniques, those will be informed by what we see of you now.”
When Dax asked what the older man meant, it was Mira who answered.
“There are subsidiary Faces of Combat beneath the six major ones,” she began. “And there are specific techniques that are better suited to, for example, the Face of the Berserker, while others are more suited to the Face of the Rogue, or the Face of the Guardian. Each of these will have their pros and cons, but it’s far better for a fighter to act according to their natural tendencies rather than to fight against them.”
Dax nodded. “Is there a particular Face which is more powerful than the others?”
Mira gave her knowing smirk once again and shook her head, but it seemed to Dax that Torald had been wanting to say something else.
Before he could ask, however, Mira had launched another attack, and by the time she was done, Dax had forgotten the question.
Overall, Mira proved to be a capable teacher. She was as focused and determined as she seemed in all other situations so far, with a no-nonsense approach that took Dax right to the edge again and again.
Yet it wasn’t all work, with no other type of interaction.
