Heightened Senses

Three days had gone by as I continued training under Alistar. He had me do a variety of things, almost all of which made me want to die.

For the three days, it was constant stamina training. Heck, it couldn't be really called training. He either had me constantly run from a horde of skeletons that seemed like they were on steroids compared to the ones I fought earlier, or fight said horde of skeletons without rest.

He quite literally pushed me until my body broke. It was a miracle that he did it with a Fountain of Healing in the dungeon. Without that, I would've been bed ridden for weeks to months in recovery. Like the name suggests, the water in the fountain has extremely potent healing properties. Depending on the quality or grade of the fountain, it could restore severed limbs and even someone on the brink of death.

Break and heal, over and over. This cycle continued over the three days. It was painful, excruciatingly so. During this period though, I was surprised by my extreme tenacity. I knew I was tenacious, but I wasn't like this in my past life. It made me wonder what was driving me.

Sure, I didn't want to die when the demon king and his main army invaded Earth, but I couldn't think of any solid reason why I was pushing myself to become stronger fast. I didn't have anything in this life pushing me forward. Quite depressing the more I think about it.

I shook my head.

Turning my attention back to the training room, Alistar currently had it set up as a target range to practice my throwing skills. I was flattered by all this training, but I didn't plan on being an assassin in the first place.

Oh well, no point in crying about it. At least the training coincides with my goal of staying hidden. I don't want to draw unnecessary attention to myself.

Concentrating on the targets that were about four-ish meters away from me, I was calmly breathing before moving suddenly.

In a swift and fluid motion, I pulled out a throwing knife from a custom-made pouch on both of my outer thighs and threw them both at the same target.

*Thud!*

Both knives were embedded into the target dead center almost right next to each other.

Without skipping a beat, I pulled out another knife but did something different this time.

Channeling mana from my body, I concentrated a small amount into the knife before launching it towards the same target as the previous throws with the same amount of effort.

The knife flew faster than before, and embedded itself right between the other knives, dead center.

*Crack!*

The target all of a sudden started cracking from where the knives were embedded, then broke into pieces onto the ground.

I was contemplating on what I had just done when a voice had disturbed my thoughts.

[It really confounds me that you hadn't been unearthed until now. The progress you have made over three days, the tenacity you have shown, why hasn't anyone picked you up already? You already have begun to imbue mana into your weapon too!]

After three days of constant tort— stamina training, Alistar had deemed that I had made sufficient progress and decided to see where I was on other skills. I had been doing a variety of things like throwing knives for the past hour so far.

I just calmly looked at Alistar's projection before shrugging.

"Dunno."

But what Alistar said was true. Imbuing mana into weapons was not difficult, as it was taught to the first years in the academy who probably had some basic training in mana manipulation. Key word, basic training. Rick never received proper training as he was an orphan and spent most of his time learning how to sing and dance. It was a miracle that he got in just because of his theoretical knowledge.

I slightly cringed at my writing decision to make Rick like that. The world was at war with the demons and someone spent time learning how to sing and dance? To be fair, not everyone knew there was an actual enemy behind the appearance of gates and dungeons, but still!

Sighing, Alistar just ignored my remark.

[Seeing your throwing skills, there aren't anything really to work on than constant practice. But what's important now is that we need to work on your Arts. You'll need to practice hard to catch up with the other students.]

I nodded in agreement. Compared to the other students who had learned and practices their respective Arts for at least years before entering the Central Gap, I had only started learning mine.

I only had about two-and-a-half weeks to practice my Arts, even less actually as I had other things planned.

That is why I am determined to give it my all while training under Alistar's guidance.

Unsheathing the dagger that was strapped on my back, I held it in a reverse grip before looking at Alistar.

"So what's next?"

[Its quite simple really, just some repetitive sparring against opponents of varying skill level.]

[I also have you fight groups of enemies as well, just like when we first started.]

[But every fight I'll have you do something different or be limited in the options of what you can do, focusing on certain movements and aspects of your arts. I'll also have you start learning a basic sword art today. Any questions?]

I shook my head.

Alistar clapped his non-existent hands.

[Good, I'll have you fight against a group of five skeletons as a warmup. Anything goes but try not to waste your mana.]

And with a snap of his fingers, the doors at the other end of the room opened up and five skeletons came shambling into the room.

[Also, I still haven't finished adjusting the other dagger so you'll have to make do with that one for now.]

Briefly sighing, I just nodded in acknowledgment before getting into a combat ready stance.

Observing the approaching skeletons, I noted that three of them were warriors while the rest were archers. One of the skeleton warriors had a sword, another had a war hammer, and the last one had a spear as their weapons.

Observing them from a distance, I planned on which of the five skeletons I was going to attack first.

'Either the sword or spear…'

Both weapons usually were fast and while the war hammer was powerful, it was also slow so I could probably dodge its attacks along with the archers as well.

'First Movement'

Suddenly rushing forward towards the skeletons using Flash Steps, I attacked the swordsman intending to kill it in one blow. Or tried to.

*SCRRRAAAAPPE!*

The skeleton I attacked managed to block my attack but didn't manage to get away unscathed.

*Crack!*

Noticing the crack on its arms, I wanted to disable the skeleton but I had other things to worry about.

*Slam!*

'That was close.'

I had just dodged a strike from the skeleton wielding the war hammer.

I had plan on killing the swordsman first, but I guess the one wielding the war hammer couldn't wait to die.

