I sprinted along the tundra, explosions erupting in my wake, magical attacks launched at obscene speeds, and I was barely managing to dodge.
"Slow!" A shout was heard behind me, I narrowly ducked to avoid a bloodthirsty spear from impaling me from behind.
My back foot pivoted, turning around I retaliated, sword lashing out towards the woman aiming for my life.
Her feral grin almost made me waver, but I forced all my strength into my blow, locking against the shaft of her spear.
"Lightning Cloak." My weapon crackled with power.
Scathach looked surprised, jumping back, staring at me as she clutched her hand a few times. "Cute." She narrowed her eyes, taking a few steps round me.
I smirked, mimicking her movements in the other direction as we circled each other. My grip on Mirage tightened, and I moved. "10 Birds."
My blade flashed out, blades of magical energy flew out towards the Immortal Witch.
I saw her adjust her grip on her spear, hand down near the tip, using it almost like a sword. With a full body motion, she swung her spear at the incoming barrage, her own version of sword phantoms collided with my attack, the air crackling with magical effects at the epicenter.
Neither of us were deterred, our eyes stay focused solely on each other. We moved at the same time, leaping through the air, spear meeting sword at our highest point. An explosion pulsed out, blowing away all debris and snow on the ground.
"Better." Scathach loudly declared, thrusting her spear several times in a blink of an eye. "Do not stay flat footed! Weave each movement into your follow up attack, or use your footwork to retreat without opening yourself up!"
Her spear slipped past my guard, cutting into my shoulder, but she did not relent. It continued to pour onto me, the smallest opening was another wound on my body, and my clothes were already torn at this point, and I was bleeding from several places.
"I SAID DON'T STAY FLAT FOOTED" She shouted, increasing her speed several notches and sweeping my legs out from under me, I didn't even have time to hit the ground before she pivoted and lashed out with her foot, sending me spiraling into the distance.
The world around me spun, my body skipping across the ground before I could regain my footing, she wouldn't give me the chance to get back up. My danger sense was already telling me a lethal attack was heading for me again.
I raised my sword up overhead, her spear slamming down like a club, the ground cracking under me from the blow. I think one of my ribs was broken, a sharp pain permeated my body from my chest.
"Did anyone every tell you that men don't like abrasive women." I grit out, blood seeping from my mouth.
"What does a virgin boy like you know about women?" She retorted, knee slamming into my chest, the exact spot I was hurting. She let go of her spear, grabbing my arm, pushing her shoulder into me, and flipping me over onto the ground.
I rolled to the side, just barely dodging a spear form skewering a very important part of my lower body. "Low blow!" I shouted, getting up as quickly as I could to gain some distance.
Scary fucking bitch.
"It's not like you would ever need it." She laughed. Already on my ass, spear lashing out.
It took everything I had to deflect her incoming barrage, not even having a moment to retaliate. I stomped on the ground, erecting dozens of earthen walls between us, merely only good for buying the briefest of moments.
I quickly took a handful of Talismans out of my ring.
I didn't sit idle before this spar, I prepared several things beforehand.
"Metal Enriches Water!" I threw my first Talisman up into the air. I saw the look on my teacher's face, she didn't recognize what I was doing, I guess she didn't' read through that book when she had my stuff.
"Fuck." I spat out, dodging another spear strike. Was she keeping me from completing the creation cycle? She probably didn't know what it did, but for the intentions of training, she probably wasn't going to allow me to cast it without effort.
My sword swept towards her haphazardly, almost like I had regressed a step.
I saw her frown, about to tongue lash me, one of the few times she would pause in her assault.
"Water Nurtures Wood" I threw the second out into the sky, allowing the partial spell to further enhance.
She narrowed her eyes at me, realizing I had tricked her. I smirked, lunging at her with a thrust, she stepped in, knocking my sword away with the shaft of her spear, flicking the butt of it at my head. It was practically instinct at this point to duck out of the way, but her knee caught my chin, knocking me off me feet.
