Ch 6 - Choosing an Art

"Do you have an idea on what art you want to train?" Quinn asked Ella as he gave her a piggyback ride. It hasn't been too long since the group split up, so Quinn wanted to know what art Ella wanted to train.

"I don't know" she bluntly replied.

"Well, do you want to train in martial arts or magic art?"

"What's the difference?"

"Hmmm…" Quinn thought. "Well, I guess one is for fighting using weapons, while the other is for fighting using spells".

"Oh… what's the difference between weapons and spells?"

Ella was clueless about most things which should be common knowledge. Quinn questioned the way Ella's mother taught her, before having a great idea.

"I know! How about we go around and watch demonstrations. If you like one of the arts, you can learn it. How does that sound?" Quinn thought that if there were lots of trainers, there would be people demonstrating the arts that they train.

"Will we get something to eat?"

"Uhh… sure, why not?" Quinn realized that it was noon, and they didn't have lunch yet. So, lunch was on the list of things to do as well.

Quinn and Ella walked around. Well, only Quinn walked around while Ella stayed on his shoulders, but whatever. Quinn told Ella to look for dojos or towers, since that's where you learn martial and magic arts. Martial arts are taught in martial art dojos, while magic arts are taught in magic art towers

Up ahead, they spotted a crowd up ahead, so they decided to check it out. When they arrived, Quinn could barely see over the crowd. But Ella could see everything that was going on.

"Quinn, look!" She said, pointing. "There are people fighting!"

He could barely see two figures fighting. It appeared one of them was using a short sword and shield, while the other was using two daggers.

The person using the daggers was relentlessly attacking the person with the sword and shield, but the sword guy was defending well under the pressure. The dagger guy held the offensive, but looked like they would falter soon.

Sure enough, the sword guy found an opening and launched an attack. His sword swung out, catching the dagger guy off guard. He got knocked onto the ground.

Quinn couldn't tell, but he assumed that the duo were using training equipment, and the fight was some sort of spar.

His assumption was right, as the crowd started clapping and the two bowed. Quinn and Ella clapped as well, enjoying the spar.

"So what did you think?" Quinn asked, curious of Ella's opinion.

She shook her head. "They're too gross. They sweat a lot, and get dirty as well".

"Fair point" Quinn didn't disagree. The majority of martial art users are men, while women are the minority. This doesn't mean men are more suited for martial arts, it's just that most women distaste the idea of getting dirty and sweaty while fighting. They'd much prefer using magic arts and fighting from a distance.

"Well, then let's see if we can find a demonstration of magic arts?"

"Okay".

Once again, they wandered the streets, hoping to find another demonstration. They saw another martial art demonstration, but nothing for magic arts. Quinn eventually asked a passerby, and figured out that there usually aren't any public magic art demonstrations.

Martial art demonstrations are commonplace, because there's a large amount of martial art dojos. Martial arts are basically common knowledge, easy to start learning and can be learned by anyone. That's why martial art demonstrations are commonly seen; they need to stay relevant if they hope to gain trainees.

On the other hand, magic arts are more profound and harder to learn. Plus, they aren't as common as martial arts. This means that there are less magic art towers, but they still suffer from the lack of trainees.

With the help from the kind passerby, they made their way to a well-known magic art tower. They hosted a magic art demonstration everyday around noon, and it was starting soon. They were greeted by a servant, and were guided to a courtyard.

The courtyard had seats numbering a hundred lined up, facing an empty area in the front. Most of the people watching were teenagers and young adults. They probably came to the dungeon recently, and thought they had a chance of becoming a magic arts user.

Quinn pitied them, since he knew the struggle of learning magic arts. Unless you had a good magic affinity, it doesn't matter much.

Quinn and Ella waited patiently for a while, waiting for the demonstration to start. A little bit of time passed, when a woman in a scholarly robe stepped out. Her attraction caught the attention of all the teenagers and young adults in the crowd. They probably knew that most people watching were young, so a young man or woman would catch half of their attention.

And it worked. The men were charmed by her beauty, while the women were indifferent, and partially jealous of her charm. Quinn was also affected by her beauty, but didn't act upon it.

