บท 18: 18. Tatsuo's Test
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As per the captain's request, I attacked his open palm by delivering a high roundhouse kick to it. His tall stature made it noticeably harder since his palms were higher than I was tall.
Occasionally he would grab my leg and try to trip me or shove it and throw my leg to the floor, each time forcing me to catch my balance.
"Your foot shouldn't be pointing forward. That just weakens your base. Anchor it facing the shoulder opposite of the leg you're kicking with."
I followed his instructions and when I delivered my next kick I felt more confident in my balance, enabling me to exert more power into the kick. Still, his arm barely moved despite the higher force.
"Better." The hair of his beard moved with the appreciative exhale he released from his nose. "So, why is it you're only using your legs?"
"So that my hands are free for grappling and casting long-range spells."
"I see. Well then, let's see what your spell capabilities are. You've had a few months to come up with a few tricks."
Nodding my head I activated my fire magic around my entire body, focusing everything in my legs and arms. My limbs turned into flaming cyclones that slowly whirled around as flame condensed in a greater space than what ordinary fire magic could occupy.
"Hmph. Clever. Using that ability to morph yourself to continuously cast magic without releasing it is smart, but let's see how you use it," he said as he flicked his fingers at me in a taunting motion.
At his prompting, I ran up and jumped as my body shifted into a flaming cyclone that accelerated my spin. The kick my flaming body landed exploded, sending fire around his palm and into his face. My arms weren't idle, as I raised them up and strengthened the blast with another surge of fire before flying out of range of the captain's reach.
Waving the smoke out of his face, Tatsuo stood there with a look of genuine surprise on his unharmed visage. "I'll admit, I didn't expect that."
"Everyone else just uses fire to propel their attacks, but since I can turn into fire I can speed up my rpm as a cyclone."
"And disguise your next attack in the process. Clever. But don't you get dizzy?"
"You get used to it."
"Hmm." Walking back over to the porch while stroking his beard, the captain took one last swig from his sake before pulling out an hourglass. "I'll admit that I might've gotten lazy if something as obvious as that slipped past me. I'm so used to the same spunky upstarts using the same tricks that someone barely a tenth my age managed to surprise me. You might be a fun student after all."
"That's…all the test was?"
"The first part at least. Usually, I'm looking for promising talent, someone worthy of my teachings but I haven't had a student like that in ages. But you, you don't need to fight the same way everyone else does. You're young with a different magic. I can give you my teachings as well as use you as a way to experiment with magic in a way I haven't in decades. It's a win-win. If you pass the second part of my test. I'll give you five minutes to prove yourself. If you meet my standards then you'll pass the second part of my little game."
As he spoke, he flipped the hourglass over, letting the sand pour down from the top gradually into the bottom.
"Alright, but…what do you want me to do?"
"Stay conscious."
Before I could process what he said, I found myself looking at everything upside down. In front of me were the wooden dummies I had come here to train on, but a long line of them was destroyed, creating a perfect line between myself and the captain who stood there with a glowing red fist held in front of him in a boxing pose.
I was forced to cough up a large amount of blood as pain fried my nervous system. It wouldn't take a doctor to tell me I had a caved-in ribcage and skull fractures. Immediately, I started casting spells to strengthen myself.
"Physical abilities rise! Elemental resistances rise!"
"Deus Eques and Deus Corona? Pretty standard but important enchantments. But let's see how strong your enchantments are."
I barely had enough time to disperse myself into fire before the ground where I was standing was destroyed. Reappearing a ways off, I quickly started to conjure a blue flame to heal my injuries when a hand grabbed me by the back of my head and started to bash me against the dirt, eventually throwing me against the trees after destroying my face as thoroughly as possible.
"Ah, the flames of Chiyu. A brilliant invention on Ophelia's part. Instead of using the caster's ethernano to heal it boosts the target's ability to absorb ethernano, then uses the patient's own magic energy to heal them. Less invasive and dangerous, and much more successful at healing, but requires a high degree of concentration."