I felt the world spin around me, briefly dazed as my back hit the cold ground. I felt my hand empty, sword fallen down somewhere, I didn't have time to search for it, so I reached out and pulled Dawnbreaker from my ring.
She came at me with a basic thrust, but her whole body was behind it, punishing me for staying flat footed again. I had no choice but to meet her head on.
I grabbed Dawnbreaker with both hands, and with all my strength I swung down at the tip of her spear, knocking it into the dirt on her charge.
This didn't stop her at all, she followed the movement, putting her own strength into the new direction her spear went and used it to pole-vault up into the air, redirecting her spear with a spin, she twirled it up and swung down on me overhead.
I didn't have time to bring up Dawnbreaker, I abandoned it in favor of summoning the Boosted Gear to use as a shield.
My legs shuddered under the weight of the blow, she clearly put more into it than normal.
I grit my teeth in annoyance, I didn't want to use the Boosted Gear in this spar. I planned on training with it later, but for now I just wanted to keeping improving myself.
"Wood Feeds Fire" The words were forcibly pushed out, my Talisman thrown to the side as it flew up into the air along with the others. Slowly actualizing the spell, way up in the air, piece by piece.
Several more Talismans enter my hand, different than the elemental ones used to forge the spell, I held them between my fingers and thrust towards Scathach.
She seemed to sense the danger, removing one hand from her spear, she snaked her hand around my own, pushing my attack out of the way. It was the opening I needed to her own spear out from on top of me.
I held my Gauntlet up like a shield, and my other hand up to act as a sword. In fact, that's exactly what these Talisman were doing, they became enhanced to a supernatural degree, sharper than most steel. Usually meant to be thrown, but I needed a makeshift weapon or the moment, and Ascalon was one of my final trump cards, I didn't want to reveal it just yet, even if she knew the blade itself existed.
She prodded me, a quick thrust towards my head, I deflected with my gauntlet, following up with a swipe of my other hand.
Teacher only took a half step back, allowing them to pass by her less than an inch, she spun on her heel, swinging her spear in a large arc towards the side opposite my gauntlet. It was no surprise how quickly she noticed my openings.
I decided to do something stupid, I thrust towards her body, opting to allow her blow to land. She looked at me with no small amount of surprise on her face, slowing turning into a smile.
I felt something in my arm 'crack' as my talismans were halted a breath away from her chest, a single Rune blocking them as they started to tear and fall to the ground.
No doubt my arm was at the very least, fractured.
"Nice try." She smirked, swinging her leg up towards my head.
I clutched my hand, forcing another earth wall to erupt from the ground, hitting the bottom of her leg, disbalancing her.
"Fire dries Earth" I threw another talisman, as the last entered my hand. "And finally, Earth Refines Metal" The last of the Talismans shot into the air, finalizing the spell sequence, a visual phenomenon appears in the sky.
Scathach paused easily recovering from my disruption of her rhythm, curiously looking up, then back down to me. Confusion written all over her face. "…Did you cast it correctly?"
With a last smile, I summoned all the Runes around my hand, thrusting my arm to the sky. I think I finally got a serious reaction out of her, for the first time I could tell she felt a foreboding sense of danger. She didn't attack me, all I saw her do was flick her hand and summon her own Runes.
No time to dwell on it.
The two spells harmonized, the Talismans representing the eastern creation cycle, bolstering my runic spell to an obscene degree. There was a resonance, similar concepts intertwined between the creation cycle and the application of my Nine Realms. Both the basis of their cosmetology, the origins of life form where they originated.
The first time I was casting this spell in combat.
"Light of Alfheim."
The clouds parted, a massive pillar of light slammed down into the area, completely enveloping me and everything in the visible distance.
I was fine, it was a spell that target all those I deemed as enemies.
"Take that, you old hag." I finally laughed, as the last vestiges of my spell finally faded, and the realm return to eternal twilight.
My laughing abruptly stopped as I saw Scathach, standing there completely unharmed, a shield surrounding her.
Primordial Runes.
She fending off my attack by utilizing Primordial Runes….I suppose I should take that as a compliment.