"Welcome everyone, and thank you for coming to today's magic demonstration. My name's Mellissa, and I'm your host today".

She gave a warm smile which charmed the men and made the women even more jealous. "I'll explain the basics of magic arts to anyone who's not familiar".

"Magic arts are mysterious and profound, but have been understood and developed for a long time. To use magic arts, you need mana, a magic affinity and spells".

"Mana is an energy, found in all sources of life. Each and every one of you here has mana, or else you'd be dead. In magic arts, you use mana to cast different spells. Your mana determines how many spells you can cast at once, since each spell consumes your mana. If you use up all your mana, you'll pass out".

"Magic affinity determines what type of magic arts you can use. For example, if you have a fire affinity, you can use fire magic arts. You can have more than one magic affinity as well, but having a high magic affinity is rare. If you have a low magic affinity, you can use spells up to the moderate level, and with a moderate affinity you can use spells up to the complete level".

A woman in the crowd raised her hand to ask a question, but Mellissa ignored it and continued talking. "Lastly, spells. Spells are the crux of magic arts, since you need them to use your magic. The power of the spell is dependent on your proficiency. To use more powerful spells, have a higher proficiency in your magic art".

"Let's take me for example. I have a high proficiency in water magic arts, so I can use spells like this…"

Mellissa proceeded to concentrate for a second. Her hands started to glow, bringing forth a large floating ball of water.

"This is the high spell, large water ball. This is an upgraded version of the low spell water ball, but is highly versatile. It can be used to drown someone, or be used as a freshwater source. Also, with enough practice…"

The water ball split off into many pieces, and spun around. It kept getting faster and faster, before flying all around the crowd. Everyone in the crowd, including Quinn and Ella were amazed. Murmurs of "Wow", "Amazing" and "Ooh" were heard.

"...you can do things like this" Mellissa finished off, breaking apart all of the water into water droplets, causing a light drizzle over the crowd. "You can come sign up anytime. The price is 500 manacoins per lesson".

Quinn felt a pain in both his heart and manacoins. Although he did want Ella to learn an art, perhaps learning a magic art would be too expensive. Plus, Quinn split up his money with the rest of the group. It wouldn't be fair to hoard all of the money, plus they needed some money to get started as well. Right now, he had 2000 manacoins to split between himself and Ella.

Quinn was unaware about the steep price of learning magic arts. He didn't learn anything, and taught himself using the books in the public library. But since moth books were about general stuff, they didn't include any spells, much less healing spells which Quinn needed. He only knew one spell which he taught himself. Heal. It was the most basic spell from the healing affinity.

Speaking of his healing affinity, it's apparently fairly common in the dungeon. That's because almost everyone who came from Earth has it. The reason being? Good health care. Even if one wasn't a doctor, the fact that healthcare is common among most countries means that gaining a healing affinity is basically guaranteed.

Back on track, Quinn and Ella walked out of the magic tower.

"Did you enjoy the demonstration?" Quinn asked.

"Yep! It was soooo cool!" Ella replied gleefully to his manacoin's dismay.

"But…" she continued. "It's too expensive. I don't want to make you pay so much for my lessons…"

Quinn was touched. But he didn't want Ella to give up due to the price tag.

"If it's the manacoins you're worried about, don't worry. I'm sure I can find a way to earn enough money, trust me".

Quinn did have two part time jobs when he was still alive on Earth with Fiona. Although he had to drop out of school, he made enough money to support himself and Fiona going to school.

"No!" As always, Ella was stubborn. "I don't want to burden you".

She knew how expensive the lessons were, so she refused to have Quinn spend so much on her lessons.

"But what about learning a magic art?" he asked.

"I can always learn one later. Plus, I'm super duper smart, so learning a magic art will be easy peasy!"

She childishly bragged, making Quinn chuckle a bit. "Whatever you say".

Suddenly, Quinn heard a rumble. There was an ominous sound coming from behind him. He turned to look…

...and saw Ella, beet red, with a hand on her belly.

"I'm hungry…" she said ashamed. Her belly must have grumbled loudly, making her embarrassed.

"Let's go eat somewhere" Quinn held in his laughter and gave Ella another piggyback ride as they searched for somewhere to eat.