9 A Man's Treasures

The weapon wrapped inside the of leather cloth almost made Axel want to punch Ferghus in his oily beardy face. As promised, Ferghus had promised Axel a dagger upon completion of acquiring 5 gray fox pelts, but the item before him seemed to pale in comparison to the daggers sold in the normal weapon shops.

The dagger in front of him was made out of the basic iron material, but the edges were not crafted smoothly and seemed more like a police baton than a dagger. It was as if a caveman had forged this by sharpening rocks with a crude tool from the ice age. On top of that, the iron was a bit rusted from being placed in a storage shed for too long, and the durability of the dagger had drastically decreased along with it.

Axel squirmed and made an awkward smile and said,

"Thanks Ferghus... I'll be on my way now..."

Ferghus noticed the facade this young man had put in front of him.

"Hey, hold up! I know it's a bit shabby and not one of my best works, but it's better than having nothing right? Tell you what, if you help me mine 50 Iron Ore from the dungeon in Bangor, I'll make you a completely new weapon of your pick!"

Axel turned his body 360 degrees back to the direction where he had left. His eyes lit up as if a child had seen some delicious candy in front of them.

"You truly are my forging master! I'll be sure to bring those 50 Iron Ore in the near future!"

Axel bowed as he showered Ferghus with gazes of admiration.

"Stop with all the sweet talk! I haven't agreed to take you as a student yet! Bring the 50 Iron Ore and then we'll talk."

As Axel walked away in the distance, he kept on bowing to pay his respects to the blacksmith. For now, he had to act like a obedient sheep to even the worst blacksmith in the previous game of Mabiongi, where his success rate for repairs only reached 90%. One day he would be able to craft his own equipment, and lay waste to all the living beings in this world.

...

It was late afternoon after Axel galloped like a horse towards the Tir Chonaill School. Being such as town out in the sticks, it was extremely fortunate to have a school that had a sword instructor as well as a magic instructor. Not only that, the magic instructor was a beautiful maiden that wore a school girl uniform, and all men in the town were captivated by her petite figure and long crismon hair.

Upon arriving at the school gate, which was decorated with wooden poles and straw over it, he saw a bunch of straw dummies in the open field of the school. This reminded Axel of when he had first started playing Mabinogi. Inside the game, this was a place memorable for many beginners that had played in the early phases of the game. The Tir Chonaill school taught basic skills such as 'Defense', 'Smash', 'Counterattack', and lastly 'Windmill'. He wondered how long it would take him to learn all of these skills.

At one of the straw dummies was a knight clad in heavy armor leaning his back on the practice target and looking blankly at the sky. Noticing that a new presence had entered the vicinity of his detection range, he looked up in relief and said,

"You're here, young adventurer. Your recovery rate is quite impressive for someone under Level 10. It would have taken most newcomers up to 10 days to restore their health from such fierce combat."

"Haha, thanks for the compliment!" Axel said shyly as he rubbed his forehead with his pointer finger.

"Shall we start on learning some basic skills for melee combat?" asked Max.

Axel nodded and they went straight into the practice. Max threw Axel a wooden blade and took one for himself as well from the storage basket of wooden blades nearby. Then his armor seemed to contract slightly, and he was holding the wooden blade straight up with his right hand with his right foot in front and left foot in the back.

This combat stance surprised Axel. Usually the right foot was the one in the back when holding a sword in a one-handed style. This almost identical to fencing that was commonly found on Earth. It seemed that fencing was also adopted in this world. This stance was virtually impossible to break as the dominant hand and foot was in the same line of vision to use for attacking and blocking.

"Come at me, I'll show you 'Counterattack' first." yelled Max from close across him.

Axel took his baseball swing stance again with his wooden blade and proceeded to dash towards Max in a quick motion. Axel had thought his running speed had improved from the fight with black wolves, and could barely hit the wooden blade of the Mythril ranked warrior in front of him.

Never was he so wrong about his own strength. Max pulled back his blade to the left side of his wasit and released a backhand slice that catapulted itself like FC racecar. Axel couldn't even see the trajectory of the blade that had slammed into his own blade which had come near Max's chestplate and the tip of Max's blade had coincidentally poked at the lower region of his manly territory.

"OH SWEET JESUS, AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!" Axel grimaced in pain as he rolled on the floor as the wooden blade flew out of his hand. He was gripping hard to the important treasures between his legs and then stared up.

"Master....Can you hit me with a less powerful strike next time. I'm afraid I won't be able to find a mating partner after a few more strikes like that....." Axel gasped as he got used to the sudden pain that had attacked his nerves below.

"Hmmph! A true warrior casts away such ill thoughts! I had only used 10% of my strength and look at yourself. If I had used a real sword to 'Counterattack', I'm afraid you would have already been sliced in half!" Max pouted angrily.

"Let's continue then!" Axel whimpered as he slowly got up on his feet using the wooden blade to keep his balance together. Max seemed like he was never going to go easy on Axel. What Axel didn't know was Max wanted to be strict on him since in the future monsters would not wait for Axel to catch his breath when he was pushed in the corner, just like the encounter with the black wolves a few days back.

"That's the spirit!" Max shouted as he prepared another 'Counterattack' for his student to experience head on.