She didn't answer, the clear dissatisfaction of my comment written on her face. Her spell faded and she gripped her spear, reeling her arm back, she threw it with all her might right at me.
The ground shattered at the force of the spear sailing through the air, leaving a track of magical energy and bloodlust in its wake.
It wasn't hard to dodge, but I fell on my butt out of instinct, letting it sail harmlessly past me.
"An old hag, am I?" She took a step forward. "Curious as to why you have been staring at this 'old hags' rear all this time then."
She moved, extremely fast, I had no time to even stand up, her foot was planted firmly on my chest, pushing me further into the ground. "Those paper-spells need work, they are too slow, but they have potential."
Yeah, I need to practice them a bit more, weave them into my combat style.
"Any last words?" She eyed me, putting just a bit more pressure on my chest, my ribs shuddering.
I couldn't stop myself from wheezing. "I think…..you're awakening something in me."
"You have chosen poorly." She deadpanned.
"Wait!" I shouted. She paused for a moment, looking down at me. "For the record, I was staring at your legs." I smiled innocently.
"Death it is then." She held up her hand, and her demonic spear jutted out from where it had been thrown, crisscrossing through the air and returned to her hand.
What the hell?
"How did you do that?"
She released me, stepping to the side. "Do what?" She didn't seem to understand.
"Summon your spear back like that, to control it so well through telekinesis." I cast a healing spell, holding it over my chest.
"It was not telekinesis, though I suppose it has similarities. It is an aspect of weapon refinement." She started, twirling her spear before stabbing it into the ground. "Is this an avenue that interests you?" She asked, clearly in teacher mode again, as opposed to 'kick my ass' mode.
"Well yes, but I was talking specifically about how you could control it like that. Can you do more than that, say move it with your will in the air?"
"If I exert much effort, I can move it about, but for a combat technique, it is lacking." She furrowed her brow, unsure of where I was going with this.
"Please teach me this, I think this is exactly what I've been looking for."
This is not how I expected this sparing session to end, fighting almost nonstop for almost two days. But this may be exactly what I was looking for to help bridge my martial and magical abilities, to allow them to coexist in the same combat style.
***
Almost didn't get this out today, was rather busy, but hey it's 7 minutes before midnight so it counts!
Anyways, if you want to support me or read 5 chapters ahead, check out my pat.reon.com/astoryforone
"This is the issue." I gestured with my hand, a sword flew out of the ground towards me, I caught it with ease, but its movement was too static, unmoving. I did the equivalent of wrapping an invisible lasso around it and yanked it toward me.
Scathach tapped her finger against her chin, squatting down and poking at another sword I had stabbed into the ground. "Do it again."
I shrugged, tossing the sword into the ground a distance away and pulled it to me again with telekinesis.
"Wrap it in your magical energy and keep it floating infront of you." She said, standing up and walking next to me.
I did as she said, allowing Mirage to float infront of me, as my magical energy wrapped around it like a blanket. "Clearly, movement is not the problem, at least one dimensionally. I've used it in the past, thrown one of my swords and guided it with Telekinesis and such, but never for any maneuvers beyond straight lines.
She stared at it for a moment, muttering something under her breath then gave it a flick, the sword flew out of my 'control' and landed on the ground.
"Conceptually, it may be different due to the weapons used, a spear is meant to be thrown, so it may be more open to manipulation this way." I started thinking out loud. "It shouldn't be impossible, I've heard stories of similar things in the east, swordsman who could control their swords with their wills in a far off era."
Yeah, Taoism and the like were very popular in the distant era. There were many stories of those people using swords in some magical ways.
I started pacing, taking another look at my hovering sword and walked back and forth. I made sure not to lose focus and keep the weapon suspended, now what abou—
*Smack*
"SON OF A BITCH" I clutched the side of my head, falling to the ground. "What the hell?!?"
Scathach stood over me, looking down, frowning. "Your pacing was distracting me." Her lips curled up. "I guess we can discard some kind of mental limitation."'
