Our Continuing Days - Day 5, Part 4.1

Hey there, it's been a while. I'm not here to talk a whole lot, though. Or rather, there is one bit of conversation I took part in that I wanted to emphasize a little, but other than that I'm just here to give a summary of the normal events for that day. Either way, we're starting with the scene itself, a talk I had with Chiaisei and Sowanar once my girl got back from her snooping around. I had just met with Sowanar as well, and after arriving Chiaisei went through a small set of questions with him. A part of me felt it was strange my girl tried starting a research like that just because of that talk of ours, but seeing as the information she had been gathering showed some correlation to the things I had experienced myself, I decided maybe she just had a better trained nose to spot this kind of thing. 

We were in the kitchen, and at some point we noticed Senshin coming in to pick up some equipment. Sowanar suggested we headed outside when this happened, to see if Senshin would like him to join, however the boy ended up denying company, saying he had some stuff to think about. I figured it was about our earlier talk, and it seemed Chiaisei agreed with my reading, which also meant Finarkzir had been snitching on the talk with my girl, but oh well. You can't exactly expect to talk to a half of a pair within a Soul Bond without the other listening in as well, unless you intentionally set the rules beforehand. I wondered if my girl would have reached my same conclusion for a moment, seeing as she likely understood how the sisterhood operated better than I did, though I wasn't sure if asking straight would work well at that point. If anything, the best source for that answer was Nalfimiria, yet she was at a temple at that moment. Apparently, she still wanted to cover some shifts as a therapist at that point, so she planned on using that part of the day to fit herself in with part of their schedule. I imagined she would mostly be working as an assistant over that period though, seeing as our resting time while working with the association wasn't exactly the easiest thing to predict. 

—Did something happen earlier? Senshinzako appears to be deeper into thought than usual. — Sowanar asked, after spending a moment observing the reaction I showed to that short interaction between us and Senshin. I looked at Chiaisei for a moment, wondering who of us could explain these matters better. Figuring out the meaning to that glance, she offered herself to the task.

—Fasnilthar gave him an especially rough beating in training earlier on. Afterwards, she also handed him a scolding of sorts, and it seems he is trying to absorb the message still. 

—Yeah, that was pretty much it. You can really be brief when you need to, Chiaisei. — My girl seemed pleased by the compliment. And I mean, she did summarize the matter pretty well. 

—Really now… How one sided of a beating are we talking about, may I ask? He looks pretty down. 

—Don't remember, other than the fact he never won. 

—14 to 0, according to Finarkzir. Not a single one of them was even close, either. — Chiaisei told him, immediately after I said my own piece. It appeared she had been expecting me not to have counted. And really, why would I have? When I'm winning that hard against someone, I can more or less tell that the zero in question won't be changing anytime soon. 

—By the Hope Star's mercy, you really don't like losing, do you Fasnilthar? 

—I mean, does anyone? Besides, we were training, right? If he didn't stand a chance, why should I pretend he did? Holding back on him any more wouldn't help him learn, and if I gave him a chance while his fighting has such an obvious problem, then that might make it harder for him to realize he has an issue to deal with. If he wants to beat me so much after that, he'll just have to get on my level, then. Plain and simple. 

Being beaten frequently teaches more than winning, more often than not. And a badly timed victory might actually make it harder for someone to grow. At that point, I didn't see Senshin as a training partner. I thought of him as someone for me to train, even if slowly, as I figured he wouldn't stand much of a chance with me going hard at him. If I had a few hiding spots and medium range between us, I was confident I could go hours beating on Senshin nonstop before he even scored a single point, regardless of whether or not our positions were being reset at the end of each round. At that point, I was almost confident I could beat him in a melee, despite the obvious disadvantage of fighting directly with less technical training. 

—A serious problem, then… Fasnilthar, perhaps you shouldn't use yourself as a comparison point to him in the first place? I haven't met many people of our age that could keep up with you, so maybe you're just being too harsh. — Sowanar said, and I took note.

"He seems to think I'm really good at this. Well, I agree with him, so who am I to complain? His judgment is quick, despite our match up being biased by nature. Rating him about the same level as the boys seems accurate as of now. 85 should be a good number."  I thought I was better at this than him as well, so I was pleased to know he realized it as quickly as he did. That meant he had a knack for identifying an opponent's strengths as well, and that he was pretty quick at it. 

