Final Test
It was early in the morning of my birthday, May 30th, and I was going through my normal routine. Though I had decided that should start increasing the amount the of swings. It's only at 200 swings each set for 10 sets, but it's still a fairly significant increase. I haven't learned much about the sword these past 6 months, but I feel like I'm on the right path.
Truthfully these past 6 months have been focused on fighting without my sword, but I always make sure not to become rusty. Which leads to my progress in hand to hand combat. Reynolds had taken quickly to being my sparring partner and instructor in this. I must admit I feel a bit bad because it seems like he's using me as a placeholder for Arthur.
Which I can't blame him for that, as I'm sure it's very devastating. Either way I learned quickly, and adapted everything he showed, so that it could be used for my more speed focused body. My style was now a very dodge and redirecting force heavy combat style before I would release a series of lightning fast blows to weak points on the body.
Enough of that though, as it's currently time for my final test. The thing I've been waiting on since Kaspian said he really didn't have anymore to teach me via the sword. The test so that I can become an adventurer.
"Seems you've grown in this past year." Kaspian stated plainly. Looking inwards at my core the cracks littered the bright yellow orb, signifying it's readiness to breakthrough to Silver.
"Well I've had help." I say as I gesture to my sword then over to Tuk, and Reynolds who was standing to the side with my family and his. Alice was holding a little baby girl in her arms as she watched. Eleanor had been born in these past 6 months.
"Very well, the basis of the duel is if one of us is unable to continue the other wins. Also I may stop the duel early either if I think you've passed or I think you're not yet strong enough. Now lets begin." He says with a serious expression on his face while watching to see my reaction. Only to see me grin. I've been waiting for this how could I not be excited?
"Ready when you are Mister Kas!" A tick mark forms on his face at the nickname, but he draws his sword and takes his stance. I follow his lead bringing out mine while letting it rest comfortably out in front of me.
"Show me what you've learned." He says as he takes off into a sprint at me and I just calmly await his approach.
As soon as he reaches me I realize he hasn't generated any mana, going for a pure sword exchange to start the fight I see. He slashes so I prepare my sword as if I'm going to receive it, only to angle it as I side step so that it slides down. I bring my sword around to his right shoulder and he barely gets his sword up to block mine before I could score the first hit.
His eyes narrow as he resets and looks over my stance. He comes forth again and we exchange a rapid flurry of pure sword blows, but he notices that as time goes on I'm meeting his strikes faster and faster and his eyes widen a little. When they do I pick up my speed and force the fight to him, overwhelming him with slashes that leave the wind whistling as my blade seeks the first mark.
Over head slash meets block, to a horizontal slash and he dodges. Following the momentum into a spinning leg sweep he jumps over it just to see my sword coming at him in a stabbing motion. The first time I had ever stabbed at him in our duels. This caught him slightly off guard, but he quickly recovered. However not in the way he wanted, he needed to use his wind mana to slow my sword slightly so that he could bring his sword up to block.
Even with that my sword was able to draw first blood by scoring a slash across his right arm. Not deep enough to be cause of concern, but enough to see the thick blood leak out. He takes a few steps back and looks at me calmly. I take a few steps back as well and remain ready for the real part of the duel.
"So you found something to add to your sword style. No longer is it the fair and clean, sword to sword only, style. Now you include other parts of your body. Good. That will help you immensely in the future." Kaspian said as he bandaged his arm.
"Yes, I learned unarmed combat from Reynolds and found that I could incorporate it into my swordplay. You saw the results." He just nods at my statement before grabbing his sword again and preparing himself.
"Now we will be using magic, though I must admit something. Before coming here I knew my only chance of stopping you was in a straight up sword fight, but it seems I was wrong. I know I don't stand a chance if you used your magic to its full abilities, but what kind of teacher would I be if I didn't at least try. Come at me Jaron and don't disgrace me by holding back."
I stared at him intently for a few seconds before looking to toward Reynolds. It's not as if when I sparred with Reynolds, burning and dehydrated him, that I got scared of my own power. No but it made me realize I needed to have a way to control it, if I'm causing a heat wave around me that would only be detrimental to future teammates. Which is something I worked on, this version of my blue flame is close to the same temperature, but not quite.
A bright blue flame coats my blade, but you can see sparks faintly flashing off it. This was my solution, condense it to the point it's almost lightning mana. Reduces the heat slightly and completely gets rid of the heat wave, there's only one thing that comes with it. I wave my sword side to side and crackles of electricity flare off and a harsh, shrill whistle sounds with each swing.
Wind mana also coats it to get rid of the draft, so that it can swing as hard as I can. Wind mana at the bottom of my feet, ready to launch me at a moments notice.
"Prepare yourself Mister Kas. I'm not holding back here, so that you and my family can have peace of mind while I'm out adventuring. Sorry that you're the opponent, but I assume you're up for the challenge." My voice seemed to vibrate from the mana I was willing through my body, my sword seemed to constantly be moving because of the bright blue flame and equally blue sparks of lightning. The wind around swayed the grass and kicked up some dirt.