I let out a breath, calming down. I suppose she was testing to see if I would subconsciously do something with the sword to block her 'attack'?
Or maybe she just liked to beat me up, both are plausible explanations.
She ignored me, going back to the hover sword, squatting down and looking at it intently. I could tell she was clearly focused, possibly thinking of solutions.
I smiled lightly, with all the force I could muster, I slammed the hovering sword into the ground, kicking up all the snow around it.
Scathach slowly stood up, wiping the snow from her face. "If you wanted to bleed some more, you merely had to ask." Her voice was even, which only added even more presence to her words.
"We'll see whose bleeding after this." I grabbed my sword raising it up. It would definitely be me….but I refuse to back down. I wipped some dried blood off my forehead from the previous bout, when sudden realization hit me.
I think Scathach noticed something too because she looked less 'bloodthirsty' and stared more inquisitive towards the red spotted liquid on my hand. "Blood." She said.
"Blood." I nodded. Her breath of knowledge was truly impressive, she could arrive at the same conclusion so quickly as I did. "Blood is the answer, I did something with my first sword awhile back, I soaked it in my blood to make it a better catalyst."
"But that won't be enough, if it was merely an issue of blood, such a 'technique' would be more readily available." She shook her head. "You must create a stronger 'bond' with the weapons you wish to utilize. I could perform such actions because I personally forged these spears after slaying the beast from whence they originated."
"Not an option for me." I frowned slightly. No way was I going to try and reforge Mirage, and I doubt Dawnbreaker could even be reforged, let alone Ascalon, a Noble Phantasm. I took a look inside my ring, mentally looking over everything and certain ideas began to form. "I have a thought." I stated, withdrawing a couple books.
Scathach stepped over, taking them in hand, and started to flip the pages over quickly enough. I saw her do 'something' with a rune, seemingly so she could read the language of the texts. "This is the spell you used earlier." She stated, continuing reading. "I see…."
Lighting Cloak was the spell book she was holding. To imbue my weapon with lightning, a very basic spell on the surface, but it held a surprising amount of depth. "Basically, a temporary enchantment, the only issue is using my blood instead of lightning and making it more permanent."
"My refining methods, you wish to learn them?" She looked at me, waiting for an answer.
"I…want to know everything you're willing to teach." I replied honestly.
She smiled, it was a very genuine and beautiful smile, devoid of any spiteful feelings she had moments prior. "I will show you how I forged my spears then."
***
"Interesting design." Scathach looked over my enchanting table. She had given me a rundown on how her forging process went, her additions over the years and other things she's tinkered with in the past. I don't know how much time had passed, but we had somehow migrated back to the castle in one of her storerooms she kept many materials and other objects.
Taking the concepts used in Lightning Cloak, replacing the lightning with my blood, and using the enchanting table to make the effect 'stick'.
Mirage sat on the table, it was be the easiest to do first, to 'refine' the weapon, add my 'touch' onto it so it was more susceptible to my control. This was by no means my area of expertise, in fact my experience could be summarized as 'dabbling' throughout both my lives.
Lights filled the room, my enchanting table lit up each runes and my sword was drinking in the multitude of colors. My blood seeped down into the grooves of the table, spilling off the blade as it drank up almost all the excess.
But it didn't take hold, the magical energy had gathered and fluttered out, the enchanting failed.
"Do you know what you did wrong?" She asked, peering over my shoulder.
This wasn't something I was specialized in, even my general knowledge was lacking, frankly she was the expert here. "I have a few ideas…."
"Good, try again." She stated, not giving any advice, but ushering me to continue.
I nodded, focusing again on my enchanting. I ran a finger along the flat of my sword, thinking about how to proceed. Is it merely a matter of too much blood, or maybe not enough?
I willingly cut myself, allowing blood to drip out into a wooden bowl, filling it up about half-way.
This time, I would try less blood, less magical energy and do it slowly.
My enchanting started, but I could feel the effects not taking hold almost immediately, different from before where it all kinda puffed out, this just wouldn't even start.
"Failure." I said, dismissing it all.