As he stood above my prone form, he spat on my head with disappointment lacing his voice. "Did you really think I would let you heal in the middle of a fight? No reasonable opponent would let that happen, lass."
"Ehe *cough* *cough* that…that wasn't my goal."
The captain's eyebrow quirked in curiosity before his eyes widened as my body violently exploded into blue-coloured, ghostly flames that temporarily obscured his vision. When he could see again I was no longer on the ground and was instead several dozen metres away from the crater that was made with my face.
I was desperately trying to wipe the blood from my face as every bone in my body slowly and painfully healed while my wounds itched stitching themselves back together in scabs. It was a small victory for me, and not enough time passed to feel safe, but I smiled nonetheless. That smile quickly faded as booming laughter echoed across the forest.
"Well fuck me sideways then! Did you use a Concept Enchantment on yourself to fuse two types of magic? A self-induced Unison Raid? Ahahahaha! Oh, I hope you survive this, lass!"
Enchanting was an…intensive subject. Many consider it the foundation of higher-level magic studies for a reason, and Concept Enchanting was one of those reasons. With it, Enchanters can fuse different attributes with other magics, techniques, and persons to heighten the versatility of the school of magic. By enchanting my Fire Body magic with the healing properties of Chiyu Fire I could heal myself automatically. But using so many enchantments back to back was already taxing on my magic reserves, and healing such intensive injuries was a slow and painful process.
"But you know, true fire mages are masters of all forms of heat, not just the flames they utilise. And you've just made yourself an easy-to-find target."
The dirt flashed past me in a wave as a surge of heated magic flooded the area. In the next moment, the moonlight was obscured by a towering figure that glowed a deep crimson that matched the flames that rolled off his body. There was no orange, no yellow to the element that surrounded the captain, the fire instead adopting a heavy vermillion tinge that looked more akin to blood than the flames of a pyre.
I felt my skin dry and the air leave my lungs in his presence, all moisture and oxygen rising out of me in steamy waves. I'd felt his magic presence before when we first met, and back then it was oppressive and I was struggling to breathe in what air I could, but this was inconceivably worse. The air and water that I needed to live seemed to actively flee from my body. It was as if the elements themselves seemed to fear him.
This was the true aura of the Captain.
And he would hold no pity if he killed me here and now.
"Heat Sense is pretty useful for tracking, you know? This is your last chance to back out. There are still three more minutes you'll need to survive."
His eyes held understanding and his voice was patient. But all I did was spit blood onto his bare feet with an insane smile that he returned in kind. He delivered a kick to my stomach that sent me into the air and signalled the suffering I would endure for the foreseeable future.
I didn't fear the pain he was inflicting upon me, because I knew that if I could survive and stay conscious through it all then I could study under the man who couldn't even be considered human.
Pain was an inevitability, I understood that better than most.
There was no reason for me to fear it, and with the goals I have, I will feel it in spades. Pain will grow to mean nothing to me, it already started to mean nothing to me, so long as I can help protect those dear to me from pain.
The burns, the broken bones, and the agony I felt during this test meant nothing because of the rewards I could grasp afterwards.
This self-destructive mindset was the reason I was smiling like a psychopath. Eyes swollen shut, limbs twisted in ways they shouldn't, blood dripping off of every orifice, and magic energy completely spent. Passers-by would easily think I was a corpse, and if it wasn't for the screaming woman right next to me, I likely would be.
"What the hell were you thinking you old geezer!?"
"She's still conscious, blame it on her pain tolerance."
"This is the LAST of these trials you are performing! It is a miracle she's still breathing!"
"Actually, she did stop breathing for a while."
Captain Ophelia just looked at him with an agape mouth and shocked expression that he shrugged at before taking another sip from his gourd.
"Pretty sure a tooth got lodged in her throat or something. I punched it out, though."
"You! Are! Crazy!"
"Won't hear me deny it."
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SMKenward
SMKenward Short but to the point
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