Kaspian refocused and took a very serious look, and put his sword pointing at me with the hilt above his right shoulder. I could see wind mana flowing through his body and focusing at the tip of his sword. Then he grinned widely, and shot towards me, this time I decided to meet him halfway.
Pushing the wind mana into my feet I flew across the ground horizontally towards him. Halfway to him I started a spin to my left and brought my feet up so that I was upwards again. Using the momentum from the launch and the spin I slashed down quickly at Kaspian's piercing sword. My fire and his wind mana clashed, but the sparks from my sword exploded out at the contact and hit him.
His control faltered slightly and my sword connected directly with his and it quickly began to melt through. I use wind mana to propel my foot into a vicious knee again this stomach, causing him to hunch over. Putting my sword in my left hand I went to punch down with a wind fueled fist, but he quickly rolled out of the way.
Feet touching the ground i slightly turned them before thrusting in his direction. He brought his sword out in a quick slash that sent a wind blade at me, but my sword cut through it and I sent a blunt force of wind at him from my punch. It caught him in the chest, where it tore his shirt and sent him to his ass with his hand propping him up from behind.
I decided to release my full heat since he never got to see that, and his eyes shown in realization before tossing his word away. I released all the mana I had been directing through my mana during the duel, though I was slightly disappointed as I didn't need to use lightning or sound magic against him. The sparks on my sword is not something I myself was fueling, but rather the sword from the amount of mana flowing through it. If I were to have put even more, it would have had lighting coating it instead of fire.
I can feel the slight drain from using all those different magics simultaneously, but it shows how much of an advantage higher cores have. Something like this would have left me wheezing on the ground at my light orange stage. But light yellow, approaching silver, felt like it was just warm up for a real fight. When everything calmed down and Kaspian was standing up I felt the familiar pressure in the area right above my stomach. A moment later I heard a loud crack inside me, and a burst of raw mana flooded out of me.
Looking at my core I could see the dark silver, that signified that I had broke through yellow.
"What was that?!" I heard Tabitha exclaim from my right.
"I just broke through to the Silver stage." I replied calmly. However everyone else just had shocked expressions, even though they knew I was close it's still crazy to think that someone who's only 5 years old is a silver stage mage. Kaspian was shaking his head, and Reynolds just had a crazy grin on his face with his fists on his hips.
"So, do I pass?" I ask while looking over to Kaspian.
"Heh! 'Do I pass?' He asks. Ya kid you pass. When I get back to the guild I'll get the paperwork started. Anything specific you want on there?" He replies with snark, before turning serious.
"Yes, I would rather my identity not be known as it would be annoying. I plan to wear a mask and use my sound deviance to change my voice. Put my name down as 'Rez' an A rank adventurer of the yellow stage and fire augmenter, specialization in swordplay." He nods to my response before finally standing up and grabbing his sword.
"Very well, come by the guild tomorrow in whatever getup you have planned and I'll give you your adventurer card." As he says that he begins walking off, and I make my way over to the spectators of the match.
"That was a great match Jaron, you'll make a great adventure." Reynolds was the first to speak up.
"However don't forget our deal about you coming back when you're 8 to attend the academy." Tabitha quickly reminded. A hopeless grin appeared on my face and I waved her off.
"I know mom, I know. I'll be back here in time for my 8th birthday. Besides I'll be coming back home fairly often between missions." She gave me and nod and smiled, before Vincent stepped forth.
"I went ahead procured the outfit that you wanted to wear along with the mask. We just have to go down to the auction house to find you a spare sword. Also me and Tabitha went ahead and bought some things that are more for our peace of mind rather than something you would want.
First a ring for you and your mother. They are connected, so that if your mana flow ever suddenly stops, the ring will flow red and produce a high pitched sound.
Lastly an emergency sound transmission scroll. This way if anything happens and you need to let us know, you can send us a message with this and we will be able to respond." He finished as he handed me the items and I stored them in my dimension ring. Next Alice pulled out a box that had my bracelet I usually wear when I go out in public in it.
"Vincent allowed us to use your bracelet as part of our gift, I imbued my healing spells on to these 3 stones and each carries a single use spell. I'm sorry it's not very masculine looking, but it should help you out if you're ever in trouble." I looked at the bracelet as she spoke, and while yes it definitely seems like something a woman would wear it was a priceless accessory.
A dark blue gem surrounded by 3 white stones on a black leather bracelet that I wore on the upper part of my forearm just below the elbow.
"Thank you Aunt Alice, I love it." I said as I grabbed it from the box and put it on my arm.
"Now lets go get the rest of my stuff, so that I can head out tomorrow." Gaining nods from everyone we headed for the carriage where our butler Gerald was there waiting for us.
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Author's Note
I hope the action scene was easy to visualize, it's kind of hard to write sword fighting scenes as I really don't know much about swordplay other than what I've seen in shows and movies. I'll try to become better at it either way.
Also Jaron hasn't really been using his magic like a conjurer yet and I'm thinking of making that his "goal" while he's adventuring. Have use primarily conjurer like magic in tandem with his sword.
I'm really looking forward to the coming chapters. I have about 3-4 missions planned with him as an adventurer, may increase depending how I'm feeling but definitely 3 and there will be minor time skips in between.
Thanks for reading.
-SocioPhobia