What if I changed on my application? Instead of trying to 'cast' the spell over the sword and thus making it a permanent enchantment, why don't I try enchanting it with my blood then casting the spell?
…Failure.
Perhaps another wrong sequence of applications? Let's try casting the original spell, then try changing it during the enchantment process.
Failure.
Hmm, lets adjust a few things and try that sequence again, I felt as if the process did something different and want to watch it again.
Failure.
Stupid, it merely prolonged the disruption between the magical energy and the materials. But now I know the threshold to work with.
Failure.
What about using some ancillary materials? Soul stones, perhaps?
Failure.
Maybe it's an issue of not enough magical energy after finding the correct ratio of blood? What could go wrong with flooding in more.
Failure.
What if I….
Failure.
How about…?
Failure.
Maybe…
Failure.
How long had I been at this? Time seemed to lose meaning in this realm and it was difficult to keep track. Especially with how focused I was, I lost track of how many times I tried this 'enchantment' to refine this sword so it would obey my commands.
I felt hair touching my face as Scathach leaned over my shoulder, close enough that I could hear her breathing, as she started to direct me. "Here." she said quietly. "You are losing much of the process from magical leakage. A normal enchantment from this table would not suffer this issue, but you are combining the application of a spell, modifying it with your blood, and forcibly attaching it to your weapon." She gently drew a rune over my sword, seeing it pulse ever so slightly I could see it having an effect on my weapon. "We often times look over the simplest solutions."
She withdrew, standing off to the side, giving me an encouraging smile.
I held back a sigh, realizing what I had been doing wrong at this point.
I didn't want to get distracted, so I focused back on my table, regardless of how many times I failed, for some reason I was feeling rather confident now.
How much blood had I spilt for this little project at this point?
Once more, I poured my blood over my sword, allowing it to drink it up for the enchantment. This time, though, my magical energy swirled around the sword instead of merely bring 'applied' like it was filling every nook and cranny. I could see the immediate difference in what was happening. It seemed obvious in hindsight, but I just simply did not think of it during this time.
There was no thunderous sound to applause my success, but as it all finalize my sword just pulsed slightly, taking in the enchantment.
I stood up, almost not daring to touch my sword.
Moment of truth?
I reached out with my telekinesis, it was merely a 'bridging' of intent, once I connected to my sword, the spell wasn't necessary. The 'enchantment' did most of the work I merely needed to 'activate' it.
My sword lifted off the ground, and I gestured with my hand for it to fly up and down, and I spun my hand in a circle, only to watch with amazement as the sword followed my commands.
"Well done." Scathach sneaked up on me.
I couldn't help but turn around and wrap my hands around her in a hug. "I did it!" It was only when I heard a soft giggle in my ear that I realized what I was doing, quickly separating from her.
Smooth, Will, smooth.
Forgot myself for a moment, don't even know how long I had been at this and then it was finished…and I will ignore how nice she smelled.
When was the last time I accomplished something after working on it so diligently?
It was an exhilarating feeling.
Scathach looked at me, an amused smile on her face. "Good, now since our last sparring was interrupted, we make up these past few days with another one."
Few days? God damn, no wonder my back felt stiff.
"Well….I really do want to test this out." And I'm never really against sparring with someone stronger than me, case and point, Artoria and Sasaki Kojiro.
"Let's hope you can keep that confidence." She smirked. "Because you will not be allowed to touch your weapons throughout."
Regrets?
Many.
"That's fine, you'll need the handicap." When in doubt, double down.
A vicious grin emerged on her face, one that promised quite a bit of pain. "My little student, all grown, up. I guess I will not need to hold back anymore." She turned around, flipping her hair back and walking out the door.
[You fucked up.]
I may have fucked up.
***
Yeah, looks like this training arc is wrapping up at chapter 60.
anyways, if you want to support me or read 5 chapters ahead, visit my pat reon.com/astoryforone
Paragraph comment
Paragraph comment feature is now on the Web! Move mouse over any paragraph and click the icon to add your comment.
Also, you can always turn it off/on in Settings.
GOT IT