And I ended up bringing the numbers into this again, didn't I? The scores I gave people was my way of comparing them, as you might have guessed. And I'm talking about fighting ability, not magical ones. These things are similar, but different. 85 meant I thought Sowanar would have an advantage against anyone below that point. I based those numbers on the people I had fought in the past, in other words, the number indicates a percentage I never actually tried quantifying or counting accurately. But I never had a hard time recalling the matches I had with others necessarily, so in a way I sort of thought this way of evaluating people was the best I could do with what I had. There are two things to add to that system, though. One, I never tried evaluating people during real battles. Wasting concentration and brain power on that kind of thing during actual fights would be insane. Second, if I felt like someone was just beyond my level, I didn't try evaluating them, since I felt I wouldn't have any accurate measure for them. 

Though I should also add, those numbers got less precise on people I considered good at this. Beyond the 80s was the level of people I thought playing around with would put me in the risk of losing. 90s and above were people I considered legitimate threats, people who I knew I would have a really hard time beating if they got to choose the ruleset freely. And to me, reaching a 100 meant I thought a person could match me in a neutral setting, and the situational advantage would dictate the odds. If they were also a long range expert, then trouble was unavoidable in that match up. So I guess in a way this measure was a complicated way of comparing people to me. 

Which might sound a little conceited, but hey, let me explain one little detail before marking me as an arrogant asshole. For one, for pragmatic reasons, I see no reason why to make a system like this if not to compare someone to me in the first place. And since judging people who I felt were way beyond me was hard, putting the ceiling to this system above my level would make it all the harder to keep track of. As for the other point… I brought this up on our first day, but I haven't met many people around my age in my life who could match me in fighting. At all. That cute little scene about me beating up toddlers might have given a few hints at this, but like, those beatdowns I gave my classmates at that point? Yeah, I started those at four, and with the exception of a few times between then and reaching 19, it never felt like fighting was anything different from that, as long as it was just about training or fun. And most of the times I had trouble with someone, they were usually both beyond my level as a mage and much older as well. This was part of the reason why I respected an opponent's age as much as I did. 

At any rate, in my early years of training, between 5 to 10, on the rare occasions I was allowed to spar with other kids, I almost felt bad for them. And in most of my years of magical academy… Well, the gap in skill still made me feel bad for my classmates, but a lot of them frustrated me a lot in other situations, so, you know… I didn't really pity most of them. Either way, I went through some hilarious winning streaks during my time at school. I even held a good edge against some of the classes a year or two above mine. At times I took my shot at even older students as well, but by the four years mark getting wins consistently got a lot harder. 

Anyways, against people who were supposedly in equal standing, I rarely felt pressured. And in the eyes of the teachers or other stronger mages around me, it also seemed like they considered me exceptional, even if that didn't mean much if I was matched up against one of them. So, as much as I resisted the idea at first, at some point I just got the feeling I was really good at this whole fighting thing. Or at least that when compared to the people who were on an even ground I was. Since that is basically what it means to be talented, I figured this meant I had a thing for this field in specific. And I mean, I still had a lot to learn even then. The higher the level of a mage, the more complicated any battle involving them gets, and even if I knew some points about high level spells, this didn't mean I had practical knowledge of how to make good use of these every tool. Being talented doesn't mean you know things from the start, just that you learn quicker, after all. As for my resistance to this analisis, maybe this was because of the impression my classmates left on me, though I always thought conceited and arrogant thinking was dangerous. Or rather, that this kind of logic tends to push people towards making mistakes. Feeding that type of weakness isn't all that sane when your livelihood involves some level of danger.

—This isn't about skill though. I'm talking about our methods. Senshin's is stupidly flawed, to the point I can hardly blame you for not noticing. Did you pick up on it, Chiaisei? I did lay it on pretty thick during our argument, but I don't know if you heard it. — I technically wasn't her instructor any longer, but seeing as I was still her senior I figured it might be good to use that previous job as an excuse to direct the occasional question like this. You can't really expect anyone to learn everything there is to know about a field immediately, and the longer you can offer help to someone learning, the better, in my eyes.