บท 21: 3 Months of Training
"Please meet me downstairs tomorrow to begin your training." Then he handed me a package of Aether infused pills and herbs. "Here take this as well, it will help you to cultivate your mana pool. Please excuse me but I must leave briefly, I have a meeting with Marshall Rolf to discuss your Guardian matters," he finished and walked away.
As I saw him leave, I wasn't sure what I should do. There was still light outside, so I went to his backyard to practice casting spells. Like my master's house, his backyard was not very large. In the back there was an herb garden with, what I assume were magical herbs. I wasn't an herbalist, apothecary, or alchemist but I knew the herbs must be important if a great mage planted them. Towards further back there was a worn looking gazebo, with paint missing all over. Besides herb garden and gazebo was there was nothing else. As I was looking around the backyard, I noticed the Tabby cat was looking at me. For some reason, the stares of the cat felt uncomfortable, like he was observing me to give a report to the master. I did my best to ignore the cat and continue practicing my spells.
It was not until dusk that I finished practicing. I ran to my room, washed my face and body, and went to down to the kitchen to eat. While I was washing up, I heard a knock on the door. I went to the door to open it and great master's guest, but no one was there. There was only a try of food, with a note, "I missed you at dinner little brother!" I looked at the food, and then realized I was starving. I ate the food, put the tray in the kitchenette, and went to lay down in bed. Like before, I put the crystal herb under my tongue and fell to sleep.
Waking up the next morning, I washed my face and headed to the first floor for breakfast. Master was eating toast with marmalade and drinking tea. He offered me the same, and I ate it graciously, there was a bowl with grapes. Again, this was scaled down from the Knight's Academy where they served larger portions, with little variety, like how Americans eat.
I apologize for leaving so hastily, but Marshall Rolf was not happy with you leaving his class. But I assured him, that you would be prepared for mock exam coming up. Marshall Rolf had planned a first-year guild training before the mock exam, and he was not happy that you would not be in attendance.
Grap your meditation mat and follow me to the gazebo. I ran upstairs grab my zafu and zabuton and followed my master out to the gazebo.
"For the next hour, I will lead you in mediation. Even if I am absent in the morning, please continue to practice meditation," he said.
Grandmaster Thaddeus showed me how to better focus my breathing. This technique focused on rhythmic breathing and circulating mana through the arteries. This technique mapped out the body and allow me to map my arteries and infuse mana into my bones, muscle, and tissue. However, this would not happen in a day, this would happen over the course of month or years.
After breathing, my master trained me in what I could only describe as Tai Chi. It was a slow-moving martial art, that had 24 different postures. Master instructed me to use the breathing technique he taught me earlier with this physical training. Back on Earth, people described Tai Chi as meditation in motion. I followed master through a series of motions some named after animals, for example, grasp the bird's tail. Other motions seemed to have more traditional martial names, heel kick. Each motion was fluid and tied into the next stance. I closed my eyes and felt my mana circulate better in my body and this also allowed me to become more familiar with body's flexibility, balance, and dexterity.
After mediation, and physical training came spell casting. Master watched me preform all the intermediate spells. First, I preformed [meteor], I tried to comprised rock into a sphere. But immediately, I noticed I had trouble casting the earth away from my body. Forming the sphere away from my body and compressing the rock into a sphere, was extremely difficult and I was only able to pull the rock from the earth, but not compress it at all.
"Will, first start by putting a rock in your hand and try to compress. Only after you reach that step should you move on to the next" Master Thaddeus said.
I thanked master and moved on to [earthquake]. For earthquake I stomped my foot on the ground repeatedly, but nothing happened.
"Will you needed to sense the ground and find gaps in the earth, slowly start to widen those gaps, by folding the earth away bit by bit to expand the gap. Try to create a half meter wide gap. Start small" he said.
"Master, I do not know how to preform [rock golem], [iron lance], or nature's blessing," I said.
"That is to be expect. The degree of difficulty arises with each new spell. [Rock golem] is easier to cast after you learn how to compress rock into a sphere. After you can to that, you will learn how to compress rock into different shapes. The greatest difficulty with [rock golem] is passing on some sentience to them. I'll let you know when you're ready, and let you construct a meter tall golem. [Iron lance] is difficult because you have only learned to work with rocks, you still have not learned how to use other earthen materials like iron, copper, silver, and gold. However, the key to learning [iron lance], is [rock spike]. After creating a rock spike, you can then use what you learned from [meteor] to form a cylinder attached to the spike. The best way to start is to have a piece of iron ingot in your hand. That will allow you to understand the composition of iron and allow you to sense and learn how to manipulate the iron ingot. [Nature's blessing] is easiest to learn through meditation and feeling attuned to your surroundings. Through meditation you will be able to sense the world and mana around you.
After mediation we went into the house for lunch. Inside the house Elder Li had made lunch. There were spicy noodles, rice, meat, and vegetables all arrange in several small dishes. This was the best food I had since coming to Terra; it was the perfect balance of salt and spice. After a short lunch, we went back outside to spar.
"Will in the past you've practice with short swords, although those swords are not ideal for you. Based on your build and fighting style, I think you would fight much better with a sleek two-handed sword," he said. Then he pulled out a katana. "Will, have you seen this sword before?"
"Yes, on several occasions," I replied.
"From now on you will train with this" he said handing me a wooden sword made up several strands. The sword looked like a shinai used in kendo.
"Will listen closely, you and I are similar. When you graduate, as my disciple, you will be given the title Spellsword Knight. At that time, I will give you this sword witch you have to earn. This sword is name [Peaceful Death], it was given me to dear friend on his passing. Study hard Will, learn this art of sword fighting," he said sadly, I could tell his was recollecting on some sad memory.
For the first hour of our lesson Elder Thaddeus taught me the proper posture, right leg front, left leg back; and how to hold the shinai in my hands. It was only after I demonstrated perfect posture, was I allowed to move onto learning the attacking and defending techniques. According to master, the base postures was equally as important learning how to attack and defend. In fact, that why he said so many knights die in combat, is because they mainly focus on attacking, and never bother to perfect their posture and defense techniques.
Unlike when I learned basic sword fighting at the barony, the Master Swordsman, never focused on posture and defense was mostly learning how to dodge or parry. Also, we never focused on swing the sword at certain angles but learning this world's form of kendo made me wish I studied harder in geometry. Every time I my posture slouched, swung a wrong angle, my foot work was incorrect, Master Thaddeus would take his cane and hit me and move me into position.
By the end of the first day, I was deathly tired. I was ready to reincarnate again or just die. This was the hardest I worked physically on Earth or Terra. This entire time I thought Marshall Rolf was hard taskmaster, it turned out I had taken a demon for a master. My master made Marshall Rolf look like Gandi. Never again, would I disparage the name of Marshall Rolf behind his back.
Dinner was sumptuous feast of roasted pork, vegetables, and ginger beer. I could feel my aether in my body replenish itself. I went to bed, thinking that the next three months this would be my life.
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MightyEagle
MightyEagle If you are enjoying the story please leave a review and good rating. Also, big thanks to Nwaf_K, Vensiddu, and Droid324 for the power stones. Thanks to everyone for supporting this work!
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