Taking advantage of the war hammer skeleton trying to recover from its attack, I thrusted the training dagger towards its skull while applying Flash Steps to my arm.

*Bam!*

The skeletons skull went flying and it's body suddenly went limp.

Seeing that I had killed it, I immediately retre— ahem, ran away to reposition myself and started circling the group of skeletons.

Despite not being able to see the system, I had felt the effects of 'Nigerundayo' activate.

The archers fired arrows at me, but I was able easily dodge them.

'Let's not waste any more stamina on these skeletons.'

And with that thought, I started moving my mana according to [Shadow Cloak]'s information.

The skeletons soon after stopped chasing me once they lost track of my mana.

'Hmm…'

Even though I performed the Art correctly, I was still dissatisfied about it. In the first place, it wouldn't be wrong to call it a Stealth Art as I could use it to hide from most undead. But for other creatures that had eyesight as well, they would still be able to see me.

There was more to [Shadow Cloak] than just preventing my mana from leaking, like coating my body in a dark-ish aura that prevented others from discerning my identity, but there wasn't much else.

It was like some of the knowledge was missing or withheld.

I frowned.

'Did Alistar withhold information on purpose? Either he doesn't know or I have to figure it out myself for some reason.'

I shook my head. I would have to figure it out at a later time, but I need to focus on the skeletons for now.

But thinking back to the first fight, I managed to speed up my attacks by applying the theoretical knowledge of [Flash Steps] to my arms, what about mixing certain aspects of different Arts together.

It seemed viable with the knowledge I had for now, so I just tried it without much caution.

It was a pain in the ass process for sure. I was trying to manipulate my mana to perform [Flash Steps] while making sure the flow didn't speed up too fast while also making sure to not let any leak out of my body. But regardless of how difficult it seemed, I was making progress.

Slowly but surely, I was increasing the flow of mana coursing through my body while keeping my body covered in an aura that made me look like a corpse mana wise.

Barely a few seconds later, I felt my mana roused enough to perform the first movement of Flash Steps.

I rushed forward, decapitating the skeleton wielding the war hammer in what seemed like an instant before striking down the skeleton wielding a spear.

None of the two skeleton archers noticed me while I killed their teammates.

But they did notice their teammates dying, so they started to spread out and away from each other.

But still, it was a simple task to kill them.

…

As soon as the last skeleton archer fell to the ground, I could hear Alistar sigh as I dispelled my active Arts.

[I said to warmup, not create a True Combination Art. Are all kids these days this frightening?]

The last part was a mutter, but I still heard it regardless.

Combination Art, as the name explained, was when someone combined two Arts with one-another that didn't cause a problem with the way mana flowed within your body.

In order to combine Arts, you needed to have a certain mastery or understanding of the Art's knowledge and mana manipulation. Not only that, your attention would be split by trying to control your mana as you needed to fuel at least two different arts at the same time.

For True Combination, you would be creating a completely new Art, born from the ones you used. The System would then give you knowledge for the first movement while you then had to figure out the rest by trial and error, meaning practice.

With my case, I had to split attention of controlling two sources of mana, one of them producing the aura to hide my mana and life signature, while the other was powering Flash Steps. It was easier for me though, as the first was outside my body and essentially on my skin, while the latter was inside my body, making it easier to divert my focus.

[But anyways, I see that your mastery with daggers is sufficient for now, so we'll be moving onto learning another weapon Art.]

I tilted my head at his wording.

" 'Another weapon Art', not sword?"

Alistar nodded at my question.

[I thought about it, and realized that you may not have an innate talent for swords, or that you may have a higher one for other weapons. I plan on testing your innate talent for multiple weapons before starting your training.]

Alistar then snapped with his fingers.

A weapon rack with a variety of weapons appeared in front of me and a training dummy farther done in the room.

[Choose any weapon and start hitting at the dummy, if you don't like the feeling or how the weapon feels, move on to another.]

I nodded at his instructions and grabbed a smallsword then walked towards the dummy.

Once I was in front of it, I then performed some basic jabs and slashes before stopping.

'Hmm… this doesn't seem like a good match.'

I thought before returning to the weapon rack. This cycle of choosing a weapon then testing it to returning back to the rack continued on as I went through almost all types of swords.

…

"Haaa!"

Slashing through the dummy with a longsword, I sighed as I returned to the weapon rack.

'This isn't the one either.'

Putting it back down, I moved on to the next weapon on the rack which was a rapier.

Picking it up, I already noticed a difference with my grip.

'It seems more comfortable to hold?'

I shook the thought away, testing the weapon would reveal if I had a innate talent for it.

Walking up to the dummy, I got into a battle ready stance before making a move.

Performing a simple thrust before lunging, I suddenly stepped back before performing a simple overhead cut then another thrust.

'And it feels better to swing…'

The dummy fell onto the ground with the top half in pieces as I stared down at the hand wielding the rapier, lost in my thoughts for a moment before shaking my head.

"Another."

Alistar understood what I was asking for as another training dummy, looking far more durable, appeared not too far from me.

Once again, I got into a battle ready stance before attacking again, but with a variety of basic attacks.

Once again, the dummy fell onto the ground, and I was satisfied with what I held in my hand.

When I was wielding the rapier, it was hard to describe what I felt. The more I used it, the more certain that I wouldn't find another weapon with a higher innate talent another than the dagger. It was like how when you played certain video games and immediately liked how their weapons felt when using them versus other characters.

I looked at Alistar who was just watching and waiting.

"I think I found my other weapon."